3 ms·

In what ways would a VP or above be able to fight back that a manager or director could not?

krupan 8y ago
Managers and directors at Google-sized companies know nothing of the inner workings and personal lives of the core leadership team of the company. VP and above often do.
glibgil 8y ago
Leaving to fork Android at Samsung or some such, for one
- nradov 8y ago
  Samsung already kind of did that with Tizen and it hasn't really worked out. Same with Amazon. Lack of engineering leadership isn't the main obstacle preventing Samsung and other vendors from successfully forking Android.
  - slimsag 8y ago
    Tizen is not a fork of Android. Tizen is about as far away from Android from a technology perspective as you can get with a mobile OS. This would be kind of like saying iOS was a successful fork of Android, it just doesn't make sense because they really are not the same. One runs native apps, the other runs a JVM. The only similarity is that they are both mobile OSs running Linux.
smnrchrds 8y ago
The ones I can think of: * They have more money to spend on lawyers. * They expected windfall from the lawsuit is higher, so law firms would be more inclined to accept the case and spend more resources on it. * At lower levels, people are given boilerplate contracts written by company lawyers and told to take it or leave it. Apart from things like remuneration, nothing is up for negotiation. These contracts often heavily favour the company and make lawsuits difficult. At higher levels, contracts are genuinely negotiated between the lawyers for both sides. * It is unlikely that a director could create or move to another company and start successfully poaching their former colleagues. A VP or higher level executive probably could.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
As a VP you have visibility into a wide section of the organization, you know where it is strong and where it is weak. As people get more senior they become more loyal to individuals rather than companies, so when a VP leaves, even without trying, they will often pull away other critical employees who follow the person not the company. Then there is the ability to disrupt without getting your hands dirty, an anonymous tip to TechCrunch to "watch this garage at 5AM on Fridays" or "You might want to dig into that unexplained event last October." which can put journalists on the trail of damaging information the company covered up (previously successfully). If you are mad, and you feel like they have impeded your ability to get re-hired or funded at a later date, then you are more inclined to take some of these actions. If they say, "Look you have to go, but we'll make it comfortable for you and we'll just call it a day." then you might feel more charitable to them and forego starting processes that will cause them pain. A technique I was told was used on an executive at Sun was to give them a stock grant that would only be "vested" in 5 years. The purpose was to keep it in that person's best interest to insure the Company was not damaged in order to reap the maximum reward down the line. To be clear, they got the stock in 5 years no matter what, it was just in their interest to have it be worth as much as possible at that time.
- mzs 8y ago
  It also makes it look like it was condoned at higher levels if it gets out and can give ammo for lawsuit settlements at lower levels for other dirt-bags.
bhaile 8y ago
This carries weight. Former VP of Eng at Ubeam https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/

Managers and directors at Google-sized companies know nothing of the inner workings and personal lives of the core leadership team of the company. VP and above often do.

glibgil 8y ago

Leaving to fork Android at Samsung or some such, for one

nradov 8y ago
Samsung already kind of did that with Tizen and it hasn't really worked out. Same with Amazon. Lack of engineering leadership isn't the main obstacle preventing Samsung and other vendors from successfully forking Android.
- slimsag 8y ago
  Tizen is not a fork of Android. Tizen is about as far away from Android from a technology perspective as you can get with a mobile OS. This would be kind of like saying iOS was a successful fork of Android, it just doesn't make sense because they really are not the same. One runs native apps, the other runs a JVM. The only similarity is that they are both mobile OSs running Linux.

smnrchrds 8y ago

The ones I can think of: * They have more money to spend on lawyers. * They expected windfall from the lawsuit is higher, so law firms would be more inclined to accept the case and spend more resources on it. * At lower levels, people are given boilerplate contracts written by company lawyers and told to take it or leave it. Apart from things like remuneration, nothing is up for negotiation. These contracts often heavily favour the company and make lawsuits difficult. At higher levels, contracts are genuinely negotiated between the lawyers for both sides. * It is unlikely that a director could create or move to another company and start successfully poaching their former colleagues. A VP or higher level executive probably could.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

As a VP you have visibility into a wide section of the organization, you know where it is strong and where it is weak. As people get more senior they become more loyal to individuals rather than companies, so when a VP leaves, even without trying, they will often pull away other critical employees who follow the person not the company. Then there is the ability to disrupt without getting your hands dirty, an anonymous tip to TechCrunch to "watch this garage at 5AM on Fridays" or "You might want to dig into that unexplained event last October." which can put journalists on the trail of damaging information the company covered up (previously successfully). If you are mad, and you feel like they have impeded your ability to get re-hired or funded at a later date, then you are more inclined to take some of these actions. If they say, "Look you have to go, but we'll make it comfortable for you and we'll just call it a day." then you might feel more charitable to them and forego starting processes that will cause them pain. A technique I was told was used on an executive at Sun was to give them a stock grant that would only be "vested" in 5 years. The purpose was to keep it in that person's best interest to insure the Company was not damaged in order to reap the maximum reward down the line. To be clear, they got the stock in 5 years no matter what, it was just in their interest to have it be worth as much as possible at that time.

mzs 8y ago
It also makes it look like it was condoned at higher levels if it gets out and can give ammo for lawsuit settlements at lower levels for other dirt-bags.

bhaile 8y ago

This carries weight. Former VP of Eng at Ubeam https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/