20 ms·

How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows

584 points by Raj7k 8y ago

madeuptempacct 8y ago
A consulting company I worked for fired a sales guy who basically built it with the two co-owners. He basically found all the clients to place developers with and found / interviewed a bunch of devs. Then the company grew and they hired a fancy Ivy League / Wallstreet experience guy in his place. They gave the original guy zero warning. Kind of messed up.
- jarsin 8y ago
  I've seen very similar situations. My theory is it's because we have glorified assholes like steve jobs and every executive thinks they are the next jobs. There are no negative consequences for screwing over employees.
  - stronglikedan 8y ago
    As well, there are no negative consequences for an employee screwing over their company, so the balance of power remains.
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      Yeah they can get fired.
    - anon4242 8y ago
      Not sure whether legally binding but many of the contracts I've been given as an employee has included at least some paragraph about damages in case my actions as employee hurts the company (e.g. disclosing trade secrets, poaching employees, etc).
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      Not sure if this is sarcasm or not.
  - bartread 8y ago
    I'm not so sure. Probably depends on multiple factors such as size of local economy, how many similar employers are in an area, how big the potential hiring pool is, but word gets around. One consequence is you can struggle to hire, at least for a while. Very much an intangible though.
    - jarsin 8y ago
      The word has been out that Amazon is a potentially very bad place to work (depending on team) for many years now. While I'm sure they can no longer hire some people due to their reputation it has not stopped droves of engineers desperate to get in there. A former employer of mine that is nowhere near Amazon success level has tons of horrible glass door reviews calling out the senior managers yet still people join.
- geebee 8y ago
  That is kinda messed up, though I’d want to know more about his exit terms.
- hinkley 8y ago
  The conversations I've heard on this topic seem to agree that they pull the lever quickly on sales people because they don't want the guy copying all of his contacts and trying to poach customers/sabotage the company. But I can't see how that would work because only the really bad salespeople don't already know to have their own contact list. Once you've seen it happen to someone else or heck watched certain movies, you should know better.
  - closetohome 8y ago
    Also if your company's only assets are some sales leads, you're already not doing great.
    - mertd 8y ago
      If you don't have them, you're almost certainly not doing great
  - bduerst 8y ago
    This happens all the time. In a past company I worked at, I had test email accounts in the CRM, and those fake-contact email accounts would receive blast messages from reps who were now working at competing companies. I always reported it, but damn, at least have the foresight to scrub your list of stolen accounts for contacts that have the last name "TEST". Pretty obvious where you got the list from if you don't.
    - alasdair_ 8y ago
      I worked at a firm in the UK where this happened. Due to the UK having fairly strong data protection laws, the salesman ended up being arrested and charged.
      - lurcio 8y ago
        Hmmm... yet somehow a sales person/consultant of any worth is hired on the strength of their book...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- meko 8y ago
  > They gave the original guy zero warning. Kind of messed up. The capitalism horror stories I read every day on this website are astonishing and depressing.
  - lurcio 8y ago
    Do you think people/organisations couldawouldashoulda operate any better under any other paradigm?
- varjag 8y ago
  If he was a cofounder and board member I wonder how "zero warning" is even possible.
- gspetr 8y ago
  This anecdote further exacerbates the problem with the original article. The lessons learned should not be: "CEOs need to do this, this, and that" and neither should it be "For employees, how you handle change will affect the trajectory of your career and possibly your net worth" CEOs don't _need_ to do anything. They don't owe you anything. They can run the company into the ground for all we care, what matters is whether you have the power or not. What it should be is this: "If you do not have power, you need to plan for the case when you will get screwed". He who fails to plan, plans to fail. Power is the degree to which a person has control over their own circumstances. Power is the degree to which we control the directions of our lives.
Raphmedia 8y ago
Itamar Turner-Trauring latest Software Clown newsletter¹ (#105) was about this. The author wrote about a similar story where a company he worked at changed as it grew and layoffs were made. He concluded with some really good points: | I came away from the experience unable to commit myself to a company. In part this was an ethical stance: who controls the company can change, and change quickly. So loyalty to a company meant committing to follow people who shouldn't be followed, not because authority is inherently bad, but because in most companies authority cannot be rescinded by the workers in its power. | But it was also an emotional reaction: I'd put a lot of myself into my job, only to see my work—and my friends' work—destroyed in an incompetent power grab. I didn't want to go through that again. | The thing about loyalty, though, is that it's motivating: you give your loyalty because you want something or someone to succeed. So if you're past the point of pure survival, where do you find motivation if not in loyalty? | Eventually I came round to solidarity, a thornier path than loyalty. Loyalty is simple, because it starts with an answer: your country, your cause, your company, your friends—above all. Solidarity is complex, because it starts with a question: beyond yourself, beyond your friends, beyond your cause, beyond your country, what ought you do to help everyone? ¹ https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/ https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/
- ElBarto 8y ago
  Loyalty can only exist between individuals. Never be loyal to a company because a company will never be loyal to you.
  - mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
    Loyalty can exist without reciprocity.
    - lostcolony 8y ago
      Yes, but should it?
    - ElBarto 8y ago
      Which is madness in the business world, and perhaps outside of it as well.
z3t4 8y ago
You can make good use of the startup people by making them repeat the success in new markets. Sacking them is such a waste of talent.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I like your view, because sacking them doesn't waste their talent (usually), it wastes all the time and effort of recruiting them, filtering out others, and forming a well-functioning team. This applies even in cases where someone isnt fired, but you've changed the job to something else. I'm leaving my current job right now because they dissolved our vertical product teams and formed horizontals that have no consistency of focus, codebase, or any larger input into product direction. I really work well with the people of the company, but after 6 months of feeling like IT support doing superficial changes in ever changing repos I'm done. (No offense to anyone that enjoys that style, but it I'd not for me and not how we worked for the 3 prior years). So now I'm out. I think the new job may be even better, but it is a gamble and I wouldn't have even looked had they not changed the company on me and failed to respond to my concerns. I'm not indispensable nor irreplaceable, but in this market it is not easy to find someone, convince them, and build relationships and domain knowledge. My email to individual people I work with that should know I'm leaving went to over 50 people - rebuilding that's a cost that doesn't show up as a line item on the balance sheet.
nimbius 8y ago
disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning python. ive worked for small shops from the ground up, starting with mostly off the shelf hand tools and paper records, and moving into automated and well run repair businesses. The key i think is to find a company that realizes when they are squandering your potential and takes action before you're gone. I went from brakes to suspension in 3 months and from there with consistent demonstration of talent, became the shop lead, then master mechanic, after 4 years. Im not so much a guy who twists oil filters anymore, but I'll still walk the floor and see whos doing what. I'll check our ticket queue to see what hasnt moved, or if parts in the crib need stocking. In my line of work we call it 'old timers.' guys who know and have the experience to guide, but dont necessarily care to leave the comfort of a comfy chair very often. Not a manager, but the first line of defense against having to talk to one. I go out to fleets and take part in bids for maintenance jobs, not because Im a good mechanic, but because I know which mechanics I work with that are good for certain things. Im also known for bringing in a bucket or two of fried chicken for lunch on the weekends. I still have a workbench in the repair area, but my coworkers mostly leave weird parts I might enjoy or tricky problems to solve that nobody else has figured out.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  > im an engine mechanic whos learning python. Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is a fancy course if you're interesting in something fun.
- echelon 8y ago
  > disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning python You don't work in software. Yet. Good luck with learning! Find fun problems to work on, like making games or programming your lights. Perhaps scraping web pages for content and emailing you. Automate some small things. If you keep having fun, you'll stay motivated. The more you build, the better you'll get. It just happens naturally. You'll think, "I could have done this better by doing X instead", or, "I could have organized this more efficiently". Before you know it you'll be ready to make a career jump (if you want to). A lot of people in our industry never went to university and studied on their own. A few recommendations: Learn lists (aka vectors, arrays) and dicts (aka hashmaps, maps, etc.) These are the core data structures in scripting languages like Python. Knowing how to use them effectively with looping constructs is key to becoming a good programmer. Next learn how to organize your code. Functions, classes, and files where appropriate. You'll learn this naturally as you continue to build things. You'll also learn by reading other code. Use libraries to accomplish work that other people have conveniently made easy and packaged for reuse. Image processing, HTML scraping, game engines, website frameworks, etc. When you graduate this and want to become more "academic", you'll want to look into two areas especially : - data structures, which are things like arrays, linked lists, hashsets, etc. - algorithm analysis, which will teach you how to write efficient code (big-O notation and analysis, etc.) You don't necessarily need these, but they're a huge leg up. Mastering them can get you into FAANG. If you like web stuff and servers, look at distributed computing. Also look at principles of operating systems to understand how threading, virtual memory, etc. etc. work. Hopefully this helps. It's not stuff you need to jump on right away, but it can be a roadmap for the next few years. Best of luck! Hope you enjoy everything you're doing and never feel discouraged. There are always people out there that are better than you, and it doesn't mean you aren't good yourself. Don't doubt what you're doing. You got this.
itronitron 8y ago
There is danger in being too productive while coworkers focus their efforts on 'shaping' the company.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Agreed. I have seen it multiple times that people didn't get promoted or transferred to a new interesting task because they were so good at what they did at the moment. Instead people that didn't perform well got promoted or to do the new thing. One example: At my company the high performing experienced people are stuck with our legacy products so new things get either explored by interns or new people who don't know the company. I have pointed out several times how insane this is but everybody just shrugs. I think the lesson is to not leave too much of a footprint so management has no qualms transferring you to a new task.
  - khalilravanna 8y ago
    You could argue both parties, the managers and the high-performing, experienced people are to blame in this scenario. Sure, the managers should have the foresight to make sure there are continuing opportunities for the experienced people by training up people to replace them in their current roles. But shouldn't those experienced people have the foresight themselves and make sure they're not "stuck" and instead have mentees ready to take their place? I write this comment as someone currently in this place myself. Or rather, planning so that I don't end up in that "stuck" place. I want to start working on bigger picture problems in the engineering organization but it's hard when the buck stops with you for a multitude of tasks that have to be done to foster the continuing growth of the company. Training the next gen. is an interesting problem I'm exciting to work on mastering.
    - CardenB 8y ago
      How do you "have mentees" without management on board? Legacy products tend to be inherently unsexy and it's hard to attract mentees to those projects.
ttmb 8y ago
From the title, I didn't know which direction the post was going to go in. This one: grow with your job title. Alternate version: how to keep doing the same tasks you enjoy and not be forced into a different (likely managerial) role.
- ergest 8y ago
  I would have liked an exploration of the alternate version. Are there any resources you might know about that?
k_vi 8y ago
‘if you’re an early company employee, it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level‘ This resonates with me
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
What strikes me is how parlous vocational training (for want of a much better phrase) is - it took him (a clearly talented and successful individual) two decades to understand his situation. I am a better person in many ways than my 20-year old self, but I do wish I had learnt my lessons a bit faster as well
- extragood 8y ago
  The only way to learn some lessons is to have something you care about blow up in your face. That's the cost of the lesson. Sometimes it's not worth the price of admission. Steve Blank is a celebrity of sorts around here, but who is to say that that experience, as terrible as it was at the time, wasn't responsible for setting him up for his future successes? I'm somewhat earlier in my career, and undoubtedly have similarly devastating events waiting for me, in addition to the select few behind me. Framing those as "learning experiences" softens the blow considerably when things don't go as they "should".
IvyMike 8y ago
There's another question to ask: Do you actually want to keep your job as your company grows? This is not to imply "yes" or "no"; it's a very personal answer. At the companies I've been in, there are some who thrived moving into new roles as the company grew, and there were others that would have been happier and more successful taking their skills to the next startup.
- anon4242 8y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I've mostly worked in small companies with tiny engineering teams but I've had a go at some larger companies as well. Personally I thrive in the small companies and wither in the large ones. In the small companies I tend to spend a large part of my day writing code (which I love), meetings are rare and typically to the point. In the big companies I've found it hard to find stuff to do and the meetings are many and repetitive. It seems to me that the bigger companies hire for redundancy. In the largest company I worked for (~3k ppl) I typically received >100 emails/day + dozens of slack channels. In my current job we're 8 ppl and I rarely get more than 1 email/week :)!
- sdrinf 8y ago
  The fundamental principle-agent issue here, is that startup-y people, who thrive on small teams getting stuff done, are essential for getting a startup up the ground; however it is exactly the point where startups hold the least cash to compensate with. This generally leads to stock-option based compensation; which, in turn, expires 30 days after employee leaves. This economics -as practiced presently- strongly implies for savvy startupy people to work only on startups of their own; which in turn makes early hiring extremely difficult. There are 2 points of equilibrium here: * The current one is people leading less savvy people on. This leads to a lot of resentment; see rest of HN for that. * a much less wrong solution would be to have secondary markets set up significantly earlier in the game (post series a); which would make stock & options immediate liquid. Despite sales difficulties(for finding counter parties for that), this can be a huge advantage during hiring, as employees don’t have to take on lottery tickets; and allow early employees to resign with much less resentment.
  - 8y ago
empath75 8y ago
Maybe it’s because I’ve never really been attached to a company I’ve worked for but the second I left that meeting, I’d be negotiating my exit package and talking to other startups, not trying to save my job.
DanFeldman 8y ago
https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/ https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other... I found this post to be in a similar vein, and helped lessen the scare of growing (or not growing) with my current startup, Starsky Robotics. What it made me realize is I loved the ability to switch direction, to "give away my legos", and I needed to focus more on making that an easy transition if I wanted to do it successfully. Learning to onboard a new employee or a new team onto your "complex tower of legos" is high impact and extremely important as teams scale.
makecheck 8y ago
While working at a company, be loyal to your local team (other people just trying to do good work) and yourself (e.g. build new skills you can use). And really, those are variations of the same thing because co-workers that value you can help you get what you want or even your next job. Blind loyalty to a company means nothing though. First, managers change: any promise, especially a long-term one, is one manager-change away from becoming vapor. Projects are cancelled or relocated or reprioritized. Layoffs occur at times convenient for the company so don’t be surprised when you’re unable to count on stock vesting. Perks go away. Ultimately, treat most company-level things as “sounds nice” and never count on them. For example, I would never buy a house based on stock I should get or a bonus that was promised.
- dba7dba 8y ago
  First, managers change: any promise, especially a long-term one, is one manager-change away from becoming vapor Sometimes, you don't even need a manager-change for your job to be in danger. I know a guy who had a manager who was pretty cool and a good mentor to him. And then one day, something happened to the manager and he stopped mentoring him. No, he stopped interacting with him. Frequent lunching together came to a screeching halt. Eventually he was left out loops, projects and eventually out of job. He still doesn't know if the cause was one of these: 1. manager broke up with girlfriend (which did happen) and started not caring 2. my friend said something about politics that offended him? 3. the manager saw 1 mistake by my friend, and just decided he didn't want to waste his time on him.
  - agsamek 8y ago
    4. The Manager spent too much time investing in your friend but eventually realized that actually it was not your friend but the manager himself who was delivering results and realized that it was not going to change
    - llampx 8y ago
      5. Friend caused the breakup of his manager with his girlfriend.
anon57325 8y ago
I was a one of these “new hires” to a startup that was growing. It was chaotic because a lot of knowledge wasn’t transferred and we had to basically figure out a lot of the business logic because those original people were all gone. I jumped ship after a few months and eventually the startup failed. I heard from former colleagues the main reason is those original people went to work for several big companies, who were all customers of this startup. They still held a grudge and persuaded those companies to stop working with them.
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  Exactly what seems to be happening at my current startup (more context in my other comment).
deanmoriarty 8y ago
I could really relate to this post, since I've recently (past couple years) gone through exactly this. I was hired as a senior software engineer for a very early stage startup, and quickly became the de-facto engineering leader, ran multiple teams for a couple years (backend/frontend/ops), and most of the technical products of the company still have my clear fingerprints on them. Result? After the early success, founders and VCs brought in new official managers (VPs and directors of engineering) to scale the company, and I "regressed" to an IC role. Due to all the technical context I have about the company, they essentially let me roam around without having to account or report to anyone. Essentially, I do whatever I want, whenever I want, which these days means working on very experimental stuff that selfishly interests me, but that one day might be used for the company technology (long term plan). I suspect once all the former systems are replaced they might terminate me, which I'd welcome so I'd get some severance as opposed to quitting (and I have passed several FAANG interviews so I'd find a new job relatively quickly), but it hasn't happened yet, and have been in this limbo for a couple years now. I'm not gonna lie when I say this caused a lot of shock to me initially, along the same lines of the blog post, but I eventually dealt/coped with those feelings (sort of). I say "sort of" because I haven't changed job purely due to the financials of the situations: even if my title/role changed, my original equity grant is still vesting at the original rate, and as the company becomes more successful it's unlikely that I could find another opportunity as good as this one (from a financial point of view). However, I am really not happy with the changes that have been implemented: in particular, the new management is really really bad, like severely technically incompetent. These people were hired as "experienced managers" from companies such as Cisco/IBM/... where they held a management position for 10+ years. These people are not technically bright or inspiring, they just live by processes and jira tickets. This caused two very big problems: 1) The quality of these managers caused very good people, mostly individual contributors, to flee. Essentially, a lot (50%+) of my peers who were originally in the company and were extremely strong individual contributors left for greener pastures, and in informal conversations they all told me they were fed up with the level of incompetence of the new managers. They didn't have a strong equity package such as mine, so it was a very easy decision for them, I would have done exactly the same. 2) These managers are effectively unable to deal with high pressure and customers. We had customers who churned on us, explicitly listing as the main reason the inability to effectively interact with our engineering team during support escalations. A quote I remember from a customer is: "It seems like you guys lately don't know your product and what you're doing anymore". It seems just now, two years later, the upper management is slowly realizing this, as this incompetence is starting to make a real dent into our revenues. I have seen this all along since the very first few weeks they were on board, but I always carefully refrained myself from escalating this to the founders because otherwise I would have just been seen as a "negative nancy" acting out of jealousy, so I decided to put a good face and take what's in for me (freedom in my current position). But I truly and humbly believe that, had I been put in charge of engineering instead of those new people, I would have done a better job scaling, hiring other more talented managers and keeping ICs motivated (I value a lot technical excellence and I always go above and beyond to make sure I am technical enough in every conversation, and all the team members always appreciated that a lot when I was leading things).
kraig911 8y ago
People change and so do businesses. I think this is kind of click bait but I see he has something to say. Bottom line I feel if you're at a startup that grew you changed with the company as well and I don't think you'll want to be doing / working like you did.
tc 8y ago
The basic problem is that what he was doing for the first 12 months was right. Doing what a big company executive would have done would have been wrong. When the new CEO comes in and wants things done immediately in the big company way, it's going to feel like the new guy is saying he was doing everything wrong. Further, the actions he was taking will be perceived by others in the company and by new management as his identity rather than as a rational response to the circumstances of the early company. A smart and observant person in such a role might come around over time naturally. He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as well any longer and would adapt. That may even be better for the company than going overnight from "small company mode" to "big company mode". Or the person may not come around. Either way, it's likely change will not be perceived as fast enough. Difficult problem for all parties.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  >He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as well any longer and would adapt. I've seen a few execs not be able to do this, so I don't really blame the CEO in this situation. They did fine and dandy as the product started out but were flailing in the wind once we got big enough.
- notyourday 8y ago
  I saw more companies collapse at that stage because they decided that they are now a new kind of company that needs to scale than I saw companies that collapsed because they did not scale fast enough.
graycat 8y ago
A short answer: Own the company.
wehadfun 8y ago
Honestly if this guy was able to bring in business he will be an asset to whatever company he goes to and can probably negotiate a golden parachute of some sort.
gunnr15 8y ago
More folks should give additional thought to what STAGE of company they want to specialize in. It is totally ok to want to be a great early stage engineer/salesperson/marketer where the ability to make decisions and move forward when the environment is vague/uncertain is HIGHLY valued. In my experience (leading teams at both early stage and 1000+ employee companies) most of the folks that thrive in the early “Wild West” stage start to wither when things get more formulaic as the business matures.
- exelius 8y ago
  Yeah, it took me a long time to realize that my sweet spot is organizations between 100 and 1000 people. Any bigger than that and I don’t have the patience or attention to detail to deal with the bureaucracy / politics; any smaller and I grow frustrated with the lack of resources. Honestly, a good corporate manager does a whole lot of process and very little thinking. Great for those who can handle it, but I can’t.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  I've thought a lot about this and I agree. I find a certain social environment at work and a certain structure to be what I enjoy, so I figure I will always try to get myself into situations where I have a lot of responsibility, lots of latitude to learn new things, and a wide variety of roles. I wouldn't be happy in some jobs that limit that, but there are lot of people who wouldn't be happy in my job. I had a roommate in college that saw very little allure to entrepreneurship or risk, but was an excellent electrical engineer and wanted to have a corporate job forever.
sharadov 8y ago
I don't think there is any real way to plan that. Keeping your ear to the wall, schmoozing can help, if that's your forte. But it's a lot of work. I've seen people who seemed irreplaceable get chucked out because of dirty politics and the team suffer because, the person in question was a fantastic worker, not merely someone who had tribal knowledge. I am not loyal to a company, am loyal to an ethical code that says that I try to do by best, but not at the cost of my health or time. No matter what, don't stop learning, if your job allows you to, then great, otherwise just find time in your schedule to do it. Eventually, you are the master of your destiny.
- kradroy 8y ago
  You definitely have to be aware which way the wind is blowing when re-orgs are happening. The closer the re-org is to you, the more you should pay attention. I was recently in one of these situations where I came out on top and was able to assist my department head in a favor to a friend. None of what happened was ever made explicit but the summary of the subtext (in hindsight) was: "We're pushing out so-and-so and you're up for a promotion, ostensibly to his role. However, I have a friend whose contract is ending soon and needs a new job. Would be you interested in this other role that's a promotion but also allows me to make a future org change I see as necessary?" All the players and pieces were mentioned. I had to infer the game plan. I took the alternate role and the rest played out. It was definitely a learning experience, and as you advance in your career these types of soft skills matter just as much as any hard skill.
philosophygeek 8y ago
What a fantastic read. As a CEO who has grown my company from 6 to almost 100, this is one of the hardest discussions to have with someone. It's not that they did anything wrong, they're just no "right" for the position in its current state. He suggests that it's impossible to retain employees through such changes. I haven't found this to be the case. One technique I've used is to keep the company title-light, so that changes in title aren't as stark. I've also had a few people who have gone from IC->manager->IC, which shows the company that I value people no matter what their role is. Retaining people after hiring above them requires a lot of careful, honest conversations not just with the affected employee, but with messaging to the broader team.
- hadsed 8y ago
  I'd love to know how you approach the messaging to the broader team about hiring above someone (perhaps if they've always been an IC, or if they tried management and weren't performing). In my view it seems quite difficult to maintain face in such a scenario, and it's not obvious how one can alleviate that.
atmosx 8y ago
Does this approach guarantee success? Are there any companies who brought in this or that CEO/VPoE/Lead Engineer and failed miserably instead of successfully going to the next level?
- atmosx 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816 - apparently...
iamaziz 8y ago
Guess the question should be: how to keep your job as your company decline?
throw2016 8y ago
A new CEO will not just come in and fire a senior exec unless there is a lot of behind the scenes activity we are not privy to or the CEO already has someone lined up for the position. A lot of CEOs have got into the habit of building teams with people they already have trust with, in which case this whole article is overthinking. If not that it's strange that the first thing the CEO did without even working with him is to fire him. If things were so bad that why wasn't he talked to earlier? That could mean some 'history'. These things are so contextual its dangerous to try to draw any insights or lessons.
- charmides 8y ago
  The insight I drew from this article is that I never want to be an early employee of a startup and put my heart and soul into it unless I own a significant part of that company.
pcpcpc 8y ago
I'm in a similar position to Steve Blank: early employee navigating various role transitions as the company grows. Would appreciate additional resources like the above, recommended coaches, books, etc. if anyone can offer.
- brm 8y ago
  I'm not sure it's exactly the coaching or books you're looking for but YC itself did a series of interviews called Employee #1 about how different people in different roles navigated being an early employee of a successful company to varying outcomes. I found it helpful if not directly instructive. https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/
- notyourday 8y ago
  You have a certain specific set of skills. That set of skills comprises of what you had when you started at the company, grew with you being in the company and probably now has a sprinkle of play during "the company in transition" phase. The problem is that the company that you are with is unlikely to care about those skills of yours if you are noticing what is currently happening in a company and are looking for additional resources. Look to go to another company that would value your set of skills.
- soupsranjan 8y ago
  Elad Gil's "High Growth Handbook" is a great resource.
rf_ 8y ago
There is a pattern and it has nothing to do with how hard the author worked or the CEO. > No one knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t explain why I was doing it when asked. > I had shut down. Even as we were meeting, I was obsessively thinking about the change > I literally paid zero attention. In my righteous anger I was unreachable. The common thread is communication; specifically the lack of it. These quotes are huge red flags. The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you've gotten results but cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward. The author even had a chance (real or not) to act on this feedback by way of a warning and a coach. Instead of embracing and acting on clear feedback from his new boss, he panicked and shut down; allowing one negative interaction to throw his entire sense of self into disarray. This is strong evidence that indeed they were likely not the right candidate for the position as the company grew.
- matfil 8y ago
  The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you've gotten results but cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward That is clearly the CEO's point of view in this case, but it's a view I find rather perplexing. It leaves no room for intuition and good judgement. Potentially, it can force people to try and write down explanations of stuff they are not actually confident about, which just end up confusing whoever comes next.
  - dasil003 8y ago
    Once you grow past Dunbar's number you can no longer rely on individual intuition and good judgement alone, you need higher level communication and alignment around strategy because there is simply not enough interpersonal bandwidth to communicate otherwise. Of course you want everyone to continue using judgement, but the leadership needs to go the extra mile to project a vision and strategy across the org. You can argue over whether the CEO was right or wrong in this case, but at the end of the day it's the CEO's job to make these calls.
Throwaway211219 8y ago
I know Optimizely isn't as relevant these days, but this article matches my experience there. Just about all the early employees were pushed out or encouraged to go when the business matured a bit and the adults from SalesForce were brought in. Of the first few dozen employees, only a handful are left.
brian-armstrong 8y ago
I agree with the general thrust of this article - the company grows and its needs change over time. You will need to change along with them. But I think the last 1/3 of the article is a little too self-congratulatory. It's not really clear the retaining early employees is important, and in fact they may become more dead weight as the company grows. The concept of maintaining "company culture" is silly, that changes as the company grows anyway. The company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely.
- stock_toaster 8y ago
  > The company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely. Given the fact that early employees are usually under-compensated (and who usually thinks of buying out any options right after they are canned, while job hunting?), this is doubly sad.
gaius 8y ago
until the new CEO called me in for a chat. Maybe that CEO was infallible... or maybe he just wanted to give the job to one of his b-skool buddies. Who can say?
- stock_toaster 8y ago
  I have indeed seen this happen several times.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Great post. The author is polite enough to avoid drawing attention to a mistake of the CEO, but I thought it was worth mentioning. (Assuming the boss already knew the lessons learned.) Believe the CEO would likely have received a much better response had phrased the same idea as: - Great job! - Business is changing, we need to take it to next level. - Let's improve our Plans, Vision, Strategy - I've got a coach on retainer to help get us there. Then Plan B, where early employee can't make the transition and is replaced, can be left unsaid. If it happens the employee will be a lot less surprised, and have a greater chance for retention.
- gcbw2 8y ago
  Well, you have to have seen it from the point of view of the CEO. Playing devil's advocate, what would you do if you jumped onboard, and the first thing you saw was that all your clients were interacting only with your VP of marketing/Sales on a personal basis? ...well, granted, if it was that exactly he would still be employed to this day :D but you get the picture, maybe it was bad enough that what the CEO did was already above and beyond.
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
I am currently going through a very intense transaction, from being the CEO of the company I founded, to no longer having a full-time position at the company. (looks like I will simply remain as an external advisor). I am curious to hear if any of you had a similar experience, and if you have any suggestions or tips to share.
- laurentl 8y ago
  This sounds like a rough transition, and not one you were asking for I guess. I don’t have any relevant suggestions to share* but you have my sympathies. * well, except for the very generic ones to not confuse what’s happening to you and your worth as an individual, to seek to learn or take away something good from the experience, and to remember that karma’s a bitch and that whoever screwed you will get their comeuppance one way or another.
- aytekin 8y ago
  Start again. This time don’t take that dirty VC money. Bootstrap.
gwbas1c 8y ago
The problem is the CEO never approached Steve correctly. Never threaten someone's job unless the situation is dire. He should have said something like, "now that we're growing, we need you to ..."
- megaremote 8y ago
  It is so weird. It is really hard to find good people. If you have a good person, you don't get rid of them, you help them grow with the company.
  - gwbas1c 8y ago
    It's very clear that the new CEO tried to help Steve do just that. Just the way that he framed it as, "you're a candidate for your job" set Steve's defenses up way higher than they needed to be.
vim_mercenary 8y ago
Throwaway obvious reason. All of this stems from you caring about your job and the status it gives you. After being burned twice on two startups that went on to Series B's, I'm done. I no longer give a shit about my employer or if they live/die. I clock out at 5pm on the dot. I clock in whenever. Pay me, I'll get your features out and that's that. No I don't care about your estimates, no I don't care about your stock, no I don't care about your company's potential. Pay me, and I'm out. That's that. My most recent gigs I choose the path's with the least amount of stock and most amount of salary. I no longer give a shit.
- john_moscow 8y ago
  BTW, that's your reason behind ageism in tech.
  - vim_mercenary 8y ago
    Did you reply to the wrong comment? I have no bias against older developers. I think older developers are fantastic because they want to fuck off and do other things and get their work done on time. The ones I hate are the 25 year old thundercats no-lifers who want to stay until 11pm for some unknown reason.
    - gcb0 8y ago
      I believe they were calling out that companies have prejudice against older workers because they are vaccinated against hustle-baiting with low salaries/lots of 3rd class stock.
    - meesles 8y ago
      There's this common misconception that young workers never put in extra hours before the Silicon Valley culture picked up. That's just untrue. Younger workers have always used energy and enthusiasm to make up for experience and skill in the workplace. Either they work more hours, accept more work, or just accept more stress than their peers to offset their junior status. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's competition that you can either use to motivate yourself, or you can just complain about it as others advance past you in the workplace. I think the stigma against the young developer who _wants_ to put in these extra hours is more of an issue. These people don't deserve to be looked down upon just because they're putting in more, just like you don't want to be judged for working 30-hour weeks even if you deliver. Much like you want to do your work and bug off, they want to do something else with their time. Trying to find reason when you're so far on the other end of the spectrum seems futile.
matchagaucho 8y ago
As a CEO, I experience the same emotions when there is change at a strategic customer. It sucks, but it takes work to rebuild trust you thought was already earned. The "new decision maker" has just inherited your product/solution and likely wants to establish their vision and network over yours. Start from scratch and re-earn their trust :-(
spicymaki 8y ago
This was a good article. You don't even need to be in a startup to feel this way. Product road maps change and skill sets that were valuable at one point are not valuable the next. We should always be improving our skills, integrating constructive feedback, and looking for opportunities to grow.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
still waiting for the companion piece How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Shrinks
purplezooey 8y ago
There is no "transition". What happens is your investors decide they want the latest recycled executive face to take the helm. That person usually goes for short term results at the expense of long term ones, because they'll be gone in a year or two and they don't know anything about the product anyway. And the cycle continues. To pretend it is some process you can navigate rationally is not healthy.
ian0 8y ago
Ive been thinking that a properly constructed company-wide and long-term profit sharing scheme is the best way to combat this. Early employees take onboard the most risk with a venture and even if they don't want to be or are not able to be VP of X when the company sales they should still maintain the material (and psychological) benefits. I bet people would have less of a problem being demoted if they knew their eventual payday would be larger than their new boss. It's possible to construct a profit sharing scheme where x% of future profits is dedicated to a pool of employees and weighted more according to risk than seniority. And to offset the negative aspects (investor wise) of this with buyout clauses based on some fair metrics.
- ccostes 8y ago
  It's a nice idea, but I don't see how you can objectively measure the risk or value of individuals like that. For example, if a company spends 5 years treading water/pivoting before it takes off, how do determine how much of future profits an employee who joined and left in year 1 should get? I agree that the current system is far from ideal (just read through the Ask HN post asking early employees how much they made from their startup's exit).
  - ian0 8y ago
    You can use vesting schedules to deal with the time component. Any measure of value is going to be difficult (it is under any scheme) but risk taken is a little easier. If I look at the companies I have been involved in there are very distinct phases during growth in terms of salary, prospects and job security.
charmides 8y ago
To the author: This does not add up. After they fired you and then had you fight to get your job back, you said they hired a "coach" to help you learn new skills. But at the end of this training, the coach reported to your boss that you "had a long way to go." It certainly does not seem like the coach was hired to help you out. It seems like it was just a backhanded way to get an assessment on you while you had your guard down. To me, it seems like this company was just taking advantage of you and your youthful enthusiasm until they had no more use for you. By blaming yourself, I feel like you are drawing all the wrong lessons from this experience.
- dwd 8y ago
  Yes, sounds like a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) which usually means they want you out but need documentation of you not meeting an arbitary KPI. HR is never your friend.
  - dba7dba 8y ago
    When you are called into HR to undergo PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), you should just nod as they tell you about how they will help you improve and grow. But the moment you walk out that door, start resuming, calling old contacts, and do anything to get a new job. PIP is literally just a formality HR goes through to let you go eventually, and is just an axx covering move by the HR/company. When you are called into PIP, just consider yourself as let go. edit: And I would NOT feel any gratitude for the company that they are somehow paying your salary even though you are pretty much an ex-employee. They are simply doing PIP only to cover their bottom. edit 2: I don't know when this trend started, but HR transformed BEFORE It kept list of employees, made sure pay checks were handed out, had new hires fill out forms, handle lay off. NOW It sends emails about good sounding fun activities, request for filling out surveys, etc. What really bugs me is, all the surveys (we want to hear from you so we can do better for you as a company), activities is just a smoke screen to not pay employees more. Do you know how to make an employee feel happier? Pay more money. You know, the same thing CEO/major-shareholders/owners also like to get more of.
    - 8y ago
m104 8y ago
Most valuable and uncomfortable part of this article: What I wish I knew was that if you’re an early company employee, it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level. This sentence is worth reading multiple times as no one – not the person who hired you, the VC’s or your peers -is going to tell you when you’re hired that the company will likely outgrow you. Pure gold from a career-building perspective.
osrec 8y ago
I hope the gig economy develops to a point that people do not need to bow down to the whims of corporate overlords. I spent 7 years in investment banking, and the corporate environment contributed to much unhappiness and anxiety for me personally. It gave me financial freedom fairly quickly, but I've always wished there was a better way to obtain the same, and I hope for future generations, the gig economy can go some way to providing that, without them needing to "sell their soul". P.S. I know that currently, the gig economy can be seen as taking advantage of people (Deliveroo and Uber come to mind), however, I'm hopeful that things can be improved so that workers are rewarded more fairly.
qqqwerty 8y ago
> it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level. I don't really buy that this is a major issue. Founders and early employees tend to share very similar skill sets, and yet it's standard practice for founders to get put into c-suite level roles, while it's much more common for early employees to get pushed aside. In some cases it is probably warranted (as is occasionally removing founders from CXO roles) for performance/skill/fit reasons. But I think a more common issue is that early employees are just poorly prepared to navigate the 'politics' that inevitably emerge in a growing startup. There are a few likely reasons for this, in somewhat chronological order: 1. Most founders, from day one, are preparing for a leadership role. This may not be obvious to the early employees, but the founders are probably reading/studying leadership and management material. They are highly likely getting advice and mentorship from other founders, executives, and/or VCs. And they may even have a paid executive coach. Early employees rarely get this type of advice/support/encouragement. 2. No company or startup is free from 'politics', even early stage startups. But early stage startups can trick you into thinking that they are. The org chart is non-existent or flat, early employees work alongside the founders, and every one is working on critical projects. In BigCo, employees navigate the politics by choosing their projects carefully, presenting their work in the best possible light, and currying favor with the right managers. In a fast-paced early stage startup, it's hard to do any of that. Projects are often assigned to whomever has the most bandwidth. And the nature of early stage startups mean a lot of these efforts are going to be wasted and/or failures (usually due to reasons beyond your control, i.e. product market fit, etc..). Ideally this early-stage chaos doesn't get held against you when it comes time to promote people, but that leads me to point 3... 3. As the company starts to grow, the primary motivations of subsequent hires will likely start to shift. The earliest employees are probably more focused and excited about building a product. Later employees are more likely to be focused on their careers. So while early employees are tied down with fixing obscure bugs and supporting and maintaining legacy projects, the later employees are busy playing the political game, i.e. picking cool/exciting projects, spinning everything into big wins, and scheduling lunches/meetings with the founders any chance they can get. And at some point, the start up is going to reach a size where some hierarchy is needed, and before you know it, promotions are getting handed out and you aren't on the list. Which then leads to point 4... 4. Ideally, your newly promoted colleagues should realize your value to the company and seek out your input and participation as much as possible, right? Wrong! Your deep knowledge of the product/stack/company is more or less a threat to them and their new found authority. Even if you make it abundantly clear that you don't aspire to be more than an Individual Contributor, you will find yourself getting left out of meetings and pushed more towards legacy support. And of course, this behavior puts you at a severe disadvantage for subsequent rounds of promotions. I think what it really comes down to, is that companies are inherently political, no matter how small or large, and it feels like in addition to poor pay (relative to risk) and long working hours, early employees also carry significant 'political risk'. The founders have plenty of leverage to keep their own positions secure, and at the same time they are incentivized to hire the fanciest resumes they can afford (Stanford MBA's, ex-googlers) into management roles to make the company look attractive to VC and acquisitions. My advice to early employees out there, is if you want to grow with the company, you need to start preparing from day one. Get yourself on the winning projects, treat the founders less as colleagues and more as judgmental managers that you need to constantly impress, and spend some time working on 'road maps' and 'hiring plans' to show off your 'managerial' skills. Or just go the easy route and start your own company;)
charlixcx 8y ago
stop attaching your self worth to a job and get a life instead? idk just saying u know. like... yeah?

584 points by Raj7k 8y ago

A consulting company I worked for fired a sales guy who basically built it with the two co-owners. He basically found all the clients to place developers with and found / interviewed a bunch of devs. Then the company grew and they hired a fancy Ivy League / Wallstreet experience guy in his place. They gave the original guy zero warning. Kind of messed up.

jarsin 8y ago
I've seen very similar situations. My theory is it's because we have glorified assholes like steve jobs and every executive thinks they are the next jobs. There are no negative consequences for screwing over employees.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  As well, there are no negative consequences for an employee screwing over their company, so the balance of power remains.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    Yeah they can get fired.
  - anon4242 8y ago
    Not sure whether legally binding but many of the contracts I've been given as an employee has included at least some paragraph about damages in case my actions as employee hurts the company (e.g. disclosing trade secrets, poaching employees, etc).
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    Not sure if this is sarcasm or not.
- bartread 8y ago
  I'm not so sure. Probably depends on multiple factors such as size of local economy, how many similar employers are in an area, how big the potential hiring pool is, but word gets around. One consequence is you can struggle to hire, at least for a while. Very much an intangible though.
  - jarsin 8y ago
    The word has been out that Amazon is a potentially very bad place to work (depending on team) for many years now. While I'm sure they can no longer hire some people due to their reputation it has not stopped droves of engineers desperate to get in there. A former employer of mine that is nowhere near Amazon success level has tons of horrible glass door reviews calling out the senior managers yet still people join.
geebee 8y ago
That is kinda messed up, though I’d want to know more about his exit terms.
hinkley 8y ago
The conversations I've heard on this topic seem to agree that they pull the lever quickly on sales people because they don't want the guy copying all of his contacts and trying to poach customers/sabotage the company. But I can't see how that would work because only the really bad salespeople don't already know to have their own contact list. Once you've seen it happen to someone else or heck watched certain movies, you should know better.
- closetohome 8y ago
  Also if your company's only assets are some sales leads, you're already not doing great.
  - mertd 8y ago
    If you don't have them, you're almost certainly not doing great
- bduerst 8y ago
  This happens all the time. In a past company I worked at, I had test email accounts in the CRM, and those fake-contact email accounts would receive blast messages from reps who were now working at competing companies. I always reported it, but damn, at least have the foresight to scrub your list of stolen accounts for contacts that have the last name "TEST". Pretty obvious where you got the list from if you don't.
  - alasdair_ 8y ago
    I worked at a firm in the UK where this happened. Due to the UK having fairly strong data protection laws, the salesman ended up being arrested and charged.
    - lurcio 8y ago
      Hmmm... yet somehow a sales person/consultant of any worth is hired on the strength of their book...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
meko 8y ago
> They gave the original guy zero warning. Kind of messed up. The capitalism horror stories I read every day on this website are astonishing and depressing.
- lurcio 8y ago
  Do you think people/organisations couldawouldashoulda operate any better under any other paradigm?
varjag 8y ago
If he was a cofounder and board member I wonder how "zero warning" is even possible.
gspetr 8y ago
This anecdote further exacerbates the problem with the original article. The lessons learned should not be: "CEOs need to do this, this, and that" and neither should it be "For employees, how you handle change will affect the trajectory of your career and possibly your net worth" CEOs don't _need_ to do anything. They don't owe you anything. They can run the company into the ground for all we care, what matters is whether you have the power or not. What it should be is this: "If you do not have power, you need to plan for the case when you will get screwed". He who fails to plan, plans to fail. Power is the degree to which a person has control over their own circumstances. Power is the degree to which we control the directions of our lives.

Raphmedia 8y ago

Itamar Turner-Trauring latest Software Clown newsletter¹ (#105) was about this. The author wrote about a similar story where a company he worked at changed as it grew and layoffs were made. He concluded with some really good points: | I came away from the experience unable to commit myself to a company. In part this was an ethical stance: who controls the company can change, and change quickly. So loyalty to a company meant committing to follow people who shouldn't be followed, not because authority is inherently bad, but because in most companies authority cannot be rescinded by the workers in its power. | But it was also an emotional reaction: I'd put a lot of myself into my job, only to see my work—and my friends' work—destroyed in an incompetent power grab. I didn't want to go through that again. | The thing about loyalty, though, is that it's motivating: you give your loyalty because you want something or someone to succeed. So if you're past the point of pure survival, where do you find motivation if not in loyalty? | Eventually I came round to solidarity, a thornier path than loyalty. Loyalty is simple, because it starts with an answer: your country, your cause, your company, your friends—above all. Solidarity is complex, because it starts with a question: beyond yourself, beyond your friends, beyond your cause, beyond your country, what ought you do to help everyone? ¹ https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/ https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/

ElBarto 8y ago
Loyalty can only exist between individuals. Never be loyal to a company because a company will never be loyal to you.
- mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
  Loyalty can exist without reciprocity.
  - lostcolony 8y ago
    Yes, but should it?
  - ElBarto 8y ago
    Which is madness in the business world, and perhaps outside of it as well.

z3t4 8y ago

You can make good use of the startup people by making them repeat the success in new markets. Sacking them is such a waste of talent.

ergothus 8y ago
I like your view, because sacking them doesn't waste their talent (usually), it wastes all the time and effort of recruiting them, filtering out others, and forming a well-functioning team. This applies even in cases where someone isnt fired, but you've changed the job to something else. I'm leaving my current job right now because they dissolved our vertical product teams and formed horizontals that have no consistency of focus, codebase, or any larger input into product direction. I really work well with the people of the company, but after 6 months of feeling like IT support doing superficial changes in ever changing repos I'm done. (No offense to anyone that enjoys that style, but it I'd not for me and not how we worked for the 3 prior years). So now I'm out. I think the new job may be even better, but it is a gamble and I wouldn't have even looked had they not changed the company on me and failed to respond to my concerns. I'm not indispensable nor irreplaceable, but in this market it is not easy to find someone, convince them, and build relationships and domain knowledge. My email to individual people I work with that should know I'm leaving went to over 50 people - rebuilding that's a cost that doesn't show up as a line item on the balance sheet.

nimbius 8y ago

disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning python. ive worked for small shops from the ground up, starting with mostly off the shelf hand tools and paper records, and moving into automated and well run repair businesses. The key i think is to find a company that realizes when they are squandering your potential and takes action before you're gone. I went from brakes to suspension in 3 months and from there with consistent demonstration of talent, became the shop lead, then master mechanic, after 4 years. Im not so much a guy who twists oil filters anymore, but I'll still walk the floor and see whos doing what. I'll check our ticket queue to see what hasnt moved, or if parts in the crib need stocking. In my line of work we call it 'old timers.' guys who know and have the experience to guide, but dont necessarily care to leave the comfort of a comfy chair very often. Not a manager, but the first line of defense against having to talk to one. I go out to fleets and take part in bids for maintenance jobs, not because Im a good mechanic, but because I know which mechanics I work with that are good for certain things. Im also known for bringing in a bucket or two of fried chicken for lunch on the weekends. I still have a workbench in the repair area, but my coworkers mostly leave weird parts I might enjoy or tricky problems to solve that nobody else has figured out.

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
> im an engine mechanic whos learning python. Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is a fancy course if you're interesting in something fun.
echelon 8y ago
> disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning python You don't work in software. Yet. Good luck with learning! Find fun problems to work on, like making games or programming your lights. Perhaps scraping web pages for content and emailing you. Automate some small things. If you keep having fun, you'll stay motivated. The more you build, the better you'll get. It just happens naturally. You'll think, "I could have done this better by doing X instead", or, "I could have organized this more efficiently". Before you know it you'll be ready to make a career jump (if you want to). A lot of people in our industry never went to university and studied on their own. A few recommendations: Learn lists (aka vectors, arrays) and dicts (aka hashmaps, maps, etc.) These are the core data structures in scripting languages like Python. Knowing how to use them effectively with looping constructs is key to becoming a good programmer. Next learn how to organize your code. Functions, classes, and files where appropriate. You'll learn this naturally as you continue to build things. You'll also learn by reading other code. Use libraries to accomplish work that other people have conveniently made easy and packaged for reuse. Image processing, HTML scraping, game engines, website frameworks, etc. When you graduate this and want to become more "academic", you'll want to look into two areas especially : - data structures, which are things like arrays, linked lists, hashsets, etc. - algorithm analysis, which will teach you how to write efficient code (big-O notation and analysis, etc.) You don't necessarily need these, but they're a huge leg up. Mastering them can get you into FAANG. If you like web stuff and servers, look at distributed computing. Also look at principles of operating systems to understand how threading, virtual memory, etc. etc. work. Hopefully this helps. It's not stuff you need to jump on right away, but it can be a roadmap for the next few years. Best of luck! Hope you enjoy everything you're doing and never feel discouraged. There are always people out there that are better than you, and it doesn't mean you aren't good yourself. Don't doubt what you're doing. You got this.

itronitron 8y ago

There is danger in being too productive while coworkers focus their efforts on 'shaping' the company.

maxxxxx 8y ago
Agreed. I have seen it multiple times that people didn't get promoted or transferred to a new interesting task because they were so good at what they did at the moment. Instead people that didn't perform well got promoted or to do the new thing. One example: At my company the high performing experienced people are stuck with our legacy products so new things get either explored by interns or new people who don't know the company. I have pointed out several times how insane this is but everybody just shrugs. I think the lesson is to not leave too much of a footprint so management has no qualms transferring you to a new task.
- khalilravanna 8y ago
  You could argue both parties, the managers and the high-performing, experienced people are to blame in this scenario. Sure, the managers should have the foresight to make sure there are continuing opportunities for the experienced people by training up people to replace them in their current roles. But shouldn't those experienced people have the foresight themselves and make sure they're not "stuck" and instead have mentees ready to take their place? I write this comment as someone currently in this place myself. Or rather, planning so that I don't end up in that "stuck" place. I want to start working on bigger picture problems in the engineering organization but it's hard when the buck stops with you for a multitude of tasks that have to be done to foster the continuing growth of the company. Training the next gen. is an interesting problem I'm exciting to work on mastering.
  - CardenB 8y ago
    How do you "have mentees" without management on board? Legacy products tend to be inherently unsexy and it's hard to attract mentees to those projects.

ttmb 8y ago

From the title, I didn't know which direction the post was going to go in. This one: grow with your job title. Alternate version: how to keep doing the same tasks you enjoy and not be forced into a different (likely managerial) role.

ergest 8y ago
I would have liked an exploration of the alternate version. Are there any resources you might know about that?

k_vi 8y ago

‘if you’re an early company employee, it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level‘ This resonates with me

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

What strikes me is how parlous vocational training (for want of a much better phrase) is - it took him (a clearly talented and successful individual) two decades to understand his situation. I am a better person in many ways than my 20-year old self, but I do wish I had learnt my lessons a bit faster as well

extragood 8y ago
The only way to learn some lessons is to have something you care about blow up in your face. That's the cost of the lesson. Sometimes it's not worth the price of admission. Steve Blank is a celebrity of sorts around here, but who is to say that that experience, as terrible as it was at the time, wasn't responsible for setting him up for his future successes? I'm somewhat earlier in my career, and undoubtedly have similarly devastating events waiting for me, in addition to the select few behind me. Framing those as "learning experiences" softens the blow considerably when things don't go as they "should".

IvyMike 8y ago

There's another question to ask: Do you actually want to keep your job as your company grows? This is not to imply "yes" or "no"; it's a very personal answer. At the companies I've been in, there are some who thrived moving into new roles as the company grew, and there were others that would have been happier and more successful taking their skills to the next startup.

anon4242 8y ago
My thoughts exactly. I've mostly worked in small companies with tiny engineering teams but I've had a go at some larger companies as well. Personally I thrive in the small companies and wither in the large ones. In the small companies I tend to spend a large part of my day writing code (which I love), meetings are rare and typically to the point. In the big companies I've found it hard to find stuff to do and the meetings are many and repetitive. It seems to me that the bigger companies hire for redundancy. In the largest company I worked for (~3k ppl) I typically received >100 emails/day + dozens of slack channels. In my current job we're 8 ppl and I rarely get more than 1 email/week :)!
sdrinf 8y ago
The fundamental principle-agent issue here, is that startup-y people, who thrive on small teams getting stuff done, are essential for getting a startup up the ground; however it is exactly the point where startups hold the least cash to compensate with. This generally leads to stock-option based compensation; which, in turn, expires 30 days after employee leaves. This economics -as practiced presently- strongly implies for savvy startupy people to work only on startups of their own; which in turn makes early hiring extremely difficult. There are 2 points of equilibrium here: * The current one is people leading less savvy people on. This leads to a lot of resentment; see rest of HN for that. * a much less wrong solution would be to have secondary markets set up significantly earlier in the game (post series a); which would make stock & options immediate liquid. Despite sales difficulties(for finding counter parties for that), this can be a huge advantage during hiring, as employees don’t have to take on lottery tickets; and allow early employees to resign with much less resentment.
- 8y ago

empath75 8y ago

Maybe it’s because I’ve never really been attached to a company I’ve worked for but the second I left that meeting, I’d be negotiating my exit package and talking to other startups, not trying to save my job.

DanFeldman 8y ago

https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/ https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other... I found this post to be in a similar vein, and helped lessen the scare of growing (or not growing) with my current startup, Starsky Robotics. What it made me realize is I loved the ability to switch direction, to "give away my legos", and I needed to focus more on making that an easy transition if I wanted to do it successfully. Learning to onboard a new employee or a new team onto your "complex tower of legos" is high impact and extremely important as teams scale.

makecheck 8y ago

While working at a company, be loyal to your local team (other people just trying to do good work) and yourself (e.g. build new skills you can use). And really, those are variations of the same thing because co-workers that value you can help you get what you want or even your next job. Blind loyalty to a company means nothing though. First, managers change: any promise, especially a long-term one, is one manager-change away from becoming vapor. Projects are cancelled or relocated or reprioritized. Layoffs occur at times convenient for the company so don’t be surprised when you’re unable to count on stock vesting. Perks go away. Ultimately, treat most company-level things as “sounds nice” and never count on them. For example, I would never buy a house based on stock I should get or a bonus that was promised.

dba7dba 8y ago
First, managers change: any promise, especially a long-term one, is one manager-change away from becoming vapor Sometimes, you don't even need a manager-change for your job to be in danger. I know a guy who had a manager who was pretty cool and a good mentor to him. And then one day, something happened to the manager and he stopped mentoring him. No, he stopped interacting with him. Frequent lunching together came to a screeching halt. Eventually he was left out loops, projects and eventually out of job. He still doesn't know if the cause was one of these: 1. manager broke up with girlfriend (which did happen) and started not caring 2. my friend said something about politics that offended him? 3. the manager saw 1 mistake by my friend, and just decided he didn't want to waste his time on him.
- agsamek 8y ago
  4. The Manager spent too much time investing in your friend but eventually realized that actually it was not your friend but the manager himself who was delivering results and realized that it was not going to change
  - llampx 8y ago
    5. Friend caused the breakup of his manager with his girlfriend.

anon57325 8y ago

I was a one of these “new hires” to a startup that was growing. It was chaotic because a lot of knowledge wasn’t transferred and we had to basically figure out a lot of the business logic because those original people were all gone. I jumped ship after a few months and eventually the startup failed. I heard from former colleagues the main reason is those original people went to work for several big companies, who were all customers of this startup. They still held a grudge and persuaded those companies to stop working with them.

deanmoriarty 8y ago
Exactly what seems to be happening at my current startup (more context in my other comment).

deanmoriarty 8y ago

I could really relate to this post, since I've recently (past couple years) gone through exactly this. I was hired as a senior software engineer for a very early stage startup, and quickly became the de-facto engineering leader, ran multiple teams for a couple years (backend/frontend/ops), and most of the technical products of the company still have my clear fingerprints on them. Result? After the early success, founders and VCs brought in new official managers (VPs and directors of engineering) to scale the company, and I "regressed" to an IC role. Due to all the technical context I have about the company, they essentially let me roam around without having to account or report to anyone. Essentially, I do whatever I want, whenever I want, which these days means working on very experimental stuff that selfishly interests me, but that one day might be used for the company technology (long term plan). I suspect once all the former systems are replaced they might terminate me, which I'd welcome so I'd get some severance as opposed to quitting (and I have passed several FAANG interviews so I'd find a new job relatively quickly), but it hasn't happened yet, and have been in this limbo for a couple years now. I'm not gonna lie when I say this caused a lot of shock to me initially, along the same lines of the blog post, but I eventually dealt/coped with those feelings (sort of). I say "sort of" because I haven't changed job purely due to the financials of the situations: even if my title/role changed, my original equity grant is still vesting at the original rate, and as the company becomes more successful it's unlikely that I could find another opportunity as good as this one (from a financial point of view). However, I am really not happy with the changes that have been implemented: in particular, the new management is really really bad, like severely technically incompetent. These people were hired as "experienced managers" from companies such as Cisco/IBM/... where they held a management position for 10+ years. These people are not technically bright or inspiring, they just live by processes and jira tickets. This caused two very big problems: 1) The quality of these managers caused very good people, mostly individual contributors, to flee. Essentially, a lot (50%+) of my peers who were originally in the company and were extremely strong individual contributors left for greener pastures, and in informal conversations they all told me they were fed up with the level of incompetence of the new managers. They didn't have a strong equity package such as mine, so it was a very easy decision for them, I would have done exactly the same. 2) These managers are effectively unable to deal with high pressure and customers. We had customers who churned on us, explicitly listing as the main reason the inability to effectively interact with our engineering team during support escalations. A quote I remember from a customer is: "It seems like you guys lately don't know your product and what you're doing anymore". It seems just now, two years later, the upper management is slowly realizing this, as this incompetence is starting to make a real dent into our revenues. I have seen this all along since the very first few weeks they were on board, but I always carefully refrained myself from escalating this to the founders because otherwise I would have just been seen as a "negative nancy" acting out of jealousy, so I decided to put a good face and take what's in for me (freedom in my current position). But I truly and humbly believe that, had I been put in charge of engineering instead of those new people, I would have done a better job scaling, hiring other more talented managers and keeping ICs motivated (I value a lot technical excellence and I always go above and beyond to make sure I am technical enough in every conversation, and all the team members always appreciated that a lot when I was leading things).

kraig911 8y ago

People change and so do businesses. I think this is kind of click bait but I see he has something to say. Bottom line I feel if you're at a startup that grew you changed with the company as well and I don't think you'll want to be doing / working like you did.

tc 8y ago

The basic problem is that what he was doing for the first 12 months was right. Doing what a big company executive would have done would have been wrong. When the new CEO comes in and wants things done immediately in the big company way, it's going to feel like the new guy is saying he was doing everything wrong. Further, the actions he was taking will be perceived by others in the company and by new management as his identity rather than as a rational response to the circumstances of the early company. A smart and observant person in such a role might come around over time naturally. He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as well any longer and would adapt. That may even be better for the company than going overnight from "small company mode" to "big company mode". Or the person may not come around. Either way, it's likely change will not be perceived as fast enough. Difficult problem for all parties.

castlecrasher2 8y ago
>He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as well any longer and would adapt. I've seen a few execs not be able to do this, so I don't really blame the CEO in this situation. They did fine and dandy as the product started out but were flailing in the wind once we got big enough.
notyourday 8y ago
I saw more companies collapse at that stage because they decided that they are now a new kind of company that needs to scale than I saw companies that collapsed because they did not scale fast enough.

graycat 8y ago

A short answer: Own the company.

wehadfun 8y ago

Honestly if this guy was able to bring in business he will be an asset to whatever company he goes to and can probably negotiate a golden parachute of some sort.

gunnr15 8y ago

More folks should give additional thought to what STAGE of company they want to specialize in. It is totally ok to want to be a great early stage engineer/salesperson/marketer where the ability to make decisions and move forward when the environment is vague/uncertain is HIGHLY valued. In my experience (leading teams at both early stage and 1000+ employee companies) most of the folks that thrive in the early “Wild West” stage start to wither when things get more formulaic as the business matures.

exelius 8y ago
Yeah, it took me a long time to realize that my sweet spot is organizations between 100 and 1000 people. Any bigger than that and I don’t have the patience or attention to detail to deal with the bureaucracy / politics; any smaller and I grow frustrated with the lack of resources. Honestly, a good corporate manager does a whole lot of process and very little thinking. Great for those who can handle it, but I can’t.
brobdingnagians 8y ago
I've thought a lot about this and I agree. I find a certain social environment at work and a certain structure to be what I enjoy, so I figure I will always try to get myself into situations where I have a lot of responsibility, lots of latitude to learn new things, and a wide variety of roles. I wouldn't be happy in some jobs that limit that, but there are lot of people who wouldn't be happy in my job. I had a roommate in college that saw very little allure to entrepreneurship or risk, but was an excellent electrical engineer and wanted to have a corporate job forever.

sharadov 8y ago

I don't think there is any real way to plan that. Keeping your ear to the wall, schmoozing can help, if that's your forte. But it's a lot of work. I've seen people who seemed irreplaceable get chucked out because of dirty politics and the team suffer because, the person in question was a fantastic worker, not merely someone who had tribal knowledge. I am not loyal to a company, am loyal to an ethical code that says that I try to do by best, but not at the cost of my health or time. No matter what, don't stop learning, if your job allows you to, then great, otherwise just find time in your schedule to do it. Eventually, you are the master of your destiny.

kradroy 8y ago
You definitely have to be aware which way the wind is blowing when re-orgs are happening. The closer the re-org is to you, the more you should pay attention. I was recently in one of these situations where I came out on top and was able to assist my department head in a favor to a friend. None of what happened was ever made explicit but the summary of the subtext (in hindsight) was: "We're pushing out so-and-so and you're up for a promotion, ostensibly to his role. However, I have a friend whose contract is ending soon and needs a new job. Would be you interested in this other role that's a promotion but also allows me to make a future org change I see as necessary?" All the players and pieces were mentioned. I had to infer the game plan. I took the alternate role and the rest played out. It was definitely a learning experience, and as you advance in your career these types of soft skills matter just as much as any hard skill.

philosophygeek 8y ago

What a fantastic read. As a CEO who has grown my company from 6 to almost 100, this is one of the hardest discussions to have with someone. It's not that they did anything wrong, they're just no "right" for the position in its current state. He suggests that it's impossible to retain employees through such changes. I haven't found this to be the case. One technique I've used is to keep the company title-light, so that changes in title aren't as stark. I've also had a few people who have gone from IC->manager->IC, which shows the company that I value people no matter what their role is. Retaining people after hiring above them requires a lot of careful, honest conversations not just with the affected employee, but with messaging to the broader team.

hadsed 8y ago
I'd love to know how you approach the messaging to the broader team about hiring above someone (perhaps if they've always been an IC, or if they tried management and weren't performing). In my view it seems quite difficult to maintain face in such a scenario, and it's not obvious how one can alleviate that.

atmosx 8y ago

Does this approach guarantee success? Are there any companies who brought in this or that CEO/VPoE/Lead Engineer and failed miserably instead of successfully going to the next level?

atmosx 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816 - apparently...

iamaziz 8y ago

Guess the question should be: how to keep your job as your company decline?

throw2016 8y ago

A new CEO will not just come in and fire a senior exec unless there is a lot of behind the scenes activity we are not privy to or the CEO already has someone lined up for the position. A lot of CEOs have got into the habit of building teams with people they already have trust with, in which case this whole article is overthinking. If not that it's strange that the first thing the CEO did without even working with him is to fire him. If things were so bad that why wasn't he talked to earlier? That could mean some 'history'. These things are so contextual its dangerous to try to draw any insights or lessons.

charmides 8y ago
The insight I drew from this article is that I never want to be an early employee of a startup and put my heart and soul into it unless I own a significant part of that company.

pcpcpc 8y ago

I'm in a similar position to Steve Blank: early employee navigating various role transitions as the company grows. Would appreciate additional resources like the above, recommended coaches, books, etc. if anyone can offer.

brm 8y ago
I'm not sure it's exactly the coaching or books you're looking for but YC itself did a series of interviews called Employee #1 about how different people in different roles navigated being an early employee of a successful company to varying outcomes. I found it helpful if not directly instructive. https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/
notyourday 8y ago
You have a certain specific set of skills. That set of skills comprises of what you had when you started at the company, grew with you being in the company and probably now has a sprinkle of play during "the company in transition" phase. The problem is that the company that you are with is unlikely to care about those skills of yours if you are noticing what is currently happening in a company and are looking for additional resources. Look to go to another company that would value your set of skills.
soupsranjan 8y ago
Elad Gil's "High Growth Handbook" is a great resource.

rf_ 8y ago

There is a pattern and it has nothing to do with how hard the author worked or the CEO. > No one knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t explain why I was doing it when asked. > I had shut down. Even as we were meeting, I was obsessively thinking about the change > I literally paid zero attention. In my righteous anger I was unreachable. The common thread is communication; specifically the lack of it. These quotes are huge red flags. The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you've gotten results but cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward. The author even had a chance (real or not) to act on this feedback by way of a warning and a coach. Instead of embracing and acting on clear feedback from his new boss, he panicked and shut down; allowing one negative interaction to throw his entire sense of self into disarray. This is strong evidence that indeed they were likely not the right candidate for the position as the company grew.

matfil 8y ago
The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you've gotten results but cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward That is clearly the CEO's point of view in this case, but it's a view I find rather perplexing. It leaves no room for intuition and good judgement. Potentially, it can force people to try and write down explanations of stuff they are not actually confident about, which just end up confusing whoever comes next.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Once you grow past Dunbar's number you can no longer rely on individual intuition and good judgement alone, you need higher level communication and alignment around strategy because there is simply not enough interpersonal bandwidth to communicate otherwise. Of course you want everyone to continue using judgement, but the leadership needs to go the extra mile to project a vision and strategy across the org. You can argue over whether the CEO was right or wrong in this case, but at the end of the day it's the CEO's job to make these calls.

Throwaway211219 8y ago

I know Optimizely isn't as relevant these days, but this article matches my experience there. Just about all the early employees were pushed out or encouraged to go when the business matured a bit and the adults from SalesForce were brought in. Of the first few dozen employees, only a handful are left.

brian-armstrong 8y ago

I agree with the general thrust of this article - the company grows and its needs change over time. You will need to change along with them. But I think the last 1/3 of the article is a little too self-congratulatory. It's not really clear the retaining early employees is important, and in fact they may become more dead weight as the company grows. The concept of maintaining "company culture" is silly, that changes as the company grows anyway. The company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely.

stock_toaster 8y ago
> The company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely. Given the fact that early employees are usually under-compensated (and who usually thinks of buying out any options right after they are canned, while job hunting?), this is doubly sad.

gaius 8y ago

until the new CEO called me in for a chat. Maybe that CEO was infallible... or maybe he just wanted to give the job to one of his b-skool buddies. Who can say?

stock_toaster 8y ago
I have indeed seen this happen several times.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Great post. The author is polite enough to avoid drawing attention to a mistake of the CEO, but I thought it was worth mentioning. (Assuming the boss already knew the lessons learned.) Believe the CEO would likely have received a much better response had phrased the same idea as: - Great job! - Business is changing, we need to take it to next level. - Let's improve our Plans, Vision, Strategy - I've got a coach on retainer to help get us there. Then Plan B, where early employee can't make the transition and is replaced, can be left unsaid. If it happens the employee will be a lot less surprised, and have a greater chance for retention.

gcbw2 8y ago
Well, you have to have seen it from the point of view of the CEO. Playing devil's advocate, what would you do if you jumped onboard, and the first thing you saw was that all your clients were interacting only with your VP of marketing/Sales on a personal basis? ...well, granted, if it was that exactly he would still be employed to this day :D but you get the picture, maybe it was bad enough that what the CEO did was already above and beyond.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

I am currently going through a very intense transaction, from being the CEO of the company I founded, to no longer having a full-time position at the company. (looks like I will simply remain as an external advisor). I am curious to hear if any of you had a similar experience, and if you have any suggestions or tips to share.

laurentl 8y ago
This sounds like a rough transition, and not one you were asking for I guess. I don’t have any relevant suggestions to share* but you have my sympathies. * well, except for the very generic ones to not confuse what’s happening to you and your worth as an individual, to seek to learn or take away something good from the experience, and to remember that karma’s a bitch and that whoever screwed you will get their comeuppance one way or another.
aytekin 8y ago
Start again. This time don’t take that dirty VC money. Bootstrap.

gwbas1c 8y ago

The problem is the CEO never approached Steve correctly. Never threaten someone's job unless the situation is dire. He should have said something like, "now that we're growing, we need you to ..."

megaremote 8y ago
It is so weird. It is really hard to find good people. If you have a good person, you don't get rid of them, you help them grow with the company.
- gwbas1c 8y ago
  It's very clear that the new CEO tried to help Steve do just that. Just the way that he framed it as, "you're a candidate for your job" set Steve's defenses up way higher than they needed to be.

vim_mercenary 8y ago

Throwaway obvious reason. All of this stems from you caring about your job and the status it gives you. After being burned twice on two startups that went on to Series B's, I'm done. I no longer give a shit about my employer or if they live/die. I clock out at 5pm on the dot. I clock in whenever. Pay me, I'll get your features out and that's that. No I don't care about your estimates, no I don't care about your stock, no I don't care about your company's potential. Pay me, and I'm out. That's that. My most recent gigs I choose the path's with the least amount of stock and most amount of salary. I no longer give a shit.

john_moscow 8y ago
BTW, that's your reason behind ageism in tech.
- vim_mercenary 8y ago
  Did you reply to the wrong comment? I have no bias against older developers. I think older developers are fantastic because they want to fuck off and do other things and get their work done on time. The ones I hate are the 25 year old thundercats no-lifers who want to stay until 11pm for some unknown reason.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    I believe they were calling out that companies have prejudice against older workers because they are vaccinated against hustle-baiting with low salaries/lots of 3rd class stock.
  - meesles 8y ago
    There's this common misconception that young workers never put in extra hours before the Silicon Valley culture picked up. That's just untrue. Younger workers have always used energy and enthusiasm to make up for experience and skill in the workplace. Either they work more hours, accept more work, or just accept more stress than their peers to offset their junior status. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's competition that you can either use to motivate yourself, or you can just complain about it as others advance past you in the workplace. I think the stigma against the young developer who _wants_ to put in these extra hours is more of an issue. These people don't deserve to be looked down upon just because they're putting in more, just like you don't want to be judged for working 30-hour weeks even if you deliver. Much like you want to do your work and bug off, they want to do something else with their time. Trying to find reason when you're so far on the other end of the spectrum seems futile.

matchagaucho 8y ago

As a CEO, I experience the same emotions when there is change at a strategic customer. It sucks, but it takes work to rebuild trust you thought was already earned. The "new decision maker" has just inherited your product/solution and likely wants to establish their vision and network over yours. Start from scratch and re-earn their trust :-(

spicymaki 8y ago

This was a good article. You don't even need to be in a startup to feel this way. Product road maps change and skill sets that were valuable at one point are not valuable the next. We should always be improving our skills, integrating constructive feedback, and looking for opportunities to grow.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

still waiting for the companion piece How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Shrinks

purplezooey 8y ago

There is no "transition". What happens is your investors decide they want the latest recycled executive face to take the helm. That person usually goes for short term results at the expense of long term ones, because they'll be gone in a year or two and they don't know anything about the product anyway. And the cycle continues. To pretend it is some process you can navigate rationally is not healthy.

ian0 8y ago

Ive been thinking that a properly constructed company-wide and long-term profit sharing scheme is the best way to combat this. Early employees take onboard the most risk with a venture and even if they don't want to be or are not able to be VP of X when the company sales they should still maintain the material (and psychological) benefits. I bet people would have less of a problem being demoted if they knew their eventual payday would be larger than their new boss. It's possible to construct a profit sharing scheme where x% of future profits is dedicated to a pool of employees and weighted more according to risk than seniority. And to offset the negative aspects (investor wise) of this with buyout clauses based on some fair metrics.

ccostes 8y ago
It's a nice idea, but I don't see how you can objectively measure the risk or value of individuals like that. For example, if a company spends 5 years treading water/pivoting before it takes off, how do determine how much of future profits an employee who joined and left in year 1 should get? I agree that the current system is far from ideal (just read through the Ask HN post asking early employees how much they made from their startup's exit).
- ian0 8y ago
  You can use vesting schedules to deal with the time component. Any measure of value is going to be difficult (it is under any scheme) but risk taken is a little easier. If I look at the companies I have been involved in there are very distinct phases during growth in terms of salary, prospects and job security.

charmides 8y ago

To the author: This does not add up. After they fired you and then had you fight to get your job back, you said they hired a "coach" to help you learn new skills. But at the end of this training, the coach reported to your boss that you "had a long way to go." It certainly does not seem like the coach was hired to help you out. It seems like it was just a backhanded way to get an assessment on you while you had your guard down. To me, it seems like this company was just taking advantage of you and your youthful enthusiasm until they had no more use for you. By blaming yourself, I feel like you are drawing all the wrong lessons from this experience.

dwd 8y ago
Yes, sounds like a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) which usually means they want you out but need documentation of you not meeting an arbitary KPI. HR is never your friend.
- dba7dba 8y ago
  When you are called into HR to undergo PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), you should just nod as they tell you about how they will help you improve and grow. But the moment you walk out that door, start resuming, calling old contacts, and do anything to get a new job. PIP is literally just a formality HR goes through to let you go eventually, and is just an axx covering move by the HR/company. When you are called into PIP, just consider yourself as let go. edit: And I would NOT feel any gratitude for the company that they are somehow paying your salary even though you are pretty much an ex-employee. They are simply doing PIP only to cover their bottom. edit 2: I don't know when this trend started, but HR transformed BEFORE It kept list of employees, made sure pay checks were handed out, had new hires fill out forms, handle lay off. NOW It sends emails about good sounding fun activities, request for filling out surveys, etc. What really bugs me is, all the surveys (we want to hear from you so we can do better for you as a company), activities is just a smoke screen to not pay employees more. Do you know how to make an employee feel happier? Pay more money. You know, the same thing CEO/major-shareholders/owners also like to get more of.
  - 8y ago

m104 8y ago

Most valuable and uncomfortable part of this article: What I wish I knew was that if you’re an early company employee, it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level. This sentence is worth reading multiple times as no one – not the person who hired you, the VC’s or your peers -is going to tell you when you’re hired that the company will likely outgrow you. Pure gold from a career-building perspective.

osrec 8y ago

I hope the gig economy develops to a point that people do not need to bow down to the whims of corporate overlords. I spent 7 years in investment banking, and the corporate environment contributed to much unhappiness and anxiety for me personally. It gave me financial freedom fairly quickly, but I've always wished there was a better way to obtain the same, and I hope for future generations, the gig economy can go some way to providing that, without them needing to "sell their soul". P.S. I know that currently, the gig economy can be seen as taking advantage of people (Deliveroo and Uber come to mind), however, I'm hopeful that things can be improved so that workers are rewarded more fairly.

qqqwerty 8y ago

> it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level. I don't really buy that this is a major issue. Founders and early employees tend to share very similar skill sets, and yet it's standard practice for founders to get put into c-suite level roles, while it's much more common for early employees to get pushed aside. In some cases it is probably warranted (as is occasionally removing founders from CXO roles) for performance/skill/fit reasons. But I think a more common issue is that early employees are just poorly prepared to navigate the 'politics' that inevitably emerge in a growing startup. There are a few likely reasons for this, in somewhat chronological order: 1. Most founders, from day one, are preparing for a leadership role. This may not be obvious to the early employees, but the founders are probably reading/studying leadership and management material. They are highly likely getting advice and mentorship from other founders, executives, and/or VCs. And they may even have a paid executive coach. Early employees rarely get this type of advice/support/encouragement. 2. No company or startup is free from 'politics', even early stage startups. But early stage startups can trick you into thinking that they are. The org chart is non-existent or flat, early employees work alongside the founders, and every one is working on critical projects. In BigCo, employees navigate the politics by choosing their projects carefully, presenting their work in the best possible light, and currying favor with the right managers. In a fast-paced early stage startup, it's hard to do any of that. Projects are often assigned to whomever has the most bandwidth. And the nature of early stage startups mean a lot of these efforts are going to be wasted and/or failures (usually due to reasons beyond your control, i.e. product market fit, etc..). Ideally this early-stage chaos doesn't get held against you when it comes time to promote people, but that leads me to point 3... 3. As the company starts to grow, the primary motivations of subsequent hires will likely start to shift. The earliest employees are probably more focused and excited about building a product. Later employees are more likely to be focused on their careers. So while early employees are tied down with fixing obscure bugs and supporting and maintaining legacy projects, the later employees are busy playing the political game, i.e. picking cool/exciting projects, spinning everything into big wins, and scheduling lunches/meetings with the founders any chance they can get. And at some point, the start up is going to reach a size where some hierarchy is needed, and before you know it, promotions are getting handed out and you aren't on the list. Which then leads to point 4... 4. Ideally, your newly promoted colleagues should realize your value to the company and seek out your input and participation as much as possible, right? Wrong! Your deep knowledge of the product/stack/company is more or less a threat to them and their new found authority. Even if you make it abundantly clear that you don't aspire to be more than an Individual Contributor, you will find yourself getting left out of meetings and pushed more towards legacy support. And of course, this behavior puts you at a severe disadvantage for subsequent rounds of promotions. I think what it really comes down to, is that companies are inherently political, no matter how small or large, and it feels like in addition to poor pay (relative to risk) and long working hours, early employees also carry significant 'political risk'. The founders have plenty of leverage to keep their own positions secure, and at the same time they are incentivized to hire the fanciest resumes they can afford (Stanford MBA's, ex-googlers) into management roles to make the company look attractive to VC and acquisitions. My advice to early employees out there, is if you want to grow with the company, you need to start preparing from day one. Get yourself on the winning projects, treat the founders less as colleagues and more as judgmental managers that you need to constantly impress, and spend some time working on 'road maps' and 'hiring plans' to show off your 'managerial' skills. Or just go the easy route and start your own company;)

charlixcx 8y ago

stop attaching your self worth to a job and get a life instead? idk just saying u know. like... yeah?