15 ms·

Firing Frankness

183 points by shawndumas 8y ago

bitwize 8y ago
Iron rule of the corporate world: if you have a problem with your boss, or with something the boss likes and supports, from his end it's not a problem that can't be solved with a pink slip. If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas.
- wccrawford 8y ago
  " learn to love your boss and his ideas. " Or at least learn to keep your mouth shut, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary.
  - dandellion 8y ago
    Or wait to open your mouth until you have something else lined up.
    - LyndsySimon 8y ago
      You should always have something else lined up, even in the best of times :)
- Tomte 8y ago
  Unless you live in a country with humane labor laws. He can still make your work life difficult. But if he goes to far, HR has to consider that maybe he should leave, since they cannot make you leave without cause.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    > Unless you live in a country with humane labor laws. AT WILL STATE - I live in Pennsylvania and you can be fired for no reason. Sure you can sue and you might win but probably not. Why we allow these laws in a Democracy/Republic is mind blowing.
    - golemotron 8y ago
      Because you shouldn't be forced to work with people you don't want to work with?
      - baldfat 8y ago
        Put the work into writing good company policy and less emotional policing. So you "Don't want to work with a person" means you should be able to fire them for your emotional good? That sounds horribly selfish and an environment people wouldn't want to work in.
        golemotron 8y ago
        Maybe divorce should be illegal too, right? Do we call people who don't want to continue in a marriage selfish if they are looking out for their emotional good? Most people spend more time with their coworkers than their spouse.
        Tomte 8y ago
        Surprisingly we have laws about divorce that are a bit more involved than "You. Leave. Now." We even make ex-spouses pay support. Or let them live in the common house for a bit.
        dominotw 8y ago
        employees are not business partners. You can't say "You. Leave. Now." to your business partner.
    - dominotw 8y ago
      > Why we allow these laws in a Democracy/Republic is mind blowing. strong labor market and low unemployment.
      - baldfat 8y ago
- bigcostooge2 8y ago
  Or learn to backstab and play politics.
- eikenberry 8y ago
  Or you can just fake it for a few months while you find a better position in your company or a new job.
- cbanek 8y ago
  I feel like it used to be this way, but in tech these days it seems the rule is speak your mind. If you get fired for ruffling feathers and are at least halfway competent, there are plenty of companies willing to scoop you up and pay you more money to do something more aligned to what you want. Although you should have probably just that done in the first place, without the feather ruffling.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    I hear this on Hackernews a lot, one of the myths of our age: "Any halfway decent programmer should be able to just waltz right into their dream job." Must be nice. So what dies that make me, despite all my study and effort?
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  The thing is flattering egos of PHBs gives short term job security - success ensures the company will survive and no matter how much the PHB likes you he can't save you from the company facing bankruptcy. Results are what matter and also build your value. Being known as the guy, gal or nonbinary who did X is way better than "just went along with using a massive spreadsheet as a database because the boss doesn't trust software he hasn't paid for and won't spend money on sonething he doesn't know how to use."
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  > If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas. I would modify this: "learn to support your boss, and make them look good in front of their peers." I've had situations where my boss and I didn't get along. In one case that led to a dismissal with a very comfortable severance, which I believe was because while I wasn't a good fit, my boss respected me and bore no ill will toward me. In another case my boss was openly hostile to me even in front of my peers both inside and outside the organization almost from the first day; I survived about three years there because I was effective and did my best to keep our disagreements behind closed doors. Everyone knew that my boss and I didn't get along, but I did the job well and took every opportunity to make them good and make the best of their strategies and decisions. Over time I developed a reputation for having strong opinions, a strong personality, but being very easy to work with. I learned a lot during that time, built lifelong professional relationships, and believe that I changed a few lives through mentorship of those with less experience. I will always be frank with my immediate boss; the cost of not doing so is too high for me. I'm also clear that I see my job as contributing to the company's success, and that I see their voice on my behalf as my most effective means of impacting the organization's direction. I recognize when I don't have the final say on something, and while I'll not pretend that I support something I don't, it's their job to determine strategy, not mine, and that I'll execute their strategy to the best of my ability and without grumbling about it - and without undermining them. Of course there are some people who simply cannot accept that the people who report to them have opinions contrary to their own or believe that they are making a mistake. I don't want to work for those people. There are too many good jobs doing things that will change the world for me to spend my time being unhappy and working on something I don't think matters.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  "If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas." Or, even better, find a position in a company where you don't have to "learn" those things.
Breadmaker 8y ago
by Jean-Louis Gassée
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Yeah, that's some important information missing from the headline. The comments so far suggest no one read the article and/or have no idea who the author is.
anjc 8y ago
With all that experience it's a wonder he fell for the oldest "does my bum look big in this" trick in the book.
a-dub 8y ago
... and to think... if it hadn't been for this fateful night, half the world's smartphones wouldn't have that weird RPC mechanism...
jeklj 8y ago
Keep it anodyne, pretty much always. You can tell your spouse what you really think. Or better yet, your dog.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  While I'd never condone being rude, combative, or unnecessarily offensive, I think there's a time and a place to make waves. And while the person doing so often personally suffers the consequences, it is a healthy signal to an organization that those opinions could be shared by others. If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum.
  - jeklj 8y ago
    > If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum. Indeed, that's a great reason not to fire people when they're honest. And yet, here we are. At least in SV tech companies, in my experience, people really get their feelings hurt over small amounts of honesty. More importantly, the conversations you'll have to have afterward and the way people will sit on it for months until it comes up in your review make it just not worth it.
patrickg_zill 8y ago
HR is there to protect the company. Not you.
- Spivak 8y ago
  Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this? This seems like one of those statements that everyone knows but thinks for some reason everyone else doesn't.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    > This seems like one of those statements that everyone knows but thinks for some reason everyone else doesn't. It's just virtue signaling (and I don't mean that in a pejorative way). It doesn't matter that everyone knows HR isn't there to protect you. What you're really saying is "I share your beliefs".
  - gaius 8y ago
    Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this? I think probably most people believe that if they have a dispute with another employee that HR will resolve it in a “fair” way. But of course HR is only really thinking of which outcome is less likely to involve lawyers or a tribunal. Head on over to workplace.SE to see loads of this... if you can’t bring a credible threat of a lawsuit HR will always side with your boss, no matter what he or she has done.
- LukaD 8y ago
  Why is this getting downvoted? Can you please explain why you disagree with this statement?
  - neonate 8y ago
    It's a cliché.
    - linksnapzz 8y ago
      ...a cliche that needs repeating as often as possible in as many venues as possible; until it reaches the level of ingrained knowledge that people have regarding staring into the sun, or handling downed power lines.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
acali 8y ago
Always keep in mind that HR is there to manage the company's "human resources"; they are not looking out for your best interest. They are acting on behalf of the company.
- Aloha 8y ago
  The corollary to this is - don't forget to take advantage of HR when its and your interests obviously align.
AlexCoventry 8y ago
> Sullivan puts his arm around my shoulder: “Jean-Louis, I’m proud of you…” After half a decade in Cupertino, I know what this means: What I have done is irreparable. I don't follow his reasoning, here. What is it about Cupertino which immediately leads him to this conclusion?
- debt 8y ago
  His “soft touch” was actually the touch of death. Sometimes in those moments there’s a feeling that something is seriously off. I think that was such a moment.
- ereyes01 8y ago
  Apple is in Cupertino, the author was an Apple executive, and was likely privy to enough firings to recognize what the prelude to his own sounded like.
- Diederich 8y ago
  In the minds of many, the city of Cupertino, California IS Apple. He's saying "After half a decade at Apple"
  - microtherion 8y ago
    He had been at Apple longer than that. He had been at Apple HEADQUARTERS for "half a decade".
- leejoramo 8y ago
  For context: this is written by a Frenchmen from Paris who had moved to SV. Gasseé previously has written about his French/US cultural mis-understandings. Especially regarding being too blunt and assertive
  - AlexCoventry 8y ago
    Oh, OK. I was working with a French guy recently. I really liked that we could bluntly tell each other when we're full of shit. Didn't realize it's characteristic of French organizational behavior.
baq 8y ago
You want someone in the company backing you? Start an union.
srmatto 8y ago
Never do anything more than say hi/bye to HR.
megaman8 8y ago
I suspect when someone asks you to tell what they really think of them, the word really should come with an asterik.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  If someone really wanted to know the answer they'd ask for responses anonymously. Since then people are free to answer without reprisal.
  - toast0 8y ago
    Even then, if they don't like the responses, they may seek the deanonymize.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  In my experience, when someone asks you what you really think of them, they already know.
rootusrootus 8y ago
Ha! Many years ago when I was in the military, in tech school in fact, one of the teachers (a sergeant, for what it's worth) flat out asked me to my face what I thought of him. Apparently I was telegraphing my feelings pretty well despite attempting to keep a completely neutral face. I asked, "off the record?" and he said "yep" and then I told him. Whoops. There is no such thing as off the record. Lesson learned. Though in the end it worked out okay and I just got some mildly amused reprimands from my superiors about telling someone [whom everyone agreed was a jerk] that he was a jerk. I'm much better at keeping my flap shut now.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  Dishonesty greases the world. I don’t we could handle complete honesty from everyone. Not unless we structurally change society from the ground up.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I think that is what makes transparency so scary to many people - aside from cynical reasons. Society has long been accustomed to their hypocrisies and transparency forces people to change it and accept them. I think it might be evolutinary for the same reason people are reluctant to openly question authority or hold it to the same standards and why public speaking is feared more than death - angering the big man could get your entire family killed. It reminds me of one thing that Google faced backlash in Japan over with streetview - people worried about being caught shitfaced drunk and ashamed of it. Everyone knew that it was a norm that "everyone" does yet they were ashamed of it.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    Honesty is part of the reason there is a desirable world to grease to begin with. And "complete honesty" is a red herring, an unreachable ideal anyway. What we can do is stay as honest as we are, strive to be more honest, and more inviting and supporting of honesty, or becoming more dishonest. And you can of course still adapt it to another person; if someone is punishing people for being honest there is no reason to fall onto your sword, let them surround themselves with the kind of people they deserve, and keep your capacity and willingness for honesty for the people who deserve that. "Being honest" isn't this kind of absolute thing, but that doesn't mean it's not anything. And hey, honesty can be quite disarming, especially when it comes with genuine goodwill, while dishonesty can trip people up. At the least, it costs a lot of resources to have various versions of the truth and juggle them constantly, the more that can be simplified the better. It really does help thinking. You can't think freely if you're not free, and that's a hell of a thing to give up.
ergothus 8y ago
> I recall the moment’s emotion: I felt I was performing a good deed, being helpfully clear and honest, I know this emotion well - it has led me to any number of problems. Some cases where in retrospect I was being a self-indulgent jerk ("What did you think of my performance/presentation/etc?") and some cases where I still feel I was not being harsh but was pointing out valid and relevant concerns, but from both I've learned to distrust this emotion. Perhaps saying what I think is good, perhaps not, but it should never feel _good_ to criticize.
- dwild 8y ago
  > it should never feel _good_ to criticize. Why not? I feel good when I help someone. I feel good when I have made a great project. I feel good when I made a good decision. I feel good when I did something good. Your sentence is true only if we consider a critic as a bad thing, which I certainly don't.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    Criticism can be good or bad. Which one it is depends in large part on how its presented.
  - l0b0 8y ago
    This. Think code review: - Voluntary and encouraged. - If done at all competently, all involved learn something. The reviewers get familiar with some part of the system, and everybody learns from comments and their responses.
  - syrrim 8y ago
    Model someone as in your ingroup. You associate actions happening to them as happening to yourself. Criticising them feels like criticizing yourself, ie admitting you've made some mistake. This could be: knowing you've made a mistake, but only just now discovering what it was (eg debugging) - but this isn't the critic, this is the correction. So the criticism must be informing someone they've made a mistake before telling them how to correct it. While correcting mistakes might feel good, finding out about them isn't. Now model the person as in your outgroup. Same analysis but now you feel good when they feel bad. Pointing out flaws will feel good, independent of viability of correction. A real person will be somewhere in between ingroup and outgroup, how good you feel for criticising them should tell you where.
devy 8y ago
This reminds me of Leadership BS by Jeffrey Pfeffer. [1] And he gave a talk at Google about his book [2] [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-Careers/dp/0062383167 https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-Caree... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI
choeger 8y ago
From reading the article it is pretty clear that the decision to let him go was already made months before. So what's the point? An exec that cannot deal with (polite) disagreement is probably on the way downwards already himself. Of course you might hit a sensible spot with honesty by chance but even then it is hard to justify an otherwise successful employee.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  I've wondered if Sullivan set up the bomb on Sculley, basically daring him to fire Jean-Louis. Sculley is a lose cannon that fires anyone that gives him needed feedback. Jean-Louis is important enough that firing him will bring that into sharp relief. Sculley fires Jean-Louis, the resulting blowback doesn't convince Sculley of anything and Sculley is too dumb to know he needs to leave. So two years later the board is forced to can him.
baldfat 8y ago
His firing led to Be OS! That was the the prime example of the better tech losing. I know most of us know about it but to actually use it was totally different. I couldn't get a low resolution video to play but on Be OS I could have 12 high resolution videos play at the same time move them around and if I unplug my computer I can boot up and the videos would all start back up right where they left off.
- DannyB2 8y ago
  I was hoping Be OS would be the OS that Apple would pick when it failed at writing it's own new OS. But noooooo, they had to pick NeXT, and bring back Steve Jobs, and the rest is history. Apple is still about tech, to a degree. But not like the days when Apple was a great tech company. Now Apple seems to be more about fashion.
  - dangoor 8y ago
    > Apple is still about tech, to a degree. But not like the days when Apple was a great tech company. Now Apple seems to be more about fashion. I don't think that's true. Apple is a lot more mass market than they used to be, but the tech that goes into their products is quite advanced. For example, the iPad Pro benchmarks that put Apple's CPU in the same class as the Intel CPU used in MacBook Pros is pure tech. There's nothing fashionable about a CPU. Apple's Face ID recently passed a hacking test that other facial recognition systems failed. The latest Apple Watch has an ECG. Perhaps health is fashionable, but that's also tech built into a tiny product. Apple's camera tech consistently scores near the top of the pack. I'm not arguing their products are perfect or anything of that sort. I just don't think it's fair to characterize Apple as being more about fashion than tech, because I think they're quite busy pushing tech forward on mass market products.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    Having both a BeOS box and NeXTSTEP box at the time, I was pretty glad they picked NeXT. I love BeOS, but NeXTSTEP was the superior OS on the whole including development story. BeOS had some really great line items, but it had some big holes too. Be just didn't have the time to get it all done. That being said, I do wish Haiku well because I get the feeling that it really could be great.
notJim 8y ago
It's very obvious from the comments that no one is reading the article, and is just responding to the previous, crappier headline.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  I read the article. The only thing I could think through most of it was "that sounds like a terrible place to work."
debt 8y ago
I find these interactions fascinating because from your own perspective it may seem like everything is kosher. Little do you know you’re a dead man.
- a-dub 8y ago
  creepy.
  - a-dub 8y ago
    really creepy.
mortenjorck 8y ago
It seems at least half of the comments here are responding to the original submission title (taken from the article subhead rather than the headline) with no context at all of this being Jean-Louis Gassée, John Sculley, and 28 years ago. I see the mods changed the title to the article’s headline instead, which will likely cut down on the title-only responses, but it’s still surprising to see just how many people clearly commented before clicking.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I clicked it and frankly the larger topic is more intersting than the specific incident of Apple in its low point. Everyone already knows past Apple made a bunch of dumb decisions. I think that may be another reason why that is a focus of discussion. Everyone has their own stories and has seen the larger problem.
nisuni 8y ago
Never believe HR, they neither represent your interests nor are impartial, even if they’d like to appear impartial. HR represents your employer interests. Period.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  That doesn't seem to be the case here though.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  I see this repeated often enough where it is presented like some nefarious plot. While I think it is nominally true, I think a better way to think about it is to think of what HR's incentives and motivations are, and to realize there are many areas where your interests do align with your employer's. For example, a primary responsibility of HR is "keep the company from getting sued" when it comes to personnel matters. A really shitty HR department will interpret this as "sweep shit under the rug", but a good, competent HR department will handle things above board, according to established procedure. A good HR dept. does this not because they want to be nice, but they realize that the best long-term way to keep the company from being sued is to make sure complaints are handled above board. In general, when evaluating how people will really act I think it's best to leave morality out of it, and instead realize where their incentives are coming from and try to align your goals with those incentives.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  While I agree that's an important possibility that you should mull over, in this case, firing was absolutely the right thing for Apple, for Sculley, and in all likelihood, for Gassée as well. He said it himself in the article: When the general and his lieutenant disagree too much, the lieutenant must go. Sculley has made the right decision. There can be only one CEO; if I'm not on board with the mission and direction that CEO wants to take the company, I don't belong there. As level-headed adults, it's time to negotiate the terms of my leaving...
projektfu 8y ago
The article's title is facetious because the author was a high level manager at Apple, the boss was the CEO, and HR was the VP of HR acting in a capacity as a trusted advisor, and it's not really about HR. I thought it was a good read. Relatedly, I remember that the Macintosh-oriented press hinted that there was trouble brewing at Apple for a long time but they didn't want to come out and say, "Apple's management is slowly killing the company." This story suggests that Sculley would have cut off those reporters if they had. Edit: at the time of writing, the submission title was "My boss asks me what I really think of him. HR advises me to tell the truth. I’m fired."
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  I had friends that worked at Apple during that time. Everyone in the Valley knew Sculley was killing apple by installing a parasitic Midwest style management class.
adrianmonk 8y ago
Toward the end, he gives the backstory of how the breakup was brewing for a long time, and it seems very possible the CEO may have already made up his mind to fire him before the Palo Alto dinner. So maybe frankness wasn't the cause. It's even possible they were interested in his perspective and wanted to get his honest opinion before they lost the opportunity. Or maybe they had nearly made a final decision but not quite and wanted this conversation to see if what they learned made a difference either way. On a separate(?) topic, a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of saying they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits, but when you actually say something that goes against popular opinion or conventional thinking within the organization, people aren't open to it or are even hostile or dismissive. In my opinion, it's not as easy for humans to be objective and open-minded as we think.
- threatofrain 8y ago
  Being open-minded with someone in a non-business context is doable with the development of intimacy, and more about personal factors. Being contradicted in front of others in a workplace setting, especially more than once, leads to a narrative -- and I think this situation is more governed by political factors.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  "a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of saying they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits..." This is often true, but it is also sometimes perceived as true even if it isn't. I'm very picky about where I'm willing to work, and sometimes that means there can be gaps between permanent positions for me to fill. I fill those gaps by taking contract gigs. On one such gig, I was working on code that was dismally bad and, given a number of arbitrary constraints from management, couldn't be improved. I decided that I would try honesty, and tell management my honest assessments of the issues. I figured that this was not a contract that I enjoyed and although I wasn't going to violate the terms by quitting without sufficient cause, it would be a perfectly acceptable outcome if they fired me because I was too outspoken. So I did. And for the next few weeks, I had a steady stream of permanent engineers stopping me to say variations of "Thank you for speaking out. I've been wanting to say that stuff for years, but didn't want to lose my job". Weirdly enough, rather than fire me, the company wanted to extend my contract when the original term was up. I declined.
0db532a0 8y ago
Did the CEO maybe have a hand in making HR set the guy up to test his loyalty? He seemed very loyal, but maybe to the wrong ideas/people.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
wrs 8y ago
I joined the Newton team in 1988 as an intern (and stayed for 8 years). It's interesting to hear with 30 more years of perspective JLG's story of the Steve Sakoman situation that resulted in that team's existence. At the time I had no inkling of the drama that must have occurred that resulted in the creation of a totally isolated team in that totally isolated building on Bubb Road. I did realize how lucky I was to be working there, though. :)
- mpweiher 8y ago
  :-) Does explain that it eventually "failed", considering it didn't really have backing.
  - wrs 8y ago
    Oh, but it did — from John Sculley. Such a saga it was. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-dream-engineer-s-nightmare.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-dream...
- JohnFen 8y ago
  I still miss the Newton to this day. It had warts, to be sure (particularly because it truly was ahead of its time), but it was an absolute joy to develop for. So, thank you for your work on that project! I still have a box full of Newtons. Maybe I should pull that out and play around a bit, just for old time's sake.
wuliwong 8y ago
Something I've noticed recently is people that say things like the author did here >Just for crossing the street, I’m rewarded with an even fancier President (of Apple Products) title I'm not saying this is happening more often, I just have been noticing it recently. Maybe I am misinterpreting the tone or misunderstanding the situation. But, this seems in contrast to actual humility where someone is grateful for a raise or promotion but possibly feels undeserving or lucky. The author comes across to me as pretty detached from the struggles that the lion's share of the world experiences. I get that this article is about some high level corporate politics but it still seems tone deaf to me.
- zebrafish 8y ago
  Typically in organizations this large, trouble makers are "promoted out" so as to minimize the damage they can do to the organization while minimizing the risk of any legal blow back from an outright firing. I think the author here understands what is happening to him and seems to be describing these events with a sense of melancholy or sadness about being removed from a project or product that he cared deeply about.
  - hitekker 8y ago
    I agree. The author is clearly detached and saddened by events; any perceived "tone-deafness" probably has more to due with the individual reader's jealousy or envy of his station than with the overall story he's telling.
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      What is there to be envious about?
  - wuliwong 8y ago
    Maybe I was just totally missing his tone. I'll give it another read and use this voice. :) thanks.
  - darkerside 8y ago
protomyth 8y ago
I guess the golden rule is true, when anyone from HR says "be honest" its basically a warning not a directive. Apple management is concerned that some engineers might elect to follow me, wherever I may land. I would suppose that they looked back at 1985 and realized that Jean-Louis Gassée was popular with a lot of engineers. I wonder if John Sculley was ever popular in the same way and resented it. I look back at the navigator video with the newspaper and realize that he really didn't get the effects of a technology on how things would work.
darkerside 8y ago
Early in my career, I figured that, the code speaks for itself. If it works, it works! Can't argue with that. That's one of the appealing things about working with machines. They're almost never "wrong", it's always something you can fix, do correctly, and ergo, win. Later I learned, yes, a quick solution can be a good solution; but there can be more than one good solution, and in fact, others can be better. More maintainable, less verbose, so clear and simple there are obviously no errors. Abstractions in the right place and the right level. Modeling a business domain that stakeholders understand. In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people. As you grow in your career, you learn that there are many ways to communicate with the people around you. And different tones and patterns appeal to different people... or even to the same person at different times, based on mood or context. You can learn (if you care) to work well with these complicated organic machines we call humans. And you can always get better and better at it, even when you already think you're doing the brave thing, the heroic thing, the right thing.
- csours 8y ago
  I feel like this is something I've always been aware of, but have not yet taken to heart. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make systems better (technical and non-technical systems), and when I reach some conclusions it feels obvious to me, making communication frustrating. I need to learn how to take people through the same thought process as I went through; when to use other tools of persuasion; when to escalate; how to speak to a whole organization instead of an individual or single team.
- phyller 8y ago
  > In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people. What a great explanation for HN, and for me. Thanks!
- amdelamar 8y ago
  This is a great comment. Thanks for sharing.
crimsonalucard 8y ago
“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.” - Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people. If you disagree with the quotes above. Be frank about it, I can take it.
- thegayngler 8y ago
  I disagree with these quotes. You can be critical and understanding and forgiving at the same time. People just get their feelings hurt way too easily. Criticism usually makes me think twice and reevaluate it if I feel it comes from a good place and is even somewhat reasonable. Most times the criticism isnt accurate enough to be useful or actionable...or the criticism is tone deaf.
  - crimsonalucard 8y ago
    You're fired.
crimsonalucard 8y ago
Maybe deliver criticism packaged in positive comments? "You're the greatest boss I ever had. You taught me a lot... I admire you... I just disagree with you a bit on this...... "
crimsonalucard 8y ago
"Soon, engineers are marching outside with placards that read Jean-Louis Don’t Go." How do you achieve that level of leadership and loyalty?
newnewpdro 8y ago
When HR advises you to do something in particular, feign obliviousness while taking at least a day or two to consult yourself/friends/family/attorneys where applicable - Not coworkers! HR serves the company, not the employee.
m0zg 8y ago
This could also be an impedance mismatch between European and US cultures. When Europeans (especially Eastern Europeans) are asked to be candid, they often are, without much regard for the consequences. As an immigrant I fortunately learned this very early in the US leg of my career, and now I just reply with inoffensive platitudes even if the person does deserve harsher feedback. I'm sometimes candid with my reports. I'm _never_ 100% candid with my bosses, after a couple of near career-ending run-ins (which, when you're an H1-B as I was at the time, results in getting kicked out of the country within 2 weeks).
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Being fired in this situation is a gift. Move on and turn down options until you find one you have good reason to believe would be healthy. Same goes for people all up and down the career or hierarchy ladders. If being charitably honest with thoughtful communication gets you fired, or if your honesty is subverted by the politics of your organization to be used to attribute something negative to you, just quit, take time away from working and get back on the job hunt in a few weeks or months. Sticking around would be too unacceptably bad for your health. I’ve done this twice in my career, both times without significant savings to live on, and even with the financial pressure to get a job, it was way, way healthier to forego income and insurance than continuing to work in those unhealthy situations. I also found that recruiters seemed mostly fine with my reasons for a resume gap, most didn’t even ask or care.
alexashka 8y ago
> In 1985, after learning of Steve Jobs's plan to oust CEO John Sculley over Memorial Day weekend while Sculley was in China, Gassée preemptively informed the board of directors, which eventually led to Jobs's resignation from Apple. [0] Did HR tell him to do that too? This guy is quite the politician - playing the victim, sincerity card really well. I had to google to piece it together. Good on him, what a master storyteller of self serving narratives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e
sonnyblarney 8y ago
I don't think this story is related to 'frankness'. It's hard to be an executive, and hard to manage them, sometimes they have to go. The only part that bothered me about this was the cringeworthy fake emotions about the firing. "I'm sorry but we have to 'separate you from Apple'". That's the bit of California newspeak that drives me nuts. We can be honest and cordial the same time, and in both directions - and - if we hav just a little bit of tolerance for those who are either a little to frank or a little to effusive, then everyone gets along.

183 points by shawndumas 8y ago

Iron rule of the corporate world: if you have a problem with your boss, or with something the boss likes and supports, from his end it's not a problem that can't be solved with a pink slip. If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas.

wccrawford 8y ago
" learn to love your boss and his ideas. " Or at least learn to keep your mouth shut, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary.
- dandellion 8y ago
  Or wait to open your mouth until you have something else lined up.
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    You should always have something else lined up, even in the best of times :)
Tomte 8y ago
Unless you live in a country with humane labor laws. He can still make your work life difficult. But if he goes to far, HR has to consider that maybe he should leave, since they cannot make you leave without cause.
- baldfat 8y ago
  > Unless you live in a country with humane labor laws. AT WILL STATE - I live in Pennsylvania and you can be fired for no reason. Sure you can sue and you might win but probably not. Why we allow these laws in a Democracy/Republic is mind blowing.
  - golemotron 8y ago
    Because you shouldn't be forced to work with people you don't want to work with?
    - baldfat 8y ago
      Put the work into writing good company policy and less emotional policing. So you "Don't want to work with a person" means you should be able to fire them for your emotional good? That sounds horribly selfish and an environment people wouldn't want to work in.
      - golemotron 8y ago
        Maybe divorce should be illegal too, right? Do we call people who don't want to continue in a marriage selfish if they are looking out for their emotional good? Most people spend more time with their coworkers than their spouse.
        Tomte 8y ago
        Surprisingly we have laws about divorce that are a bit more involved than "You. Leave. Now." We even make ex-spouses pay support. Or let them live in the common house for a bit.
        dominotw 8y ago
        employees are not business partners. You can't say "You. Leave. Now." to your business partner.
  - dominotw 8y ago
    > Why we allow these laws in a Democracy/Republic is mind blowing. strong labor market and low unemployment.
    - baldfat 8y ago
bigcostooge2 8y ago
Or learn to backstab and play politics.
eikenberry 8y ago
Or you can just fake it for a few months while you find a better position in your company or a new job.
cbanek 8y ago
I feel like it used to be this way, but in tech these days it seems the rule is speak your mind. If you get fired for ruffling feathers and are at least halfway competent, there are plenty of companies willing to scoop you up and pay you more money to do something more aligned to what you want. Although you should have probably just that done in the first place, without the feather ruffling.
- bitwize 8y ago
  I hear this on Hackernews a lot, one of the myths of our age: "Any halfway decent programmer should be able to just waltz right into their dream job." Must be nice. So what dies that make me, despite all my study and effort?
Nasrudith 8y ago
The thing is flattering egos of PHBs gives short term job security - success ensures the company will survive and no matter how much the PHB likes you he can't save you from the company facing bankruptcy. Results are what matter and also build your value. Being known as the guy, gal or nonbinary who did X is way better than "just went along with using a massive spreadsheet as a database because the boss doesn't trust software he hasn't paid for and won't spend money on sonething he doesn't know how to use."
LyndsySimon 8y ago
> If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas. I would modify this: "learn to support your boss, and make them look good in front of their peers." I've had situations where my boss and I didn't get along. In one case that led to a dismissal with a very comfortable severance, which I believe was because while I wasn't a good fit, my boss respected me and bore no ill will toward me. In another case my boss was openly hostile to me even in front of my peers both inside and outside the organization almost from the first day; I survived about three years there because I was effective and did my best to keep our disagreements behind closed doors. Everyone knew that my boss and I didn't get along, but I did the job well and took every opportunity to make them good and make the best of their strategies and decisions. Over time I developed a reputation for having strong opinions, a strong personality, but being very easy to work with. I learned a lot during that time, built lifelong professional relationships, and believe that I changed a few lives through mentorship of those with less experience. I will always be frank with my immediate boss; the cost of not doing so is too high for me. I'm also clear that I see my job as contributing to the company's success, and that I see their voice on my behalf as my most effective means of impacting the organization's direction. I recognize when I don't have the final say on something, and while I'll not pretend that I support something I don't, it's their job to determine strategy, not mine, and that I'll execute their strategy to the best of my ability and without grumbling about it - and without undermining them. Of course there are some people who simply cannot accept that the people who report to them have opinions contrary to their own or believe that they are making a mistake. I don't want to work for those people. There are too many good jobs doing things that will change the world for me to spend my time being unhappy and working on something I don't think matters.
JohnFen 8y ago
"If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his ideas." Or, even better, find a position in a company where you don't have to "learn" those things.

Breadmaker 8y ago

by Jean-Louis Gassée

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Yeah, that's some important information missing from the headline. The comments so far suggest no one read the article and/or have no idea who the author is.

anjc 8y ago

With all that experience it's a wonder he fell for the oldest "does my bum look big in this" trick in the book.

a-dub 8y ago

... and to think... if it hadn't been for this fateful night, half the world's smartphones wouldn't have that weird RPC mechanism...

jeklj 8y ago

Keep it anodyne, pretty much always. You can tell your spouse what you really think. Or better yet, your dog.

Someone1234 8y ago
While I'd never condone being rude, combative, or unnecessarily offensive, I think there's a time and a place to make waves. And while the person doing so often personally suffers the consequences, it is a healthy signal to an organization that those opinions could be shared by others. If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum.
- jeklj 8y ago
  > If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum. Indeed, that's a great reason not to fire people when they're honest. And yet, here we are. At least in SV tech companies, in my experience, people really get their feelings hurt over small amounts of honesty. More importantly, the conversations you'll have to have afterward and the way people will sit on it for months until it comes up in your review make it just not worth it.

patrickg_zill 8y ago

HR is there to protect the company. Not you.

Spivak 8y ago
Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this? This seems like one of those statements that everyone knows but thinks for some reason everyone else doesn't.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  > This seems like one of those statements that everyone knows but thinks for some reason everyone else doesn't. It's just virtue signaling (and I don't mean that in a pejorative way). It doesn't matter that everyone knows HR isn't there to protect you. What you're really saying is "I share your beliefs".
- gaius 8y ago
  Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this? I think probably most people believe that if they have a dispute with another employee that HR will resolve it in a “fair” way. But of course HR is only really thinking of which outcome is less likely to involve lawyers or a tribunal. Head on over to workplace.SE to see loads of this... if you can’t bring a credible threat of a lawsuit HR will always side with your boss, no matter what he or she has done.
LukaD 8y ago
Why is this getting downvoted? Can you please explain why you disagree with this statement?
- neonate 8y ago
  It's a cliché.
  - linksnapzz 8y ago
    ...a cliche that needs repeating as often as possible in as many venues as possible; until it reaches the level of ingrained knowledge that people have regarding staring into the sun, or handling downed power lines.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

acali 8y ago

Always keep in mind that HR is there to manage the company's "human resources"; they are not looking out for your best interest. They are acting on behalf of the company.

Aloha 8y ago
The corollary to this is - don't forget to take advantage of HR when its and your interests obviously align.

AlexCoventry 8y ago

> Sullivan puts his arm around my shoulder: “Jean-Louis, I’m proud of you…” After half a decade in Cupertino, I know what this means: What I have done is irreparable. I don't follow his reasoning, here. What is it about Cupertino which immediately leads him to this conclusion?

debt 8y ago
His “soft touch” was actually the touch of death. Sometimes in those moments there’s a feeling that something is seriously off. I think that was such a moment.
ereyes01 8y ago
Apple is in Cupertino, the author was an Apple executive, and was likely privy to enough firings to recognize what the prelude to his own sounded like.
Diederich 8y ago
In the minds of many, the city of Cupertino, California IS Apple. He's saying "After half a decade at Apple"
- microtherion 8y ago
  He had been at Apple longer than that. He had been at Apple HEADQUARTERS for "half a decade".
leejoramo 8y ago
For context: this is written by a Frenchmen from Paris who had moved to SV. Gasseé previously has written about his French/US cultural mis-understandings. Especially regarding being too blunt and assertive
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  Oh, OK. I was working with a French guy recently. I really liked that we could bluntly tell each other when we're full of shit. Didn't realize it's characteristic of French organizational behavior.

baq 8y ago

You want someone in the company backing you? Start an union.

srmatto 8y ago

Never do anything more than say hi/bye to HR.

megaman8 8y ago

I suspect when someone asks you to tell what they really think of them, the word really should come with an asterik.

Someone1234 8y ago
If someone really wanted to know the answer they'd ask for responses anonymously. Since then people are free to answer without reprisal.
- toast0 8y ago
  Even then, if they don't like the responses, they may seek the deanonymize.
JohnFen 8y ago
In my experience, when someone asks you what you really think of them, they already know.

rootusrootus 8y ago

Ha! Many years ago when I was in the military, in tech school in fact, one of the teachers (a sergeant, for what it's worth) flat out asked me to my face what I thought of him. Apparently I was telegraphing my feelings pretty well despite attempting to keep a completely neutral face. I asked, "off the record?" and he said "yep" and then I told him. Whoops. There is no such thing as off the record. Lesson learned. Though in the end it worked out okay and I just got some mildly amused reprimands from my superiors about telling someone [whom everyone agreed was a jerk] that he was a jerk. I'm much better at keeping my flap shut now.

quickthrower2 8y ago
Dishonesty greases the world. I don’t we could handle complete honesty from everyone. Not unless we structurally change society from the ground up.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I think that is what makes transparency so scary to many people - aside from cynical reasons. Society has long been accustomed to their hypocrisies and transparency forces people to change it and accept them. I think it might be evolutinary for the same reason people are reluctant to openly question authority or hold it to the same standards and why public speaking is feared more than death - angering the big man could get your entire family killed. It reminds me of one thing that Google faced backlash in Japan over with streetview - people worried about being caught shitfaced drunk and ashamed of it. Everyone knew that it was a norm that "everyone" does yet they were ashamed of it.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  Honesty is part of the reason there is a desirable world to grease to begin with. And "complete honesty" is a red herring, an unreachable ideal anyway. What we can do is stay as honest as we are, strive to be more honest, and more inviting and supporting of honesty, or becoming more dishonest. And you can of course still adapt it to another person; if someone is punishing people for being honest there is no reason to fall onto your sword, let them surround themselves with the kind of people they deserve, and keep your capacity and willingness for honesty for the people who deserve that. "Being honest" isn't this kind of absolute thing, but that doesn't mean it's not anything. And hey, honesty can be quite disarming, especially when it comes with genuine goodwill, while dishonesty can trip people up. At the least, it costs a lot of resources to have various versions of the truth and juggle them constantly, the more that can be simplified the better. It really does help thinking. You can't think freely if you're not free, and that's a hell of a thing to give up.

ergothus 8y ago

> I recall the moment’s emotion: I felt I was performing a good deed, being helpfully clear and honest, I know this emotion well - it has led me to any number of problems. Some cases where in retrospect I was being a self-indulgent jerk ("What did you think of my performance/presentation/etc?") and some cases where I still feel I was not being harsh but was pointing out valid and relevant concerns, but from both I've learned to distrust this emotion. Perhaps saying what I think is good, perhaps not, but it should never feel _good_ to criticize.

dwild 8y ago
> it should never feel _good_ to criticize. Why not? I feel good when I help someone. I feel good when I have made a great project. I feel good when I made a good decision. I feel good when I did something good. Your sentence is true only if we consider a critic as a bad thing, which I certainly don't.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  Criticism can be good or bad. Which one it is depends in large part on how its presented.
- l0b0 8y ago
  This. Think code review: - Voluntary and encouraged. - If done at all competently, all involved learn something. The reviewers get familiar with some part of the system, and everybody learns from comments and their responses.
- syrrim 8y ago
  Model someone as in your ingroup. You associate actions happening to them as happening to yourself. Criticising them feels like criticizing yourself, ie admitting you've made some mistake. This could be: knowing you've made a mistake, but only just now discovering what it was (eg debugging) - but this isn't the critic, this is the correction. So the criticism must be informing someone they've made a mistake before telling them how to correct it. While correcting mistakes might feel good, finding out about them isn't. Now model the person as in your outgroup. Same analysis but now you feel good when they feel bad. Pointing out flaws will feel good, independent of viability of correction. A real person will be somewhere in between ingroup and outgroup, how good you feel for criticising them should tell you where.

devy 8y ago

This reminds me of Leadership BS by Jeffrey Pfeffer. [1] And he gave a talk at Google about his book [2] [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-Careers/dp/0062383167 https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-Caree... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI

choeger 8y ago

From reading the article it is pretty clear that the decision to let him go was already made months before. So what's the point? An exec that cannot deal with (polite) disagreement is probably on the way downwards already himself. Of course you might hit a sensible spot with honesty by chance but even then it is hard to justify an otherwise successful employee.

Gibbon1 8y ago
I've wondered if Sullivan set up the bomb on Sculley, basically daring him to fire Jean-Louis. Sculley is a lose cannon that fires anyone that gives him needed feedback. Jean-Louis is important enough that firing him will bring that into sharp relief. Sculley fires Jean-Louis, the resulting blowback doesn't convince Sculley of anything and Sculley is too dumb to know he needs to leave. So two years later the board is forced to can him.

baldfat 8y ago

His firing led to Be OS! That was the the prime example of the better tech losing. I know most of us know about it but to actually use it was totally different. I couldn't get a low resolution video to play but on Be OS I could have 12 high resolution videos play at the same time move them around and if I unplug my computer I can boot up and the videos would all start back up right where they left off.

DannyB2 8y ago
I was hoping Be OS would be the OS that Apple would pick when it failed at writing it's own new OS. But noooooo, they had to pick NeXT, and bring back Steve Jobs, and the rest is history. Apple is still about tech, to a degree. But not like the days when Apple was a great tech company. Now Apple seems to be more about fashion.
- dangoor 8y ago
  > Apple is still about tech, to a degree. But not like the days when Apple was a great tech company. Now Apple seems to be more about fashion. I don't think that's true. Apple is a lot more mass market than they used to be, but the tech that goes into their products is quite advanced. For example, the iPad Pro benchmarks that put Apple's CPU in the same class as the Intel CPU used in MacBook Pros is pure tech. There's nothing fashionable about a CPU. Apple's Face ID recently passed a hacking test that other facial recognition systems failed. The latest Apple Watch has an ECG. Perhaps health is fashionable, but that's also tech built into a tiny product. Apple's camera tech consistently scores near the top of the pack. I'm not arguing their products are perfect or anything of that sort. I just don't think it's fair to characterize Apple as being more about fashion than tech, because I think they're quite busy pushing tech forward on mass market products.
- protomyth 8y ago
  Having both a BeOS box and NeXTSTEP box at the time, I was pretty glad they picked NeXT. I love BeOS, but NeXTSTEP was the superior OS on the whole including development story. BeOS had some really great line items, but it had some big holes too. Be just didn't have the time to get it all done. That being said, I do wish Haiku well because I get the feeling that it really could be great.

notJim 8y ago

It's very obvious from the comments that no one is reading the article, and is just responding to the previous, crappier headline.

JohnFen 8y ago
I read the article. The only thing I could think through most of it was "that sounds like a terrible place to work."

debt 8y ago

I find these interactions fascinating because from your own perspective it may seem like everything is kosher. Little do you know you’re a dead man.

a-dub 8y ago
creepy.
- a-dub 8y ago
  really creepy.

mortenjorck 8y ago

It seems at least half of the comments here are responding to the original submission title (taken from the article subhead rather than the headline) with no context at all of this being Jean-Louis Gassée, John Sculley, and 28 years ago. I see the mods changed the title to the article’s headline instead, which will likely cut down on the title-only responses, but it’s still surprising to see just how many people clearly commented before clicking.

Nasrudith 8y ago
I clicked it and frankly the larger topic is more intersting than the specific incident of Apple in its low point. Everyone already knows past Apple made a bunch of dumb decisions. I think that may be another reason why that is a focus of discussion. Everyone has their own stories and has seen the larger problem.

nisuni 8y ago

Never believe HR, they neither represent your interests nor are impartial, even if they’d like to appear impartial. HR represents your employer interests. Period.

EpicEng 8y ago
That doesn't seem to be the case here though.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I see this repeated often enough where it is presented like some nefarious plot. While I think it is nominally true, I think a better way to think about it is to think of what HR's incentives and motivations are, and to realize there are many areas where your interests do align with your employer's. For example, a primary responsibility of HR is "keep the company from getting sued" when it comes to personnel matters. A really shitty HR department will interpret this as "sweep shit under the rug", but a good, competent HR department will handle things above board, according to established procedure. A good HR dept. does this not because they want to be nice, but they realize that the best long-term way to keep the company from being sued is to make sure complaints are handled above board. In general, when evaluating how people will really act I think it's best to leave morality out of it, and instead realize where their incentives are coming from and try to align your goals with those incentives.
sokoloff 8y ago
While I agree that's an important possibility that you should mull over, in this case, firing was absolutely the right thing for Apple, for Sculley, and in all likelihood, for Gassée as well. He said it himself in the article: When the general and his lieutenant disagree too much, the lieutenant must go. Sculley has made the right decision. There can be only one CEO; if I'm not on board with the mission and direction that CEO wants to take the company, I don't belong there. As level-headed adults, it's time to negotiate the terms of my leaving...

projektfu 8y ago

The article's title is facetious because the author was a high level manager at Apple, the boss was the CEO, and HR was the VP of HR acting in a capacity as a trusted advisor, and it's not really about HR. I thought it was a good read. Relatedly, I remember that the Macintosh-oriented press hinted that there was trouble brewing at Apple for a long time but they didn't want to come out and say, "Apple's management is slowly killing the company." This story suggests that Sculley would have cut off those reporters if they had. Edit: at the time of writing, the submission title was "My boss asks me what I really think of him. HR advises me to tell the truth. I’m fired."

Gibbon1 8y ago
I had friends that worked at Apple during that time. Everyone in the Valley knew Sculley was killing apple by installing a parasitic Midwest style management class.

adrianmonk 8y ago

Toward the end, he gives the backstory of how the breakup was brewing for a long time, and it seems very possible the CEO may have already made up his mind to fire him before the Palo Alto dinner. So maybe frankness wasn't the cause. It's even possible they were interested in his perspective and wanted to get his honest opinion before they lost the opportunity. Or maybe they had nearly made a final decision but not quite and wanted this conversation to see if what they learned made a difference either way. On a separate(?) topic, a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of saying they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits, but when you actually say something that goes against popular opinion or conventional thinking within the organization, people aren't open to it or are even hostile or dismissive. In my opinion, it's not as easy for humans to be objective and open-minded as we think.

threatofrain 8y ago
Being open-minded with someone in a non-business context is doable with the development of intimacy, and more about personal factors. Being contradicted in front of others in a workplace setting, especially more than once, leads to a narrative -- and I think this situation is more governed by political factors.
JohnFen 8y ago
"a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of saying they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits..." This is often true, but it is also sometimes perceived as true even if it isn't. I'm very picky about where I'm willing to work, and sometimes that means there can be gaps between permanent positions for me to fill. I fill those gaps by taking contract gigs. On one such gig, I was working on code that was dismally bad and, given a number of arbitrary constraints from management, couldn't be improved. I decided that I would try honesty, and tell management my honest assessments of the issues. I figured that this was not a contract that I enjoyed and although I wasn't going to violate the terms by quitting without sufficient cause, it would be a perfectly acceptable outcome if they fired me because I was too outspoken. So I did. And for the next few weeks, I had a steady stream of permanent engineers stopping me to say variations of "Thank you for speaking out. I've been wanting to say that stuff for years, but didn't want to lose my job". Weirdly enough, rather than fire me, the company wanted to extend my contract when the original term was up. I declined.

0db532a0 8y ago

Did the CEO maybe have a hand in making HR set the guy up to test his loyalty? He seemed very loyal, but maybe to the wrong ideas/people.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

wrs 8y ago

I joined the Newton team in 1988 as an intern (and stayed for 8 years). It's interesting to hear with 30 more years of perspective JLG's story of the Steve Sakoman situation that resulted in that team's existence. At the time I had no inkling of the drama that must have occurred that resulted in the creation of a totally isolated team in that totally isolated building on Bubb Road. I did realize how lucky I was to be working there, though. :)

mpweiher 8y ago
:-) Does explain that it eventually "failed", considering it didn't really have backing.
- wrs 8y ago
  Oh, but it did — from John Sculley. Such a saga it was. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-dream-engineer-s-nightmare.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-dream...
JohnFen 8y ago
I still miss the Newton to this day. It had warts, to be sure (particularly because it truly was ahead of its time), but it was an absolute joy to develop for. So, thank you for your work on that project! I still have a box full of Newtons. Maybe I should pull that out and play around a bit, just for old time's sake.

wuliwong 8y ago

Something I've noticed recently is people that say things like the author did here >Just for crossing the street, I’m rewarded with an even fancier President (of Apple Products) title I'm not saying this is happening more often, I just have been noticing it recently. Maybe I am misinterpreting the tone or misunderstanding the situation. But, this seems in contrast to actual humility where someone is grateful for a raise or promotion but possibly feels undeserving or lucky. The author comes across to me as pretty detached from the struggles that the lion's share of the world experiences. I get that this article is about some high level corporate politics but it still seems tone deaf to me.

zebrafish 8y ago
Typically in organizations this large, trouble makers are "promoted out" so as to minimize the damage they can do to the organization while minimizing the risk of any legal blow back from an outright firing. I think the author here understands what is happening to him and seems to be describing these events with a sense of melancholy or sadness about being removed from a project or product that he cared deeply about.
- hitekker 8y ago
  I agree. The author is clearly detached and saddened by events; any perceived "tone-deafness" probably has more to due with the individual reader's jealousy or envy of his station than with the overall story he's telling.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    What is there to be envious about?
- wuliwong 8y ago
  Maybe I was just totally missing his tone. I'll give it another read and use this voice. :) thanks.
- darkerside 8y ago

protomyth 8y ago

I guess the golden rule is true, when anyone from HR says "be honest" its basically a warning not a directive. Apple management is concerned that some engineers might elect to follow me, wherever I may land. I would suppose that they looked back at 1985 and realized that Jean-Louis Gassée was popular with a lot of engineers. I wonder if John Sculley was ever popular in the same way and resented it. I look back at the navigator video with the newspaper and realize that he really didn't get the effects of a technology on how things would work.

darkerside 8y ago

Early in my career, I figured that, the code speaks for itself. If it works, it works! Can't argue with that. That's one of the appealing things about working with machines. They're almost never "wrong", it's always something you can fix, do correctly, and ergo, win. Later I learned, yes, a quick solution can be a good solution; but there can be more than one good solution, and in fact, others can be better. More maintainable, less verbose, so clear and simple there are obviously no errors. Abstractions in the right place and the right level. Modeling a business domain that stakeholders understand. In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people. As you grow in your career, you learn that there are many ways to communicate with the people around you. And different tones and patterns appeal to different people... or even to the same person at different times, based on mood or context. You can learn (if you care) to work well with these complicated organic machines we call humans. And you can always get better and better at it, even when you already think you're doing the brave thing, the heroic thing, the right thing.

csours 8y ago
I feel like this is something I've always been aware of, but have not yet taken to heart. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make systems better (technical and non-technical systems), and when I reach some conclusions it feels obvious to me, making communication frustrating. I need to learn how to take people through the same thought process as I went through; when to use other tools of persuasion; when to escalate; how to speak to a whole organization instead of an individual or single team.
phyller 8y ago
> In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people. What a great explanation for HN, and for me. Thanks!
amdelamar 8y ago
This is a great comment. Thanks for sharing.

crimsonalucard 8y ago

“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.” - Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people. If you disagree with the quotes above. Be frank about it, I can take it.

thegayngler 8y ago
I disagree with these quotes. You can be critical and understanding and forgiving at the same time. People just get their feelings hurt way too easily. Criticism usually makes me think twice and reevaluate it if I feel it comes from a good place and is even somewhat reasonable. Most times the criticism isnt accurate enough to be useful or actionable...or the criticism is tone deaf.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  You're fired.

crimsonalucard 8y ago

Maybe deliver criticism packaged in positive comments? "You're the greatest boss I ever had. You taught me a lot... I admire you... I just disagree with you a bit on this...... "

crimsonalucard 8y ago

"Soon, engineers are marching outside with placards that read Jean-Louis Don’t Go." How do you achieve that level of leadership and loyalty?

newnewpdro 8y ago

When HR advises you to do something in particular, feign obliviousness while taking at least a day or two to consult yourself/friends/family/attorneys where applicable - Not coworkers! HR serves the company, not the employee.

m0zg 8y ago

This could also be an impedance mismatch between European and US cultures. When Europeans (especially Eastern Europeans) are asked to be candid, they often are, without much regard for the consequences. As an immigrant I fortunately learned this very early in the US leg of my career, and now I just reply with inoffensive platitudes even if the person does deserve harsher feedback. I'm sometimes candid with my reports. I'm _never_ 100% candid with my bosses, after a couple of near career-ending run-ins (which, when you're an H1-B as I was at the time, results in getting kicked out of the country within 2 weeks).

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

Being fired in this situation is a gift. Move on and turn down options until you find one you have good reason to believe would be healthy. Same goes for people all up and down the career or hierarchy ladders. If being charitably honest with thoughtful communication gets you fired, or if your honesty is subverted by the politics of your organization to be used to attribute something negative to you, just quit, take time away from working and get back on the job hunt in a few weeks or months. Sticking around would be too unacceptably bad for your health. I’ve done this twice in my career, both times without significant savings to live on, and even with the financial pressure to get a job, it was way, way healthier to forego income and insurance than continuing to work in those unhealthy situations. I also found that recruiters seemed mostly fine with my reasons for a resume gap, most didn’t even ask or care.

alexashka 8y ago

> In 1985, after learning of Steve Jobs's plan to oust CEO John Sculley over Memorial Day weekend while Sculley was in China, Gassée preemptively informed the board of directors, which eventually led to Jobs's resignation from Apple. [0] Did HR tell him to do that too? This guy is quite the politician - playing the victim, sincerity card really well. I had to google to piece it together. Good on him, what a master storyteller of self serving narratives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e

sonnyblarney 8y ago

I don't think this story is related to 'frankness'. It's hard to be an executive, and hard to manage them, sometimes they have to go. The only part that bothered me about this was the cringeworthy fake emotions about the firing. "I'm sorry but we have to 'separate you from Apple'". That's the bit of California newspeak that drives me nuts. We can be honest and cordial the same time, and in both directions - and - if we hav just a little bit of tolerance for those who are either a little to frank or a little to effusive, then everyone gets along.