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>Outreach's founders cared less than average about enforcing policies or making a positive overall impact Didn't realize you were privy to the founders' nefari

>Outreach's founders cared less than average about enforcing policies or making a positive overall impact Didn't realize you were privy to the founders' nefarious intentions, do you have evidence to back this claim up? That's a huge story if you're telling the truth.

troydavis 7y ago
There’s nothing nefarious about it. These are 2 of many relative priorities. For example, at one extreme, some people care only about impact and don’t care at all about money; that usually leads to a not-for-profit. At the other extreme is barely-legal greyhat malware/adware, where a lot of collateral damage is accepted as long as it’s profitable. I wouldn’t personally be comfortable with the tradeoffs that Outreach made, but it’s legal and making them doesn’t make them evil. One might describe it as greedy. (I don’t think greed is newsworthy and I’m far from the only person to see it here. Regarding evidence of Outreach’s spot on the continuum, https://twitter.com/annepmitchell/status/671386007850192896 https://twitter.com/annepmitchell/status/671386007850192896, https://twitter.com/dswiese/status/713039678287405056 https://twitter.com/dswiese/status/713039678287405056, and https://twitter.com/troyd/status/753721604081799168 https://twitter.com/troyd/status/753721604081799168 are 3 of many examples.)
- lmeyerov 7y ago
  Making legal trade-offs can be evil, and setting & enforcing social norms is a basic responsibility of every adult.
mdorazio 7y ago
Per another commenter's link in here, [1] shows pretty clearly what kind of person the founder is. I don't think there's much ground to stand on if you want to actually argue that the initial product wasn't designed explicitly to enable spamming sales prospects. [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/26/20930374/nathan-latka-podcast-saas-data-top-entrepreneurs https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/26/20930374/nathan-latka-...
- troydavis 7y ago
  That article is about the founder of the Web site where this article was published, rather than the founders of the company, Outreach.io, that the article is about.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    Ah you're right. Should have read more closely. Here's an interview with the actual founder [1]. Relevant quote on the start of what became the current company: "Then at the end of 2013, we decided to give it one more go and we decided to build a workflow internally that would make our sales reps book 10x more meetings." We can debate if that's a good or a bad idea ethically, but to a lot of people including myself, increasing sales meetings 10x = spamming the hell out of people, regardless of what "workflow" you're using. It's rather like increasing your ad clicks 10x with dark patterns and claiming you're totally helping people. [1] https://tanyaprive.com/manny-medina-outreach-io/ https://tanyaprive.com/manny-medina-outreach-io/

troydavis 7y ago

There’s nothing nefarious about it. These are 2 of many relative priorities. For example, at one extreme, some people care only about impact and don’t care at all about money; that usually leads to a not-for-profit. At the other extreme is barely-legal greyhat malware/adware, where a lot of collateral damage is accepted as long as it’s profitable. I wouldn’t personally be comfortable with the tradeoffs that Outreach made, but it’s legal and making them doesn’t make them evil. One might describe it as greedy. (I don’t think greed is newsworthy and I’m far from the only person to see it here. Regarding evidence of Outreach’s spot on the continuum, https://twitter.com/annepmitchell/status/671386007850192896 https://twitter.com/annepmitchell/status/671386007850192896, https://twitter.com/dswiese/status/713039678287405056 https://twitter.com/dswiese/status/713039678287405056, and https://twitter.com/troyd/status/753721604081799168 https://twitter.com/troyd/status/753721604081799168 are 3 of many examples.)

lmeyerov 7y ago
Making legal trade-offs can be evil, and setting & enforcing social norms is a basic responsibility of every adult.

mdorazio 7y ago

Per another commenter's link in here, [1] shows pretty clearly what kind of person the founder is. I don't think there's much ground to stand on if you want to actually argue that the initial product wasn't designed explicitly to enable spamming sales prospects. [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/26/20930374/nathan-latka-podcast-saas-data-top-entrepreneurs https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/26/20930374/nathan-latka-...

troydavis 7y ago
That article is about the founder of the Web site where this article was published, rather than the founders of the company, Outreach.io, that the article is about.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  Ah you're right. Should have read more closely. Here's an interview with the actual founder [1]. Relevant quote on the start of what became the current company: "Then at the end of 2013, we decided to give it one more go and we decided to build a workflow internally that would make our sales reps book 10x more meetings." We can debate if that's a good or a bad idea ethically, but to a lot of people including myself, increasing sales meetings 10x = spamming the hell out of people, regardless of what "workflow" you're using. It's rather like increasing your ad clicks 10x with dark patterns and claiming you're totally helping people. [1] https://tanyaprive.com/manny-medina-outreach-io/ https://tanyaprive.com/manny-medina-outreach-io/