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Happened to me at my last job. Everyone was manager of something . We had chief tech happiness officer. His job was to make python script to make devs happy. I

by asien 6y ago

Happened to me at my last job. Everyone was manager of something . We had chief tech happiness officer. His job was to make python script to make devs happy. I’ve never heard of that before. The company went bankrupt after wasting 200M in venture money and generating 10K in revenue. Was fascinating to be part of that experience. Nothing was being done , just a bunch of people making brainstorms all day long while 10 devs were doing everything and being told to change idea every other day. Was a relief when I quit after few months, when I look back at it no doubt it was a who’s the "coolest of the club" culture. No actual talent was there.

tawtawtaw 6y ago
Worked somewhere similar and saw similar outcomes. I think having too much money removes the feedback loop that lets a team know if they are on the right course, so like you say, it comes down to a popularity based culturr
908B64B197 6y ago
> His job was to make python script to make devs happy. I've never heard of that before. That's kind of nice. Once a project grows a certain size if you have the budget for it it's cool to have a dedicated small team that takes care of the dev environment (maintaining the build and test pipeline, adding static analysis and making sure there's some working default config for at least one IDE). Also take care of the commit hooks and helps out when migrating language and tool versions.
gnicholas 6y ago
How do you raise $200M with only $10k in revenue? That is, if your A round was $10M, your B round was $60M, and your C round was $130M (I'm just making up numbers here), how was it that none of the investors ever needed to see any material revenues?
- mortenjorck 6y ago
  Founders with just enough cachet in the VC community.
- pc86 6y ago
  Not the GP but maybe s/revenue/profit? I can see that easily, but I'm not sure how anyone could raise nearly a quarter billion dollars with less total revenue than a mid-level makes in a month at their job.
  - opinion-is-bad 6y ago
    I realize that the situation is different because they were not a true startup, but Waymo was comfortably into the billions of total spending before getting even a single dollar in outside revenue (and they still have almost zero revenue). You only need to convince one or two people of an idea if they have enough cash.
- akiselev 6y ago
  Once a startup starts making money, it gets judged by its conversion rates, revenue/cost per customer, and so on. As long as it isn't making money yet, wide eyed/naive/FOMOcondriac investors will imagine whatever numbers will make them feel good about the investment in the place of real sales. Colour got over $40 million series A on nothing but a pitchdeck and that was almost a decade ago. $200 million isn't that surprising ten years on.
- dannyw 6y ago
  Crazier things have happened with $0 in revenue (see: Magic Leap)
- citizenpaul 6y ago
  Has to do partly with how this kind of investing is done. There are often penalties if they don't "invest" money they are given. As long as they can prove some sort of remotely competent due diligence it is better to spend the money on a long-shot than give it back saying you didn't find a decent investment and pay some sort of interest/fee/whatever.
axegon_ 6y ago
Well I ended up working there for 8 and a half years believe it or not. But it wasn't like that when I started. That happened around a year ago(management was entirely replaced). I'm not known for being tolerant when it comes to bs so the moment those policies started getting pushed onto my team, me along with several others decided to bail(basically the oldest dogs, and as I understand a few others are one foot out already). Frankly I don't see anything but the company going bankrupt within the next year or two. Ever since the management swap took place, the company has been in the dark red zone in terms of revenue.

by asien 6y ago

tawtawtaw 6y ago

Worked somewhere similar and saw similar outcomes. I think having too much money removes the feedback loop that lets a team know if they are on the right course, so like you say, it comes down to a popularity based culturr

908B64B197 6y ago

> His job was to make python script to make devs happy. I've never heard of that before. That's kind of nice. Once a project grows a certain size if you have the budget for it it's cool to have a dedicated small team that takes care of the dev environment (maintaining the build and test pipeline, adding static analysis and making sure there's some working default config for at least one IDE). Also take care of the commit hooks and helps out when migrating language and tool versions.

gnicholas 6y ago

How do you raise $200M with only $10k in revenue? That is, if your A round was $10M, your B round was $60M, and your C round was $130M (I'm just making up numbers here), how was it that none of the investors ever needed to see any material revenues?

mortenjorck 6y ago
Founders with just enough cachet in the VC community.
pc86 6y ago
Not the GP but maybe s/revenue/profit? I can see that easily, but I'm not sure how anyone could raise nearly a quarter billion dollars with less total revenue than a mid-level makes in a month at their job.
- opinion-is-bad 6y ago
  I realize that the situation is different because they were not a true startup, but Waymo was comfortably into the billions of total spending before getting even a single dollar in outside revenue (and they still have almost zero revenue). You only need to convince one or two people of an idea if they have enough cash.
akiselev 6y ago
Once a startup starts making money, it gets judged by its conversion rates, revenue/cost per customer, and so on. As long as it isn't making money yet, wide eyed/naive/FOMOcondriac investors will imagine whatever numbers will make them feel good about the investment in the place of real sales. Colour got over $40 million series A on nothing but a pitchdeck and that was almost a decade ago. $200 million isn't that surprising ten years on.
dannyw 6y ago
Crazier things have happened with $0 in revenue (see: Magic Leap)
citizenpaul 6y ago
Has to do partly with how this kind of investing is done. There are often penalties if they don't "invest" money they are given. As long as they can prove some sort of remotely competent due diligence it is better to spend the money on a long-shot than give it back saying you didn't find a decent investment and pay some sort of interest/fee/whatever.

axegon_ 6y ago

Well I ended up working there for 8 and a half years believe it or not. But it wasn't like that when I started. That happened around a year ago(management was entirely replaced). I'm not known for being tolerant when it comes to bs so the moment those policies started getting pushed onto my team, me along with several others decided to bail(basically the oldest dogs, and as I understand a few others are one foot out already). Frankly I don't see anything but the company going bankrupt within the next year or two. Ever since the management swap took place, the company has been in the dark red zone in terms of revenue.