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This story reminds me of the Basecamp saga. Here, the narrative is that the CEO is ousted because of anti-Asian bias/racism from his investors. Similarly, with

This story reminds me of the Basecamp saga. Here, the narrative is that the CEO is ousted because of anti-Asian bias/racism from his investors. Similarly, with Basecamp, employees quit due to a change in workplace policy that they viewed as intolerant. You can take those suppositions at face value. Or you can look at our supercharged political culture and view these prevailing narratives as convenient scapegoats. I don't think that 1/3 of Basecamp's employees decided to quit based on one meeting or an isolated policy decision. I presume many were thinking about leaving (due to workplace culture or otherwise), and a 6 month severance package made the decision easy for them. I have no idea what is going on internally at Iterable or the company's financial situation. But stellar performance gives you a lot of breathing room. Adam Neumann's drug use was tolerated and even encouraged when WeWork was doubling in value every year...right up until WeWork tried to go public and imploded. Being unconventional is embraced in the business world as long as you're delivering returns to your investors. Once you're not, it is used against you. We've seen this fall from grace play out over and over again (Travis Kalanick, Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, etc).

xibalba 5y ago
In this case, even the author seems to begrudgingly be admitting that this clearly was not a case of racial/ethnic bias. Rather, the company was maturing and professionalizing and the CEO refused to get on board, and even went so far as to start airing out his own dirty laundry to reports. It would seem much of board support reduces down to confidence and trust. Zhu nuked both.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
Externally the basecamp saga seems dramatic. I think the explanation is a lot simpler. At the core though, they have a highly talented group of people that probably won't have trouble finding a job in 6 months. If I was in that situation, and I agreed with the changes they made (I read Jason Fried's post, and mostly agree), I would still take the buyout! 6 months salary for me, or most engineers (or anyone, really) is A LOT of money. I like my job, and I've had lifestyle jobs that I absolutely LOVED. I can't say that I have ever loved a job so much that I would turn down that much money to leave. If I was staying I would be pretty annoyed, the people that leave get a bag of cash, and the people that stay get to pick up the slack while their former colleagues get on twitter to dump on the company?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  It would be hard staying because the workload just increased. They should give everyone who stayed 3/6 months pay.
vgel 5y ago
Matt Levine had a good bit about this in his most recent newsletter: > For instance, when you fund a company in its early stages, > you might want a founder who will microdose LSD at work, > because that’s just the sort of imaginative, aggressive, > independent thinking that might change the world or whatever. > (“Narrative violation: This CEO drops acid,” etc.) > But when you are looking to take that company public, > you want a CEO who would never microdose LSD at work, > because that’s the sort of thing that stodgy > institutional investors and regulators will find unsettling. > If the founder-CEO has been microdosing acid all along, > and you have been encouraging him to do so, > there will be an awkward transition when you tell him to stop. (The whole section is good, but this is a good summary paragraph)

xibalba 5y ago

In this case, even the author seems to begrudgingly be admitting that this clearly was not a case of racial/ethnic bias. Rather, the company was maturing and professionalizing and the CEO refused to get on board, and even went so far as to start airing out his own dirty laundry to reports. It would seem much of board support reduces down to confidence and trust. Zhu nuked both.

dghlsakjg 5y ago

Externally the basecamp saga seems dramatic. I think the explanation is a lot simpler. At the core though, they have a highly talented group of people that probably won't have trouble finding a job in 6 months. If I was in that situation, and I agreed with the changes they made (I read Jason Fried's post, and mostly agree), I would still take the buyout! 6 months salary for me, or most engineers (or anyone, really) is A LOT of money. I like my job, and I've had lifestyle jobs that I absolutely LOVED. I can't say that I have ever loved a job so much that I would turn down that much money to leave. If I was staying I would be pretty annoyed, the people that leave get a bag of cash, and the people that stay get to pick up the slack while their former colleagues get on twitter to dump on the company?

ipaddr 5y ago
It would be hard staying because the workload just increased. They should give everyone who stayed 3/6 months pay.

vgel 5y ago

Matt Levine had a good bit about this in his most recent newsletter: > For instance, when you fund a company in its early stages, > you might want a founder who will microdose LSD at work, > because that’s just the sort of imaginative, aggressive, > independent thinking that might change the world or whatever. > (“Narrative violation: This CEO drops acid,” etc.) > But when you are looking to take that company public, > you want a CEO who would never microdose LSD at work, > because that’s the sort of thing that stodgy > institutional investors and regulators will find unsettling. > If the founder-CEO has been microdosing acid all along, > and you have been encouraging him to do so, > there will be an awkward transition when you tell him to stop. (The whole section is good, but this is a good summary paragraph)