6 ms·

"Dear Sebastian, we quit, piss off. Best, Sam, Lee, and Jon." Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ri

"Dear Sebastian, we quit, piss off. Best, Sam, Lee, and Jon." Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming at all, let alone from a CEO that's off in Asia staying up "20 hours" to print flyers for one of his other companies, while he bitches that you're not reneging on your teaching commitments (which I would presume he knew about when he took you on...) so that you can meet his arbitrary (and from the sounds of it, utterly unrealistic) timeline? Fuck guys like this. I know them, and I'm even friends with a couple, and sometimes they're decent people to hang out with and (on occasion, in the right contexts) even learn from. But I'd never dream of working for them, or even usually with them, because they tend to be neither very good businessmen nor good employers. Bitching about your people being "jokers" is not the way to speed up a product's release: cutting features is, and that sometimes requires a CEO's involvement. Learn that lesson fast, or you'll be sorely disappointed in all your future projects, especially when you're just the guy-in-charge-of-negotiating-rates-for-business-cards...uh, I mean CEO.

illumen 15y ago
It reads like the person has a drug habbit. I feel sorry for the employees.
- RandalMolek 15y ago
  Yeah, there is some hypomania there, stimulant induced or otherwise.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - skore 15y ago
    Read his latest blog entry (or don't - it's quite a waste of time). Money quote is this: > "I’m cyclothymic too. Like Nieztsche and Byron and those guys. Albeit, much less talented; I’m just saying I got the same affliction. [...] What’s a cyclothymic? It appears that we feel emotions more strongly than other people, and cycle through them. I’m fucking awesome when I’m manic [...] Cyclothymic mania is when the SPIRIT OF GOD is within you. [...] It’s pretty fucking awesome when it’s going on. SPIRIT OF GOD WITHIN YOU. Imagine that, eh? [...] Jut one rub – it’s a Faustian Bargain – crashing is… well, “hell” [...] when a convergence of bullshit strikes, then I crash hard and I’m fucking useless for a while. It’s a real bummer, I’ll tell ya." So yes - manic depressive. And a little too taken by it, if I may say so.
    - gwern 15y ago
      The piracetam may not help; it's normally a very well-behaved nootropic (I and many others use it without issue), but that's in normal people - with bi-polar or whatever he's got going on, who knows?
- paganel 15y ago
  > It reads like the person has a drug habbit. I feel sorry for the employees. It sounds more like a con-artist to me. I also feel very sorry for the employees, even though I have my doubts that they take away home any salary at this point.
skore 15y ago
The "public" part is what really surprised me the most. I get that it's his "thing" to post a lot of stuff about his make-believe success story, but you simply don't post what three people are supposed to be motivated by on the Internet. Not even when you edit it to obscure their names. They /can/ read your blog, you know?! The text in itself is very close to self-parody and severely lacks editing (as most of his writing that I have read or sampled) but that can be forgiven in a person-to-person context. There is a whole different world of rules that apply when you address an entire audience that does not happen to be on your payroll. As it stands, this is a kneejerk "and you know what? I'm so taken by how motivating my own writing to you guys is, I'll also blog it ON THE INTERNET" reaction that reeks of delusion. Telling your employees "hey guys, stop joking around" and telling the entire world that your employees are "jokers" are two very different things - even if we don't know them in person. Having the person I work for confuse the two would be quite the wakeup call for me. In fact, this reminds me of an anecdote - I once did an internship at a design studio. One day, one of the guys asked me for a favor - send out faxes with his software and make sure to resend all the faxes that failed to be sent. (He had to leave early, for whatever reason.) Turns out, he kept a LOT of failed records and I ended up sending a lot of faxes from previous batches. He was obviously angry at me and I could certainly agree with that. But then he proceeded to call every single recipient and tell them that the idiot intern messed it up. There were a million excuses (the software failed etc.) he could have used that were perfectly harmless and he won nothing by shaming a particular person in front of them. But still, he did. So yeah, that WAS quite a wakeup call.
lionhearted 15y ago
A couple points - They're partners, not employees. Yes, I'll suffer at the printshop when I promised it. My colleague offered to do it, but he just had a baby and it would be ridiculous to keep him all night. No one else was available on Sunday night. > they tend to be neither very good businessmen nor good employers. My staff like me, I pay top of market (sometimes 10x market pay, if the person is worth it but short-changed due to supply and demand), everyone is treated great, we have a culture of radical transparency and honesty, have a book club, there's no task management, and everyone is free to basically do whatever they want whenever they want as long as they get their job done. I want people to be their best and keep their word. And again, that email was to business partners, not to employees, on what was supposed to be a very short project that dragged on. I don't know if you'd like working with me. Maybe not, it's not for everyone. But I look for top performers, pay them extremely well, treat them well, give them huge respect and autonomy, and push them to give their best and really deliver. We tend to have fun, too.
- exit 15y ago
  this doesn't sound like 10x to me "I got a top creative designer in there working for a fraction of his normal cost by being very fucking cool with him, and also working out a deal where we refer him business, and he can use our office space to hold client meetings during our off hours. ... The designer came with me, working for peanuts compared to his normal rates (he’s a top guy)"
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - skore 15y ago
      From a quick glance to his profile - no, apparently he is not. Taking a personal jab like this really isn't good form either. Edit: This was a reply to a post by the author of the blog post before he deleted it.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    I'm also not sure why a "top designer" wouldn't have his own office space.
kahawe 15y ago
I agree with you and there is a lot to learn from this public schmear campaign and from his very obvious failures. I am surprised how many positive replies he got on the blog, though... is this some cult? First and foremost he seems to be suffering from severe reality distortion with the "we are amongst the 1% and should be multi-millionaires". Second, this is an outrageous whining and bitching very alike to what little kids do: "but _I_ did all my work on the project, it is allll YOUR fault and none of it is mine!". This is business, if you really put your money where your mouth is on the "make a way" part then you need to STFU and reflect on what YOU did wrong. Obviously a lot, otherwise things wouldn't be so frakked up. Don't compare yourself to Hannibal ever again or aspire to him unless you put your money where your mouth is. He did not lead his people from half across the world away, he was right there. He knew it is frakking impossible to lead his men unless he was RIGHT THERE. > All of this shit was supposed to be done weeks ago. It sounds like he is in some leading position for this project, so it should have never gotten to this point where he is NOW complaining things weren't done weeks ago. It is his fault for letting things slip and not managing it properly so it could finish on time. It is not enough to tell people now "here is my credit card, shut up and use it. but hey I am there for you, come ask me anytime" if you want to manage them - and then blow them out for asking you stuff or talking to you about stuff. On top of that, I understand he is not with his partners/employees but frakking around in Asia somewhere and sending them emails like that? Well guess which critical human side of a project absolutely severely suffers from not-being-with-your-team? It is communication. Email and skype are great but extremely narrow communication channels; nothing can replace being there and seeing each other every day, having a chat over coffee or sharing lunch and working together. I have made this experience first-handedly when our startup boss frakked off to some other country and barely popped in. Do not under-estimate just how much information and communication is completely lost just because you are not physically there working with those guys every day. > Look. I love you guys. All 3 of you are dear friends of mine, close friends of mine. That's why you called them jokers and shifted all the blame on them and made sure to emphasis how awesome work YOU have done and how clearly everything is THEIR fault. Again, no conception or understanding of how to be a LEADER. > You and I both live in a world where most people we interact with are fucking jokers. Oh you precious little snowflake... don't fool yourself, you are no better than the majority and so far you haven't done anything remotely close to what your role model(s) have done so back to trenches with you, precious little snowflake and earn your stripes.
jarin 15y ago
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but I wonder how many of the folks bashing this guy thought it was brilliant how Steve Jobs pressured his engineers by saying “If it would save a person’s life, could you shave 10 seconds off the start up time?”
- bad_user 15y ago
  Steve Jobs was one of a kind and admiring his work gives you no reason to behave like a douche bag, as that wasn't one of Steve's secret ingredients. Therefore, most people that are trying to mimic Steve Jobs are just douche bags without taste, without the electrifying personality and without the track record.
- pi18n 15y ago
  How is that relevant in a discussion about publicly shaming people working for you.
  - jarin 15y ago
    Well, Steve Jobs was pretty famous for that too. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as much of a Steve Jobs admirer as the next guy, but from what I've read he did shame a lot of people at Apple.
- nikcub 15y ago
  This guy is no Steve Jobs
  - eriklarson 15y ago
    That is an understatement. This guy reminds me of one of Jesse Pinkman's meth-head friends from Breaking Bad.
- truth_hurts 15y ago
  Just because 100,000 flies eat shit does not mean you should.
Flenser 15y ago
Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming One one is being publicly shamed. From the article: Names and details changed, for obvious reasons.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  The people in the story will still know who they are, and anyone who knows that they work with Sebastian will know too. Yes, if they get upset, it's "their problem", but "their problems" become "your problems" if it affects the relationship. I posted a blog entry about some code I'd inherited from a friend. I posted a problem I'd found (really wasn't even his fault specifically) and my fix. Very matter of fact - I wasn't a joker about it. He still read it, saw himself in it, and saw it as a public shaming, even though the client wasn't mentioned, nor was his name mentioned. Yeah, I can say it was 'his problem' in how he chose to deal with it, but it strained a friendship if nothing else.
  - Flenser 15y ago
    I hadn't considered that. Thanks for explaining.

illumen 15y ago

It reads like the person has a drug habbit. I feel sorry for the employees.

RandalMolek 15y ago
Yeah, there is some hypomania there, stimulant induced or otherwise.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- skore 15y ago
  Read his latest blog entry (or don't - it's quite a waste of time). Money quote is this: > "I’m cyclothymic too. Like Nieztsche and Byron and those guys. Albeit, much less talented; I’m just saying I got the same affliction. [...] What’s a cyclothymic? It appears that we feel emotions more strongly than other people, and cycle through them. I’m fucking awesome when I’m manic [...] Cyclothymic mania is when the SPIRIT OF GOD is within you. [...] It’s pretty fucking awesome when it’s going on. SPIRIT OF GOD WITHIN YOU. Imagine that, eh? [...] Jut one rub – it’s a Faustian Bargain – crashing is… well, “hell” [...] when a convergence of bullshit strikes, then I crash hard and I’m fucking useless for a while. It’s a real bummer, I’ll tell ya." So yes - manic depressive. And a little too taken by it, if I may say so.
  - gwern 15y ago
    The piracetam may not help; it's normally a very well-behaved nootropic (I and many others use it without issue), but that's in normal people - with bi-polar or whatever he's got going on, who knows?
paganel 15y ago
> It reads like the person has a drug habbit. I feel sorry for the employees. It sounds more like a con-artist to me. I also feel very sorry for the employees, even though I have my doubts that they take away home any salary at this point.

skore 15y ago

The "public" part is what really surprised me the most. I get that it's his "thing" to post a lot of stuff about his make-believe success story, but you simply don't post what three people are supposed to be motivated by on the Internet. Not even when you edit it to obscure their names. They /can/ read your blog, you know?! The text in itself is very close to self-parody and severely lacks editing (as most of his writing that I have read or sampled) but that can be forgiven in a person-to-person context. There is a whole different world of rules that apply when you address an entire audience that does not happen to be on your payroll. As it stands, this is a kneejerk "and you know what? I'm so taken by how motivating my own writing to you guys is, I'll also blog it ON THE INTERNET" reaction that reeks of delusion. Telling your employees "hey guys, stop joking around" and telling the entire world that your employees are "jokers" are two very different things - even if we don't know them in person. Having the person I work for confuse the two would be quite the wakeup call for me. In fact, this reminds me of an anecdote - I once did an internship at a design studio. One day, one of the guys asked me for a favor - send out faxes with his software and make sure to resend all the faxes that failed to be sent. (He had to leave early, for whatever reason.) Turns out, he kept a LOT of failed records and I ended up sending a lot of faxes from previous batches. He was obviously angry at me and I could certainly agree with that. But then he proceeded to call every single recipient and tell them that the idiot intern messed it up. There were a million excuses (the software failed etc.) he could have used that were perfectly harmless and he won nothing by shaming a particular person in front of them. But still, he did. So yeah, that WAS quite a wakeup call.

lionhearted 15y ago

A couple points - They're partners, not employees. Yes, I'll suffer at the printshop when I promised it. My colleague offered to do it, but he just had a baby and it would be ridiculous to keep him all night. No one else was available on Sunday night. > they tend to be neither very good businessmen nor good employers. My staff like me, I pay top of market (sometimes 10x market pay, if the person is worth it but short-changed due to supply and demand), everyone is treated great, we have a culture of radical transparency and honesty, have a book club, there's no task management, and everyone is free to basically do whatever they want whenever they want as long as they get their job done. I want people to be their best and keep their word. And again, that email was to business partners, not to employees, on what was supposed to be a very short project that dragged on. I don't know if you'd like working with me. Maybe not, it's not for everyone. But I look for top performers, pay them extremely well, treat them well, give them huge respect and autonomy, and push them to give their best and really deliver. We tend to have fun, too.

exit 15y ago
this doesn't sound like 10x to me "I got a top creative designer in there working for a fraction of his normal cost by being very fucking cool with him, and also working out a deal where we refer him business, and he can use our office space to hold client meetings during our off hours. ... The designer came with me, working for peanuts compared to his normal rates (he’s a top guy)"
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - skore 15y ago
    From a quick glance to his profile - no, apparently he is not. Taking a personal jab like this really isn't good form either. Edit: This was a reply to a post by the author of the blog post before he deleted it.
- hugh3 15y ago
  I'm also not sure why a "top designer" wouldn't have his own office space.

kahawe 15y ago

I agree with you and there is a lot to learn from this public schmear campaign and from his very obvious failures. I am surprised how many positive replies he got on the blog, though... is this some cult? First and foremost he seems to be suffering from severe reality distortion with the "we are amongst the 1% and should be multi-millionaires". Second, this is an outrageous whining and bitching very alike to what little kids do: "but _I_ did all my work on the project, it is allll YOUR fault and none of it is mine!". This is business, if you really put your money where your mouth is on the "make a way" part then you need to STFU and reflect on what YOU did wrong. Obviously a lot, otherwise things wouldn't be so frakked up. Don't compare yourself to Hannibal ever again or aspire to him unless you put your money where your mouth is. He did not lead his people from half across the world away, he was right there. He knew it is frakking impossible to lead his men unless he was RIGHT THERE. > All of this shit was supposed to be done weeks ago. It sounds like he is in some leading position for this project, so it should have never gotten to this point where he is NOW complaining things weren't done weeks ago. It is his fault for letting things slip and not managing it properly so it could finish on time. It is not enough to tell people now "here is my credit card, shut up and use it. but hey I am there for you, come ask me anytime" if you want to manage them - and then blow them out for asking you stuff or talking to you about stuff. On top of that, I understand he is not with his partners/employees but frakking around in Asia somewhere and sending them emails like that? Well guess which critical human side of a project absolutely severely suffers from not-being-with-your-team? It is communication. Email and skype are great but extremely narrow communication channels; nothing can replace being there and seeing each other every day, having a chat over coffee or sharing lunch and working together. I have made this experience first-handedly when our startup boss frakked off to some other country and barely popped in. Do not under-estimate just how much information and communication is completely lost just because you are not physically there working with those guys every day. > Look. I love you guys. All 3 of you are dear friends of mine, close friends of mine. That's why you called them jokers and shifted all the blame on them and made sure to emphasis how awesome work YOU have done and how clearly everything is THEIR fault. Again, no conception or understanding of how to be a LEADER. > You and I both live in a world where most people we interact with are fucking jokers. Oh you precious little snowflake... don't fool yourself, you are no better than the majority and so far you haven't done anything remotely close to what your role model(s) have done so back to trenches with you, precious little snowflake and earn your stripes.

jarin 15y ago

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but I wonder how many of the folks bashing this guy thought it was brilliant how Steve Jobs pressured his engineers by saying “If it would save a person’s life, could you shave 10 seconds off the start up time?”

bad_user 15y ago
Steve Jobs was one of a kind and admiring his work gives you no reason to behave like a douche bag, as that wasn't one of Steve's secret ingredients. Therefore, most people that are trying to mimic Steve Jobs are just douche bags without taste, without the electrifying personality and without the track record.
pi18n 15y ago
How is that relevant in a discussion about publicly shaming people working for you.
- jarin 15y ago
  Well, Steve Jobs was pretty famous for that too. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as much of a Steve Jobs admirer as the next guy, but from what I've read he did shame a lot of people at Apple.
nikcub 15y ago
This guy is no Steve Jobs
- eriklarson 15y ago
  That is an understatement. This guy reminds me of one of Jesse Pinkman's meth-head friends from Breaking Bad.
truth_hurts 15y ago
Just because 100,000 flies eat shit does not mean you should.

Flenser 15y ago

Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming One one is being publicly shamed. From the article: Names and details changed, for obvious reasons.

mgkimsal 15y ago
The people in the story will still know who they are, and anyone who knows that they work with Sebastian will know too. Yes, if they get upset, it's "their problem", but "their problems" become "your problems" if it affects the relationship. I posted a blog entry about some code I'd inherited from a friend. I posted a problem I'd found (really wasn't even his fault specifically) and my fix. Very matter of fact - I wasn't a joker about it. He still read it, saw himself in it, and saw it as a public shaming, even though the client wasn't mentioned, nor was his name mentioned. Yeah, I can say it was 'his problem' in how he chose to deal with it, but it strained a friendship if nothing else.
- Flenser 15y ago
  I hadn't considered that. Thanks for explaining.