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Added a clarification: first non-founder/executive employee to sit on a board. If there's another venture-backed software company in North America who's put a r

Added a clarification: first non-founder/executive employee to sit on a board. If there's another venture-backed software company in North America who's put a rank and file employee on their board, I'd love to hear about it!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
aerosmile 4y ago
Your reasoning in this discussion is unbecoming of a board member. In your activity on that board you’re involved in a lot of open-ended conversations with a lot of ambiguity and high cost of failure. I hope you express yourself in that setting with a bit more humility and introspection.
- paulosman 4y ago
  I find your tone dismissive, condescending and snarky. I made a (hedged) statement that turned out to be incorrect, updated the blog post, and moved on. I didn't think it was a statement of great consequence, certainly nothing to fixate on. Please review the HN Guidelines and ask yourself if posting your comment added to or detracted from the value of this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - aerosmile 4y ago
    Do you share that link with everyone who disagrees with you? It comes across as an overreaction. Another way to deal with critical feedback would be to understand it at a deeper level instead of being reactive. I’ll help you out. A bunch of us here deal with board members on a daily basis. Some board members are great, others not so much. To hear that there is a board out there that gave voting rights to an employee makes us experience two simultaneous sensations: 1. Hell yeah!, and 2. I wonder if they picked the right employee. I’ll leave it at that.
    - paulosman 4y ago
      Oh shut up you sanctimonious prick. You're confirming all of the negative stereotypes about this website. Do you think I, in 20 years of working in the industry, haven't dealt with bad board members? How about a little curiosity instead of whatever the hell you're dishing in this thread. Let me help you out: you're a stupid little troll and your contributions to this discussion are like little turd droppings that just stink up the room. Please kindly contribute constructively or fuck the hell off.
      - aerosmile 4y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        paulosman 4y ago
        I'm at peace with it.
ihm 4y ago
I mentioned in another comment but at O(1) Labs (which is VC-backed) we've had a board composed of employees for about a year. I'm not sure about the timing of your situation, but also I'm sure we're not the first company to do so.
eatonphil 4y ago
That's a pretty massive statement to make that is almost impossible to prove correct and needs only one counterexample to be proven incorrect (which has already been provided in this thread).
xapata 4y ago
Why do you think you're the first? Did you perform a systematic survey?
ska 4y ago
This is probably worth an application of a much more general principle: if you have experienced something directly it's quite likely to be fairly common, however if you haven't experienced something it's not good evidence that it isn't fairly common. Path dependence means personal experience is rarely very generalizable. Of course if you've made a systematic study of corporate governance and have data on thousands of companies, things are different.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

aerosmile 4y ago

Your reasoning in this discussion is unbecoming of a board member. In your activity on that board you’re involved in a lot of open-ended conversations with a lot of ambiguity and high cost of failure. I hope you express yourself in that setting with a bit more humility and introspection.

paulosman 4y ago
I find your tone dismissive, condescending and snarky. I made a (hedged) statement that turned out to be incorrect, updated the blog post, and moved on. I didn't think it was a statement of great consequence, certainly nothing to fixate on. Please review the HN Guidelines and ask yourself if posting your comment added to or detracted from the value of this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aerosmile 4y ago
  Do you share that link with everyone who disagrees with you? It comes across as an overreaction. Another way to deal with critical feedback would be to understand it at a deeper level instead of being reactive. I’ll help you out. A bunch of us here deal with board members on a daily basis. Some board members are great, others not so much. To hear that there is a board out there that gave voting rights to an employee makes us experience two simultaneous sensations: 1. Hell yeah!, and 2. I wonder if they picked the right employee. I’ll leave it at that.
  - paulosman 4y ago
    Oh shut up you sanctimonious prick. You're confirming all of the negative stereotypes about this website. Do you think I, in 20 years of working in the industry, haven't dealt with bad board members? How about a little curiosity instead of whatever the hell you're dishing in this thread. Let me help you out: you're a stupid little troll and your contributions to this discussion are like little turd droppings that just stink up the room. Please kindly contribute constructively or fuck the hell off.
    - aerosmile 4y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - paulosman 4y ago
        I'm at peace with it.

ihm 4y ago

I mentioned in another comment but at O(1) Labs (which is VC-backed) we've had a board composed of employees for about a year. I'm not sure about the timing of your situation, but also I'm sure we're not the first company to do so.

eatonphil 4y ago

That's a pretty massive statement to make that is almost impossible to prove correct and needs only one counterexample to be proven incorrect (which has already been provided in this thread).

xapata 4y ago

Why do you think you're the first? Did you perform a systematic survey?

ska 4y ago

This is probably worth an application of a much more general principle: if you have experienced something directly it's quite likely to be fairly common, however if you haven't experienced something it's not good evidence that it isn't fairly common. Path dependence means personal experience is rarely very generalizable. Of course if you've made a systematic study of corporate governance and have data on thousands of companies, things are different.