5 ms·

I'm not sure that the 10k was worth it for J Wu. Employers Google potential employees, and this blog post will definitely show up. Even though I feel he's in th

I'm not sure that the 10k was worth it for J Wu. Employers Google potential employees, and this blog post will definitely show up. Even though I feel he's in the right this type of public shaming would make me think twice about hiring him. Just doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle even though I don't plan on doing anything terrible to my employees (criminal in this case!) To be clear, I feel that Miso is in the wrong on this. Just probably wasn't worth 10k on calling them out. EDIT: From the comments it feels like the consensus is either a public shaming or hiding and forgetting about the money. There are other avenues like trying to pressure VC / board members, court, probably more. I wouldn't want this accessible on the internet for the next 50+ years.

jsnk 14y ago
You are probably right. It's really not worth the trouble and potential backlash it might cause in the future. I personally wouldn't do it. However, I want to thank J Wu for doing this. What he did was commendable. I know tons of freelancers who worked with companies or individuals, and end up not getting paid properly. They often fear loss of potential customer and do not take it public, even though they are fully on the right. Legal battle is often not an option for them. The cost can be hefty and even more importantly, it's a total waste of time. Legal battle breaks concentration on your work and drains you out. I hope that this kind of dispute settling becomes normalized. Fulfilling one's responsibility is done most effectively when your accountability is tested publicly.
ahelwer 14y ago
Josh made a comment under the other story stating he would donate any money he gets to charity.
- alecco 14y ago
  It's sad he is forced to give it away to save face.
  - dkroy 14y ago
    Yeah, I agree. He is a bigger man than me though. I don't think I would have done the same in his situation.
stretchwithme 14y ago
When someone does you wrong, you can't go off in secret and appeal for justice. Public shame is often all these people understand. The fact that someone tried to get an injustice doesn't make less employable. Well, maybe to people who like to take advantage of others. Sounds like a good thing to discourage them.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dundun 14y ago
I disagree. His post stands as a public review of his previous employer, which-- in giving him the bonus after they previously denied it-- admit that they have two very different personalities. In the public, they are good people and agree with the morals of the multitudes (doing the right thing). In private, they abuse their power and finger point when things don't go their way (he "lost their data and mangled their company). It wasn't worth 10K to Miso. Potential employees are going to google their name and want nothing to do with them. I sure wouldn't. Their might be some employers that deny J Wu a job based on an honest post like this, but are they really working for in the first place?
petegrif 14y ago
I wouldn't have any problem hiring him. And I'm sure I am not alone in feeling this way.
1123581321 14y ago
I suppose I would make sure I actually planned to pay him things I promised him. That's as far as second-guessing goes. The call-out was quite fair. It was also inexpensive for Miso since they didn't have to go to court, which also would have been fair.
rdl 14y ago
It's not really even $10k, it's the $100-300 it would have cost to have gotten an employment lawyer to accomplish the same thing. Maybe worth $10k (clearly worth going nuclear for SOME amount of money or injustice -- $100mm? crimes?), but IMO not worth $300. Especially since "$10k + $300/hr for my costs related to this matter" would be totally reasonable too.
- ralfd 14y ago
  In the other threads there was the widespread opinion that lawyers would be a waste of time and costing a big chunk of the $10k. That few people adviced that he even counsel one hour with one lawyer is sad.
danilocampos 14y ago
Self-correcting. Any employer who would have a beef with this is probably not worth working for anyway. Honest people have little to fear from public disclosure of their behavior.
- rdl 14y ago
  In the current job market, you can basically be anything but actually in prison and get a job, assuming you can do the work. (I suppose work-release could be accommodated for designers if they can also code). In normal times/contexts, something like this would probably be at least slightly prejudicial to a hiring manager. 1) He appears to have at least somewhat screwed up at the job, in a way which wouldn't have been disclosed otherwise 2) He goes to the public vs. normal legal channels when there is a dispute. While you may not intend to have a dispute, it's always worth knowing how disagreements will be handled.
  - DenisM 14y ago
    He gave them three chances to right their wrong before going public. That's plenty enough, don't you think?
chasing 14y ago
Josh didn't do anything wrong. Someone tried to screw him out of some money. He wrote about it on his blog. The problem got solved -- rather efficiently, I might add. Sounds like no lawyers got involved and no taxpayer money had to be wasted in court. It doesn't really reflect on him one way or another. It's an interesting story, but the only part that has anything to do with hiring him would be to ask him what went wrong with that data loss and how he learned to minimize the chances of something like that happening in the future.
catch23 14y ago
I doubt employers would even notice. He's got a pretty generic name so unless you're really doing some hard core sleuthing, I doubt this blog post would appear in a search for "Josh Wu". And in today's crazy bubble market, if you know what a web browser is, you'll probably get hired.
veemjeem 14y ago
Most of the heroes of our time do things that are probably not worth it financially, but do it to set things right for future generations. I'm sure Martin Luther King was well aware that he'd probably be assassinated for attempting to bring equality to the african americans, but he stood up for what he believed in. I feel like most people these days would rather live a happy passive life, than rock the boat to help future generations.
loumf 14y ago
I would pay 10k to have future unethical employers filter themselves out (even if it filters out some ethical ones too). I might not have handled this exactly like J, but I certainly wouldn't think twice about hiring him because of this.
michaelochurch 14y ago
There are other avenues like trying to pressure VC / board members, court, probably more. The problem is that lawsuits often take years. These startups are likely going to be (a) 10 times their current size, or (b) out of business, by then. So they can take a "we'll worry about it then" approach, in which case they collect interest on what they should have paid, and offload the risk. These kinds of unethical startup executives don't fear lawsuits. Not in the least. The suit will be against the company, not the person-- it's very hard to pierce the corporate veil on this sort of issue-- and the individual executive will either be no longer with the company, or very wealthy and successful by then (in which case it's a hired attorney's PITA). Either way, it's not going to hurt him much. The small-claim lawsuit doesn't have an incentive effect on such a startup because of this binary payoff. The advantage of a PR hit, as a punitive measure, is that it actually reduces the probability of success (rather than trivially reducing the amount of payoff in event of success).

jsnk 14y ago

You are probably right. It's really not worth the trouble and potential backlash it might cause in the future. I personally wouldn't do it. However, I want to thank J Wu for doing this. What he did was commendable. I know tons of freelancers who worked with companies or individuals, and end up not getting paid properly. They often fear loss of potential customer and do not take it public, even though they are fully on the right. Legal battle is often not an option for them. The cost can be hefty and even more importantly, it's a total waste of time. Legal battle breaks concentration on your work and drains you out. I hope that this kind of dispute settling becomes normalized. Fulfilling one's responsibility is done most effectively when your accountability is tested publicly.

ahelwer 14y ago

Josh made a comment under the other story stating he would donate any money he gets to charity.

alecco 14y ago
It's sad he is forced to give it away to save face.
- dkroy 14y ago
  Yeah, I agree. He is a bigger man than me though. I don't think I would have done the same in his situation.

stretchwithme 14y ago

When someone does you wrong, you can't go off in secret and appeal for justice. Public shame is often all these people understand. The fact that someone tried to get an injustice doesn't make less employable. Well, maybe to people who like to take advantage of others. Sounds like a good thing to discourage them.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dundun 14y ago

I disagree. His post stands as a public review of his previous employer, which-- in giving him the bonus after they previously denied it-- admit that they have two very different personalities. In the public, they are good people and agree with the morals of the multitudes (doing the right thing). In private, they abuse their power and finger point when things don't go their way (he "lost their data and mangled their company). It wasn't worth 10K to Miso. Potential employees are going to google their name and want nothing to do with them. I sure wouldn't. Their might be some employers that deny J Wu a job based on an honest post like this, but are they really working for in the first place?

petegrif 14y ago

I wouldn't have any problem hiring him. And I'm sure I am not alone in feeling this way.

1123581321 14y ago

I suppose I would make sure I actually planned to pay him things I promised him. That's as far as second-guessing goes. The call-out was quite fair. It was also inexpensive for Miso since they didn't have to go to court, which also would have been fair.

rdl 14y ago

It's not really even $10k, it's the $100-300 it would have cost to have gotten an employment lawyer to accomplish the same thing. Maybe worth $10k (clearly worth going nuclear for SOME amount of money or injustice -- $100mm? crimes?), but IMO not worth $300. Especially since "$10k + $300/hr for my costs related to this matter" would be totally reasonable too.

ralfd 14y ago
In the other threads there was the widespread opinion that lawyers would be a waste of time and costing a big chunk of the $10k. That few people adviced that he even counsel one hour with one lawyer is sad.

danilocampos 14y ago

Self-correcting. Any employer who would have a beef with this is probably not worth working for anyway. Honest people have little to fear from public disclosure of their behavior.

rdl 14y ago
In the current job market, you can basically be anything but actually in prison and get a job, assuming you can do the work. (I suppose work-release could be accommodated for designers if they can also code). In normal times/contexts, something like this would probably be at least slightly prejudicial to a hiring manager. 1) He appears to have at least somewhat screwed up at the job, in a way which wouldn't have been disclosed otherwise 2) He goes to the public vs. normal legal channels when there is a dispute. While you may not intend to have a dispute, it's always worth knowing how disagreements will be handled.
- DenisM 14y ago
  He gave them three chances to right their wrong before going public. That's plenty enough, don't you think?

chasing 14y ago

Josh didn't do anything wrong. Someone tried to screw him out of some money. He wrote about it on his blog. The problem got solved -- rather efficiently, I might add. Sounds like no lawyers got involved and no taxpayer money had to be wasted in court. It doesn't really reflect on him one way or another. It's an interesting story, but the only part that has anything to do with hiring him would be to ask him what went wrong with that data loss and how he learned to minimize the chances of something like that happening in the future.

catch23 14y ago

I doubt employers would even notice. He's got a pretty generic name so unless you're really doing some hard core sleuthing, I doubt this blog post would appear in a search for "Josh Wu". And in today's crazy bubble market, if you know what a web browser is, you'll probably get hired.

veemjeem 14y ago

Most of the heroes of our time do things that are probably not worth it financially, but do it to set things right for future generations. I'm sure Martin Luther King was well aware that he'd probably be assassinated for attempting to bring equality to the african americans, but he stood up for what he believed in. I feel like most people these days would rather live a happy passive life, than rock the boat to help future generations.

loumf 14y ago

I would pay 10k to have future unethical employers filter themselves out (even if it filters out some ethical ones too). I might not have handled this exactly like J, but I certainly wouldn't think twice about hiring him because of this.

michaelochurch 14y ago

There are other avenues like trying to pressure VC / board members, court, probably more. The problem is that lawsuits often take years. These startups are likely going to be (a) 10 times their current size, or (b) out of business, by then. So they can take a "we'll worry about it then" approach, in which case they collect interest on what they should have paid, and offload the risk. These kinds of unethical startup executives don't fear lawsuits. Not in the least. The suit will be against the company, not the person-- it's very hard to pierce the corporate veil on this sort of issue-- and the individual executive will either be no longer with the company, or very wealthy and successful by then (in which case it's a hired attorney's PITA). Either way, it's not going to hurt him much. The small-claim lawsuit doesn't have an incentive effect on such a startup because of this binary payoff. The advantage of a PR hit, as a punitive measure, is that it actually reduces the probability of success (rather than trivially reducing the amount of payoff in event of success).