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Let me tell you my perspective, which may be interesting. The company Miso has good points about the reason for the program. In the original exchange the poin

Let me tell you my perspective, which may be interesting. The company Miso has good points about the reason for the program. In the original exchange the points were brought up. To me, the points were brought up one email too late. The moment the first response was Josh, let me talk to Tim. After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant, I saw this as. "Let me think of how I can not pay you." Even though the next email was perfectly cogent, it wasn't the first. (The next email read Spoke with Somrat about this. You're right that the trouble that you caused has nothing to do with a referral bonus. However, we only pay bonuses to employees. The bonuses are discretionary and not contractual. You and Miso never signed a contract that mentions bonuses. As a policy, referral bonuses are meant to help build a stronger team based on existing relationships. Employees bringing on employees that they've worked with in the past builds a stronger team. This bonus is not simply about hiring. For example, we don't pay people outside of Miso when they refer us candidates that we hire. Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this bonus.). After the first email bringing up something irrelevant that I passed summary judgment on Miso: if you don't pay, everything else is irrelevant, no matter what you think of it's just excuses, since your first excuse was to just say, "Fuck you, I don't need to string you along anymore. Here's the first thing I could think of. You dropped a one week old database on a product we didn't have backups on." Of COURSE that has nothing to do with a referral, except if you're saying, "you know I pull the strings around here and it's my decision to make. I'm not all that happy with you." Sorry, Miso, you lost in that sentence. The question is only whether you owe the employee a referral bonus you promised. You don't get to do what you promised if you had a good experience with the the guy or not otherwise. There's this great founder I always have in mind when I read stuff like this. Boy did that guy have a philosophy! I've always thought of drawing a caricature of him sitting down at a restaurant with his wife and looking at the menu, and his wife saying that they really can't afford these prices. So he says, "It's okay honey order whatever you want. There is no way I'm paying for any of this shit."

E14n 14y ago
I don't know what the culture is like at Miso but I would take "After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant." as "How do I justify to the rest of the team paying you an exorbitant bonus for team building after you trashed a production system that cost the team 3 days of work, then quit." Not that this changes the fact that they should have paid.
- its_so_on 14y ago
  I will just point out that in the present climate the bonus is NOT exorbitant where Miso is based, especially post-funding or after a few employees. Exorbitant would be: equity; $50k; paid on when the referral joins (instead after 6 months); paid if the referral is brought in for an interview, regardless of hire. (would be VERY VERY exorbitant). This is just standard.
  - E14n 14y ago
    I guess it is a different culture. In the teams I have experience with, people referred because they wanted to work with good people.
    - its_so_on 14y ago
      It sounds like you're talking about companies where there wasn't a bonus of this kind and magitude. If so, yeah, different and not really comparable (maybe a token $500 or whatever). Otherwise I think if there's the bonus and people ask for it, obviously it does figure in motivating them to take proactive steps to bring someone on.
      - mcteapot 14y ago
        Who is John Galt?
        its_so_on 14y ago
        mcteapot, please realize that people are a mix of lots of different preferences and motivations. I think we can all agree that on the whole, when management says you will get $10k for a certain action, it means that they expect this helps more people do the action. That doesn't mean it's the only reason they do it, or that some of the people who do it after the bonus wouldn't have done it without the bonus. It just means it helps. Otherwise, if it doesn't help, why not call it a thank-you-for-not-parking-in-the-handicapped-space-when-you-shouldn't bonus (assuming that, like most companies, nobody happens to have any problem with not doing this, and at any given time either the handicapped spaces are empty or employees with a legitimate entitlement are using them) and give it to every employee equally? I mean, if you don't expect it to have any effect whatsoever on referrals/behavior... Also, I want to make a nuanced but important point here. The employer in this particular case is explicitly kind of saying, "yeah, it might have kind of helped at the time, but you're not working here anymore." By that logic, every single person who ever gives notice should have their last paycheck docked if the time to cut the check occurs after they have left. After all, even though the paycheck might have originally helped them work there, they're not working there anymore so that doesn't matter. Why should an employer ever pay the last paycheck? You're not part of the team anymore and the paycheck is meant to motivate employees to work, that's why it exists. "Also, you dropped the database", or some made-up excuse. I think we can all agree that people don't just work for money, but we can also all agree that every employer needs to pay the last paycheck, even if the time to pay it comes after the employee has left. To me, per my comment that you replied to, the fact that the database thing was brought up means the employer is trying to squirm out of settling a debt; rather than say that it wasn't a real debt.
michaelochurch 14y ago
I saw this as. "Let me think of how I can not pay you." It's a (thinly) veiled threat. Of course, it's irrelevant to what's being discussed, but it's a way of saying "I can embarrass you with this irrelevant issue if you press this" without actually saying it. Classic extortion tactic. Since Josh printed the exchange in full, they no longer have this on him. Still, I don't know if it's a smart move on his part. He could have left that out entirely, and if they brought it into the public, he'd have more than $10,000 to talk about. Actually, I'm sure there are two sides to the database story. He could have been poorly trained, or working 80 hours per week-- at which point mistakes are inevitable-- or given bad tools. These kinds of fuckups rarely have only one person at fault, especially in the sloppier startups where management is thinly-spread and incompetent and there are too many moving parts (startups are hard to keep track of when well-run, and many aren't). I'm surprised he didn't get into detail of what happened there.
- ericb 14y ago
  > These kinds of fuckups rarely have only one person at fault Fat fingering an rm -rf or corrupting a DB, if you have good backup policies, should generally not cause End of Days.
  - MattRogish 14y ago
    Exactly. Accidentally deleting a database should be a minor concern in any well-run company. It'll be painful and annoying, but shouldn't cause "scrambling" for "3 days". The ire should be directed at management that allowed that condition to exist, not the person that fat-fingered something.
    - temphn 14y ago
      In this worldview "management" is expected to be superhuman, while the guy who actually makes the mistake is absolved of responsibility.
      - kstenerud 14y ago
lurchpop 14y ago
The thing that stood out for me is the part where they said, "You and Miso never signed a contract that mentions bonuses", which means he has no "legal proof" a bonus was even offered in the first place.
- jrs235 14y ago
  In many jurisdictions VERBAL agreements can be considered contracts and legally binding. Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult. The mere fact he has the email exchange which took place between them afterwards is probably enough evidence to show in court that a [contractual] agreement existed. Miso was dumb to ever respond. They would have been better to pretend they never saw or heard from the gentleman again and leave it to him to sue... with little to no evidence that the agreement existed. That still doesn't mean Miso doesn't suck... it's just the move Miso should have made if they were going to try and be dicks about it, like they were. Miso, should have just paid up right away, they got caught red handed though and their legal counsel probably said... pay up, it'll save you as much or more and cause you less legal headaches and stress... let's just make this go away and save ourselves from losing focus on a legal fight we will probably lose and minimally will cost as much or more to fight.
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    > Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult That, and because verbal contracts are not enforceable for all transactions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds
    - rprasad 14y ago
      The "statute of frauds" doctrine only applies to certain types of transactions. Most transactions, including employment agreements (or for example, selling your business) can be executed verbally.
  - rprasad 14y ago
napierzaza 14y ago
It would be a shorter EULA for companies like this to have a single clause: "We reserve the right to be ethical as we choose"

E14n 14y ago

I don't know what the culture is like at Miso but I would take "After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant." as "How do I justify to the rest of the team paying you an exorbitant bonus for team building after you trashed a production system that cost the team 3 days of work, then quit." Not that this changes the fact that they should have paid.

its_so_on 14y ago
I will just point out that in the present climate the bonus is NOT exorbitant where Miso is based, especially post-funding or after a few employees. Exorbitant would be: equity; $50k; paid on when the referral joins (instead after 6 months); paid if the referral is brought in for an interview, regardless of hire. (would be VERY VERY exorbitant). This is just standard.
- E14n 14y ago
  I guess it is a different culture. In the teams I have experience with, people referred because they wanted to work with good people.
  - its_so_on 14y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about companies where there wasn't a bonus of this kind and magitude. If so, yeah, different and not really comparable (maybe a token $500 or whatever). Otherwise I think if there's the bonus and people ask for it, obviously it does figure in motivating them to take proactive steps to bring someone on.
    - mcteapot 14y ago
      Who is John Galt?
      - its_so_on 14y ago
        mcteapot, please realize that people are a mix of lots of different preferences and motivations. I think we can all agree that on the whole, when management says you will get $10k for a certain action, it means that they expect this helps more people do the action. That doesn't mean it's the only reason they do it, or that some of the people who do it after the bonus wouldn't have done it without the bonus. It just means it helps. Otherwise, if it doesn't help, why not call it a thank-you-for-not-parking-in-the-handicapped-space-when-you-shouldn't bonus (assuming that, like most companies, nobody happens to have any problem with not doing this, and at any given time either the handicapped spaces are empty or employees with a legitimate entitlement are using them) and give it to every employee equally? I mean, if you don't expect it to have any effect whatsoever on referrals/behavior... Also, I want to make a nuanced but important point here. The employer in this particular case is explicitly kind of saying, "yeah, it might have kind of helped at the time, but you're not working here anymore." By that logic, every single person who ever gives notice should have their last paycheck docked if the time to cut the check occurs after they have left. After all, even though the paycheck might have originally helped them work there, they're not working there anymore so that doesn't matter. Why should an employer ever pay the last paycheck? You're not part of the team anymore and the paycheck is meant to motivate employees to work, that's why it exists. "Also, you dropped the database", or some made-up excuse. I think we can all agree that people don't just work for money, but we can also all agree that every employer needs to pay the last paycheck, even if the time to pay it comes after the employee has left. To me, per my comment that you replied to, the fact that the database thing was brought up means the employer is trying to squirm out of settling a debt; rather than say that it wasn't a real debt.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I saw this as. "Let me think of how I can not pay you." It's a (thinly) veiled threat. Of course, it's irrelevant to what's being discussed, but it's a way of saying "I can embarrass you with this irrelevant issue if you press this" without actually saying it. Classic extortion tactic. Since Josh printed the exchange in full, they no longer have this on him. Still, I don't know if it's a smart move on his part. He could have left that out entirely, and if they brought it into the public, he'd have more than $10,000 to talk about. Actually, I'm sure there are two sides to the database story. He could have been poorly trained, or working 80 hours per week-- at which point mistakes are inevitable-- or given bad tools. These kinds of fuckups rarely have only one person at fault, especially in the sloppier startups where management is thinly-spread and incompetent and there are too many moving parts (startups are hard to keep track of when well-run, and many aren't). I'm surprised he didn't get into detail of what happened there.

ericb 14y ago
> These kinds of fuckups rarely have only one person at fault Fat fingering an rm -rf or corrupting a DB, if you have good backup policies, should generally not cause End of Days.
- MattRogish 14y ago
  Exactly. Accidentally deleting a database should be a minor concern in any well-run company. It'll be painful and annoying, but shouldn't cause "scrambling" for "3 days". The ire should be directed at management that allowed that condition to exist, not the person that fat-fingered something.
  - temphn 14y ago
    In this worldview "management" is expected to be superhuman, while the guy who actually makes the mistake is absolved of responsibility.
    - kstenerud 14y ago

lurchpop 14y ago

The thing that stood out for me is the part where they said, "You and Miso never signed a contract that mentions bonuses", which means he has no "legal proof" a bonus was even offered in the first place.

jrs235 14y ago
In many jurisdictions VERBAL agreements can be considered contracts and legally binding. Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult. The mere fact he has the email exchange which took place between them afterwards is probably enough evidence to show in court that a [contractual] agreement existed. Miso was dumb to ever respond. They would have been better to pretend they never saw or heard from the gentleman again and leave it to him to sue... with little to no evidence that the agreement existed. That still doesn't mean Miso doesn't suck... it's just the move Miso should have made if they were going to try and be dicks about it, like they were. Miso, should have just paid up right away, they got caught red handed though and their legal counsel probably said... pay up, it'll save you as much or more and cause you less legal headaches and stress... let's just make this go away and save ourselves from losing focus on a legal fight we will probably lose and minimally will cost as much or more to fight.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  > Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult That, and because verbal contracts are not enforceable for all transactions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds
  - rprasad 14y ago
    The "statute of frauds" doctrine only applies to certain types of transactions. Most transactions, including employment agreements (or for example, selling your business) can be executed verbally.
- rprasad 14y ago

napierzaza 14y ago

It would be a shorter EULA for companies like this to have a single clause: "We reserve the right to be ethical as we choose"