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Do this look like someone mistook budget allotted by a magnitude, or was too scared to speak up until it's too late and situation had to be escalated to (no off

Do this look like someone mistook budget allotted by a magnitude, or was too scared to speak up until it's too late and situation had to be escalated to (no offense)an adult to initiate shutdown?

rcxdude 2y ago
I was thinking it may have been something like that. But it's still shitty to a) wait until the project is complete to tell them they're not getting paid, and b) erase credit (I don't see any good justification for this. It's literally the reason they were getting a discount in the first place, and they went to quite some effort to do it)
- Aurornis 2y ago
  They didn’t wait until the project was complete. They issued a stop work order due to being over budget and also some “bad faith” charges they noticed. DEFCON then sent their own team to handle the production run. Credit was not erased from the PCB nor the software, which were the parts Entropic was contracted to do. They declined to include entropic on the plastics, which is understandable given that Entropic didn’t do the plastics. It also likely saved machining costs on the mold for a project that was already over budget. The original accusations appear to be a little exaggerated.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    They also don't credit them in the con booklet either (but did credit Rpi). And the credit in the software is what got the firmware author kicked out, so it very much feels like defcon went out of their way to avoid crediting them for some reason. And issuing a stop work order doesn't mean you can just not pay for the work done so far. It means you're not paying for any further work.
  - trickstra 2y ago
    > They didn’t wait until the project was complete These two statements cannot be both true at the same time 🠉 🠋 > Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets. https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement
tillulen 2y ago
It looks like a case of managerial miscommunication. Entropic seems to have expected that sending emails with higher budget estimates would give DEFCON the opportunity to say no if they did not agree, and took the lack of response as a sign of DEFCON’s agreement to the new budget. DEFCON seems to have either not read or ignored those emails and expected Entropic to work within the originally agreed-upon budget.
- gizmo686 2y ago
  What higher budget estimates? According to the (admittadly biased) article, Entropic ate all of the cost overruns: > Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.
  - trogdor 2y ago
    > According to the (admittadly biased) article, Entropic ate all of the cost overruns I’m not sure of that. Entropic’s statement uses odd language: “…in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.” Why not just say “in order to hit DEFCON’s cost target”? Why “per unit”? It sounds like Entropic might have gone over budget on some other costs (for example, development) and only discounted hardware or manufacturing cost.
- LMYahooTFY 2y ago
  In what line of work/business can you proceed to incur more expenses without approval from the paying client? This can't really be what they expected.
  - atoav 2y ago
    In any line of work, if you agree about it beforehand? E.g. many craftspeople bull you by the hour and give you a rough estimate how long it could take beforehand. If the thing they are fixing for you has 3 more faults that you didn't mention to you, they will mention to you that it costs more and if they should proceed. That is totally common, but the increased estimate needs to be communicated clearly and get an OK from the customer.

Do this look like someone mistook budget allotted by a magnitude, or was too scared to speak up until it's too late and situation had to be escalated to (no offense)an adult to initiate shutdown?

rcxdude 2y ago

I was thinking it may have been something like that. But it's still shitty to a) wait until the project is complete to tell them they're not getting paid, and b) erase credit (I don't see any good justification for this. It's literally the reason they were getting a discount in the first place, and they went to quite some effort to do it)

Aurornis 2y ago
They didn’t wait until the project was complete. They issued a stop work order due to being over budget and also some “bad faith” charges they noticed. DEFCON then sent their own team to handle the production run. Credit was not erased from the PCB nor the software, which were the parts Entropic was contracted to do. They declined to include entropic on the plastics, which is understandable given that Entropic didn’t do the plastics. It also likely saved machining costs on the mold for a project that was already over budget. The original accusations appear to be a little exaggerated.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  They also don't credit them in the con booklet either (but did credit Rpi). And the credit in the software is what got the firmware author kicked out, so it very much feels like defcon went out of their way to avoid crediting them for some reason. And issuing a stop work order doesn't mean you can just not pay for the work done so far. It means you're not paying for any further work.
- trickstra 2y ago
  > They didn’t wait until the project was complete These two statements cannot be both true at the same time 🠉 🠋 > Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets. https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement

tillulen 2y ago

It looks like a case of managerial miscommunication. Entropic seems to have expected that sending emails with higher budget estimates would give DEFCON the opportunity to say no if they did not agree, and took the lack of response as a sign of DEFCON’s agreement to the new budget. DEFCON seems to have either not read or ignored those emails and expected Entropic to work within the originally agreed-upon budget.

gizmo686 2y ago
What higher budget estimates? According to the (admittadly biased) article, Entropic ate all of the cost overruns: > Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.
- trogdor 2y ago
  > According to the (admittadly biased) article, Entropic ate all of the cost overruns I’m not sure of that. Entropic’s statement uses odd language: “…in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.” Why not just say “in order to hit DEFCON’s cost target”? Why “per unit”? It sounds like Entropic might have gone over budget on some other costs (for example, development) and only discounted hardware or manufacturing cost.
LMYahooTFY 2y ago
In what line of work/business can you proceed to incur more expenses without approval from the paying client? This can't really be what they expected.
- atoav 2y ago
  In any line of work, if you agree about it beforehand? E.g. many craftspeople bull you by the hour and give you a rough estimate how long it could take beforehand. If the thing they are fixing for you has 3 more faults that you didn't mention to you, they will mention to you that it costs more and if they should proceed. That is totally common, but the increased estimate needs to be communicated clearly and get an OK from the customer.