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I tire of “Employees from Y company leave to start their own” and even “Ex-Y employees launch new W”. How many times do we have to see these stories play out t

I tire of “Employees from Y company leave to start their own” and even “Ex-Y employees launch new W”. How many times do we have to see these stories play out to realize it doesn’t matter where they came from. These big companies employee a lot of people of varying skill, having it on your resume means almost nothing IMHO. Just look at the Humane pin full of “ex-Apple employees”, how’d that work out? And that’s only one small example. I hope IO (OpenAi/Jony Ive) fails so spectacularly so that we have an even better example to point to and we can dispel the idea that if you did something impressive early in your career or worked for an impressive company, it doesn’t mean you will continue to do so.

nchmy 1y ago
I immediately redflag anyone who advertises themselves as "ex-company". It shows a lack of character, judgment, and, probably, actual results/contributions. Likewise, it shows that they're probably not a particularly independent thinker - they're just following the herd of people who describe themselves like that (whose ven diagram surely overlaps considerably with people who describe themselves as "creatives" - as if a car mechanic working on a rusty bolt or a kindergarten teacher, or anyone else, is not creative. Moreover, if the ex company was so wonderful and they were so integral to it, why aren't they still there? If they did something truly important, why not just advertise that (and I'm putting aside here qualms about overt advertising rather than something more subtle, authentic, organic).
lofaszvanitt 1y ago
There are other forces at play. Same happens with video games. People can't see how many "variables" must be tuned in order to become notified and successful.
627467 1y ago
Yeah... "Combined 100 years of experience" and in previous article [0] it was "combined 80+ years" for the same people... What happened there? Accelerated aging? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353155

nchmy 1y ago

I immediately redflag anyone who advertises themselves as "ex-company". It shows a lack of character, judgment, and, probably, actual results/contributions. Likewise, it shows that they're probably not a particularly independent thinker - they're just following the herd of people who describe themselves like that (whose ven diagram surely overlaps considerably with people who describe themselves as "creatives" - as if a car mechanic working on a rusty bolt or a kindergarten teacher, or anyone else, is not creative. Moreover, if the ex company was so wonderful and they were so integral to it, why aren't they still there? If they did something truly important, why not just advertise that (and I'm putting aside here qualms about overt advertising rather than something more subtle, authentic, organic).

lofaszvanitt 1y ago

There are other forces at play. Same happens with video games. People can't see how many "variables" must be tuned in order to become notified and successful.

627467 1y ago

Yeah... "Combined 100 years of experience" and in previous article [0] it was "combined 80+ years" for the same people... What happened there? Accelerated aging? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353155