5 ms·

Color CEO Bill Nguyen Checks Out Of Day-To-Day Operations

107 points by olivercameron 14y ago

bane 14y ago
Another valid title could be "Interview with Irresponsible Aloof CEO who lives in Bizarroland." If there was any explanation of why Color is a giant smoldering pile of failure this article encapsulates it pretty well. I'd put particularly salient quotes from the article here but they're all fine examples that could be used as chapter headers in a book called "How Not to CEO (or wasting other people's money because YOLO)"
- raverbashing 14y ago
  Some people may think your post is a little over the top, but I agree 100%, and I would have used the same tone Bill Nguyen is very overrated, and apparently he specializes in "exits", getting te startup to a point barely enough over the threshold of getting a buyer (surely one that's not an expert) and selling.
- nostromo 14y ago
  Maybe he was too aloof, or maybe not, we don't know. But what we do know is that most startups fail. I think you're being overly harsh.
  - LargeWu 14y ago
    Most startups that fail don't materialize out of thin air, raise $40M, and fail within a year and a half. I think it's impossible to be too harsh on anybody involved with Color.
  - bane 14y ago
    I don't disagree with your central point (most startups fail). But my personal opinion is that it is the epitomy of unprofessionalism to "go on sabbatical" when you are the CEO and your company is literally melting down around you. At his point it the decision should come down to "how do I right this ship?" or "should I turn over the helm?" not "should I go to Maui, Tahoe or both?" His responses show such an unbelievable detachment from the investment made in the company, the employees, the technology and anything else that's going on around him. "I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting." Imagine the CEO of any company, after having some disasterous lauches and really really struggling to find a direction and needing somebody at the helm more than ever, just up and disappearing for a couple of months, nobody really knows exactly where he is or how to get ahold of him. Banging around Monte Carlo or the Maldives or the Alps. And when somebody finally gets ahold of him to find out his opinion on why the dev team up and left, why the product and company are failing and what he's going to do to fix things comes back with this pile of nonsense. "I feel bad about it, I can see why people would leave, you know with everything we've ever done being a giant failure and then with me up and disappearing for who knows how long, if I was back at the office I'd probably pivot, maybe, but I'm not there, maybe I'll feel like figuring something to do with the money we have left in the bank when I finish parasailing, maybe whatever, it's not like I don't have a habit of just up and disappearing like this, the board knows this about me. We'll chat when I get back from Snowboarding in the Alps." Most startups fail for a variety of reasons, lack of experience, funding, mistargeting the market, etc. Most startups don't fail because the CEO took his money and ran off to a tropical paradise "to vacation" while the house was on fire.
  - dreamdu5t 14y ago
    Harsh? Taking a CEO paycheck and disappearing for two months while your company crumbles, while maintianing an attitude of "So what? The rest of the team needs to show up for work but I'm special and need a two month sabbatical"... borders on embezzlement.
nanijoe 14y ago
What does color make these days?
- jarek 14y ago
  Not money.
  - hack_edu 14y ago
    Except lots of it for their CEO to pay for his vacation.
ilamont 14y ago
“I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting,” he said. “The roles of founders and CEOs is to get everyone engaged and give opportunities to people. And when things haven’t worked out as expected, the best way for me to recharge is to go on sabbatical.” The only similar situation I can recall is Michael Arrington taking a break in 2009 after someone spat in his face at a conference: http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/ The spitting incident was the last straw. I believe Arrington was truly burnt out from working like a dog for four years, and putting up with a lot of other stressful situations (Crunchpad, legal threats, etc.). And, to his credit, he came back after a month or so. It's also worth noting that he had a CEO (Heather Harde, who joined TechCrunch in 2006) still running the business. As for Color, you can imagine what would happen if a CEO at practically any other company in a similar situation (major product failure, staff bailing, impending pivot) took off on an indefinite sabbatical for months. He or she would be out.
smacktoward 14y ago
According to several sources close to the company, Nguyen has not been seen at Color’s Palo Alto headquarters for more than two months. The speculation was that Nguyen was “probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii.” And then a little further down... We’re told the changes have come after a power struggle between members of Color’s board — some of whom are loyal to Nguyen, and others who were anxious for a change. The guy hasn't even shown up for work in two months, and there are still board members who are loyal to him? He must have some pretty awesome blackmail material on them.
- kevingadd 14y ago
  That or maybe the board members are his relatives?
- malandrew 14y ago
  I can see someone checking out to a 10-day vipassana meditation retreat to think about where to take the company, but to go hang out in Maui for two months is beyond inexcusable. There is no insight he's earning on day 60 that he couldn't have gotten on day 10.
amateurguru 14y ago
> "The speculation was that Nguyen was probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii." > "Nguyen, who called while on his way to board a plane to Maui..." > "I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting." > "About Color’s next upcoming board meeting: “I’m going to have to call in, because I’ll be in Maui." I feel very bad for all the great and responsible people who work at Color.
tferris 14y ago
Color was a great idea, far beyond any social network. The concept of an elastic network which cannot be influenced, where you cannot friend or unfriend people and where a system decides who is your friend was just awesome. Adding friends or contacts manually is so 2005.
- calbear81 14y ago
  I agree, it was an idea ahead of it's time that if caught on, would have completely changed the concept of social networks. It was a big bet and high risk so I'm not surprised it hasn't caught on. The concepts and thinking behind the idea, in my opinion, was rock solid and more true to how real networks work. I might have even have tried to redefine it as the "experience network" where you can look at shared experiences from many different viewpoints.
- pxlpshr 14y ago
  An elastic social network to share photos with people at the same event in real-time? Sounds about as ingenious as a social network around credit card transactions. Oh.
- majormajor 14y ago
  I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. The bit "[a network] where a system decides who is your friend was just awesome" could easily go either way. Did you actually find out interesting things from its statements as to who your friends were, or do you not like the idea (it doesn't sound particularly appealing to me)?
- pyoung 14y ago
  It is basically a chatroulette for mobile photos, with the additional creepiness factor of knowing that the people on the app are some where nearby.
bradly 14y ago
It's strange to me that most of the talk around Color is focused around the founders and not the investors. The investors are a much more interesting subject. I mean, there are always going to be people willing to accept 40 million without a real product, heck I'm probably one of them, but I'd like to see interviews with the people who thought it was a good idea to give a company at that stage much money. I'm much more interested in hearing from them.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  That would be interesting, but I doubt it will ever happen. Nobody with any interest in participating in the VC-funded ecosystem (which includes much of the tech media, sadly) is ever going to point at one of the investors who fund that ecosystem and publicly call them out as a sucker. Even if they, you know, are a sucker.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  You say that now with the hindsight of LinkedIn's IPO, Facebook's post-IPO struggles, Twitter's struggling to monetize, but in the time period when Color was raising funds was late 2010 / early 2011 when we were at the height of the social mobile apps bubble.
- anjc 14y ago
  I'd guess that the risk of losing 40 million was worth it, in this case. And that's probably not a lot of money to stump up, for some people/groups.
acabal 14y ago
Based solely on what's in this article (perhaps reality is different), this reinforces my inkling that people get truly rich from mostly just two things: who you know, and marketing. Market yourself (or your product) well and know the right people, and you too can be the CEO of a vaporware company funded with more money than most people will see in their entire lives, while spending your months on sabbatical in Tahoe and Hawaii. Unbelievable. On the other hand, this is Techcrunch, and the reality is undoubtedly a little more nuanced than what's presented here.
- dylanhassinger 14y ago
  must be nice!
- vecter 14y ago
  You're right, the reality is far more nuanced than what's presented here. Setting aside the current Color fiasco, Bill Nguyen is a highly accomplished entrepreneur with close to $1B worth of startup exits in his past [1][2]. To say that he's gotten rich from "who he knows", and "marketing" is spitting in the face to a guy who's built real genuine successes from scratch, when he was a nobody. He is not making off like a bandit with the current $41M investment. This is turning out to be a failure from which he will not benefit financially in any significant way. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen [2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-boy-bubble http://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-boy-bubble
  - flatline3 14y ago
    I don't have a lot of faith in lionized history.
  - ludwigvan 14y ago
    Is this wiki page for real? "He grew up in Houston, the son of Vietnamese immigrants whom he says he consistently disappointed. They wanted him to score A's. Instead, he scored an unpredictable mix of A's and F's, and earned a 1.4 grade point average in his senior year. He was easily distracted and confused." Pretty much sums it up.
vicentaum 14y ago
Steve Jobs would never do that
MattRogish 14y ago
Can you imagine any other CEO of a company doing this? His behavior is bizarre and confusing. Imagine Tim Cook's email to his employees: From: Tim Cook, Apple's CEO To: Apple Employees Re: Maps and... stuff.. Hi everyone, As you know, I haven't been at work the past few months. What have I been doing? Well, "What haven't I been doing?" is the better question! I've taken the jet to Fiji, hiked Kilimanjaro, and eaten just the best crème brûlée at this little place off of the Champs-Élysées. This is what I do when I know a project is a complete disaster, which happens often. I do this all the time. I just travel around. Drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of pot. It's no big deal; nothing new or exciting. You'd think the board would've fired my ass a long time ago, but nah - I've made sure to stack the deck with my buddies and we've got enough cash to flounder around for a while. The CEO checks keep coming, and I keep cashing them, so I'll keep the title warm. Since iOS6 release, the Maps app has gotten a lot of criticism. In response, I've decided to go to Hawaii. To recharge my batteries. Yeah, they were pretty well charged from my last two months' off but you have no idea how draining it was to write this letter. Heavy is the head that wears the crown and all that. I think I need another couple of months to recover. If some of you quit because of my irresponsible and downright bizarre behavior, I totally understand. To the rest of you, though, expect a pivot. Or something. Aloha, Tim
- evan_ 14y ago
  > Since iOS6 release, the Maps app has gotten a lot of criticism. In response, I've decided to go to Hawaii. "Unfortunately, I used Apple Maps, and ended up in West Virginia."
  - smoyer 14y ago
    Best HN comment all week! Thanks for giving me a smile.
- jasonkolb 14y ago
  Awesome. Please make a Twitter account and write more of these, you have a gift :)
- wheels 14y ago
ChuckMcM 14y ago
If you recall the discussion we were having about really stressful situations, and the way people react. One is to become a tiger and fight, the other is to flee. It is important to realize that this is not necessarily a conscious choice, you learn a lot about yourself when you get tested like this, you can see it in people experiencing a disaster like Katrina, when it finally sinks in that this may be the last few days of their lives. That level of stress flips the switch and blam! there you are either fighting or running. Time to move the CEO into a different role, one which takes advantage of the charisma and energy and vision, but one that does not involve being ultimately responsible.
- bane 14y ago
  I do remember this. I wonder if Nguyen has never encountered a failure before? He's apparantely a successful early-stage startup CEO. Has everything he's worked on worked out?
kevinpet 14y ago
"I don’t think there is a pivot happening now at all, but if I were there we would pivot." Hey man, if you're the CEO and they aren't pursuing the right strategy, then get your ass back there and do your job. If you don't feel like doing your job, then resign and let the board find someone who is at least going to try to accomplish something.
jaggederest 14y ago
Boy, I sure wish I could get paid to travel while not having to deliver any results of any kind. Must be nice!
sbochins 14y ago
This all seems a little too hard to believe. I'm not really confident that the CEO has been smoking pot and drinking beer in Tahoe and Hawaii for the past two months. When software companies start to fail, the engineers know it. I wouldn't be surprised if they just talked to some pissed off engineers and weren't really getting the straight dope.
timjahn 14y ago
This reads like an article on the Onion. Unbelievable.
traughber 14y ago
lol.
tatsuke95 14y ago
When Color where all the rage in the tech circles a year ago, weren't they represented as the epitome of "invest in talent over the product", with Mr. Nguyen as the star? Where does that leave them?
joelmaat 14y ago
Have you ever listened to this guy? He's completely full of it; one line of BS after another. It's not even worth hearing what he has to say.
jconley 14y ago
A lot of commenters here are mentioning Nguyen is pulling in a "CEO Salary". Does anyone actually know this? As a founder CEO with a lot of personal cash in the bank, I would assume he is taking little to no salary. Not that this makes up for his absence in a time of need, but just sayin'. . .
beatpanda 14y ago
Wait, what day to day operations?
aristidb 14y ago
Just some historical context: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups (HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3229299 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3229299) That was about half a year after Color got funded with $41 million.
arihant 14y ago
Every time I go on Color webpage, they have a completely different product under same name. I feel sorry for people getting tricked with ridiculous pivot attempts.
nunyabusiness 14y ago
Rumor has it the guy is broke---his house in Hawaii is for rent and he rushed out of his house in Palo Alto like it was being foreclosed on--- So he is likely using the "vacation" time to return to his roots---the trailer parks of Houston. You BS and lie your way thru Silicon Valley until eventually you end up right back where you came from---someone should do a "rags to riches to rags" story

107 points by olivercameron 14y ago

bane 14y ago

Another valid title could be "Interview with Irresponsible Aloof CEO who lives in Bizarroland." If there was any explanation of why Color is a giant smoldering pile of failure this article encapsulates it pretty well. I'd put particularly salient quotes from the article here but they're all fine examples that could be used as chapter headers in a book called "How Not to CEO (or wasting other people's money because YOLO)"

raverbashing 14y ago
Some people may think your post is a little over the top, but I agree 100%, and I would have used the same tone Bill Nguyen is very overrated, and apparently he specializes in "exits", getting te startup to a point barely enough over the threshold of getting a buyer (surely one that's not an expert) and selling.
nostromo 14y ago
Maybe he was too aloof, or maybe not, we don't know. But what we do know is that most startups fail. I think you're being overly harsh.
- LargeWu 14y ago
  Most startups that fail don't materialize out of thin air, raise $40M, and fail within a year and a half. I think it's impossible to be too harsh on anybody involved with Color.
- bane 14y ago
  I don't disagree with your central point (most startups fail). But my personal opinion is that it is the epitomy of unprofessionalism to "go on sabbatical" when you are the CEO and your company is literally melting down around you. At his point it the decision should come down to "how do I right this ship?" or "should I turn over the helm?" not "should I go to Maui, Tahoe or both?" His responses show such an unbelievable detachment from the investment made in the company, the employees, the technology and anything else that's going on around him. "I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting." Imagine the CEO of any company, after having some disasterous lauches and really really struggling to find a direction and needing somebody at the helm more than ever, just up and disappearing for a couple of months, nobody really knows exactly where he is or how to get ahold of him. Banging around Monte Carlo or the Maldives or the Alps. And when somebody finally gets ahold of him to find out his opinion on why the dev team up and left, why the product and company are failing and what he's going to do to fix things comes back with this pile of nonsense. "I feel bad about it, I can see why people would leave, you know with everything we've ever done being a giant failure and then with me up and disappearing for who knows how long, if I was back at the office I'd probably pivot, maybe, but I'm not there, maybe I'll feel like figuring something to do with the money we have left in the bank when I finish parasailing, maybe whatever, it's not like I don't have a habit of just up and disappearing like this, the board knows this about me. We'll chat when I get back from Snowboarding in the Alps." Most startups fail for a variety of reasons, lack of experience, funding, mistargeting the market, etc. Most startups don't fail because the CEO took his money and ran off to a tropical paradise "to vacation" while the house was on fire.
- dreamdu5t 14y ago
  Harsh? Taking a CEO paycheck and disappearing for two months while your company crumbles, while maintianing an attitude of "So what? The rest of the team needs to show up for work but I'm special and need a two month sabbatical"... borders on embezzlement.

nanijoe 14y ago

What does color make these days?

jarek 14y ago
Not money.
- hack_edu 14y ago
  Except lots of it for their CEO to pay for his vacation.

ilamont 14y ago

“I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting,” he said. “The roles of founders and CEOs is to get everyone engaged and give opportunities to people. And when things haven’t worked out as expected, the best way for me to recharge is to go on sabbatical.” The only similar situation I can recall is Michael Arrington taking a break in 2009 after someone spat in his face at a conference: http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/ The spitting incident was the last straw. I believe Arrington was truly burnt out from working like a dog for four years, and putting up with a lot of other stressful situations (Crunchpad, legal threats, etc.). And, to his credit, he came back after a month or so. It's also worth noting that he had a CEO (Heather Harde, who joined TechCrunch in 2006) still running the business. As for Color, you can imagine what would happen if a CEO at practically any other company in a similar situation (major product failure, staff bailing, impending pivot) took off on an indefinite sabbatical for months. He or she would be out.

smacktoward 14y ago

According to several sources close to the company, Nguyen has not been seen at Color’s Palo Alto headquarters for more than two months. The speculation was that Nguyen was “probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii.” And then a little further down... We’re told the changes have come after a power struggle between members of Color’s board — some of whom are loyal to Nguyen, and others who were anxious for a change. The guy hasn't even shown up for work in two months, and there are still board members who are loyal to him? He must have some pretty awesome blackmail material on them.

kevingadd 14y ago
That or maybe the board members are his relatives?
malandrew 14y ago
I can see someone checking out to a 10-day vipassana meditation retreat to think about where to take the company, but to go hang out in Maui for two months is beyond inexcusable. There is no insight he's earning on day 60 that he couldn't have gotten on day 10.

amateurguru 14y ago

> "The speculation was that Nguyen was probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii." > "Nguyen, who called while on his way to board a plane to Maui..." > "I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting." > "About Color’s next upcoming board meeting: “I’m going to have to call in, because I’ll be in Maui." I feel very bad for all the great and responsible people who work at Color.

tferris 14y ago

Color was a great idea, far beyond any social network. The concept of an elastic network which cannot be influenced, where you cannot friend or unfriend people and where a system decides who is your friend was just awesome. Adding friends or contacts manually is so 2005.

calbear81 14y ago
I agree, it was an idea ahead of it's time that if caught on, would have completely changed the concept of social networks. It was a big bet and high risk so I'm not surprised it hasn't caught on. The concepts and thinking behind the idea, in my opinion, was rock solid and more true to how real networks work. I might have even have tried to redefine it as the "experience network" where you can look at shared experiences from many different viewpoints.
pxlpshr 14y ago
An elastic social network to share photos with people at the same event in real-time? Sounds about as ingenious as a social network around credit card transactions. Oh.
majormajor 14y ago
I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. The bit "[a network] where a system decides who is your friend was just awesome" could easily go either way. Did you actually find out interesting things from its statements as to who your friends were, or do you not like the idea (it doesn't sound particularly appealing to me)?
pyoung 14y ago
It is basically a chatroulette for mobile photos, with the additional creepiness factor of knowing that the people on the app are some where nearby.

bradly 14y ago

It's strange to me that most of the talk around Color is focused around the founders and not the investors. The investors are a much more interesting subject. I mean, there are always going to be people willing to accept 40 million without a real product, heck I'm probably one of them, but I'd like to see interviews with the people who thought it was a good idea to give a company at that stage much money. I'm much more interested in hearing from them.

smacktoward 14y ago
That would be interesting, but I doubt it will ever happen. Nobody with any interest in participating in the VC-funded ecosystem (which includes much of the tech media, sadly) is ever going to point at one of the investors who fund that ecosystem and publicly call them out as a sucker. Even if they, you know, are a sucker.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
You say that now with the hindsight of LinkedIn's IPO, Facebook's post-IPO struggles, Twitter's struggling to monetize, but in the time period when Color was raising funds was late 2010 / early 2011 when we were at the height of the social mobile apps bubble.
anjc 14y ago
I'd guess that the risk of losing 40 million was worth it, in this case. And that's probably not a lot of money to stump up, for some people/groups.

acabal 14y ago

Based solely on what's in this article (perhaps reality is different), this reinforces my inkling that people get truly rich from mostly just two things: who you know, and marketing. Market yourself (or your product) well and know the right people, and you too can be the CEO of a vaporware company funded with more money than most people will see in their entire lives, while spending your months on sabbatical in Tahoe and Hawaii. Unbelievable. On the other hand, this is Techcrunch, and the reality is undoubtedly a little more nuanced than what's presented here.

dylanhassinger 14y ago
must be nice!
vecter 14y ago
You're right, the reality is far more nuanced than what's presented here. Setting aside the current Color fiasco, Bill Nguyen is a highly accomplished entrepreneur with close to $1B worth of startup exits in his past [1][2]. To say that he's gotten rich from "who he knows", and "marketing" is spitting in the face to a guy who's built real genuine successes from scratch, when he was a nobody. He is not making off like a bandit with the current $41M investment. This is turning out to be a failure from which he will not benefit financially in any significant way. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen [2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-boy-bubble http://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-boy-bubble
- flatline3 14y ago
  I don't have a lot of faith in lionized history.
- ludwigvan 14y ago
  Is this wiki page for real? "He grew up in Houston, the son of Vietnamese immigrants whom he says he consistently disappointed. They wanted him to score A's. Instead, he scored an unpredictable mix of A's and F's, and earned a 1.4 grade point average in his senior year. He was easily distracted and confused." Pretty much sums it up.

vicentaum 14y ago

Steve Jobs would never do that

MattRogish 14y ago

Can you imagine any other CEO of a company doing this? His behavior is bizarre and confusing. Imagine Tim Cook's email to his employees: From: Tim Cook, Apple's CEO To: Apple Employees Re: Maps and... stuff.. Hi everyone, As you know, I haven't been at work the past few months. What have I been doing? Well, "What haven't I been doing?" is the better question! I've taken the jet to Fiji, hiked Kilimanjaro, and eaten just the best crème brûlée at this little place off of the Champs-Élysées. This is what I do when I know a project is a complete disaster, which happens often. I do this all the time. I just travel around. Drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of pot. It's no big deal; nothing new or exciting. You'd think the board would've fired my ass a long time ago, but nah - I've made sure to stack the deck with my buddies and we've got enough cash to flounder around for a while. The CEO checks keep coming, and I keep cashing them, so I'll keep the title warm. Since iOS6 release, the Maps app has gotten a lot of criticism. In response, I've decided to go to Hawaii. To recharge my batteries. Yeah, they were pretty well charged from my last two months' off but you have no idea how draining it was to write this letter. Heavy is the head that wears the crown and all that. I think I need another couple of months to recover. If some of you quit because of my irresponsible and downright bizarre behavior, I totally understand. To the rest of you, though, expect a pivot. Or something. Aloha, Tim

evan_ 14y ago
> Since iOS6 release, the Maps app has gotten a lot of criticism. In response, I've decided to go to Hawaii. "Unfortunately, I used Apple Maps, and ended up in West Virginia."
- smoyer 14y ago
  Best HN comment all week! Thanks for giving me a smile.
jasonkolb 14y ago
Awesome. Please make a Twitter account and write more of these, you have a gift :)
wheels 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago

If you recall the discussion we were having about really stressful situations, and the way people react. One is to become a tiger and fight, the other is to flee. It is important to realize that this is not necessarily a conscious choice, you learn a lot about yourself when you get tested like this, you can see it in people experiencing a disaster like Katrina, when it finally sinks in that this may be the last few days of their lives. That level of stress flips the switch and blam! there you are either fighting or running. Time to move the CEO into a different role, one which takes advantage of the charisma and energy and vision, but one that does not involve being ultimately responsible.

bane 14y ago
I do remember this. I wonder if Nguyen has never encountered a failure before? He's apparantely a successful early-stage startup CEO. Has everything he's worked on worked out?

kevinpet 14y ago

"I don’t think there is a pivot happening now at all, but if I were there we would pivot." Hey man, if you're the CEO and they aren't pursuing the right strategy, then get your ass back there and do your job. If you don't feel like doing your job, then resign and let the board find someone who is at least going to try to accomplish something.

jaggederest 14y ago

Boy, I sure wish I could get paid to travel while not having to deliver any results of any kind. Must be nice!

sbochins 14y ago

This all seems a little too hard to believe. I'm not really confident that the CEO has been smoking pot and drinking beer in Tahoe and Hawaii for the past two months. When software companies start to fail, the engineers know it. I wouldn't be surprised if they just talked to some pissed off engineers and weren't really getting the straight dope.

timjahn 14y ago

This reads like an article on the Onion. Unbelievable.

traughber 14y ago

lol.

tatsuke95 14y ago

When Color where all the rage in the tech circles a year ago, weren't they represented as the epitome of "invest in talent over the product", with Mr. Nguyen as the star? Where does that leave them?

joelmaat 14y ago

Have you ever listened to this guy? He's completely full of it; one line of BS after another. It's not even worth hearing what he has to say.

jconley 14y ago

A lot of commenters here are mentioning Nguyen is pulling in a "CEO Salary". Does anyone actually know this? As a founder CEO with a lot of personal cash in the bank, I would assume he is taking little to no salary. Not that this makes up for his absence in a time of need, but just sayin'. . .

beatpanda 14y ago

Wait, what day to day operations?

aristidb 14y ago

Just some historical context: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups (HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3229299 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3229299) That was about half a year after Color got funded with $41 million.

arihant 14y ago

Every time I go on Color webpage, they have a completely different product under same name. I feel sorry for people getting tricked with ridiculous pivot attempts.

nunyabusiness 14y ago

Rumor has it the guy is broke---his house in Hawaii is for rent and he rushed out of his house in Palo Alto like it was being foreclosed on--- So he is likely using the "vacation" time to return to his roots---the trailer parks of Houston. You BS and lie your way thru Silicon Valley until eventually you end up right back where you came from---someone should do a "rags to riches to rags" story