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Why I got Fired from Facebook (a $100 Million dollar lesson)
- jongold 14y agoDecent post - it's always interesting to see people write openly about times when they messed up (and heartening to know that everyone does)
- PythonDeveloper 14y agoI worked for a VERY large Internet company in the late '90s, and I can say with complete conviction that the VAST majority of terminations were politically motivated. Several times I was provided a list of my team members that needed to go, and when I asked "why this guy?" or "why her?", the answer was never performance related. A few times I was able to argue the team member to safety, but most of the time it was already a forgone conclusion. Each faction would come into and out of favor with upper management as the rounds of layoffs came and went, and the business priorities changed. Enemies of that faction were always targeted, irrespective of the cost to the business of the loss of that talent. The way I avoided all this WITHOUT choosing a side was to quietly make myself invaluable to the upper management as the key "goto guy" for skunkwerk projects, to always accept technical due-diligence projects on upcoming acquisitions, and keep showing "projects I'm working on in my spare time" to the uppers.
- _k 14y agoThe more the value offered, the more likely politics wins.
- jgrahamc 14y agoI rather enjoyed the inscription by Zuck in the copy of Strunk and White. It reads: "The product is strong with this one. Now learn some grammer." Yep, he gave this guy Strunk and White and spelt grammar incorrectly.
- gruseom 14y agoI noticed that too, but thought it could be a joke. It's fun to mispell things on purpose sometimes.
- devilshaircut 14y agoStunk and White, the bane of descriptivist linguists everywhere, strikes again! I'm disappointed in Zuckerberg.
- defen 14y agoHave you read David Foster Wallace's take[1] on this issue? To me[2] it seems like a good case for a form of prescriptivism. I do have to admit that I'm a huge fan of DFW and am surprised anyone was able to write an interesting article about the "linguistic wars", so maybe that colors my opinion somewhat. [1] http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-007... [1a] [1a] PDF warning [2] Someone with no background in or knowledge of linguistics
- rhizome 14y agoNon-PDF: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html
- devilshaircut 14y agoThis isn't a citation but you might be interested in checking out The Language Log (a language blog, as you may have guessed). That would be a good (and incredibly interesting) place to start to see the countering view to prescriptivism. Personally, they sold me on the idea of "prescriptivist poppycock" years ago, particularly the flavor of it presented in The Elements of Style. I thoroughly loathe that book, mostly for reasons discussed on TLL. The "grammar" in that book haunts my prose to this day. EDIT: Fixed a typo caused by me pecking out this reply on my iPhone.
- smarx 14y agoI actually think he spelled it correctly. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that letter looks more like the other A's than the E's.
- poopicus 14y agoHow exactly did he lose $100,000,000?
- lacksconfidence 14y agoprobably a rough guess based on the stock value of other employees from the same period as him that still work at facebook.
- Evbn 14y agoSomeone whose model of business is the same framework as penises is probably not going to fit in at a large company marketing department.
- theorique 14y ago"model of business is the same framework as penises" I'm not sure I get what you mean here. Could you clarify?
- mattdeboard 14y agoFurthermore I was not aware there was a penis framework.
- omarchowdhury 14y agoShowers/growers
- StavrosK 14y agoThat's why we have lubricant.
- safetyscissors 14y agoI'm getting a 500. Anyone have a mirror?
- abibibo 14y agohttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://okdork.com/2012/09/29/why-i-got-fired-from-facebook-a-100-million-dollar-lesson/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
- mattdeboard 14y agoa "liability" is a very strong word to use when describing someone in a company. Reading that bit made me grimace.
- rhizome 14y agoI would say it's a sign of allowing emotions to enter the equation, the liability being not to the company, but to the person ascribing liability's plans or personal compensation.
- ekm2 14y agoEvery time i read such posts,i become more confident that is harder to be an employee trying to figure out what a boss(or his/her company) needs than to just start your own business and let the market decide.
- throwaway404 14y agoWhen Noah says, "everyone is replaceable", he really means it. Yesterday, he fired half of AppSumo, despite the company is profitable and growing. Here is Noah's m.o. with AppSumo: 1) Attract and hire people by paying them above market salary and promising equity. 2) New employees grow the company by building systems, automating inefficient processes, creating new lines of business, etc. 3) Once systems are built and operating efficiently; fire staff before equity vests. 4) Rinse, repeat, wash. Entrepreneurs like this give startups a bad name. It's sad to see so many people celebrate him as a startup role model. The reason he was fired from Facebook because he leaked internal features to the press and blogged about them. Yet he still seems unapologetic "I don’t think what I did was that wrong since the marketing team did not do anything to promote our new features." Clearly this guy's moral compass points south.
- theorique 14y agoClearly this guy's moral compass points south. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
- mattdeboard 14y agoA properly functioning compass points north.
- jayferd 14y ago"It stings the person WAY more than the company. ... I encourage everyone to get fired once so they know that feeling. It’s unbelievable and something to definitely learn from." ^THIS. THANK YOU, SIR. In my case, it wasn't the sudden lack of a job that stung, it was the experience of being completely blacklisted by everyone at the company. That was 20 close friends who I never heard from again.
- just_observing 14y ago"That was 20 close friends who I never heard from again." They were not close friends then.
- wildmXranat 14y agoIndeed. In fact, I figure that those people contributed to the fact he was fired,- directly or otherwise. Never underestimate the prospect of someone else undercutting your reputation to make themselves look better.
- jayferd 14y agoFair point. Perhaps it seemed that way because I'd been working so much that I'd lost any semblance of a social life outside work. That's a mistake I haven't made again. Also, not everyone in the company should be painted with the same brush. There was a lot going on, none of which I'm actually at liberty to talk about, unfortunately.
- rhizome 14y agoYou're probably more at liberty to talk about it than you know.
- michaelochurch 14y agoIt sounds like he got a severance package that includes non-disparagement, in which case he should say nothing. If there's no severance, then he can air all the dirty laundry you want. Whether he wants to is up to him.
- maeon3 14y agoThis rant reminds me of podcast 1.0.1 about "getting fired" of "this developer's life". http://thisdeveloperslife.com/ http://thisdeveloperslife.com/ Getting fired is not that big a deal. Employers do everything in their power to make it a big deal. But the truth is, Developers (the good ones) are in such high demand, that it grates employers to no end, we are a liability to be needed so much, so they use psychological tricks to get us to act like begging dogs. To be thankful just to have a job. It's not the case, we have all the cards, if we just open our eyes. They need you more than you need them. If you are not happy at your job, GTFO, you'll find another in no time and kick yourself for not doing it sooner.
- kalms 14y agoTrue and true.
- salemh 14y agoUntil the business cycle corrects and demand is down. But that is the argument, that the growth of demand for developers (region dependent) will now continually be on the up and up versus a down / up, down / up. Seemed work was hard to come by (as far as picking any position, leaving any position) by my programmer friends as well as during my Tech Recruiting (no longer) days in '08-'09 (late '09+, power shifted to the talent vs companies). Relocated many, many persons to Utah (majority, other areas also, uprooting families, etc.) during that period of whom appeared, and stated they would not have relocated if the market was not so depressed for talent in their area (the Valley, Texas, NC, the East Coast, all over).
- michaelochurch 14y agoGetting fired itself is not a big deal because companies rarely give bad references. A bad reference not only makes a defamation suit a slam-dunk, but it puts them at a severe disadvantage in a he-said/she-said termination suit, and those can run into the millions. Being unemployed in a down market (regardless of the kind of termination) is bad, and short job tenures become damaging after a while. Also, if there isn't a severance package, it can hit you financially. 2-4 months without a salary is a pretty serious cost. So I'd generally agree with what you are saying-- the probability that getting fired will seriously fuck up your life is low-- but being fired is still best avoided.
- 31reasons 14y agoI think he counting his loss at $100 million is not realistic. I am assuming he calculated this number by the amount of equity he would have vested after Facebook IPO. To cash that amount he probably would have had to keep working till now. And if you are an entrepreneur type its a tall order. He should get rid of this feeling of loss of $100 million which was really nothing more than a promise.
- michaelochurch 14y agoOP is an idiot. Not only is he airing his dirty laundry in a way that makes him look extremely bad (saying he was fired because he was "selfish" and "zoned the F out"?) but he left so much on the table (and with his admissions, it's gone forever). Large companies have deep pockets and don't want information to get out. He couldn't have gotten $100 million out of this, but at the time, he could have definitely had the cliff voided (which would have been enough to get him comfortable)... but now it's far past too late. If nothing else, he could have let the cash and stock go and settled on a glowing reference from Zuck himself-- which would have made his career. There are so many ways he could have turned this to his career benefit.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- michaelochurch 14y agoThe money I would have let go. If you're not offered a severance, you're better off negotiating a great reference (including an open offer of introduction) than trying to shake them down for money. I can see that he's successful, but there are so many ways he could have played this better. Let's compare: A. A lifelong agreement from one of the most successful people in our generation to give a positive reference and introductions to top investors, in exchange for a small concession (non-disparagement and non-litigation regarding the company and the termination). B. Emotional catharsis associated with discussing a termination in embarrassing detail. I'd take A.
- throwaway503 14y agoLooking at the recent proceedings at FaceBook, I am not so sure how many investors would be interested in introductions from "The Zuck".
- throwaway503 14y agoReally? A reference would have made his career and that to from someone who does not have a shining reputation in the tech circles?