4 ms·

This whole thing raises a bunch of red flags imo. First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in emplo

by pfisch 14y ago

This whole thing raises a bunch of red flags imo. First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in employer-employee relationships. "I totally understand about not wanting to go back on your word. But remember, you aren't really doing that. When you signed the contract, you really believed that you wanted that job. Now you dont. Human being can change their mind, it's not ethically wrong to do so." This is like saying you aren't responsible for any commitments you make and can change your mind whenever you want. What if you change your mind about paying your interns? I mean you totally intended to compensate them when you hired them, but you know, you are a human being so you can really just change your mind whenever. This combined with the massive cheap intern labor pool makes you guys seem pretty sketchy. Like you basically want employees but you don't want to pay them or share equity. I don't know if those things are true, but that is the vibe I got. Also bragging about stealing an intern from another company kinda reinforces that image. Also trying to develop the major parts of brand new systems with 8 interns and 3 full times sounds insane to me and kind of like you are just trying to get tons of super cheap labor as if you can replace 1 experienced developer with 5 interns and get the same results. I'm not entirely sure what you intend to do with a bunch of short term interns and like 3 fts to manage them while simultaneously running an entire company but it certainly raises red flags.

pfisch 14y ago
Just to clarify I think what Patrick did is fine since he went and talked to the other CEO and they agreed, but the way Arjun went about inciting him to do it seemed sketchy.
- argumentum 14y ago
  Well, this is Arjun, I put the whole conversation, unedited, up for a reason... so that people can decide for themselves. I'm not happy that you think it's sketchy, but it's your right to say that if you believe it. No one is a perfect ethical person, and making ethical decisions is non-trivial. There are ethical problems with your approach as well... in the sense that if I were NOT to try an incite Patrick to leave I would not be giving him the free choice to listen to my argument and make his own decision. To say that Patrick is not capable of a reasoned decision would be patronizing, though I am not accusing you of that in any way. The root of all ethics can only be free choice. In that sense, I had the free choice to try and convince Patrick, and he had the free choice to try and be convinced.
  - pfisch 14y ago
    "Either way, signing a contract does not make you a slave to the company.. you can just walk away. Yes they could technically sue you for damages, but this never happens in real life. It's too much hassle and expense for the company (especially a startup) to go through." I think it was fine to attempt to convince Patrick to join, but it is not ok to tell him he can just bail on previous commitments because his employer will not sue him for it. Either you said that because you believe it, or you only said it to convince him, which is even worse because it means you are willing to say whatever you need to to get the results you want. And it seems like I was right before. You in fact did decide not to pay him the agreed upon salary immediately after he arrived.
    - argumentum 14y ago
      I didn't tell him to "bail." All I said is that he should weigh the options and try to determine what would be best choice for his life. Though it didn't work out with us, Patrick had a fruitful summer with PlanGrid (according to his own article). We remain good friends, and I hope to one day work with him again.
paulgb 14y ago
If you read Patrick's post, the red flags turned out to be quite valid. And you can see them popping up starting with the job ad itself: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5ab5jowa58qci0/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-29%20at%2012.46.55%20PM.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5ab5jowa58qci0/Screen%20Shot%2020... I'm glad it worked out for Patrick in the end.
argumentum 14y ago
Also bragging about stealing an intern from another company kinda reinforces that image. Stealing implies property. The point I made to Patrick was that human beings are not property.
- otakucode 14y ago
  You are quite right in that, and I've always thought that the abyssmal treatment of employees by employers over the past 40 years (things have gone astonishingly downhill, far more than most people realize... between 1950 and 1980 the average salary of the lower 90% of US workers rose by 75%... between 1980 and 2010, it rose by 1% even as worker productivity and corporate earnings skyrocketed thanks to computers and automation technology) really does not earn employers any kind of expectation of loyalty. They have specifically manufactured an environment to force employees to have to hop from company to company every few years just to keep pace with market rates. They've gotten rid of essentially all pensions, and divorced salaries entirely from the value employees actually generate. It blows my mind that employees would consider an employer worthy of any sort of loyalty except in extremely unusual circumstances. Loyalty goes both ways, or someone is being taken advantage of.
- pfisch 14y ago
  That was your title! Poaching - Illegally hunt or catch (game or fish) on land that is not one's own or is under official protection.
  - argumentum 14y ago
    Poaching is the standard term used to refer to convincing another company's employee or future employee to leave for yours.
argumentum 14y ago
* This combined with the massive cheap intern labor pool makes you guys seem pretty sketchy. Like you basically want employees but you don't want to pay them or share equity.* In response to the compensation, I think Patrick would confirm that his original internship was paying him so little that he would be losing money each month in NYC. We are not faultless here.. we had to make a decision on how to save the company (after realizing how stupid our original plan was). We tried our best to be fair, and most of the interns were satisfied with some combination of pro-rated stipend and housing/living expenses. Admittedly, some were not as satisfied.
baddox 14y ago
Is moral flexibility a bad thing?
- epoxyhockey 14y ago
  It is when you convince a college student to ditch his current opportunity to relocate across the country (on his own dime) and then lay him off days later.
  - baddox 14y ago
    Haha, so moral flexibility is sometimes bad, but sometimes good.
  - argumentum 14y ago
    So the college student is a moral imbecile? Incapable of taking the evidence provided, seeking advice and making an informed and independent decision? Then what of the idiot, moron or imbecile. What freedoms must we take from them? If being free means anything, it must be the freedom of those who chose the path least worn. Those who take the most risk, in opposition to the dictates of society. The Wright Brothers, for example, who chose to turn down Harvad and MIT and instead spent years upon years in their bicycle until the y finally took us to the skies. Where would we be without people like these... who gave up a family life because there are greater things to reach for in this world?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
dxbydt 14y ago
> "First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in employer-employee relationships." Tomorrow will be the end of my first 3 months in the Valley, and let me say the one aspect in which the Valley is vastly, 180 degrees, different from the rest of the country, is this "moral flexibility" business. I've worked over a decade in the east coast, and things are much more old fashioned back there in this aspect...people respect job contracts, put things down on paper, worry about hiring/firing and the impact it will have on the new hire, his family, healthcare etc. Not so in the valley. I got involved with a yc company too, and this is what transpired - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567857 It wasn't remotely pleasant...and while it all worked out in the end ( in the sense I got a diff job at a diff non-yc company) , it did leave a horrible taste in the mouth. The folks running the show were ...I hate to use the word...scamsters. Literally. You try these sort of stunts in a big company, people will take you to the cleaners. Its just that out here, you have the weight of the VC's & their billions behind you, coupled with the fact that you can always claim you are "just a startup" and so this sort of behavior is on par. Its an awesome thing for the startup community & the ecosystem at large - this moral flexibility - because it adds to the incredible speed at which you can iterate & pivot & all that jazz. But it does suck to be an employee at one of these gigs...you are at the receiving end of juvenile behavior & you have no recourse.
- argumentum 14y ago
  But it does suck to be an employee at one of these gigs...you are at the receiving end of juvenile behavior & you have no recourse. I have to disagree strongly with this statement. Yes, you put yourself at risk by working at a startup vs a big company... this is a risky business. I myself will end up with nearly nothing, after taking no salary for 5 months and leaving the company I founded for new ideas. It does NOT suck.. in fact the summer experiences of the interns we laid off were on average way better than they would have received at big companies. For the short time they were with us, they brainstormed our product from the ground up, went along and participated in office hours, meeting YC partners and co-founders of other startups in my batch and attend parties and events. They've made valuable connections and now know what it's like to start a startup (the good and the bad). Every intern at my s12 batchmates' companies that I've talked to raves about the experience. Our own interns all got new internships within a week or two (at mostly yc, but a couple 500startups cos as well) that paid equal or more than we did and had fruitful summer experiences (this was our #1 priority while pivoting, even more than our own startup). Yes, they took a risk, at first it seemed like it backfired, but in the end I am sure none of them would take it back.

by pfisch 14y ago

pfisch 14y ago

Just to clarify I think what Patrick did is fine since he went and talked to the other CEO and they agreed, but the way Arjun went about inciting him to do it seemed sketchy.

argumentum 14y ago
Well, this is Arjun, I put the whole conversation, unedited, up for a reason... so that people can decide for themselves. I'm not happy that you think it's sketchy, but it's your right to say that if you believe it. No one is a perfect ethical person, and making ethical decisions is non-trivial. There are ethical problems with your approach as well... in the sense that if I were NOT to try an incite Patrick to leave I would not be giving him the free choice to listen to my argument and make his own decision. To say that Patrick is not capable of a reasoned decision would be patronizing, though I am not accusing you of that in any way. The root of all ethics can only be free choice. In that sense, I had the free choice to try and convince Patrick, and he had the free choice to try and be convinced.
- pfisch 14y ago
  "Either way, signing a contract does not make you a slave to the company.. you can just walk away. Yes they could technically sue you for damages, but this never happens in real life. It's too much hassle and expense for the company (especially a startup) to go through." I think it was fine to attempt to convince Patrick to join, but it is not ok to tell him he can just bail on previous commitments because his employer will not sue him for it. Either you said that because you believe it, or you only said it to convince him, which is even worse because it means you are willing to say whatever you need to to get the results you want. And it seems like I was right before. You in fact did decide not to pay him the agreed upon salary immediately after he arrived.
  - argumentum 14y ago
    I didn't tell him to "bail." All I said is that he should weigh the options and try to determine what would be best choice for his life. Though it didn't work out with us, Patrick had a fruitful summer with PlanGrid (according to his own article). We remain good friends, and I hope to one day work with him again.

paulgb 14y ago

If you read Patrick's post, the red flags turned out to be quite valid. And you can see them popping up starting with the job ad itself: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5ab5jowa58qci0/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-29%20at%2012.46.55%20PM.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5ab5jowa58qci0/Screen%20Shot%2020... I'm glad it worked out for Patrick in the end.

argumentum 14y ago

Also bragging about stealing an intern from another company kinda reinforces that image. Stealing implies property. The point I made to Patrick was that human beings are not property.

otakucode 14y ago
You are quite right in that, and I've always thought that the abyssmal treatment of employees by employers over the past 40 years (things have gone astonishingly downhill, far more than most people realize... between 1950 and 1980 the average salary of the lower 90% of US workers rose by 75%... between 1980 and 2010, it rose by 1% even as worker productivity and corporate earnings skyrocketed thanks to computers and automation technology) really does not earn employers any kind of expectation of loyalty. They have specifically manufactured an environment to force employees to have to hop from company to company every few years just to keep pace with market rates. They've gotten rid of essentially all pensions, and divorced salaries entirely from the value employees actually generate. It blows my mind that employees would consider an employer worthy of any sort of loyalty except in extremely unusual circumstances. Loyalty goes both ways, or someone is being taken advantage of.
pfisch 14y ago
That was your title! Poaching - Illegally hunt or catch (game or fish) on land that is not one's own or is under official protection.
- argumentum 14y ago
  Poaching is the standard term used to refer to convincing another company's employee or future employee to leave for yours.

argumentum 14y ago

* This combined with the massive cheap intern labor pool makes you guys seem pretty sketchy. Like you basically want employees but you don't want to pay them or share equity.* In response to the compensation, I think Patrick would confirm that his original internship was paying him so little that he would be losing money each month in NYC. We are not faultless here.. we had to make a decision on how to save the company (after realizing how stupid our original plan was). We tried our best to be fair, and most of the interns were satisfied with some combination of pro-rated stipend and housing/living expenses. Admittedly, some were not as satisfied.

baddox 14y ago

Is moral flexibility a bad thing?

epoxyhockey 14y ago
It is when you convince a college student to ditch his current opportunity to relocate across the country (on his own dime) and then lay him off days later.
- baddox 14y ago
  Haha, so moral flexibility is sometimes bad, but sometimes good.
- argumentum 14y ago
  So the college student is a moral imbecile? Incapable of taking the evidence provided, seeking advice and making an informed and independent decision? Then what of the idiot, moron or imbecile. What freedoms must we take from them? If being free means anything, it must be the freedom of those who chose the path least worn. Those who take the most risk, in opposition to the dictates of society. The Wright Brothers, for example, who chose to turn down Harvad and MIT and instead spent years upon years in their bicycle until the y finally took us to the skies. Where would we be without people like these... who gave up a family life because there are greater things to reach for in this world?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

dxbydt 14y ago

> "First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in employer-employee relationships." Tomorrow will be the end of my first 3 months in the Valley, and let me say the one aspect in which the Valley is vastly, 180 degrees, different from the rest of the country, is this "moral flexibility" business. I've worked over a decade in the east coast, and things are much more old fashioned back there in this aspect...people respect job contracts, put things down on paper, worry about hiring/firing and the impact it will have on the new hire, his family, healthcare etc. Not so in the valley. I got involved with a yc company too, and this is what transpired - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567857 It wasn't remotely pleasant...and while it all worked out in the end ( in the sense I got a diff job at a diff non-yc company) , it did leave a horrible taste in the mouth. The folks running the show were ...I hate to use the word...scamsters. Literally. You try these sort of stunts in a big company, people will take you to the cleaners. Its just that out here, you have the weight of the VC's & their billions behind you, coupled with the fact that you can always claim you are "just a startup" and so this sort of behavior is on par. Its an awesome thing for the startup community & the ecosystem at large - this moral flexibility - because it adds to the incredible speed at which you can iterate & pivot & all that jazz. But it does suck to be an employee at one of these gigs...you are at the receiving end of juvenile behavior & you have no recourse.

argumentum 14y ago
But it does suck to be an employee at one of these gigs...you are at the receiving end of juvenile behavior & you have no recourse. I have to disagree strongly with this statement. Yes, you put yourself at risk by working at a startup vs a big company... this is a risky business. I myself will end up with nearly nothing, after taking no salary for 5 months and leaving the company I founded for new ideas. It does NOT suck.. in fact the summer experiences of the interns we laid off were on average way better than they would have received at big companies. For the short time they were with us, they brainstormed our product from the ground up, went along and participated in office hours, meeting YC partners and co-founders of other startups in my batch and attend parties and events. They've made valuable connections and now know what it's like to start a startup (the good and the bad). Every intern at my s12 batchmates' companies that I've talked to raves about the experience. Our own interns all got new internships within a week or two (at mostly yc, but a couple 500startups cos as well) that paid equal or more than we did and had fruitful summer experiences (this was our #1 priority while pivoting, even more than our own startup). Yes, they took a risk, at first it seemed like it backfired, but in the end I am sure none of them would take it back.