3 ms·

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

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.

dxbydt 14y ago
>I have to disagree strongly with this statement Dude, you can disagree all day long. You have no locus standi - you were the employer, not the employee. One of these days, the shoe => other foot, and then you can tell me if it sucks or not. Especially when you are stuck in a new state with no healthcare & a family dependent on you, after leaving a 6 figure job at a bigco where chances of getting canned was like asymptotically close to nil. Anycase, I was not talking about you here...am sure you are an awesome guy & ran an awesome startup etc...just that there are other not-so-awesome startups & not-so-awesome founders out there.
- argumentum 14y ago
  Especially when you are stuck in a new state with no healthcare & a family dependent on you I don't say it's the right decision for everyone, perhaps for someone with a dependent family the right decision is to stay with the big company. But to take away the FREEDOM to take a risk, that is simply wrong... let me quote James Madison from the 10th Federalist Paper. It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy (destroying libery), that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
- argumentum 14y ago
  just that there are other not-so-awesome startups & not-so-awesome founders out there. There are not-so-awesome big companies, not-so-awesome politicians, bureaucrats. To live your life afraid of running across "not-so-awesome" people and opportunities would mean you guarantee you will never encounter the truly awesome people and opportunities.
readymade 14y ago
Unless you're willing to take a long look in the mirror and recognize that the primary fuckup here was in abusing someone's trust, I hope this story serves as a cautionary tale to others. You can tell yourself whatever you want.
- argumentum 14y ago
  If what I've written over the past few days does not appear to be a long look in the mirror, I've not made myself clear enough. At the same time, abusing someone's trust implies intent to harm. If you actually read the emails, you can see that no where I deny the risk involved. I didn't hide anything about the company (or myself) hardly having an idea of what we were doing. But where there is risk, there is opportunity. That was the dream I sold to Patrick, not to fool him, but because it was my dream as well. I hardly see that as abusing trust.
  - pfisch 14y ago
    It's kind of hard for me to believe you since I predicted what would happen so accurately from the email chain. Like how could you in good faith hire 8 people and then fire all of them in days. I mean honestly you only were hiring them for 3 months anyway. Did you hire them without having enough money to pay them for 2 months and no method of earning revenue? It seems like you made contracts in bad faith, and then did exactly what you told Patrick to do with his real internship offer. "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 isn't right. That is not a reasonable or ethical way to treat employees, and from your emails it sounded pretty clear that you thought it was. This is why I thought you guys sounded sketch and that there was not enough trust to work for you. If that is your outlook on agreements/commitments then nothing would stop you from screwing over your employees, and employer's have many many opportunities to do so.
    - argumentum 14y ago
      Well, I am not the entire team. There was great disagreement amongst the co-founders, in fact I lost friendships as a result and (now) have left the company entirely. I was on the side of keeping everyone and involving them in coming up with a new idea. But that, my co-founders convinced me, and I actually now believe to be true, would be the worse ethical decision than simply being honest about the situation and helping the interns move on to opportunities where they could actually help build something and feel good about their summer. No, it wouldn't be ethical if we abandoned them, but that was far from the case. We made personal phone calls, emails and used our own networks to ensure everyone was taken care of with a better opportunity than we could offer at the time. During the transition of 2 weeks or so, all the interns continued to stay in our house, and a few stayed for free the whole summer. It was my pleasure to host the ones that stayed, and (they are well aware of this) when the day comes for them to do their own startup I will be the first person to offer social, emotional and (if capable) financial support form them to take their own risks and start their own adventures. For you to consider someone like Patrick, a brilliant kid in one of the most prestigious undergraduate programs in this country, to be incapable of making his own decisions is the real unethical position here. It's patronizing, it's demeaning.. and you ought to really think about what message you are sending. If the brightest kids (legally adults actually) in this country are not encouraged to look at the options that are available to them... to take risks because you really only get one chance at youth and at life.. that would be a real tragedy.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

dxbydt 14y ago

>I have to disagree strongly with this statement Dude, you can disagree all day long. You have no locus standi - you were the employer, not the employee. One of these days, the shoe => other foot, and then you can tell me if it sucks or not. Especially when you are stuck in a new state with no healthcare & a family dependent on you, after leaving a 6 figure job at a bigco where chances of getting canned was like asymptotically close to nil. Anycase, I was not talking about you here...am sure you are an awesome guy & ran an awesome startup etc...just that there are other not-so-awesome startups & not-so-awesome founders out there.

argumentum 14y ago
Especially when you are stuck in a new state with no healthcare & a family dependent on you I don't say it's the right decision for everyone, perhaps for someone with a dependent family the right decision is to stay with the big company. But to take away the FREEDOM to take a risk, that is simply wrong... let me quote James Madison from the 10th Federalist Paper. It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy (destroying libery), that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
argumentum 14y ago
just that there are other not-so-awesome startups & not-so-awesome founders out there. There are not-so-awesome big companies, not-so-awesome politicians, bureaucrats. To live your life afraid of running across "not-so-awesome" people and opportunities would mean you guarantee you will never encounter the truly awesome people and opportunities.

readymade 14y ago

Unless you're willing to take a long look in the mirror and recognize that the primary fuckup here was in abusing someone's trust, I hope this story serves as a cautionary tale to others. You can tell yourself whatever you want.

argumentum 14y ago
If what I've written over the past few days does not appear to be a long look in the mirror, I've not made myself clear enough. At the same time, abusing someone's trust implies intent to harm. If you actually read the emails, you can see that no where I deny the risk involved. I didn't hide anything about the company (or myself) hardly having an idea of what we were doing. But where there is risk, there is opportunity. That was the dream I sold to Patrick, not to fool him, but because it was my dream as well. I hardly see that as abusing trust.
- pfisch 14y ago
  It's kind of hard for me to believe you since I predicted what would happen so accurately from the email chain. Like how could you in good faith hire 8 people and then fire all of them in days. I mean honestly you only were hiring them for 3 months anyway. Did you hire them without having enough money to pay them for 2 months and no method of earning revenue? It seems like you made contracts in bad faith, and then did exactly what you told Patrick to do with his real internship offer. "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 isn't right. That is not a reasonable or ethical way to treat employees, and from your emails it sounded pretty clear that you thought it was. This is why I thought you guys sounded sketch and that there was not enough trust to work for you. If that is your outlook on agreements/commitments then nothing would stop you from screwing over your employees, and employer's have many many opportunities to do so.
  - argumentum 14y ago
    Well, I am not the entire team. There was great disagreement amongst the co-founders, in fact I lost friendships as a result and (now) have left the company entirely. I was on the side of keeping everyone and involving them in coming up with a new idea. But that, my co-founders convinced me, and I actually now believe to be true, would be the worse ethical decision than simply being honest about the situation and helping the interns move on to opportunities where they could actually help build something and feel good about their summer. No, it wouldn't be ethical if we abandoned them, but that was far from the case. We made personal phone calls, emails and used our own networks to ensure everyone was taken care of with a better opportunity than we could offer at the time. During the transition of 2 weeks or so, all the interns continued to stay in our house, and a few stayed for free the whole summer. It was my pleasure to host the ones that stayed, and (they are well aware of this) when the day comes for them to do their own startup I will be the first person to offer social, emotional and (if capable) financial support form them to take their own risks and start their own adventures. For you to consider someone like Patrick, a brilliant kid in one of the most prestigious undergraduate programs in this country, to be incapable of making his own decisions is the real unethical position here. It's patronizing, it's demeaning.. and you ought to really think about what message you are sending. If the brightest kids (legally adults actually) in this country are not encouraged to look at the options that are available to them... to take risks because you really only get one chance at youth and at life.. that would be a real tragedy.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]