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Personally I think it's a case of her jimmies being rustled. She's complaining about the flat structure because she cannot cocere coders to get interested and

Personally I think it's a case of her jimmies being rustled. She's complaining about the flat structure because she cannot cocere coders to get interested and join her project. Maybe that's because they're all chasing the big bucks and prestige or maybe it's because they're paranoid, but maybe it's just because she's not a gamer, working on an unproven prototype that doesn't seem to have any gameplay, in a gaming company filled with people who care about actual games. Of course it couldn't be that she actually doesn't get valve and doesn't fit in, the problem NEEDS to be with the organisation, not the person who admitted to constantly complaining they couldn't hire someone cheap to do their grunt work. No disrespect, I'm sure she's extremely talented but it really does sound like she fit the culture and I think valve were pretty cool to let her export the project and continue working on it. P.S. I have a bias point of view. I was a pretty hardcore gamer and I really don't believe her project is at all interesting. Sometime in the future, maybe. But more likely in a venue like laser tag, probably not for a pc gamer. Thus I don't think it was fair of her to complain until she actually proved her concept.

srdev 13y ago
> She's complaining about the flat structure because she cannot cocere coders to get interested and join her project. Maybe that's because they're all chasing the big bucks and prestige or maybe it's because they're paranoid, but maybe it's just because she's not a gamer, working on an unproven prototype that doesn't seem to have any gameplay, in a gaming company filled with people who care about actual games. She relates stories about how employees would come by to play with the prototypes, so there appeared to be some interest from a gaming perspective. She elaborates that there are disincentives to work on risky or less-visible projects because of the way that the bonuses work. Assuming what she says is accurate, that sounds like a legitimate problem. > Of course it couldn't be that she actually doesn't get valve and doesn't fit in, the problem NEEDS to be with the organisation, not the person who admitted to constantly complaining they couldn't hire someone cheap to do their grunt work. The problem was specifically that they found machinists who were qualified and willing, but were rejected at the eleventh hour for not being a culture fit. That is a problem. I know the conventional wisdom around here is that office culture is king, but there should be some amount of flexibility in order to staff necessary positions.
- ownagefool 13y ago
  >She relates stories about how employees would come by to play with the prototypes, so there appeared to be some interest from a gaming perspective. She elaborates that there are disincentives to work on risky or less-visible projects because of the way that the bonuses work. Assuming what she says is accurate, that sounds like a legitimate problem. She may well have a point, but that doesn't change the fact that she herself admitted her prototype was way to cumbersome to clamour interest and she hoped that newer, smaller versions would help this. It also doesn't change the gameplay sounded like an AR version of D&D, which makes it sound like a bunch of geeks playing with toy swords dressed in cloaks. Fun for some, but not exactly a direct parallel to PC gaming. >The problem was specifically that they found machinists who were qualified and willing, but were rejected at the eleventh hour for not being a culture fit. That is a problem. I know the conventional wisdom around here is that office culture is king, but there should be some amount of flexibility in order to staff necessary positions. Watching the video, it sounded a lot more like it was Engineers being rejected at the 11th hour while machinists were never on the agenda.
  - talmand 13y ago
    I see this as two different complaints. I would agree that her project didn't sound too interesting but that doesn't necessarily discredit the complaints not directly relating to her project. Well, the fact her project didn't have big bonuses associated to it is indeed a formula for creating a problem since that's a financial incentive to not get involved. And it is rather difficult to make hardware if you don't hire people that make hardware.
    - ownagefool 13y ago
      I dunno how big the bonuses are, but I honestly hope that people joining valve aren't doing it for the money. Sure extra money is always good, but I imagine you try to join valve for the love. Still, I'm going to conceed the point. However, cheeky counter. Valve spends over 5 years making sequels to half life. They're not a quick company and yet they fired her because she was abrasive after only one year of employment while workong on an R&D project. In other words, she comes across as extremely impatient. End of the day though, she can prove everyone wrong by her project going huge after the kickstarter. However, if I were in her shoes, I wouldn't be bitterly dissing my ex-employer, I'd be estatic that they'd handed me what I thought was a gold mine. :p
rst 13y ago
She's complaining about the flat structure because it was unwilling to accommodate hardware specialists (e.g., a machinist) which her project needed, but which the software-centric crowd just wouldn't hire. The specific complaint about folks like this was that they were poor fits for the culture as a whole, which is almost certainly true as far as it goes: a machinist can't toddle off with their wheeled desk and join a purely software game project, because they don't have software skills. In other words, they can't function the way a member of that culture is expected to. But at the same time, skills in machining, board design, and the like are necessary if you're going to have a hardware project go to completion. The bottom line is that her project was just doing something different from the rest of the organization, and needed some degree of autonomy --- particularly in terms of really big areas like hiring --- to do it effectively. The flat structure was simply unable to provide that, because that requires that there be a corner of the organization where, say, software devs have nowhere near the sort of influence that they're used to having on, say, hiring as a matter of course.
- ownagefool 13y ago
  I don't think being an expert in a field prohibits you from getting hired by valve. Her project comes across to me as R&D where a small team of experts are working with something trying to find an application, while she seems to come across as wanted to scale up and produce something functional now. From my POV it almost certianly sounded like she actually needed software folks, as opposed to additional hardware, because the nudges from valve were that her project had to actually display some interesting game play before anyone would be interested.

srdev 13y ago

> She's complaining about the flat structure because she cannot cocere coders to get interested and join her project. Maybe that's because they're all chasing the big bucks and prestige or maybe it's because they're paranoid, but maybe it's just because she's not a gamer, working on an unproven prototype that doesn't seem to have any gameplay, in a gaming company filled with people who care about actual games. She relates stories about how employees would come by to play with the prototypes, so there appeared to be some interest from a gaming perspective. She elaborates that there are disincentives to work on risky or less-visible projects because of the way that the bonuses work. Assuming what she says is accurate, that sounds like a legitimate problem. > Of course it couldn't be that she actually doesn't get valve and doesn't fit in, the problem NEEDS to be with the organisation, not the person who admitted to constantly complaining they couldn't hire someone cheap to do their grunt work. The problem was specifically that they found machinists who were qualified and willing, but were rejected at the eleventh hour for not being a culture fit. That is a problem. I know the conventional wisdom around here is that office culture is king, but there should be some amount of flexibility in order to staff necessary positions.

ownagefool 13y ago
>She relates stories about how employees would come by to play with the prototypes, so there appeared to be some interest from a gaming perspective. She elaborates that there are disincentives to work on risky or less-visible projects because of the way that the bonuses work. Assuming what she says is accurate, that sounds like a legitimate problem. She may well have a point, but that doesn't change the fact that she herself admitted her prototype was way to cumbersome to clamour interest and she hoped that newer, smaller versions would help this. It also doesn't change the gameplay sounded like an AR version of D&D, which makes it sound like a bunch of geeks playing with toy swords dressed in cloaks. Fun for some, but not exactly a direct parallel to PC gaming. >The problem was specifically that they found machinists who were qualified and willing, but were rejected at the eleventh hour for not being a culture fit. That is a problem. I know the conventional wisdom around here is that office culture is king, but there should be some amount of flexibility in order to staff necessary positions. Watching the video, it sounded a lot more like it was Engineers being rejected at the 11th hour while machinists were never on the agenda.
- talmand 13y ago
  I see this as two different complaints. I would agree that her project didn't sound too interesting but that doesn't necessarily discredit the complaints not directly relating to her project. Well, the fact her project didn't have big bonuses associated to it is indeed a formula for creating a problem since that's a financial incentive to not get involved. And it is rather difficult to make hardware if you don't hire people that make hardware.
  - ownagefool 13y ago
    I dunno how big the bonuses are, but I honestly hope that people joining valve aren't doing it for the money. Sure extra money is always good, but I imagine you try to join valve for the love. Still, I'm going to conceed the point. However, cheeky counter. Valve spends over 5 years making sequels to half life. They're not a quick company and yet they fired her because she was abrasive after only one year of employment while workong on an R&D project. In other words, she comes across as extremely impatient. End of the day though, she can prove everyone wrong by her project going huge after the kickstarter. However, if I were in her shoes, I wouldn't be bitterly dissing my ex-employer, I'd be estatic that they'd handed me what I thought was a gold mine. :p

rst 13y ago

She's complaining about the flat structure because it was unwilling to accommodate hardware specialists (e.g., a machinist) which her project needed, but which the software-centric crowd just wouldn't hire. The specific complaint about folks like this was that they were poor fits for the culture as a whole, which is almost certainly true as far as it goes: a machinist can't toddle off with their wheeled desk and join a purely software game project, because they don't have software skills. In other words, they can't function the way a member of that culture is expected to. But at the same time, skills in machining, board design, and the like are necessary if you're going to have a hardware project go to completion. The bottom line is that her project was just doing something different from the rest of the organization, and needed some degree of autonomy --- particularly in terms of really big areas like hiring --- to do it effectively. The flat structure was simply unable to provide that, because that requires that there be a corner of the organization where, say, software devs have nowhere near the sort of influence that they're used to having on, say, hiring as a matter of course.

ownagefool 13y ago
I don't think being an expert in a field prohibits you from getting hired by valve. Her project comes across to me as R&D where a small team of experts are working with something trying to find an application, while she seems to come across as wanted to scale up and produce something functional now. From my POV it almost certianly sounded like she actually needed software folks, as opposed to additional hardware, because the nudges from valve were that her project had to actually display some interesting game play before anyone would be interested.