10 ms·

Hex, Lies and Startups

208 points by gringofyx 13y ago

joecorcoran 13y ago
If I've put the details together correctly, I remember the outrage that government translation contract created. Whether you made a lot of money out of your time with the company or not, you're ultimately better off not toiling for a badly-run enterprise that was built on lies. I grew up close to where the company was based. Nice part of the world – sort of :) – but full of slippery "self-made man" characters.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  I have many good memories of the surrounding towns, countryside and people. You're right, lots of "Arthur Daly" type characters.
otakucode 13y ago
Welcome to the world of business. I'm glad that when I was 15 years old and my first employer tried to pull that "we'll get rich together" horseshit I just said 'I'll kick myself later. Pay me my rate.' An honest person, whether in business or elsewhere, will base what they pay you on the value of the work you can do. As soon as they decide they want more value than they're paying for, they've become a con artist. There are tons of con artists at work today, taking advantage of the fact that a lot of employees are still under the impression that working for an employer grants them security and predictability - even though they get laid off the first time the company doesn't meet quarterly projections. Especially once John could quantify the amount of business he was bringing to the company, he should have set an ultimatum that he be paid based on that or he walks. Sure the con artist boss might think 'I'll just get rid of him and find another rube' and he even might (but probably not, employers always vastly underestimate the value of experience and domain-specific knowledge), but at least he wouldn't just keep feeding into the con himself.
michaelochurch 13y ago
I think that a large number of people go into "startups" thinking they're some kind of antidote to the politics and flat-out unethical behavior seen in "the corporate world". That's not really true. These startups (i.e. companies designed to become, or be bought by, corporate behemoths) are often like junior gangsters-- that is, more violent, more unpredictable, because they're trying to prove themselves. There's a gigantic survivor bias in startups at the upper end: to build a $200B company like Google or Facebook, you have to do a lot of things very right (and more than you do wrong). This makes it seem like "startups" are better than they are, because the ones with dogshit MBA culture crash and burn. Superiority is not intrinsic to startups, and there are plenty of shady players who still get exits and credibility. I've seen far more unethical behavior in the startup world than in finance. Large tech companies are somewhere in between. Why? It's not that finance people are intrinsically better, but that even junior bankers know how to fight for themselves. Junior tech workers, in general, haven't a clue, which is why a lot of these dodgy startups will fire people without severance for completely bogus reasons. On the founder's statement to the effect of "I pay you a wage and you do the work": the lesson is that loyalty has to be earned. Don't just give that away. I feel like a lot of us, when we start our careers, are like that socially inept guy who'll go out of his way to help some girl who isn't really interested but is basically nice to him, and he overvalues the interaction (and, in some cases, fabricates an emotional relationship in his mind). Just because the boss is basically nice to you, and may pretend to want to be your friend, doesn't mean you should trust him blindly. Con artists are nice, until they screw you over. Loyalty has to go both ways.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  That's a really good analogy, made me laugh out loud about the inept guy helping the girl. It was more or less just like that. These days I have a more dubious attitude, I tend not to beleive something someone says until I've confirmed it with my own eyes. I mean, I'll pay it lip-service and make all the right noises, but then I'll go sneak off and investigate for myself.
aestra 13y ago
"John" has a Wikipedia page which mentions the government contract that was awarded. The government was unhappy about work performed under the contract. It also was trivial to find that page.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  There were judges that wanted to drag him up in front of court. In cases where the interpreter was of too poor quality the case might have been thrown out of court. They made themselves infamous throughout the UK for all the wrong reasons. But then it got sold off and rebranded beyond recognition. I had to attend court the other week and on my way in I was reading a noticeboard, I had to do a double-take when I saw a familiar email address up there on a memo regarding interpreters
chris_wot 13y ago
I have a similar story. The gentleman I worked with (not FOR) promised me a share in his company. During the time I did work, I started my own sole trader business, quit my job at a very well known firm who make virtualisation software, and spent time helping him grow his business. He managed to get a few leads, but he relied on me to pull him out of problems. I recall the first time I helped him, it was only as a friend. Basically a large Australian government department had been screwed by a company who printed their paperwork. Their system couldn't handle umlauts... Yet they had told that company they handled Unicode. They were telling them that they handled a "subset of Unicode", which was sneaky because it was actually ISO-8859.1 that they could handle. Later I did some reporting work, which I now see that he entirely left in my hands to sort out with the consultancy company. The state government department didn't even entirely know what they wanted. It took me about 3 months to sort out what should have been a 2 week project. It was only when I threatened to quit the reporting project that I was paid. I still believed in the guy, so I helped him sort out an absolute disaster project for him for free with a mining company. I didn't ask for any money, as I was doing it as a favour. I managed to make him look awesome and turn it around. Somehow through his existing work for another company, he stole a contract for an important Federal Government department - one that dealt with national security - and I implemented an ITSM solution for them. I fixed up a variety of things that I was never paid for (I fixed an upgrade that had gone terribly wrong and was threatening the project - which I was never involvc I till the last second). Due to my success, I had learned some things about ITIL from my cousin, who is a genius about systems. So I explained to this agencies head of department what I thought about ITIL and where I thought it should go and the importance of the Service Catlog to their organisation. Not only did they get what I was saying, but they asked me in to implement their catalog! At the same time, somehow this guy had managed to get some systems integration work. The catch was the only communications channel, they could use was - wait for it - email! Somehow I made it work. I did a bunch of other work, and I started to help him win big contracts. The final bit of work was with yet another very large, and highly political Federal government department. At this point I had been paid for very little and never offered any share of the company he founded. It all came to a head one night when I stressed out as I was getting into serious debt, hadn't seen my kids or wife for some time, and phoned him to tell him I wasn't sure I could keep going. His reaction was to cut me off all his IT systems, and then guilted me about not being loyal or reasonable. Eventually he told me, after I had completed a large project to success, that his WIFE wouldn't let me be a part of his business. He then tried to tie me into a bunch of contracts, which I declined to sign after he put high pressure on me. I did agree to finish off work for a company I was implementing a solution for, mainly because I didn't want to leave him in the lurch, and also because I didn't want to let my client down. I had gotten a new part time job so i could do a computer science defree, which I warned him about so he would know when my end date for wrap up would be so he could finish up that project phase so he could implement testing, for which he would employ someone who finalize the project. I then billed him...and waited a few months (I figured he was busy). In fact, I waited 6 months before I sent him an email... To which he told me that he wasn't happy with the work, that there had been problems and he had had to redo the work. When I asked for specifics, he refused to tell me. He did say he'd work out how much he believed he wanted to pay me. I never heard from him again. I have now taken him to a debt collector. He has gone bankrupt and is no longer a director of his company. Instead his father is. His father refuses to pay me. In fact, he claimed he had no statement of work and that I should provide evidence before he would consider payment. What he didn't realise was that his son had caused problems for a former business partner, a very very honourable guy who quickly worked out that the son was despicable, and he provided evidence of the work I had done. The father then offered me a fifth of the money owed as a "goodwill gesture ex gratia" payment. The debt collector is less than impressed. The gentleman doesn't know it, but I'm about to wind up his company. In my opinion, the man has no scruples and no conscience. I feel like a fool to have trusted him. Such is my tale of woe... Quite cathartic to get it out there!
mnglkhn2 13y ago
@gringofyx: it looks like you took a passive-aggressive approach, and sabotaged the company from the inside once you returned to Bulgaria. You know what I think, to some extent, you are the younger version of John, as ruthless as him. This is why you accepted to work for him, since you felt the attraction of the same. I would really love to see how your next ventures unfold, especially from the human side of things. I am sure financially you'll do well.
- otakucode 13y ago
  You consider doing the job you are paid for to be sabotage? He was contracted for 7.5 hours, he was paid for that and nothing more. In what universe does the company deserve more than what they pay for?
  - mnglkhn2 13y ago
    I hope we both know that there are more ways than one to do your contracted job well. I might choose plan B that does the task but needs replaced intwo months, than job A which takes longer to implement but might be efficient over the long run. In this case, would you dock my pay?
    - otakucode 13y ago
      I'd expect you to present both and I'd make the decision since it deals with costs. If I expected you to make decisions like that that directly affect the businesses future expenses, you'd be making a lot more money and wouldn't be contracted for 7.5 hours.
      - mnglkhn2 13y ago
        Then pretty soon you will be micromanaging me, essentially doubling your cost. At some point you have to trust me with some decisions if you want to be able to operate somewhat efficiently.
        13y ago
dylandrop 13y ago
I feel bad for you dude, but considering you never signed any paperwork for your stake in the company, and that you knew he was a very, very shady character to begin with, you were just asking for trouble. I once started a preliminary business idea with a friend, and we signed paperwork as soon as we had worked on it for a month or so.
mathattack 13y ago
I'm not sure if it was a "show" versus "tell", but the biggest insight came at the start. Someone who steals from his last company to create a new one isn't going to treat people well. They're appropriators (or looters) rather than creators. They see value as a zero sum game and try to keep it all to themselves. People rarely sell only half their soul, and one sign of an ethics violation is usually a sign of many. So while one moral of the story is "Get your equity in writing", another more important one is "Don't do busy with shady people." All that said, it sounds like the author got good experience and wisdom out of it. Building a foreign technical subsidiary is great for the resume. Learning the pitfalls of dealing with unethical people is great for the next one.
lnanek2 13y ago
Talking to people in SV, it's actually pretty common that the business people try to dump the techies right before they vest or a good deal comes in. Sometimes the person dumped has even been CTO or the only technical person and built the entire technical solution.
jjindev 13y ago
The company started with stolen data and stolen clients. Salesmen wanted to steal clients and data again. It was life on a pirate ship. I'm tempted to say it had to end badly, but I suppose there are some companies which do rise above bad beginnings ...
- thetrumanshow 13y ago
  "Hey Matt, let's setup a company of our own and ditch this place - you can own 50%" With regards to the salesmen and their business propositions, it doesn't sound like stolen data. Sounds like he played the role of company-man and threw people under the bus for the good of the company, believing that he would benefit in the long-run. One of the first things I learned from the old engineers at Lockheed was to identify and actively avoid the company man. You interacted with the company man at your peril. It was basically like this: in dealing with a company man, anything you say can be used against you, but nothing you say can help you.
  - badman_ting 13y ago
    I agree about his actions. He was shocked that the company would ever screw him the way he screwed others. He was supposed to be different! Unethical behavior is a funny thing. He would have been better off in pretty much every way had he taken one of those "bad" salespeople up on their offer to start a new venture.
peterjancelis 13y ago
I am pretty sure the company here is Applied Language Solutions, which was ran by Gavin Wheeldon and was featured in the UK version of Dragon's Den. ALS had a Sofia office, a free translation tool that was mentioned on Dragon's Den and sold for 67.5 million pounds.
- woodchuck64 13y ago
  "Wheeldon as a businessman (and a moral specimen) is truly riveting, albeit in sort of the same way that Hannibal Lecter is fascinating as a gourmet." (http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-gavin-wheeldon-case-study-in-cheap.html http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-gavin-...)
- rdl 13y ago
  Why are there so many sketch companies in the language space? L+H is the ultimate I think.
6d0debc071 13y ago
It's always sad to see young people get messed up because they're socially naive. Honestly, I think this sort of thing should be part of a set of basic business/life skills taught in school.
Aqueous 13y ago
A litany of red flags. - "he'd stolen a few clients, some data" - "he took on his former girlfriends brother" - "within a year me and Ian moved to Bulgaria...John wanted to keep costs down" - "Ians sister, had an abortion at Johns request." (I'm pro-choice, but this is still messed up) - "I want you to fire Ian" - "I think John wanted it all swept under the carpet." - "Then how about my shares?" - if you ever find yourself saying this, you are sunk. John sounds like the worst guy ever. I'm about as trusting and naive as they come. I probably would have fallen for John's smarminess initially as well - some people are excellent manipulators - and probably kept going for a long time. But you were working for somebody who does not have a conscience. John is a classic sociopath. Be glad you got out of there - being rich under his command is not worth it.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Is that enough information to really label him a sociopath? Not the best person maybe, but a sociopath?
  - solistice 13y ago
    Either he has no feelings of guilt whatever, or he's not sleeping much at night. Also he's highly manipulative. I'd give him the sociopath handle.
  - Aqueous 13y ago
    Not really a black and white issue - he's definitely on the spectrum, though.
ZeroGravitas 13y ago
So who was writing the translation software? This appears to be the product the author was spamming to generate leads for, and from comments in the story and elsewhere it seems like it wasn't very good. But it seemed a bit weird it didn't feature more prominently in the narrative. Was this the stolen "data"?
- gringofyx 13y ago
  There was no translation software, only project management and sales software and that was all written by me and my team. The free translation software was written by another company. The stolen data was mostly taxonomical lists and some setup data for a project management system. The actual translation was given to real people to do for absolute bottom dollar prices
mgaphysics 13y ago
Somewhere in the book written by the founders of 37signals they allude to the premise that we should all remember that the term "start-up" is interchangeable with the term "business". As such, you have to protect your interests as if you are running a business, and not get lost in the idea of a start-up. Getting things in writing can be tricky prior to launch and proof of persistency, but at the point where you are hiring additional staff and opening satellite offices, the topic has to be addressed.
babesh 13y ago
Have met and been on the receiving end of a few of these types myself. Unfortunately, doing whatever it takes to get ahead and stepping on others to do so seems to work. On the other hand, there are good people in the tech industry as well.
gringofyx 13y ago
Apologies about it being so long
- EnderMB 13y ago
  There's no need to apologise. I found to be a great read!
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    Thankyou, that means a lot ;)
- jbrooksuk 13y ago
  It was a great read and a friendly reminder to all. Out of interest, what do you do these days?
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    I'm on a very quiet marathon to build twelve startups in twelve months, I'm in my third month and everything is on track so far. I will blog about it all when I hit six months in. My day job is a Technical Architect for a PLC in the UK. I also run between 5km and 10km everyday to train for an actual marathon (running). Add to that being a husband and a father... and a blogger now ;) I really wanted to tell that story, and for it not appear arrogant on my part.
    - kenshiro_o 13y ago
      Great post. Really enjoyed and empathized with you. Btw, 12 start-ups in 12 months? That's pretty impressive. However how about building one start-up per month, then if one takes off focusing on the project that as the most momentum? That may be a better winning formula, don't you think so? I'd also like to know how you fit the running, parenting, etc. in your schedule! You must be scarily efficient...
      - gringofyx 13y ago
ojbyrne 13y ago
Good story, with the moral that in business there's no such thing as friends, but I have a minor quibble - there's no mention of "hex." I guess it's there for the cool title and standing in for programming.
- ceautery 13y ago
  Yes! I hereby call on the author to at least mention weighing the strengths of various hex colors while designing the web layout.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  That's right, on HN - gotta have an eye-catching title.
- wtracy 13y ago
  Maybe it was supposed to be "sex", in reference to the owner's girlfriend who had the abortion?
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    I'm curious to know if people think it was in bad taste to add that detail?
    - MayankGoyal 13y ago
      I don't. It explains why he wanted to fire Ian out of the blue. Your story is good enough that it will be read even without a linkbait title. Maybe you could add a short teaser at the beginning of the article? The current one doesn't do it justice.
    - 205guy 13y ago
      I thought it was irrelevant to the story, and needlessly personal, especially since the story contained enough information to identify the company and CEO. In particular, you say "had an abortion at John's request" as if he forced her, when that's just your interpretation. I can imagine that a lot of women have abortions after the parteners talk about it (sometimes they agree and sometimes they don't, but who's to say who's at fault). Also, with easy libel laws in the UK, you could be opening yourself up to a lawsuit. As for whether it explains the firing, not really. You already said the gf was an ex when hiring Ian, so it's hard to really know the sequence of events without adding more sordid details. Plus it's just your speculation about why he wanted Ian gone, and it wouldn't totally explain it anyway (what difference did it make at that point, after the abortion apparently, whether Ian worked for the company or not?).
atlih 13y ago
Good story, my opinion is that if you hadn't been personally invested in this whole thing, chances are you would just have done a mediocre job like 99.5% of office workers and the company would never taken off. Basically you are a well experienced growth hacker now while the owner is clueless. So in the end, you got more out of it than him.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  That's what I'd like to tell myself, but he now has quite a high profile in the UK startup industry. It's one thing to know how to grow a company from the very beginning, but to run and sustain a company that has tens of millions in revenue may be a more valuable lesson.
  - atlih 13y ago
    Well what you know benefits established firms as well, and is actually more valuable to them on average than it is to blank paper startups that noone knows for certain if there's a demand for. While growth hacking helps launching startups off the ground, it also helps prevent established firms from sinking.
    - gringofyx 13y ago
      I totally agree, it's one of those skills that's hard to prove, I'm not sure I'd put it on my CV.
louischatriot 13y ago
Sorry to be blunt, but I am always amazed by what this kind of stories have in common: trusting people without a contract (or at least a signed agreement). Even if it's your best friend who's going to hire you, don't accept promises such as "you'll get rich once we hit it big". Sign a contract stating how much of the company you own, what the vesting schedule is, acceleration upon change of control etc. There are some assholes out there, so stop being naïve. This is a very good cautionary tale about what happens if you do.
- ahoyhere 13y ago
  Don't let somebody off the hook for "naïvete" if they enter into a business with somebody who got their assets through theft, and his job is to disguise the theft. That's collusion.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Signed agreements are contracts.
James_Duval 13y ago
Question: You say "he'd stolen a few clients, some data, rented an office and hadn't really thought about the rest. It was my job to reshape the stolen data beyond recognition" - did you not consider that such a person might be somewhat untrustworthy? Follow-up, it bothers me that you took a job knowing that you were disguising stolen data, what was your rationale for this?
- coldtea 13y ago
  That's what bothers you? He even fucking stayed after the horrible discussion with the boss (a reasonable person would have quit then and there), and he agreed to fuck up the other (Ian) guy for a measly five thousand quids!
  - James_Duval 13y ago
    I've been trying to find a way to respond to this, but the posts keep turning into very long very confusing rambles. I think that this sums up the disconnect best, however: £5000 would be a genuinely life-changing amount for me.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  I didn't know this straight off, I found out in my first week that he had this data and I didn't know where it had come from. In the next few weeks he got a bit panicky, and told me the data was going to be "audited" by the company he'd just left (and stolen the data from). Only then did I realise it was stolen data, that was like a month or two into the job. He also lied about his name to me, I found out a month later he'd done this so that if he fired me (or his name appeared in the press) - then no one could track him down. I think the company was even registered (initially) under his false name. I should have smelled a rat, but at age 20 I didn't even know rats could smell.
  - otakucode 13y ago
    Really, don't blame it on your age. I knew better at 15. The first employer I had was a guy doing MLM who wanted me to accept a lower wage now for big riches later. He talked a great game, but if he was so sure my work would make him rich later, as the boss it's his job to make the call and make an investment by paying me reasonably from the start. If I miss out on 'big riches' later on, no big whoop. Of course he never made any money because MLM is a scam. A year later I was 16 and working for his brothers company, a remailing company that actually provided a valuable service and had a solid business model. Guess what, they didn't try to get me to work for almost nothing! Like any real business, they realized the value I would bring and paid me accordingly. I designed their newsletter, wrote an application to track serial numbers on their postage metering machines when the government started requiring that (which was fun because they gave me 24 hours notice that they needed it to comply with federal law, but I think it surprised them too). When they wanted me to make a web-based application for their sales people to work up price quotes for prospective clients I met with the owner and told him this was above and beyond my part-time after-school job duties as 'anything with a computer guy' and proposed doing it as a separate contract, he went for it and I made what was (to teenaged me) a buttload of money on it. Real businesses understand that salaries are not charity. They're not even something reluctantly handed over in order to get work out of people. They're investments. Of course it requires you to find the right people, and doesn't eliminate any of the challenge or risk out of running a business, but no employer worth a squirt of piss is going to expect their employees to take those risks for the company. Protection from that kind of thing is why people work for companies and aren't just self-employed!
DanBC 13y ago
> I started working my contracted 7.5 hours a day, I am constantly surprised by bosses that do not realise the consequences of their words. When someone is clearly making an effort you need to recognise that. Maybe it's just a "hey, thanks, I appreciate it" when you have no money. Saying "I pay you a wage and you do the work" is a sure way to force people to do just enough.
- rhizome 13y ago
  When someone is clearly making an effort you need to recognise that. A common symptom of management insanity is that if you're working like 14hrs a day, it's because you are inefficient and should be thankful that they're putting up with your incompetence.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  The same exact thing happened to me a couple of years ago - except that I wasn't working at a startup, but at an established company. I even proposed to have a results-based salary (I was doing a lot of sales engineering, so that would have been fairly simple) but was refused. So I started working just my contract hours, and building hashtagify.me on the side. In the end I gave my resignation notice, they went into a panic and offered me 5 months of half-time work - but with 85% pay; this cost them much more than what I would have expected as a bonus at the time, not to count the almost two years of not-really-enthusiastic work. I really can't understand how managers/business people can be so stupid sometimes.
  - otakucode 13y ago
    >I even proposed to have a results-based salary Do you realize how insane such a suggestion is? I know it probably sounds totally reasonable from a "the harder you work the better you do" mindset, but companies abandoned that in the 1980s. There's a reason why even as technology has multiplied the productivity of employees by leaps and bounds average salaries have remained flat since 1980. If you want to understand managers/business people, read their books. Seriously, read the books they have on their shelf. Books written for managers are like something produced in a bizarre sociopathic universe. And they very consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the work an employee does.
seivan 13y ago
I've been through this. The deceit people who can't build to those who can. They lie and trick and rush things. That's always the common factor, how they always are in a rush. I'm sorry for what you had to go through, I've gone through similar crap. They don't understand how a person who's vested into a company not just through shares but through passion and vision can suddenly come to a halt when told that they are "just paid a wage" Fuck that.
grabeh 13y ago
It's quite straightforward to identify the company and founder you're talking about on the basis of the profiles you link to on your site. Of course, there's nothing too controversial in the piece but it perhaps makes it a little redundant to use a pseudonym for the founder? Just a thought really (I also enjoyed reading the tale by the way).
- gringofyx 13y ago
  Firstly, thanks for reading ;) Secondly, I'm making a subtle point - when I started with the company he lied about his name and called himself "John Snow". I only found out it was a lie months later. I also want to protect the anonymity of my friend Ian. I also want to protect myself (legally) if he ever read it
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    Secondly, I'm making a subtle point - when I started with the company he lied about his name and called himself "John Snow". Bastard.
    - gringofyx 13y ago
      I think it was a reference to John Snow from a Game of Thrones. I'm undecided how I feel about that.
      - mst 13y ago
        ... and said character was, indeed, a bastard. I think you may just have had a <whoosh /> moment :)
        gringofyx 13y ago
        You sir, are a genius
        13y ago
junto 13y ago
Is there any reason as to why you didn't share the company name?
- gringofyx 13y ago
  If you read the comment by @grabeh you'll see that it's probably quite easy to research. In my reply to @grabeh are the reasons why I didn't give more details (such as the founders name). I would have no problems if anyone else posted the real details here, but I wouldn't comfirm or deny it - unless there's a legal expert on here who could reassure me it's OK to post those details.
  - junto 13y ago
    After reading it again, it suggests he stole data to start a company: The founder (let's call him John) had already worked in the translation industry, he'd stolen a few clients, some data, rented an office and hadn't really thought about the rest. I personally couldn't find the company, but if @grabeh could then maybe you should protect yourself from one of those nasty UK libel cases: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/19/2 http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/no... The story was great by the way. Well written. Nice to see another .NET dev on HN btw. Also, beware that Google cache has a previous prevsion of this article stored: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-hWRkJ:www.codingjohnson.com/a-founders-mistruths+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-...
    - gringofyx 13y ago
      Thanks for reading (and the tips) I think .Net gets a lot of (undeserved) bad press. Beleive it or not I started out as a SmallTalk, Javascript & C++ developer but there wasn't a lot of love for that skillset back in 2002.
seivan 13y ago
If there is one thing I have learned is to 1)Be careful with non engineers are involved as management 2) Never ever ever go with anyone who is in a rush. They always seem to be in a fucking rush, do this, do that, fly here, fly there, contract later, sign off later and etc. Fuck them.
- zenith2037 13y ago
  True, engineers don't tend to be manipulative bastards, we just care for the end completion and reward for it.
  - thetrumanshow 13y ago
    But, do keep in mind that this won't always be the case. Tools are making it ever-easier for people who know practically nothing to break into the product space without the filters that you'd normally get from someone going through hard sciences in school. Since there are so many new makers with engineer-like skills, it means you'll have more sociopaths in sheep's clothing in the future. Still, there are ways to interview for meritocratic behavior.
raverbashing 13y ago
Here's the tip: If the person is not honest at the beginning, it is not going to be honest later The company already started dishonestly, with stolen data. What do you expect from that?
- crusso 13y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking. Once you see significantly unethical behavior, sirens should go off in your head. Get the hell out of there.
  - jlangenauer 13y ago
    I wish I could upvote this more than once: As soon as you see the first signs of unethical behaviour, get the hell out of there. You'll thank yourself later.
- freyr 13y ago
  Years ago, a local pizza restaurant named Sweet Tomatoes opened to rave reviews. The owner hired a recent college grad named Josh, and over the new few months, she mentored Josh, introduced him to her business contacts, and shared her plans for expansion. Josh took the recipes, the business contacts, and even the expansion plans, and started a rival pizza chain. Within a short time he had 21 locations that were doing quite well. But it all started with a big red flag. How do you think the story goes? The restaurant began hiring illegal immigrants from the small town of Marilac in Brazil. These employees worked up to 80 hours a week, while the restaurant violated minimum wage laws and failed to pay overtime. Employees risked deportation if they spoke out. In less than a two year period, the owners failed to pay employees $425,000 in wages. When the owners were ordered to pay these wages, they devised a scheme to recoup the money by slashing wages, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and a follow-up labor investigation. Meanwhile, Josh bought himself a yacht, a vacation home, and a small airplane, allegedly purchased illegally with company funds. The company eventually went bankrupt and last year its locations were sold at auction (though the original owner, with the help of some financiers, was able to buy back four locations). When you see huge red flags, tread very carefully. Along the same lines, when somebody starts cheating on their significant other to be with you, don't be surprised when they cheat on you to be with someone else. You're not special. You won't get special treatment. Now I want pizza. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_young_man_and_the_chain_he_made/ http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_...
izacus 13y ago
A great read and a good warning story for pretty much any 20-something hacker lurking on this site trying to start their own career. One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract. Even if it's a good friend - those cases are usually worse since they also mostly mean end of the friendship.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract. Yes. This is correct. People will do some crazy shit when there's a lot of money on the line.
wmt 13y ago
> The things we did included organic link-building, link-wheels, comment-spamming, forum-spamming, link-baiting So was the moral of the story that if someone is willing to employ immoral spammers, like you and Ian, he might be a con man?
- gringofyx 13y ago
  All SEO is immoral. Back then, it wasn't widely regarded as being immoral - I knew it wasn't right, but there was a lot of pressure for results. Basically, if we couldn't make an impact on Google, we'd have been fired.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    I agree it's immoral. Sadly things haven't changed all that much, there are plenty of people who still view this kind of stuff as normal 'industry best practice': YCombinator funds companies in the spyware spam downloads 'industry'[1]. Path, a well funded startup whose CEO is well connected and has invested in YC startups, was caught stealing users address books and declared it was 'industry best practice'[2]. Twitter [3] and Facebook have done similar things. AirBnB, another large well funded YC startup were caught spamming Craigslist and nobody that mattered (investors, employees, industry leaders etc) seemed to care. The founder also has previous convictions for spamming and again nobody seemed to care [4] SocialCam, another YC startup was spamming Facebook [5]. Spamming is endemic in the SaaS industry, there are hundreds of other recent examples. Even if you are a serial spammer who has been caught multiple times that won't stop you being well respected in the industry and getting masses of funding. Spamming is rewarded by the community. They like to use euphemisms like 'growth hack', but we all know what it really means: SPAM. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974 [3] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-twitter-contacts-20120214 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-tw... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140 [5] http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam

208 points by gringofyx 13y ago

If I've put the details together correctly, I remember the outrage that government translation contract created. Whether you made a lot of money out of your time with the company or not, you're ultimately better off not toiling for a badly-run enterprise that was built on lies. I grew up close to where the company was based. Nice part of the world – sort of :) – but full of slippery "self-made man" characters.

gringofyx 13y ago
I have many good memories of the surrounding towns, countryside and people. You're right, lots of "Arthur Daly" type characters.

otakucode 13y ago

Welcome to the world of business. I'm glad that when I was 15 years old and my first employer tried to pull that "we'll get rich together" horseshit I just said 'I'll kick myself later. Pay me my rate.' An honest person, whether in business or elsewhere, will base what they pay you on the value of the work you can do. As soon as they decide they want more value than they're paying for, they've become a con artist. There are tons of con artists at work today, taking advantage of the fact that a lot of employees are still under the impression that working for an employer grants them security and predictability - even though they get laid off the first time the company doesn't meet quarterly projections. Especially once John could quantify the amount of business he was bringing to the company, he should have set an ultimatum that he be paid based on that or he walks. Sure the con artist boss might think 'I'll just get rid of him and find another rube' and he even might (but probably not, employers always vastly underestimate the value of experience and domain-specific knowledge), but at least he wouldn't just keep feeding into the con himself.

michaelochurch 13y ago

I think that a large number of people go into "startups" thinking they're some kind of antidote to the politics and flat-out unethical behavior seen in "the corporate world". That's not really true. These startups (i.e. companies designed to become, or be bought by, corporate behemoths) are often like junior gangsters-- that is, more violent, more unpredictable, because they're trying to prove themselves. There's a gigantic survivor bias in startups at the upper end: to build a $200B company like Google or Facebook, you have to do a lot of things very right (and more than you do wrong). This makes it seem like "startups" are better than they are, because the ones with dogshit MBA culture crash and burn. Superiority is not intrinsic to startups, and there are plenty of shady players who still get exits and credibility. I've seen far more unethical behavior in the startup world than in finance. Large tech companies are somewhere in between. Why? It's not that finance people are intrinsically better, but that even junior bankers know how to fight for themselves. Junior tech workers, in general, haven't a clue, which is why a lot of these dodgy startups will fire people without severance for completely bogus reasons. On the founder's statement to the effect of "I pay you a wage and you do the work": the lesson is that loyalty has to be earned. Don't just give that away. I feel like a lot of us, when we start our careers, are like that socially inept guy who'll go out of his way to help some girl who isn't really interested but is basically nice to him, and he overvalues the interaction (and, in some cases, fabricates an emotional relationship in his mind). Just because the boss is basically nice to you, and may pretend to want to be your friend, doesn't mean you should trust him blindly. Con artists are nice, until they screw you over. Loyalty has to go both ways.

gringofyx 13y ago
That's a really good analogy, made me laugh out loud about the inept guy helping the girl. It was more or less just like that. These days I have a more dubious attitude, I tend not to beleive something someone says until I've confirmed it with my own eyes. I mean, I'll pay it lip-service and make all the right noises, but then I'll go sneak off and investigate for myself.

aestra 13y ago

"John" has a Wikipedia page which mentions the government contract that was awarded. The government was unhappy about work performed under the contract. It also was trivial to find that page.

gringofyx 13y ago
There were judges that wanted to drag him up in front of court. In cases where the interpreter was of too poor quality the case might have been thrown out of court. They made themselves infamous throughout the UK for all the wrong reasons. But then it got sold off and rebranded beyond recognition. I had to attend court the other week and on my way in I was reading a noticeboard, I had to do a double-take when I saw a familiar email address up there on a memo regarding interpreters

chris_wot 13y ago

I have a similar story. The gentleman I worked with (not FOR) promised me a share in his company. During the time I did work, I started my own sole trader business, quit my job at a very well known firm who make virtualisation software, and spent time helping him grow his business. He managed to get a few leads, but he relied on me to pull him out of problems. I recall the first time I helped him, it was only as a friend. Basically a large Australian government department had been screwed by a company who printed their paperwork. Their system couldn't handle umlauts... Yet they had told that company they handled Unicode. They were telling them that they handled a "subset of Unicode", which was sneaky because it was actually ISO-8859.1 that they could handle. Later I did some reporting work, which I now see that he entirely left in my hands to sort out with the consultancy company. The state government department didn't even entirely know what they wanted. It took me about 3 months to sort out what should have been a 2 week project. It was only when I threatened to quit the reporting project that I was paid. I still believed in the guy, so I helped him sort out an absolute disaster project for him for free with a mining company. I didn't ask for any money, as I was doing it as a favour. I managed to make him look awesome and turn it around. Somehow through his existing work for another company, he stole a contract for an important Federal Government department - one that dealt with national security - and I implemented an ITSM solution for them. I fixed up a variety of things that I was never paid for (I fixed an upgrade that had gone terribly wrong and was threatening the project - which I was never involvc I till the last second). Due to my success, I had learned some things about ITIL from my cousin, who is a genius about systems. So I explained to this agencies head of department what I thought about ITIL and where I thought it should go and the importance of the Service Catlog to their organisation. Not only did they get what I was saying, but they asked me in to implement their catalog! At the same time, somehow this guy had managed to get some systems integration work. The catch was the only communications channel, they could use was - wait for it - email! Somehow I made it work. I did a bunch of other work, and I started to help him win big contracts. The final bit of work was with yet another very large, and highly political Federal government department. At this point I had been paid for very little and never offered any share of the company he founded. It all came to a head one night when I stressed out as I was getting into serious debt, hadn't seen my kids or wife for some time, and phoned him to tell him I wasn't sure I could keep going. His reaction was to cut me off all his IT systems, and then guilted me about not being loyal or reasonable. Eventually he told me, after I had completed a large project to success, that his WIFE wouldn't let me be a part of his business. He then tried to tie me into a bunch of contracts, which I declined to sign after he put high pressure on me. I did agree to finish off work for a company I was implementing a solution for, mainly because I didn't want to leave him in the lurch, and also because I didn't want to let my client down. I had gotten a new part time job so i could do a computer science defree, which I warned him about so he would know when my end date for wrap up would be so he could finish up that project phase so he could implement testing, for which he would employ someone who finalize the project. I then billed him...and waited a few months (I figured he was busy). In fact, I waited 6 months before I sent him an email... To which he told me that he wasn't happy with the work, that there had been problems and he had had to redo the work. When I asked for specifics, he refused to tell me. He did say he'd work out how much he believed he wanted to pay me. I never heard from him again. I have now taken him to a debt collector. He has gone bankrupt and is no longer a director of his company. Instead his father is. His father refuses to pay me. In fact, he claimed he had no statement of work and that I should provide evidence before he would consider payment. What he didn't realise was that his son had caused problems for a former business partner, a very very honourable guy who quickly worked out that the son was despicable, and he provided evidence of the work I had done. The father then offered me a fifth of the money owed as a "goodwill gesture ex gratia" payment. The debt collector is less than impressed. The gentleman doesn't know it, but I'm about to wind up his company. In my opinion, the man has no scruples and no conscience. I feel like a fool to have trusted him. Such is my tale of woe... Quite cathartic to get it out there!

mnglkhn2 13y ago

@gringofyx: it looks like you took a passive-aggressive approach, and sabotaged the company from the inside once you returned to Bulgaria. You know what I think, to some extent, you are the younger version of John, as ruthless as him. This is why you accepted to work for him, since you felt the attraction of the same. I would really love to see how your next ventures unfold, especially from the human side of things. I am sure financially you'll do well.

otakucode 13y ago
You consider doing the job you are paid for to be sabotage? He was contracted for 7.5 hours, he was paid for that and nothing more. In what universe does the company deserve more than what they pay for?
- mnglkhn2 13y ago
  I hope we both know that there are more ways than one to do your contracted job well. I might choose plan B that does the task but needs replaced intwo months, than job A which takes longer to implement but might be efficient over the long run. In this case, would you dock my pay?
  - otakucode 13y ago
    I'd expect you to present both and I'd make the decision since it deals with costs. If I expected you to make decisions like that that directly affect the businesses future expenses, you'd be making a lot more money and wouldn't be contracted for 7.5 hours.
    - mnglkhn2 13y ago
      Then pretty soon you will be micromanaging me, essentially doubling your cost. At some point you have to trust me with some decisions if you want to be able to operate somewhat efficiently.
      - 13y ago

dylandrop 13y ago

I feel bad for you dude, but considering you never signed any paperwork for your stake in the company, and that you knew he was a very, very shady character to begin with, you were just asking for trouble. I once started a preliminary business idea with a friend, and we signed paperwork as soon as we had worked on it for a month or so.

mathattack 13y ago

I'm not sure if it was a "show" versus "tell", but the biggest insight came at the start. Someone who steals from his last company to create a new one isn't going to treat people well. They're appropriators (or looters) rather than creators. They see value as a zero sum game and try to keep it all to themselves. People rarely sell only half their soul, and one sign of an ethics violation is usually a sign of many. So while one moral of the story is "Get your equity in writing", another more important one is "Don't do busy with shady people." All that said, it sounds like the author got good experience and wisdom out of it. Building a foreign technical subsidiary is great for the resume. Learning the pitfalls of dealing with unethical people is great for the next one.

lnanek2 13y ago

Talking to people in SV, it's actually pretty common that the business people try to dump the techies right before they vest or a good deal comes in. Sometimes the person dumped has even been CTO or the only technical person and built the entire technical solution.

jjindev 13y ago

The company started with stolen data and stolen clients. Salesmen wanted to steal clients and data again. It was life on a pirate ship. I'm tempted to say it had to end badly, but I suppose there are some companies which do rise above bad beginnings ...

thetrumanshow 13y ago
"Hey Matt, let's setup a company of our own and ditch this place - you can own 50%" With regards to the salesmen and their business propositions, it doesn't sound like stolen data. Sounds like he played the role of company-man and threw people under the bus for the good of the company, believing that he would benefit in the long-run. One of the first things I learned from the old engineers at Lockheed was to identify and actively avoid the company man. You interacted with the company man at your peril. It was basically like this: in dealing with a company man, anything you say can be used against you, but nothing you say can help you.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  I agree about his actions. He was shocked that the company would ever screw him the way he screwed others. He was supposed to be different! Unethical behavior is a funny thing. He would have been better off in pretty much every way had he taken one of those "bad" salespeople up on their offer to start a new venture.

peterjancelis 13y ago

I am pretty sure the company here is Applied Language Solutions, which was ran by Gavin Wheeldon and was featured in the UK version of Dragon's Den. ALS had a Sofia office, a free translation tool that was mentioned on Dragon's Den and sold for 67.5 million pounds.

woodchuck64 13y ago
"Wheeldon as a businessman (and a moral specimen) is truly riveting, albeit in sort of the same way that Hannibal Lecter is fascinating as a gourmet." (http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-gavin-wheeldon-case-study-in-cheap.html http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-gavin-...)
rdl 13y ago
Why are there so many sketch companies in the language space? L+H is the ultimate I think.

6d0debc071 13y ago

It's always sad to see young people get messed up because they're socially naive. Honestly, I think this sort of thing should be part of a set of basic business/life skills taught in school.

Aqueous 13y ago

A litany of red flags. - "he'd stolen a few clients, some data" - "he took on his former girlfriends brother" - "within a year me and Ian moved to Bulgaria...John wanted to keep costs down" - "Ians sister, had an abortion at Johns request." (I'm pro-choice, but this is still messed up) - "I want you to fire Ian" - "I think John wanted it all swept under the carpet." - "Then how about my shares?" - if you ever find yourself saying this, you are sunk. John sounds like the worst guy ever. I'm about as trusting and naive as they come. I probably would have fallen for John's smarminess initially as well - some people are excellent manipulators - and probably kept going for a long time. But you were working for somebody who does not have a conscience. John is a classic sociopath. Be glad you got out of there - being rich under his command is not worth it.

Houshalter 13y ago
Is that enough information to really label him a sociopath? Not the best person maybe, but a sociopath?
- solistice 13y ago
  Either he has no feelings of guilt whatever, or he's not sleeping much at night. Also he's highly manipulative. I'd give him the sociopath handle.
- Aqueous 13y ago
  Not really a black and white issue - he's definitely on the spectrum, though.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago

So who was writing the translation software? This appears to be the product the author was spamming to generate leads for, and from comments in the story and elsewhere it seems like it wasn't very good. But it seemed a bit weird it didn't feature more prominently in the narrative. Was this the stolen "data"?

gringofyx 13y ago
There was no translation software, only project management and sales software and that was all written by me and my team. The free translation software was written by another company. The stolen data was mostly taxonomical lists and some setup data for a project management system. The actual translation was given to real people to do for absolute bottom dollar prices

mgaphysics 13y ago

Somewhere in the book written by the founders of 37signals they allude to the premise that we should all remember that the term "start-up" is interchangeable with the term "business". As such, you have to protect your interests as if you are running a business, and not get lost in the idea of a start-up. Getting things in writing can be tricky prior to launch and proof of persistency, but at the point where you are hiring additional staff and opening satellite offices, the topic has to be addressed.

babesh 13y ago

Have met and been on the receiving end of a few of these types myself. Unfortunately, doing whatever it takes to get ahead and stepping on others to do so seems to work. On the other hand, there are good people in the tech industry as well.

gringofyx 13y ago

Apologies about it being so long

EnderMB 13y ago
There's no need to apologise. I found to be a great read!
- gringofyx 13y ago
  Thankyou, that means a lot ;)
jbrooksuk 13y ago
It was a great read and a friendly reminder to all. Out of interest, what do you do these days?
- gringofyx 13y ago
  I'm on a very quiet marathon to build twelve startups in twelve months, I'm in my third month and everything is on track so far. I will blog about it all when I hit six months in. My day job is a Technical Architect for a PLC in the UK. I also run between 5km and 10km everyday to train for an actual marathon (running). Add to that being a husband and a father... and a blogger now ;) I really wanted to tell that story, and for it not appear arrogant on my part.
  - kenshiro_o 13y ago
    Great post. Really enjoyed and empathized with you. Btw, 12 start-ups in 12 months? That's pretty impressive. However how about building one start-up per month, then if one takes off focusing on the project that as the most momentum? That may be a better winning formula, don't you think so? I'd also like to know how you fit the running, parenting, etc. in your schedule! You must be scarily efficient...
    - gringofyx 13y ago

ojbyrne 13y ago

Good story, with the moral that in business there's no such thing as friends, but I have a minor quibble - there's no mention of "hex." I guess it's there for the cool title and standing in for programming.

ceautery 13y ago
Yes! I hereby call on the author to at least mention weighing the strengths of various hex colors while designing the web layout.
gringofyx 13y ago
That's right, on HN - gotta have an eye-catching title.
wtracy 13y ago
Maybe it was supposed to be "sex", in reference to the owner's girlfriend who had the abortion?
- gringofyx 13y ago
  I'm curious to know if people think it was in bad taste to add that detail?
  - MayankGoyal 13y ago
    I don't. It explains why he wanted to fire Ian out of the blue. Your story is good enough that it will be read even without a linkbait title. Maybe you could add a short teaser at the beginning of the article? The current one doesn't do it justice.
  - 205guy 13y ago
    I thought it was irrelevant to the story, and needlessly personal, especially since the story contained enough information to identify the company and CEO. In particular, you say "had an abortion at John's request" as if he forced her, when that's just your interpretation. I can imagine that a lot of women have abortions after the parteners talk about it (sometimes they agree and sometimes they don't, but who's to say who's at fault). Also, with easy libel laws in the UK, you could be opening yourself up to a lawsuit. As for whether it explains the firing, not really. You already said the gf was an ex when hiring Ian, so it's hard to really know the sequence of events without adding more sordid details. Plus it's just your speculation about why he wanted Ian gone, and it wouldn't totally explain it anyway (what difference did it make at that point, after the abortion apparently, whether Ian worked for the company or not?).

atlih 13y ago

Good story, my opinion is that if you hadn't been personally invested in this whole thing, chances are you would just have done a mediocre job like 99.5% of office workers and the company would never taken off. Basically you are a well experienced growth hacker now while the owner is clueless. So in the end, you got more out of it than him.

gringofyx 13y ago
That's what I'd like to tell myself, but he now has quite a high profile in the UK startup industry. It's one thing to know how to grow a company from the very beginning, but to run and sustain a company that has tens of millions in revenue may be a more valuable lesson.
- atlih 13y ago
  Well what you know benefits established firms as well, and is actually more valuable to them on average than it is to blank paper startups that noone knows for certain if there's a demand for. While growth hacking helps launching startups off the ground, it also helps prevent established firms from sinking.
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    I totally agree, it's one of those skills that's hard to prove, I'm not sure I'd put it on my CV.

louischatriot 13y ago

Sorry to be blunt, but I am always amazed by what this kind of stories have in common: trusting people without a contract (or at least a signed agreement). Even if it's your best friend who's going to hire you, don't accept promises such as "you'll get rich once we hit it big". Sign a contract stating how much of the company you own, what the vesting schedule is, acceleration upon change of control etc. There are some assholes out there, so stop being naïve. This is a very good cautionary tale about what happens if you do.

ahoyhere 13y ago
Don't let somebody off the hook for "naïvete" if they enter into a business with somebody who got their assets through theft, and his job is to disguise the theft. That's collusion.
Dylan16807 13y ago
Signed agreements are contracts.

James_Duval 13y ago

Question: You say "he'd stolen a few clients, some data, rented an office and hadn't really thought about the rest. It was my job to reshape the stolen data beyond recognition" - did you not consider that such a person might be somewhat untrustworthy? Follow-up, it bothers me that you took a job knowing that you were disguising stolen data, what was your rationale for this?

coldtea 13y ago
That's what bothers you? He even fucking stayed after the horrible discussion with the boss (a reasonable person would have quit then and there), and he agreed to fuck up the other (Ian) guy for a measly five thousand quids!
- James_Duval 13y ago
  I've been trying to find a way to respond to this, but the posts keep turning into very long very confusing rambles. I think that this sums up the disconnect best, however: £5000 would be a genuinely life-changing amount for me.
gringofyx 13y ago
I didn't know this straight off, I found out in my first week that he had this data and I didn't know where it had come from. In the next few weeks he got a bit panicky, and told me the data was going to be "audited" by the company he'd just left (and stolen the data from). Only then did I realise it was stolen data, that was like a month or two into the job. He also lied about his name to me, I found out a month later he'd done this so that if he fired me (or his name appeared in the press) - then no one could track him down. I think the company was even registered (initially) under his false name. I should have smelled a rat, but at age 20 I didn't even know rats could smell.
- otakucode 13y ago
  Really, don't blame it on your age. I knew better at 15. The first employer I had was a guy doing MLM who wanted me to accept a lower wage now for big riches later. He talked a great game, but if he was so sure my work would make him rich later, as the boss it's his job to make the call and make an investment by paying me reasonably from the start. If I miss out on 'big riches' later on, no big whoop. Of course he never made any money because MLM is a scam. A year later I was 16 and working for his brothers company, a remailing company that actually provided a valuable service and had a solid business model. Guess what, they didn't try to get me to work for almost nothing! Like any real business, they realized the value I would bring and paid me accordingly. I designed their newsletter, wrote an application to track serial numbers on their postage metering machines when the government started requiring that (which was fun because they gave me 24 hours notice that they needed it to comply with federal law, but I think it surprised them too). When they wanted me to make a web-based application for their sales people to work up price quotes for prospective clients I met with the owner and told him this was above and beyond my part-time after-school job duties as 'anything with a computer guy' and proposed doing it as a separate contract, he went for it and I made what was (to teenaged me) a buttload of money on it. Real businesses understand that salaries are not charity. They're not even something reluctantly handed over in order to get work out of people. They're investments. Of course it requires you to find the right people, and doesn't eliminate any of the challenge or risk out of running a business, but no employer worth a squirt of piss is going to expect their employees to take those risks for the company. Protection from that kind of thing is why people work for companies and aren't just self-employed!

DanBC 13y ago

> I started working my contracted 7.5 hours a day, I am constantly surprised by bosses that do not realise the consequences of their words. When someone is clearly making an effort you need to recognise that. Maybe it's just a "hey, thanks, I appreciate it" when you have no money. Saying "I pay you a wage and you do the work" is a sure way to force people to do just enough.

rhizome 13y ago
When someone is clearly making an effort you need to recognise that. A common symptom of management insanity is that if you're working like 14hrs a day, it's because you are inefficient and should be thankful that they're putting up with your incompetence.
danmaz74 13y ago
The same exact thing happened to me a couple of years ago - except that I wasn't working at a startup, but at an established company. I even proposed to have a results-based salary (I was doing a lot of sales engineering, so that would have been fairly simple) but was refused. So I started working just my contract hours, and building hashtagify.me on the side. In the end I gave my resignation notice, they went into a panic and offered me 5 months of half-time work - but with 85% pay; this cost them much more than what I would have expected as a bonus at the time, not to count the almost two years of not-really-enthusiastic work. I really can't understand how managers/business people can be so stupid sometimes.
- otakucode 13y ago
  >I even proposed to have a results-based salary Do you realize how insane such a suggestion is? I know it probably sounds totally reasonable from a "the harder you work the better you do" mindset, but companies abandoned that in the 1980s. There's a reason why even as technology has multiplied the productivity of employees by leaps and bounds average salaries have remained flat since 1980. If you want to understand managers/business people, read their books. Seriously, read the books they have on their shelf. Books written for managers are like something produced in a bizarre sociopathic universe. And they very consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the work an employee does.

seivan 13y ago

I've been through this. The deceit people who can't build to those who can. They lie and trick and rush things. That's always the common factor, how they always are in a rush. I'm sorry for what you had to go through, I've gone through similar crap. They don't understand how a person who's vested into a company not just through shares but through passion and vision can suddenly come to a halt when told that they are "just paid a wage" Fuck that.

grabeh 13y ago

It's quite straightforward to identify the company and founder you're talking about on the basis of the profiles you link to on your site. Of course, there's nothing too controversial in the piece but it perhaps makes it a little redundant to use a pseudonym for the founder? Just a thought really (I also enjoyed reading the tale by the way).

gringofyx 13y ago
Firstly, thanks for reading ;) Secondly, I'm making a subtle point - when I started with the company he lied about his name and called himself "John Snow". I only found out it was a lie months later. I also want to protect the anonymity of my friend Ian. I also want to protect myself (legally) if he ever read it
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Secondly, I'm making a subtle point - when I started with the company he lied about his name and called himself "John Snow". Bastard.
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    I think it was a reference to John Snow from a Game of Thrones. I'm undecided how I feel about that.
    - mst 13y ago
      ... and said character was, indeed, a bastard. I think you may just have had a <whoosh /> moment :)
      - gringofyx 13y ago
        You sir, are a genius
        13y ago

junto 13y ago

Is there any reason as to why you didn't share the company name?

gringofyx 13y ago
If you read the comment by @grabeh you'll see that it's probably quite easy to research. In my reply to @grabeh are the reasons why I didn't give more details (such as the founders name). I would have no problems if anyone else posted the real details here, but I wouldn't comfirm or deny it - unless there's a legal expert on here who could reassure me it's OK to post those details.
- junto 13y ago
  After reading it again, it suggests he stole data to start a company: The founder (let's call him John) had already worked in the translation industry, he'd stolen a few clients, some data, rented an office and hadn't really thought about the rest. I personally couldn't find the company, but if @grabeh could then maybe you should protect yourself from one of those nasty UK libel cases: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/19/2 http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/no... The story was great by the way. Well written. Nice to see another .NET dev on HN btw. Also, beware that Google cache has a previous prevsion of this article stored: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-hWRkJ:www.codingjohnson.com/a-founders-mistruths+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-...
  - gringofyx 13y ago
    Thanks for reading (and the tips) I think .Net gets a lot of (undeserved) bad press. Beleive it or not I started out as a SmallTalk, Javascript & C++ developer but there wasn't a lot of love for that skillset back in 2002.

seivan 13y ago

If there is one thing I have learned is to 1)Be careful with non engineers are involved as management 2) Never ever ever go with anyone who is in a rush. They always seem to be in a fucking rush, do this, do that, fly here, fly there, contract later, sign off later and etc. Fuck them.

zenith2037 13y ago
True, engineers don't tend to be manipulative bastards, we just care for the end completion and reward for it.
- thetrumanshow 13y ago
  But, do keep in mind that this won't always be the case. Tools are making it ever-easier for people who know practically nothing to break into the product space without the filters that you'd normally get from someone going through hard sciences in school. Since there are so many new makers with engineer-like skills, it means you'll have more sociopaths in sheep's clothing in the future. Still, there are ways to interview for meritocratic behavior.

raverbashing 13y ago

Here's the tip: If the person is not honest at the beginning, it is not going to be honest later The company already started dishonestly, with stolen data. What do you expect from that?

crusso 13y ago
Exactly what I was thinking. Once you see significantly unethical behavior, sirens should go off in your head. Get the hell out of there.
- jlangenauer 13y ago
  I wish I could upvote this more than once: As soon as you see the first signs of unethical behaviour, get the hell out of there. You'll thank yourself later.
freyr 13y ago
Years ago, a local pizza restaurant named Sweet Tomatoes opened to rave reviews. The owner hired a recent college grad named Josh, and over the new few months, she mentored Josh, introduced him to her business contacts, and shared her plans for expansion. Josh took the recipes, the business contacts, and even the expansion plans, and started a rival pizza chain. Within a short time he had 21 locations that were doing quite well. But it all started with a big red flag. How do you think the story goes? The restaurant began hiring illegal immigrants from the small town of Marilac in Brazil. These employees worked up to 80 hours a week, while the restaurant violated minimum wage laws and failed to pay overtime. Employees risked deportation if they spoke out. In less than a two year period, the owners failed to pay employees $425,000 in wages. When the owners were ordered to pay these wages, they devised a scheme to recoup the money by slashing wages, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and a follow-up labor investigation. Meanwhile, Josh bought himself a yacht, a vacation home, and a small airplane, allegedly purchased illegally with company funds. The company eventually went bankrupt and last year its locations were sold at auction (though the original owner, with the help of some financiers, was able to buy back four locations). When you see huge red flags, tread very carefully. Along the same lines, when somebody starts cheating on their significant other to be with you, don't be surprised when they cheat on you to be with someone else. You're not special. You won't get special treatment. Now I want pizza. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_young_man_and_the_chain_he_made/ http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_...

izacus 13y ago

A great read and a good warning story for pretty much any 20-something hacker lurking on this site trying to start their own career. One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract. Even if it's a good friend - those cases are usually worse since they also mostly mean end of the friendship.

michaelochurch 13y ago
One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract. Yes. This is correct. People will do some crazy shit when there's a lot of money on the line.

wmt 13y ago

> The things we did included organic link-building, link-wheels, comment-spamming, forum-spamming, link-baiting So was the moral of the story that if someone is willing to employ immoral spammers, like you and Ian, he might be a con man?

gringofyx 13y ago
All SEO is immoral. Back then, it wasn't widely regarded as being immoral - I knew it wasn't right, but there was a lot of pressure for results. Basically, if we couldn't make an impact on Google, we'd have been fired.
- anon1385 13y ago
  I agree it's immoral. Sadly things haven't changed all that much, there are plenty of people who still view this kind of stuff as normal 'industry best practice': YCombinator funds companies in the spyware spam downloads 'industry'[1]. Path, a well funded startup whose CEO is well connected and has invested in YC startups, was caught stealing users address books and declared it was 'industry best practice'[2]. Twitter [3] and Facebook have done similar things. AirBnB, another large well funded YC startup were caught spamming Craigslist and nobody that mattered (investors, employees, industry leaders etc) seemed to care. The founder also has previous convictions for spamming and again nobody seemed to care [4] SocialCam, another YC startup was spamming Facebook [5]. Spamming is endemic in the SaaS industry, there are hundreds of other recent examples. Even if you are a serial spammer who has been caught multiple times that won't stop you being well respected in the industry and getting masses of funding. Spamming is rewarded by the community. They like to use euphemisms like 'growth hack', but we all know what it really means: SPAM. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974 [3] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-twitter-contacts-20120214 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-tw... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140 [5] http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam