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This sure sounds nice, and I believe Paul when it comes to his perception. But I'd need more convincing that this is objectively and not just something Paul see

This sure sounds nice, and I believe Paul when it comes to his perception. But I'd need more convincing that this is objectively and not just something Paul sees because he's good at filtering out the people he doesn't want to work with. A couple counterexamples come to mind. Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and the Uber executive team, the Github husband and wife with the Horvath incident. Of course I can't generalize these cases either, but these are prominent companies where the truism doesn't hold.

cpncrunch 12y ago
And of course Kevin O'Leary.
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  Don't forget Vinod Khosla. From reading HN one could also be forgiven far thinking that every single amazon employee in management outside AWS is devoid of all positive human traits.
- guiomie 12y ago
  Ahahah. I don't think Kevin O'Leary is mean, he plays the persona for sure tho.
latch 12y ago
This, and I suspect most people are smart enough to know they shouldn't be mean around (and especially) towards him or his wife.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  They're real tough harassing an employee but what are they gonna do to me? Don't make me laugh about some pathetic losers like TPW and wife. They're bullies and they got what they deserved, if not enough.
- ape4 12y ago
  Sounds like pg needs to become an undercover employee to see the other side. Try being an Uber driver.
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    Forget Uber driver, what about a code monkey at some YC startup? I've seen the cable show "Undercover Boss" a handful of times and they manage to sneak in company founders with some minimal, reasonable makeup techniques. Imagine pg entering some RoR shop (or better, Clojure) and getting his code reviewed by a CTO who's a few years out of college.
    - ape4 12y ago
      "You can't sleep, pg, until you implement these changes!"
    - YuriNiyazov 12y ago
      Do you actually work at a RoR or Clojure shop, or are you speaking from "cable show watching experience" ? Having worked at a number of such places in the Valley, the number of times I've been told that I can't go home or to lunch or whatever until such-and-such a thing is done has been zero. Now, a finance startup in New York where the stack is Java and .NET? Absolutely.
      - yzzxy 12y ago
        I meant it would be funny more from a technical perspective regarding his history with Lisp and as something of a programming luminary, other commenters appear to be talking more about brutal work schedules.
coldtea 12y ago
This GoDaddy guy?
mwhite 12y ago
Can you expand on why you think Tom Preston-Werner is mean? From all I've seen he appears to be a good person. GitHub reached 150 employees without having anyone quit, which hardly seems likely if the Founder and CEO is mean. https://twitter.com/holman/status/303576839132164097 https://twitter.com/holman/status/303576839132164097
- swah 12y ago
  Tom's reputation was ruined because he was sexist or something (https://gigaom.com/2014/04/21/githubs-tom-preston-werner-resigns-at-close-of-sexism-investigation/ https://gigaom.com/2014/04/21/githubs-tom-preston-werner-res...)
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    The guy's reputation was refactored because he sexually harassed an employee, as found as fact by a court of law. Or something. A reputation should be accurate, should it not?
    - felixgallo 12y ago
      Citation?
    - swombat 12y ago
      > as found as fact by a court of law That is false. There was no court of law. The internal investigation found that there was no substance to the allegations of sexual harassment, but there was evidence of other inappropriate behaviour (mostly letting his wife Theresa use Github resources // pressure employees (though she didn't think of it that way) into helping with her charity project). The inappropriate behaviour doesn't sound like enough to fire a CEO, but I'm guessing they realised that the feminist brigades would not rest until they tasted blood and they decided to do the "roll over and play nice" thing, as you do when you have a fiduciary duty to your investors. Must've been really gutting for Tom to be forcefully removed from his own company on bullshit grounds, though. (before you say "I don't believe Github's account" - the equally valid retort is "I don't believe the accuser's account" - she seems to have had a really huge axe to grind with someone in this)

cpncrunch 12y ago

And of course Kevin O'Leary.

barry-cotter 12y ago
Don't forget Vinod Khosla. From reading HN one could also be forgiven far thinking that every single amazon employee in management outside AWS is devoid of all positive human traits.
guiomie 12y ago
Ahahah. I don't think Kevin O'Leary is mean, he plays the persona for sure tho.

latch 12y ago

This, and I suspect most people are smart enough to know they shouldn't be mean around (and especially) towards him or his wife.

wavefunction 12y ago
They're real tough harassing an employee but what are they gonna do to me? Don't make me laugh about some pathetic losers like TPW and wife. They're bullies and they got what they deserved, if not enough.
ape4 12y ago
Sounds like pg needs to become an undercover employee to see the other side. Try being an Uber driver.
- yzzxy 12y ago
  Forget Uber driver, what about a code monkey at some YC startup? I've seen the cable show "Undercover Boss" a handful of times and they manage to sneak in company founders with some minimal, reasonable makeup techniques. Imagine pg entering some RoR shop (or better, Clojure) and getting his code reviewed by a CTO who's a few years out of college.
  - ape4 12y ago
    "You can't sleep, pg, until you implement these changes!"
  - YuriNiyazov 12y ago
    Do you actually work at a RoR or Clojure shop, or are you speaking from "cable show watching experience" ? Having worked at a number of such places in the Valley, the number of times I've been told that I can't go home or to lunch or whatever until such-and-such a thing is done has been zero. Now, a finance startup in New York where the stack is Java and .NET? Absolutely.
    - yzzxy 12y ago
      I meant it would be funny more from a technical perspective regarding his history with Lisp and as something of a programming luminary, other commenters appear to be talking more about brutal work schedules.

coldtea 12y ago

This GoDaddy guy?

mwhite 12y ago

Can you expand on why you think Tom Preston-Werner is mean? From all I've seen he appears to be a good person. GitHub reached 150 employees without having anyone quit, which hardly seems likely if the Founder and CEO is mean. https://twitter.com/holman/status/303576839132164097 https://twitter.com/holman/status/303576839132164097

swah 12y ago
Tom's reputation was ruined because he was sexist or something (https://gigaom.com/2014/04/21/githubs-tom-preston-werner-resigns-at-close-of-sexism-investigation/ https://gigaom.com/2014/04/21/githubs-tom-preston-werner-res...)
- wavefunction 12y ago
  The guy's reputation was refactored because he sexually harassed an employee, as found as fact by a court of law. Or something. A reputation should be accurate, should it not?
  - felixgallo 12y ago
    Citation?
  - swombat 12y ago
    > as found as fact by a court of law That is false. There was no court of law. The internal investigation found that there was no substance to the allegations of sexual harassment, but there was evidence of other inappropriate behaviour (mostly letting his wife Theresa use Github resources // pressure employees (though she didn't think of it that way) into helping with her charity project). The inappropriate behaviour doesn't sound like enough to fire a CEO, but I'm guessing they realised that the feminist brigades would not rest until they tasted blood and they decided to do the "roll over and play nice" thing, as you do when you have a fiduciary duty to your investors. Must've been really gutting for Tom to be forcefully removed from his own company on bullshit grounds, though. (before you say "I don't believe Github's account" - the equally valid retort is "I don't believe the accuser's account" - she seems to have had a really huge axe to grind with someone in this)