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Clinkle Implodes as Employees Quit in Protest of CEO
- minimaxir 11y agoFor those who want a little more information about Clinkle's corporate culture, check out their hackathon music video. (yes, you read that right) https://vimeo.com/99884205 https://vimeo.com/99884205
- technologia 11y agoOk, I might be an ass for saying this but I find the fact that on their careers page literally everything is open now is funny is a righteous sort of way.
- dragonwriter 11y agoNot everything, just a lot in the Engineering area and some in Design and Operations (Growth, Business, and Product don't have anything.)
- ulfw 11y agoI guess they aren't really planning on growth, having a business nor a product...
- dragonwriter 11y agoFrom the TC article it seems to be largely the tech team that left so it's not too odd that that would be where the openings are.
- curiously 11y agowhat's obvious to me is that capital is available and flowing towards people who shouldn't really have it. but overall it is working for the smart investors. but really, people are throwing money around for crazy returns.
- djloche 11y agounintended consequences of artificially low rates.
- adamnemecek 11y agoHasn't the company 'imploded' like twice already?
- heimatau 11y agoI'm glad seven employees decided to quit a rude/poor boss. Although I'm only basing 'rude/poor' based on quotes from the article, not from personal experience, I think it might have some merit. Props to them.
- pinewurst 11y agoThere have been lots of rather funny articles on Valleywag about how truly awful a boss we're talking about.
- pkaye 11y agoReminds me of this... https://twitter.com/mrgan/status/384780273721696256 https://twitter.com/mrgan/status/384780273721696256
- shostack 11y agoI feel like this needs to be incorporated into an episode of Silicon Valley. The bit about not actually having a real product in production reminded me of a recent episode of the show where it was mentioned that sometimes it is better to not have a real product and revenue because then valuations can be blown way out of proportion in the frenzy without any real revenue benchmarks to base them on.
- hkmurakami 11y agoI believe that derives directly from what people like Fred Wilson or Mike Arrington have been saying: "As I was reading Josh Kopelman‘s excellent post on the seed boom and Series A bust, I got thinking of some words of wisdom Mike Arrington once shared with me. He said “numbers always ruin a good story.” What Mike meant by this is you can raise a seed (or Series A) on a story. But at some point, you will have numbers; users, user growth, revenues, and revenue growth. You will also have a burn rate. And those numbers will become the thing you are judged on and your nice story will be “ruined” by the numbers." http://avc.com/2015/03/numbers-can-ruin-a-good-story/ http://avc.com/2015/03/numbers-can-ruin-a-good-story/
- jkestner 11y agoYeah, as usual, when I watched that episode, I'm turning to my wife and muttering "This is true." The writers may be story-driven, but it seems like Bad Money was introduced just to have an outsider who was in-the-know to be able to draw light on the VC machinery.
- shostack 11y agoThe number of times I've turned to my wife and muttered "This is true" while watching is pretty startling. In talking to people at work about it, there is a general sentiment of "haha, this is really funn....errhmm...that's a little to close to reality..." Mike Judge is an absolute creative genius.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoIt reminds me of this from 1999: http://www.theonion.com/article/species-of-blue-green-algae-announces-ipo-613 http://www.theonion.com/article/species-of-blue-green-algae-...
- il 11y agoThe canonical example of funding!=success.
- NhanH 11y agoHow did the founder manage to build a company of 70 employees without a product and securing 30 million fundings after 2 years of not really showing anything? And to top that of, it didn't look like the founder has any track record before this company. I'm not interested in mocking or bashing the company, I just wanted to know the possible mechanism that would result in such ... unexpected scenario. Is hustling really that effective and I have been underestimated that all along?
- seanmcdirmid 11y agoBecause f*ckedcompany is no longer around to call out this kind of craziness. Pud, we miss you!
- pud 11y agoYou rang?
- hkmurakami 11y agoI know of several other founders who have a tremendous knack for selling a vision to investors. The same strength works on employees as well, especially after you have raised a round. Imagine a Steve Jobs-like reality distortion field. People are drawn in by that.
- mavdi 11y agoThis is how http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_251-300/WP282.pdf http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/worki... Basically income inequality and a fading middle-class causes a downward spiral of the rich having too much money to care and taking ever greater risks for rewards.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoI figure income inequality is principally fueled by anemic growth, which may well be caused by low monetary growth and low interest rates. The rich now are just "paper rich" (outside of bubbly-again real estate) and the physical portions of the economy remain stagnant. Some kind person on HN actually clued me to this, and that was s serious penny drop. And of course I lost the post... Could be wishful thinking on my part, but I read "Monetary History" years ago and it took root.
- jonsterling 11y agoGOD, so much schadenfreude here...
- michaelochurch 11y agoNo forest can live unless the dead shit gets burned once in a while.
- dropit_sphere 11y agoAlas, because we've been seduced by the promise of sweet sweet VC money + IPO's. I'm a weird case, but maybe not that weird. I realized recently that I don't really even like programming. I mean, not as much as I like sitting on the beach, or hiking, or talking to a friend at a party. I'm in it for the money. I'd rather see the better technology/least sleazy company win, but if I had ten trillion dollars I'd go sit on the beach, not keep programming. I'm here for the money, I'm just determined to not be corrupted along the way. So when I hear about the demise of Clinkle, I must admit I rejoice somewhat. Because their product was dumb, or at least unimaginative, and I know that funding is limited. But I think technology used to have people more like Steve Wozniak, who really cared about the technology for its own sake. And someone like that would have no particular feelings about Clinkle, because they already got their wish of being able to hack around on tech all day. So, yeah, an apology for schadenfreude.
- jonsterling 11y agoSorry, my comment was poorly worded—I mean that I am experiencing schadenfreude, not criticizing people who are also experiencing it. Cheers!
- dang 11y agoIndeed. Threads like this make me ashamed of Hacker News.
- jonsterling 11y agoOh my goodness, people are misinterpreting my comment, I am so sorry. I mean that I am experiencing so much schadenfreude. I am not criticizing anyone else who is sharing in it.
- mintplant 11y agoSo what is Clinkle? Digital wallet? "Treats"? Can someone pin it down for me?
- quadrature 11y agoYour guess is as good as theirs.
- x0x0 11y agoit seemed like some combination of payment replacement + wallet, presumably eventually linked directly to bank accounts / venmo / loyalty program ala belly/punchd/punchtab
- trhway 11y ago>they could win a full refund of what they paid. Sort of like a social slot machine, Clinkle hoped to seduce users with the chance to win its little lottery. a nice juicy target of the state [anti-]gaming commission.
- 21echoes 11y agoA bank that you could sign up for and use on your phone. You got a debit card with ATM access and rewards without a credit check. The app showed your payment history and let you send money to and request money from other Clinkle users.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y ago> While Clinkle’s brand had been tarnished by reports of its internal troubles, the companies were said to eye the variable reward system as a way to differentiate their mobile wallets and get users to demand merchants get on board. Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung and Visa can't develop their own variable rewards systems?
- manachar 11y agoI wonder if there's intellectual property at play that would prevent others from doing so. If it's even possible to end up in court it may be cheaper to acqui-purchase the intellectual property via the company.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoAfter four years of work and ridicule, early employees at the company are said to have been actively encouraging a sale, even if it didn’t come with a massive acquisition price. Sources say that many employees didn’t have much to gain anyways. Duplan had offered only tiny shreds of equity, convincing hires that Clinkle could be a billion-dollar company and their share could turn into tons of money. A lesson I've learned the hard way is to never let your sense of greed impair your judgment, especially around the relative certainty of success of a startup. A stupendously well-funded startup indicates only that the founders are good at fundraising, not that they're good at building a product or a company.
- akoumjian 11y agoAmazing that you can raise that kind of seed money without a working prototype. They must have been claiming some serious IP assets. Also, $25 million seems like a lot for convertible notes. Each one probably didn't exceed a few hundred thousand a piece. This is an excellent example of how once you convince a couple key investors to join, there are dozens waiting behind to follow.
- 21echoes 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9554656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9554656
- pinewurst 11y ago"After approaching Google about a potential deal, a team of Clinkle’s top engineers visited Google to go through rigorous testing to see if the startup was worth acquiring. Sources say Google declined to issue an offer." I have a mental issue of a line of engineers on tables undergoing colonoscopies.
- SQL2219 11y agoMaybe those VCs had their beer goggles on.
- netvarun 11y agoOn a slightly (un)related note, clinkle.com doesn't even appear for me (based in SF) in the first page for a Google search on 'clinkle' https://www.google.com/search?q=clinkle https://www.google.com/search?q=clinkle
- MCRed 11y agoI worked for a company where this happened twice in three years. I joined the company only to discover that the entire development team (sans one guy) had quit. We built up a new team, put up with an amazing amount of mismanagement, gas lighting, etc. For example: not only would they not make a spec, they wouldn't give us details about the features they wanted. We'd ask questions and they would be ignored. Then months later they'd chew us out for not building things they had never even mentioned wanting. And they installed an ex-navy seal who had 20 years in the military, a couple months n the business world and no understanding of (nor respect for) technology. He started finding people to hound out of the company and get fired-- because he always needed a scapegoat. We put up with this for a year, and then all of us, quit again. (well the one guy who was there from the beginning is still there, and a couple people who don't have easy mobility are still there, moistly because they had been on the job only a month or two.) And now they have a new team. Things have not improved at all... but so long as they can continue to hire people they will. Management has decided that the engineering teams that quit "sucked" and that they're the reason there are "problems" today (like not implementing features that were never requested, etc.) So long as they can keep hiring people, they're doing so., This while the glass door reviews are really terrible. Most people don't read glass door. So that's a lesson: Read glass door. Don't expect that even you and a bunch of others leaving will end the company.
- brown9-2 11y agoWe put up with this for a year, and then all of us, quit again. Why did you even stay for 3 months?
- sbov 11y agoRead glass door. Beyond that, read the whole history on glass door. If the ratio of reviews to employees is high, something is fishy. A friend of mine worked at a company. He pointed out they had terrible reviews on glass door. So they started asking new hires to review the company. I think the ratio is now something crazy like 1 review for every employee who currently works there. The company was comically evil. Among a sea of terrible stories, one of the worst I can think of is at a company party the CEO told the whole staff they didn't care about them and want to just get rich off their hard work.
- WhoopiGoldburg 11y agoI remeber when Whoopi Goldberg told me about this in 1999. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com
- bsg75 11y agohttp://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-of-clinkle-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-of-clinkle-2014-... > “It’s not the kid’s fault,” McCarthy said, defending his flustered boss. McCarthy sometimes took over for Duplan during the weekly all-hands meetings on Fridays, correcting him and referring to him as “kid.” Its a bad play to join any company whose founder and chief executive is at his first leadership post (first real job?).
- dylanjermiah 11y agoI'd be careful to generalise, Faceboook was Mark's first job.
- bsg75 11y agoWith what successes, either personal or for the company? A couple years at FB does not a leader make.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoBoth. It's been a decade now. Mark, and others, have built one of the most valuable technology companies of all time. In my option that's a great leader.
- bsg75 11y ago> Mark, and others, have built one of the most valuable technology companies of all time. Clinkle? I am genuinely interested in the measure of value here. Multiple rounds of layoffs (and apparent mutiny), experienced management hires departing in days or hours, millions in investment resulting in what? An exit strategy?
- dylanjermiah 11y agoNo. I was referring to other Facebook employees.
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- downandout 11y ago"Yet suddenly, the startup was the talk of the town when it managed to raise $25 million in seed funding in June 2013 from top investors including Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Jim Bryer, Accel Ventures and Index Partners." These guys are all supposed to be amazing predictors of the future. Who really cares whether payment data is transmitted via ultrasound, bluetooth, NFC, or over the wifi/cellular data connection? How does adding ultrasound to the mix shape the future, as all of these guys claim they want to do? I blame the investors in this case more than Duplan. There are 70 people that wouldn't have been hired and fired if those investors hadn't written this apparently very immature 21 year old kid a $25M check for some hokey technology. Duplan clearly had a knack for communicating a believable grand vision, but little ability to deliver on it. Investors at this level - allegedly some of the most sophisticated VC's on the planet - are supposed to be able to identify people like this.
- ghshephard 11y agoI'm genuinely curious. Let's say things had turned out slightly different, he'd been able to negotiate the deals with the banks that he needed (let's say he had a Board Member who helped open a few doors, or perhaps a Sr. Executive who had deep experience with the banking industry/regulations, and could expedite) - and let's say that clinkle had taken off, and was generated sufficient revenue to be a $10B company. Would you still blame the investors, or would you be impressed by their willingness to take risk? From the New Yorker article on Marc: Each year, three thousand startups approach a16z with a “warm intro” from someone the firm knows. A16z invests in fifteen. Of those, at least ten will fold, three or four will prosper, and one might soar to be worth more than a billion dollars—a “unicorn,” in the local parlance. With great luck, once a decade that unicorn will become a Google or a Facebook and return the V.C.’s money a thousand times over: the storied 1,000x. A16Z invests in 15 companies/year, knowing ahead of time that ten of them will fold. Being able to predict the future is hard.
- flylib 11y agoA16Z invests in a lot more then 15 companies/year, that article is way off in that regard here is a tweet from dec 2014 where Chris Dixon (General Partner) said they did 30 seed deals last year adding up A, B, C, etc. they do closer to 50-100 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/544570097465954304 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/544570097465954304 crunchbase shows they have done 31 publicly known ones in 2015 so far https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/andreessen-horowitz/investments https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/andreessen-horowitz/...
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago24 year old CEO? I don't care if he went to Stanford. I went to Caltech. I didn't have the first clue when I was 24.
- bexmax 11y agoOh, original. "Kids these days". Look around you, the "millenials" you are ridiculing are taking the tech world by storm, graduating at record rates with more advanced degrees than ever. Who do you think you are debating with on HN? I would guess the average user here is under 30 and making twice your inflation-adjusted salary at 35.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoDoubtful. Most millennials are graduating with unserviceable levels of debt, working jobs that pay wages that barely keep up with inflation. For the small minority in the tech industry, the situation is much brighter, as long as the VC money keeps flowing. Those older have seen what happens when the music stops and not everyone has a seat. I hope you have a sufficient emergency fund and something besides $tech_flavor_of_the_week under your belt. Enterprises that provide safe havens during tech bust periods hire a bit differently than tech startups.
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- kolev 11y agoI knew this was going to be a grand failure by simple indications. Their "app" was a total waste of bytes on my phone, even for something as simple, it was buggy and wasteful. Also, their verification system was broken. Never got an SMS and I exceeded their limit of 3 (cheap bastards). I've sent numerous emails, never got a response. A real startup never does this!
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- Fr0styMatt8 11y agoGoing to sound a bit cynical here, but really isn't $30 million just spare change to a VC? To us we see $30 million and think "that's a ton of money!! how could he get that funding?" but to the VC it's like "Here's a bit of spare change, maybe you'll make something out of this, maybe not". From that viewpoint alone I could understand why a VC would fund this. I mean, could you guarantee that it's NOT going to be some breakout hit? What if you did pass on that $30 million investment and the company did actually turn out to be valuable? It's easy to say post-hoc once the company has been stupid that the VCs ought to have known about it, but it looks different if you think back to what the VCs must have known when they were approached.