
The electric scooter Bird startup with big workplace problems - zoolander2
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/23/21231802/bird-electric-scooter-company-workplace-culture-layoffs
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ashtonkem
I live in the area where Bird is headquartered, and they have an absolutely
toxic reputation around town. Not the scooters themselves, but the company. I
got _congratulated_ on not getting an offer there by a shocking number of
people, something I didn’t even see with Uber before the beginning of their PR
debacle.

And not the “oh, it would’ve been a really tough work hard play hard
environment” comments, but more of “they seem like jerks” comments. I was
genuinely taken aback.

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notacoward
Previously on HN: Bird lays off hundreds via Zoom call

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707935)

Apparently Bird has disputed the part about the announcement being pre-
recorded, but not the part about shutting off employees' computers during the
call so they couldn't contact each other for support/recommendations. Sounds
like some real winners are in charge there.

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exogeny
I’m torn. On one hand, this reads like your typical former-darling hit piece,
bedrocked on out-of-context tales told by ex-employees with an axe to grind.

On the other hand, they really are a paint-by-numbers of so many different but
oh-so-stereotypical plagues: too much money too early, arrogant and
homogeneous leadership, questionable product focus and even more questionable
operational discipline.

Truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it doesn’t matter. They’re
boned. Even if they make it to the other side of the pandemic, the unit
economics will likely never work and even if a firesale exit emerges, late-
stage preferred will wipe out any common by several multiples. The tragedy of
course is that by the time that happens, leadership has already taken money
off the table multiple times, so they'll be fine and if anything fail upwards
to a cushy EIR spot or their next venture, which will be funded solely on the
basis of how fast Bird grew and not how it ultimately failed. (Ain't SV
grand.)

Ah, you’d think we’d learn these lessons from all the other times this story
has been told, but no.

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bb88
Back in the day there was fuckedcompany.com. It's too bad it doesn't exist
anymore because it seems silicon valley just keeps repeating it's mistakes
over and over.

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jasondclinton
How do these tech "leaders" watch Silicon Valley and then behave exactly like
the maligned characters and _not_ see themselves as part of the problem?

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exogeny
When you have people who look just like you giving you ungodly amounts of
money, it’s easy to believe your superhero story and ignore everything else.
And then you hire people who also look just like you to reinforce it.

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Poehinae
Well, on one hand you can definitely understand that Bird might need to cut
back on spending, but on the other, so many of their decisions just tend to be
of bad management and lack of foresight.

Will be interesting to see where the scooter startup bust-boom cycle will end
after the COVID-19 situation clears.

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Nextgrid
Bird’s whole strategy from day one was to give away a service for below market
price, “grow” and then... _crickets_? The thing would never be profitable even
in the best case scenario and the current situation is far from a best-case
scenario. How did they get funding? Did they lie to investors or were the
investors extremely stupid?

On that note I have an amazing, high-growth business idea that will give us
millions of users and insanely good PR in a matter of days. We’ll just be
selling $10 notes for $1. I’m looking for investors; email in my profile.

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ashtonkem
This is literally the Uber business model; use a willingness to break the law
and mountains of VC funding to bankrupt all competitors, then raise prices
once you’ve got a monopoly. It’s dubious if this would ever work in the long
run, given the risk of both anti-monopoly prosecution and the rise of
competitors hoping to repeat the trick against you.

With Bird it was a bit dicier. They aren’t a straight up replacement for
existing services like Uber was. This means there was a new and unique market
to capture, but it also means that consumer willingness to pay higher prices
later remains a dubious possibility at best.

