
Mutiny at HQ Trivia Fails to Oust CEO - daniel_iversen
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/14/trivia-game-of-thrones/
======
cletus
Ok, so this is Startups for Employees 101. The warning signs to get out were
here 1.5 years ago [1]. And they are:

1\. Nut-bar egomaniac CEO bordering on the delusional; and

2\. A business that probably should never take VC money. Producing content
(which is what HQ Trivia does at the end of the day) is a notoriously hard
business to scale. I can remember years ago when Rovio (remember when Angry
Birds was a thing?) took VC money. Huge mistake. HUGE. It is seriously
detrimental to your long term viability as a business that generates an
income.

So yeah, stay at your own peril.

[1] [https://www.thedailybeast.com/ceo-of-hq-the-hottest-app-
goin...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/ceo-of-hq-the-hottest-app-going-if-you-
run-this-profile-well-fire-our-host)

~~~
jlarocco
To play devil's advocate, why not take the money?

Of course it won't work out in the long run, but in the short term it might be
fun and it'll employ some people for a few years. When the money runs out
everybody can jump ship to other, equally nonviable, startups and do it over
again.

~~~
anitil
There's a bit of a phenomenon in Sydney (possibly elsewhere, I wouldn't know)
of companies doing this.

I call them VC-bait or grant-bait. There's a handful of grants you can get for
startups here, so they'll get all of those, get some free hosting from
Microsoft, put up a landing page etc. If they're lucky they'll get a few tens
of thousands from private investors, then fall over a few months later.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or if people are just clueless, but in any
case they make a bit of money, pad out the CV a bit and move on. I wouldn't
got so far as to say they're defrauding investors

------
zitterbewegung
I remember a previous post saying that the Host Scott Rogowsky would have an
extreme pull in the company and would present a big risk if he ever left the
company. I guess this company could try to pivot onto someone else but I'm not
sure they have the ability to do so. (they cite themselves in the article)

~~~
chakintosh
Calling it here.

Rugowsky will end up leaving the company and be given his own Jeopardy-style
trivia show by Amazon.

~~~
geekamongus
Or maybe even Jeopardy! itself, given the recent news about Trebek. Unlikely,
but possible.

~~~
ineedasername
I think he could handle Jeopardy sure, but I'm not sure the venue gives his
talent the place to truly shine. If he inserted the comedic portion of his
talent then Jeopardy would kind of become a different show, while not doing so
would lose the quality that make him such a compelling host.

------
ctvo
I thought HQ was incredibly polished when it launched. Props to the tech team
regardless of the management mess.

~~~
Dork_Sider
It had terrible lag issues though for quite a long time after release.

------
orliesaurus
I didn't know their old CEO died of drug overdose...wow! That's crazy to
think... bad luck? I wonder if VCs have C levels take any drug tests or carry
pretty thorough background check on founders who they invest into?!

~~~
kenneth
Drug use is rampant in silicon valley. You wouldn't be a very successful
investor is drug use was a disqualifying factor.

Of course it depends what kind of drugs. Potheads don't make very good CEOs
and Cocaine is usually associated with destructive behavior. A lot of people
in tech do the occasional hallucinogens or ecstasy without much issues.

~~~
asdff
Has there ever been a large scale, well controlled study evaluating CEO
performance under the influence of THC/coke/anything else vs. sober?
Absolutely not, because as you say, these are only baseless behavioral
associations to character flaws.

If you are concerned about character flaws, evaluate that directly. Failing a
drug test ruins peoples lives worse than smoking that joint ever did, and
there are plenty of terrible people who've been sober all their life.

~~~
kenneth
They say Donald Trump doesn't drink — which is surprising when you think of
his reputation as a womanizer.

------
nihonde
Lots of drama here, but the real problem was obvious from the start: no path
to making money. They literally gave it away daily. Anyone with half a brain
could see where this was headed.

~~~
cooperadymas
The app typically shows 350k - 500k participants in their nightly shows.
They're giving away usually $5000.

Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune have around 10 million viewers each with over 30
years of history. Jeopardy gives away around $23k each day, I believe WoF
rings in a little higher. They air 5 days a week and clock in around 200-230
episodes per season. Back of the napkin math puts that at $0.53 per viewer per
year.

HQ is still at $4.29 per viewer per year. At their current rate they still
need about 10x growth to match J! or WoF. But HQ is also only 2 years old on a
somewhat new media format (live interactive entertainment).

Those numbers are just for the prize money. Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek each
earn north of $10 million per year (and Vanna White somewhat less, but still
in the millions), and the shows almost certainly have larger staffs. The
actual value difference is probably closer to a 3-4x multiplier rather than
10x.

That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more
valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on
broadcast television.

I don't think HQ would/could have a path to profitability (setting aside
internal business politics), but it's a matter of 1) convincing businesses
that a new media format is worth their advertising dollars, 2) keeping players
long-term, 3) finding effective ways to advertise in the more limited format
that the game affords.

~~~
ineedasername
And as it relates to cost per viewer, HQ doesn't scale well. Doubling or
tripling their viewership would result in winners getting paid significantly
less, thus decreasing the appeal and losing viewers.

While scaling prizes with viewership will keep the same approximate cost per
viewer. They'd need to scale advertising rates/sponsorships faster than both
in order to beat this curve, but I don't think a doubling of the audience will
result in _more_ than a doubling of the ad prices.

The could do more ad spots per show, but again that risks alienating viewers.

They could make the trivia questions harder, thus keeping prizes larger and
mitigating the problems with low prize amounts, but the difficulty increase
also risks alienating viewers. It's much less fun to play when you get only 3
or 4 rights and feel you have no chance of actually winning.

------
etaerc
Also a funny side note: Why do people who seemingly care about public opinion
so much always screw up their public opinion? I'd argue torturing people is
more in their interest than actual public opinion. With the latter they just
try to stay above zero as long as possible to continue with their actual
addiction, getting hard-ons from watching people suffer.

That's also why such people can under no circumstances really succeed with
businesses. It's not the same kind of personality as Steve Jobs for instance.
Jobs also hurt people, but the goal was always to increase public opinion and
make money.

The differences between a sociopath (Jobs) and a parasite (this dude here).

And knowing that he's a parasite and not a sociopath, why keep him on as a
CEO? The secretary or toilet cleaning person would have a lower chance to
screw everything up.

~~~
pm90
> Also a funny side note: Why do people who seemingly care about public
> opinion so much always screw up their public opinion?

Its more common than you imagine.

Its incredibly clear that the CEO dude is super insecure person who feels some
kind of inadequacy and a constant need to control everything. If you read the
daily beast article showing the actual interaction, it shows. If he stopped
thinking all about himself for a little while he could have done a much better
job. But he has so far not faced consequences for his toxic behavior (his co-
founder sounds shady af too and that person actually died of a drug
overdose... what a mess).

~~~
HenryBemis
+1

And on top of that, he probably thinks that thing that what got him "here"
will also get him "there".

Maybe being vocal made it to the first mile so if he continues his act (and
get louder) he believed it would get him to the finish line (the one he has in
his mind).

One f-bomb makes a comedy. A thousand make zero ratings and lawsuits. He
didn't realize he crossed the line being a sociopath and making is
increasingly difficult to receive the messaging.

------
mathattack
Apparently the other founder had some harassment issues in the past too.

[http://fortune.com/2017/12/20/hq-trivia-losing-investors-
sex...](http://fortune.com/2017/12/20/hq-trivia-losing-investors-sexual-
harassment/)

------
jblow
This article is gross. Very one-sided, no attempt to paint an objective
picture. If someone did this about a person, it’d be scummy, but about a
company it’s okay?

I am sure the company is messed up, but come on.

~~~
empath75
Companies aren’t people. I think a lot of people are curious about what
happened to HQ trivia, and I think it’s sad that the company seems to be
falling apart.

(Ps, I think The Witness is one of the best games ever made and everyone
should buy it)

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wsdfsayy
At this point, why wouldn't you just quit? I get that there's equity on the
line, but the average tenure is probably around a year (if that) given how new
the company is. It was clear from the WSJ article on the drama between the two
founders up to the other one's death that the current CEO is a textbook
sociopath.

Convinced the only reason why talented rank-and-file employees would petition
instead of leave is because we live in a world where we're all expected to
become grossly emotionally attached to our work, despite how toxic work
environments can be.

~~~
olliej
Because you need to pay the rent?

Seriously, this is the risk aspect of working for a startup that people seem
willing to ignore when justifying VC getting preferential treatment to
employees.

If you have a non-C-level job at a startup you likely need that to pay your
rent, to buy food, to have health insurance (become HI system in the US
actively fights freedom of employment).

The best you can do is delay while you find jobs elsewhere, as the article
said the people who had an easy time working elsewhere have already left - the
first step in employment in tech is to know people at other companies so you
can skip the randomness of standard recruitment. I cannot imagine that the
remaining people in this startup aren't actively searching for or negotiating
new jobs.

~~~
wheelerwj
yeah, 100%. not everyone can just bounce or put up with a significant amount
of downtime between jobs. But still, a petition is a terrible idea in a
startup. Its just going to make things worse.

> If you have a non-C-level job at a startup

even C-level people need to pay their rent, especially in early stages where
its likely the founding c-team is likely compensated mostly in stock.

~~~
nwsm
Being compensated mostly in stock would make it easier to leave if you are
just worried about paying rent.

~~~
olliej
I guess what you're trying to say is that "if you're being paid mostly in
stock then you're earning so little cash you're not really losing much cash if
you quit".

This is a fundamentally incorrect assessment. If your cash salary is lower it
is _harder_ to leave the company. Being able to leave a company without a
replacement job lined up requires having enough saved _cash_ (not unsaleable
pre-IPO stock), but if you're being paid less cash you have less to save after
paying rent.

Put very simply, you're interpreting a "low cash income given actual market
rates" and "no cash income" as being somewhat interchangeable. Hopefully when
phrased that way it should be obvious why that isn't the case if you have
mortgage/rent/healthcare to worry about.

