

Failing the Startup Game at Unbabel – Take 2 - andreasgonewild
http://esoteric-code.blogspot.com/2014/09/failing-startup-game-at-unbabel-take-2.html

======
dang
This post was killed by user flags.

~~~
rhapsodic
Forgive my ignorance, but what are user flags, and how are they used to kill a
post? I did notice that this post dropped off the front page quite quickly.

~~~
dang
After your account has a small amount of karma, a link that says "flag" will
appear beside each story. When you see a story that you think is off-topic or
otherwise harmful for Hacker News, you can flag it.

Flags cause a story's rank to fall and, if there are enough of them, kill the
story altogether. When flags kill a story, we sometimes unkill it so the
existing discussion can continue. I did that here.

I'd guess that the flags on the current post are because the it is just a
reprise of a story from earlier this week, so more or less a duplicate.

A caveat. Please don't flag stories merely because they are on some unusual
topic. If a post is intellectually substantive, and not flamewar prone, but
somehow obscure or out-of-the-way, it is welcome here. Here's an example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5979384](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5979384).
We definitely want such diversity on Hacker News. (I mention this in case
anyone still has the misconception that HN is for technology and startups
only.)

~~~
rhapsodic
Thanks dang. I don't think the story should have been killed, since it added
very relevant information that was not included in the previous post.

------
vasco_
Vasco Pedro, CEO and Co-founder of Unbabel.

I feel that while it is very important to have honest discussions regarding
employee expectations, in this particular case Andreas is being particularly
disingenuous and stating facts that are plainly false. As the CEO of Unbabel,
I find it hard to let wrong factual information be posted about Unbabel. There
is a great deal of subjectivity in these matters and we are sensitive to the
fact that being fired is not an easy thing, which is why I will try to stick
to the facts. Despite the unwarranted distraction all this caused, we wish to
put this matter behind us and wish Andreas well in his future endeavors.

The offer letter he received, which was in English, stated clearly the “at
will” nature of the contract. The relevant clause is below.

\- "While we hope that your employment with the Company will be mutually
satisfactory, employment with the Company is for no specific period of time.
As a result, either you or the Company is free to terminate your employment
relationship at any time for any reason, with or without cause. This is the
full and complete agreement between us on this term. Although your job duties,
title, compensation and benefits, as well as the Company’s personnel policies
and procedures, may change from time-to-time, the “at-will” nature of your
employment may not be changed except by an express writing signed and dated by
both you and the President of the Company."

This was also explained thoroughly upon signing of the actual contract, which
was a standard contract of full time employment within the Portuguese law,
which includes 3 months trial period, by default. At the time we did not have
our contract translated to English, which is why we took great pains to make
sure everything was clear, but shortly after all the contracts were translated
to English.

Furthermore, as I stated before, when he was let go we gave him more severance
than was required, we paid him one extra month of salary and added another
$1000 on top of it to compensate for unforeseen expenses. We have tried to the
best of our ability to not make sure that Andreas had enough to get back to
Sweden, if that was what he wished.

As Andreas admits, the company loaned him money to pay rent, helped him find a
house, and treated him with respect, courtesy and welcomed him to the team.
Andreas worked with 4 different co-workers and got negative feedback from all
of them. There was a fundamental problem of communication with Andreas and
there appeared to be a systematic misunderstanding of goals, as well as
constant exacerbation of minor problems.

Communication is two-way channel, so obviously this was not necessarily the
fault of the individual, and a high growth startup is certainly an environment
that is suitable for misunderstandings, since we rely on a lot of assumptions,
which is why over communication is extremely important. In any case it felt to
us that there wasn’t a good fit between Andreas and the team. We hired 8
employees around the same period, and 7 of them continue to be productive,
happy and valuable members of the team. Of the 8 employees, 5 are not
Portuguese, creating a very diverse group.

Andreas himself was very happy until the day he was fired, which shows that he
was unaware of the consequences of his behaviour, or even of the issues that
existed already, which is both potentially a core reason for the problems of
communication and why the decision was unexpected.

This particular situation will certainly make us improve our hiring and
screening processes in order to improve the fit and I thank the HN community
for pointing out ideas we can try, like remote working and better defined
trial periods. It is also important that we improve employee communication and
give more concise feedback to employees.

Unbabel is committed to being an international company, with employees from
many countries. We pay well above Portuguese average and our goal is to hire
the best individuals from anywhere in the world to be part of something
meaningful.

We are working hard to solve a hard problem in human communication and take
very seriously the fact that we need exceptional people in our team in order
to to achieve our vision. We are fortunate to have an amazing team and will
continue to strive for maintaining high standards and good culture fit.

Andreas acquired an unfortunate view of Portugal while he was here. We tried
hard to make his experience a wonderful one and Portugal is without a doubt an
amazing place to live. We have a great climate, it is very safe, most people
speak English, it is a modern place and it is very easy to get 100MB internet
speed in your home. It is close to the US and Portugal has always had a hacker
mentally, since the days of the discoveries and Vasco da Gama, much due to the
need to find solutions to being surrounded by Spain, which at the time was a
problem. These and many other things is why Algarve (south of Portugal) was
rated the best place in the world to retire by Huffington Post
([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-peddicord/best-
places...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-peddicord/best-places-to-
retire-overseas_b_5716909.html)).

If you are curious about Unbabel’s hiring practices and what is like to work
at Unbabel, I would be happy to answer personally.

~~~
fown10
Let's look at the facts:

1.) Unbabel is a YC company that recently raised 1.5M

2.) Andreas is a contractor that was given a 3-month at-will contract, for a
job that required him to move to Portugal from Sweden.

3.) He worked for 1 month and then was let go and given pay for 1.5 months.

4.) He managed to lose all his money that he made while working for Unbabel,
due to a 4 month rental agreement that Unbabel helped him secure a week before
Unbabel fired him.

I am not sure if the founders are psychopaths, but there are clearly
psychopathic behaviors here. Here's an employee that put his trust into the
company to move and sign a contract he couldn't understand, and the company
did the following things:

1.) Could not even pay out 1.5 month of contract left (after raising 1.5M)

2.) Could not handle the rental situation

3.) Could not help this guy land on his feet

4.) Could not apologize to Andreas after the article has posted, or manage to
help compensate

5.) Continues to answer with posts that try to emphasize how great it is to
work for the company or work in Portugal

If this wasn't a YC company we would be alot harder on the company.

~~~
ivraatiems
I agree with all of your analysis here, save one nitpick: I don't think the
founders are psychopaths. I think they're in a bubble. I think they genuinely
believe they did the right thing, because (like I said elsewhere in this
thread), they're simply not thinking about Andreas and they're resolutely
refusing to see things from his perspective.

I'd challenge vasco_ to take a look at what this situation is like from
Andreas' perspective, and then explain why an apology or greater assistance to
him was unnecessary or impossible.

~~~
wolfgke
"I agree with all of your analysis here, save one nitpick: I don't think the
founders are psychopaths. I think they're in a bubble. I think they genuinely
believe they did the right thing, because (like I said elsewhere in this
thread), they're simply not thinking about Andreas and they're resolutely
refusing to see things from his perspective."

To quote Wikipedia
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy))
- emphasis be me:

"Psychopathy (/saɪˈkɒpəθi/) (or sociopathy /ˈsoʊsiəˌpæθi/) is traditionally
defined as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial
behavior, _diminished empathy and remorse_ , and disinhibited or bold
behavior. It may also be defined as a continuous aspect of personality,
representing scores on different personality dimensions found throughout the
population in varying combinations."

~~~
ivraatiems
I think assuming someone is a psychopath is assuming the absolute worst about
them in this context. I don't think it's really fair to anyone. There are
plenty of other situations that result in diminished empathy and remorse, not
all of them pathological in nature, and whether or not vasco_ is a psychopath
doesn't affect the rightness or wrongness of his behavior from an objective
standpoint.

------
ivraatiems
It seems like a lot of people feel an urge to take sides and say "how could
Unbabel do this, it's their fault" or "how could you not read the contract,
it's your fault," and I don't see any comments really discussing the
underlying issues in this situation. I'm seeing a lot of fault on both sides,
and lessons both sides need to learn.

Andreas, some people here have called you naive, and I have to say that on the
surface I can very much see why. A decent financial incentive was enough to
get you to wholly uproot your (relatively unstable) life for a group of people
you had never met living in a place where you didn't speak the language and
didn't know the laws. It does read, in your posts, as if you never considered
the possibility that you could get screwed by these people.

I feel like part of the reason you are so upset now might be because you
didn't consider possible negative outcomes. Nobody likes to be surprised. It's
also reasonable to say that being defensive when people ask about your
financial situation and the circumstances of this event (as you have been in
comments, and in the tone this post takes), and you tell them it's none of
their business, that's not fair: You made it their business when you posted it
publicly online and invited comments on HN.

However, let's look at Unbabel's conduct as well: They knew who Andreas was.
He's indicated they knew his situation (and I believe, from his statements and
theirs, that he is telling the truth, if colored by his feelings). They knew
he didn't speak Portguese, they obviously had to be aware he was willing to
take the (in my opinion, fairly significant) step of moving across the
continent to their country anyway, and given how quickly they fired him it
seems like they knew pretty quickly after he joined that he wasn't working
out. It seems like Unbabel understood that Andreas was taking large risks, and
didn't try to point that out to him. Apparently, they didn't consider how it
would affect his working with them until after he'd been hired.

No, they didn't HAVE to, but if they cared at all about his well-being, I
think they should have considered his issues and perspective in both the
hiring and the firing. He didn't enter this situation angry, and he didn't
have to leave it that way. If they had given him a little more time and
consideration, he wouldn't have been kicked out of his apartment and these
blog posts wouldn't exist. Now, maybe Andreas didn't express to them that he
would have liked that until after it was too late (but it seems like they're
also refusing to speak to him at all, which just doesn't make sense to me).
But it's not his responsibility to ask: Unbabel played on his naivete (whether
they knew it or not) to hire him, and they were the ones who decided the
relationship hadn't worked out. Their conduct was legal, but it wasn't right,
and it wasn't smart.

This has gotten quite long, so I'll try to sum up: Your employers/employees
are people. They don't know everything that's going on and you don't fully
understand their situation no matter how much you think you know. What they
present is not always what they are. If you are an employee (and your
financial/skillset situation allows it), you owe it to yourself to get
protection from this by understanding and negotiating your contract and by
maintaining open lines of communication with your superiors, monitoring for
issues (which Andreas may have done, I don't know). If you are an employer,
you need to take your employees' situation into account even when you're about
to fire them, and you need to be as clear and kind as you can be. Yeah, there
might be more costs - they should be considered part of the cost of hiring. A
disgruntled fired employee is way worse than a fired employee who cost you a
month of his rent.

So, TL;DR: Be human even if you're representing a faceless corporation, or at
least try to pretend you are. This situation happened because nobody was
communicating and nobody was thinking about what the other guy was thinking
about. It could easily have been avoided with a little more world-wariness and
a little more generosity.

------
ahp
> The contract was presented to me on paper and in Portuguese, 7 pages in
> total. The only thing I understood was the caption, 'Contrato de Trabalho'.
> At the time no one said anything about being able to break the contract
> without reasonable cause before 3 months had passed.

This is pretty appalling. I don't think the burden is on the offerer to
explain the contract in full to you. I feel bad for you, but you kind of shot
yourself in the foot on that one.

~~~
walshemj
Providing an unreadable (to the person signing) contract violates the
principals of natural justice for one.

~~~
CaveTech
It's not unreasonable when it's written in the official language of the
country in which your office resides.

~~~
walshemj
So it all right to rip of foreigners then or people not versed in employment
law.

Foolish or badly advised people still have rights you know

~~~
CaveTech
A foolish person would sign a contract in a language that they can't read. No
reasonable employer would be offended if you refused to sign an agreement you
couldn't possibly understand.

If they were offended, that would be even more of a reason not to work there
or sign it.

------
bilalhusain
Don't take the criticism and questioning too hard. The comments on this forum
is from people you barely know and vice versa.

By the way,

> The contract was presented to me on paper and in Portuguese

... given what the company does, I might have taken it as a joke.

------
kirankn
Vasco states that "Andreas himself was very happy until the day he was fired,
which shows that he was unaware of the consequences of his behavior, or even
of the issues that existed already, which is both potentially a core reason
for the problems of communication and why the decision was unexpected." Now,
how do you just fire a person who has no way to figure out he wasn't meeting
the "culture" expectations? No feedback at all? Is this Unbabel's culture?

------
jimmyfalcon
> The contract was presented to me on paper and in Portuguese, 7 pages in
> total.

Given that Unbabel is a translation company, it is ironic that they didn't
bother to translate the contract for you, knowing that you don't understand
the language

------
practicalpants
Besides driving a lot of talent away, I think it's an insidious expectation
that an employee makes a 'culture fit' where you have to regularly enjoy
surfing and drinking with everyone.

Being friendly with coworkers is great, but when you push it further like it
appears Unbabel does, you're in reality just asking employees to invest even
more of their life, mind, and personal freedom laboring for your company.

Another possibly is it's important for the founders to use their startup to
live out a lifestyle, i.e. have fun and party along the way. Those are not the
type of founders I want to work for either.

------
cpinto
Employee contracts in Portugal have one of two forms: "fixed term" and "long
term". Long term is when there is no deadline for the contract to expire
(also, it's the most common type) and it says you're entitled 1mo (perhaps now
it's less) of compensation for each year working for the company.

Fixed term, however, has a different set of compensation rules, one of them
being that if the employer breaks the contract 1 month into it, the employer
still needs to pay for the extra 2 months. This appears to be your
case/contract. However, from Vasco's previous comment, it does seem like that
has been sorted, so your case does not appear to have grounds I'm afraid.

Personally, I'd recommend moving on, it may be the top thing on your mind
right now, but in a year it won't matter one bit.

------
idlewords
You need to find out what is in the contract you signed and get legal aid.
Continuing to post on it in public is likely to be counterproductive.

------
koonsolo
Let me get this straight: You have been programming Java for years but you
haven't saved any money. Being in a situation without any savings, you take
the adventure and go to Portugal to sign a contract that you don't understand.
The company you work for figures out you are not the person they are looking
for, and fires you during your trial period (in which both parties can end the
contract within a week, therefore it's called a trial period).

I don't know you, so I can't really judge, but can you answer this question:
Before blaming other people, have you looked into the mirror first and
questioned how you ended up in this situation?

~~~
stale2001
You completely missed the point of the article. Yes, he acted naively, and
assumed that the company that he was working for would act in good faith.
Thats not the point.

The point is that this is a terrible company that acted in bad faith, and took
advantage of an admittedly naive person, and nobody in the developer community
should ever trust Unbabel again because fuck them.

~~~
pbiggar
> The point is that this is a terrible company that acted in bad faith, and
> took advantage of an admittedly naive person, and nobody in the developer
> community should ever trust Unbabel again because fuck them.

Wow, just wow. Is the world really so black and white to you?

------
rtpg
IANAL, but if you didn't understand the contract, chances are its not valid.

If labor law is like in France, this could mean that your employment is
assumed to be of the indefinite variety (since no valid contract dictates
otherwise), and your firing could be illegal. In France this means they could
owe you 6 months of wages.

This is Portugal, so some EU directives might cover a similar concept, and you
could be entitled to a little settlement on the issue (granted French labor
law is pretty intense, so your results may vary).

Anyways, a lawyer would be good. If you have any portuguese friends with good
google-fu (or knowledge of employment law) they might be able to at least
smell test this path.

~~~
walshemj
Unfortunately some of the EU states are happy to take the CAP budget but when
it comes to reforming and implementing EU directives only implement the letter
and not the sprit of the law.

And Some country's blatantly stack the decks against outsiders non Italian
university lecturers in Italy have been trying for decades to get parity with
their Italian colleagues.

------
hartator
Lawyer up if you feel mislead.

It's always hard to see who is right and who ia wrong, specialy in employment
case. Morever, european laws should be a lot more protrective even if you are
the one in fault.

ps: On a side note, never forget that's every publicity is good publicity. I
am working on integrating automated translation in our web app and now I am
considering unbabel. :/

------
jchonphoenix
You signed a contract you didn't read and then blamed someone else for it.
Sorry, but all of this falls squarely on you. Especially for major decisions,
understand what you're doing.

Not reading the contract and understanding it shows naivete and a lack of
common sense. This also makes me question how much of your opinion of unbabel
should be attributed to your naive worldview.

------
csbrooks
This screams out "there's two sides to every story". :(

