
Why I got Fired from Facebook (a $100M dollar lesson) (2012) - yarapavan
http://okdork.com/2012/09/29/why-i-got-fired-from-facebook-a-100-million-dollar-lesson/
======
tptacek
Buried in the middle of the post:

 _2- Marketing. The marketing team’s plan was not to do anything and the night
before we opened Facebook to the professional market (anyone with a
@microsoft.com, @dell.com, etc…) I emailed TechCrunch to let Michael Arrington
know to publish it in the morning. He ended up publishing it that night (I was
at Coachella and will never again attend) before the actual product was
released in the morning. I immediately notified the e-team and assumed full
responsibility._

 _Lesson learned: I don’t think what I did was that wrong since the marketing
team did not do anything to promote our new features. My lesson learned was
more I should have involved them instead of just going around them. (Learn How
to Hire a Great Marketing Person.)_

He leaked a major Facebook update to TechCrunch? I'm surprised he wasn't fired
on the spot.

~~~
mpeg
I'm more surprised Facebook didn't withhold access to information for
TechCrunch after that.

News embargoes are a thing, journalists are not supposed to publish things
like this ahead of time

~~~
prostoalex
PR people probably had an ongoing relationship with the tech blog, and that
relationship would've probably deteriorated. The author of the article wasn't
in PR, though.

------
mmmBacon
My guess is that he's not fully coming clean with the real reason he was
fired. If he was a leader worth promoting 2months earlier and wasn't making
product planning spreadsheets then they'd have told him and/or hired someone
to help him. That story doesn't jive with being told he was a liability.

Given that he leaked info previously without talking to the team, I suspect
that he was fired because he did something of that magnitude again and they
decided he could not be trusted and he was out.

~~~
gkop
Yes, there seems to be something missing. Noah readily accepts (in hindsight)
that it was his fault he got fired, but neglects to say what if any steps his
manager took to guide Noah to be a better employee. If this were the whole
story, his manager would bear some responsibility for things getting so bad.

------
funkyy
This is not groundbreaking to read, but it reminds me how some people are
detached from reality. They think they are bulletproof, they bring so much
value they can't be replaced. Usually this can be true only in very few
situations like for top salesman operatives or for genius programmers. People
that are as rare as it goes.

Marketing, management, administration - those folks are usually replecable.

~~~
privateersman
I think it's partly a side effect of modern education techniques (and TV),
which conditions people to think that they are special. It's a gulf between
educators and employers that results in a shock when reality sets in.

Confidence is good, but thinking that the world revolves around you is bad...
unless you are calling the shots.

------
shasheene
Do all large US tech companies have employment policies where a long-term
employee (who got a raise and promotion a few weeks earlier) can be forced out
without even any prior hint of a performance issue?

I understand California is an 'at-will' state, but I'd think that the wealthy
tech companies who compete to attract talent with free food and gyms would
have slightly better management policies (at _least_ for the long-term
engineering staff)

Though given this particular individual apparently was an extremely early
Facebook employee (likely >100M of vested stock options), he doesn't need the
job security to afford rental contract in San Francisco (first month rent + 2
month security deposit, which can be a hefty sum in SF)

~~~
pkteison
Yes, surprise firing is technically an option for almost all employees,
including the long-term engineering staff talent at wealthy tech companies.
It's reciprocal - the employee can quit with no notice also. A very very few
public faces, world famous leaders in their field, will negotiate different
deals - but the general long-term engineering staff isn't at that level.

I think it's not a point of competition, especially for the talent worth
competing for, for several reasons:

1) People don't value the protection as much as they value the freedom of
being able to quit, and you only get one or the other. Basically: "I'm good at
my job, why do I need protection? But another offer might come along and I
might want to leave."

2) People believe it won't happen to them / they have control over it. (I
think this is generally true - don't do boneheaded things, keep being good at
your job, you won't get fired.)

3) I prefer working somewhere that has the ability to fire bad coworkers. It
leads to less bad coworkers.

4) Surprise firings are not really common, and when they do happen, the
examples seem to make sense - people get fired for doing obviously bad things
(or for being horrible, but that is usually a drawn out process and not the
surprise described here.)

5) If you don't announce it, it will be difficult for your next employer to
learn the circumstances, so you can always just get another job. (Companies in
America tend not to answer questions about why prior employees left, it's
mostly up to you to spin the story in the next interview. Most companies (in
tech at least) don't even bother checking references because it's unlikely to
be productive.)

6) The worst cases of fired-for-no-good-reason are already legally protected

If it was extremely common then this would probably change, but so far in my
career it just hasn't seemed like a big concern.

~~~
pmiller2
> It's reciprocal - the employee can quit with no notice also.

Except it's really not. The potential consequences for an employee quitting
without notice are far greater than the consequences to the company of
summarily firing someone. And, the company has far more power in the
employee/employer relationship the vast majority of the time, because people
typically have one job and companies have tons of employees. People also tend
not to have the kind of savings in the bank that can let them just shrug off a
surprise firing.

So, no, it's not reciprocal due to the power imbalance inherent in the
relationship.

~~~
prostoalex
Can you elaborate? What consequences are there for an employee who gave a
same-day notice on Friday to start a new gig on Monday?

I can only think of company witholding the final check for longer than usual,
but that's understandable with how payroll is cut at some large orgs.

~~~
pmiller2
I was more referring to damage to one's professional reputation.

~~~
prostoalex
I don't really buy that. Unless you're at the C-level, you know nothing about
how the person working next to you quit their previous job.

The only exception being them volunteering such information, but even in that
case an abrupt notice of termination paints the story teller in a positive
light of him (finally) seeing the light and moving away from sinking ship that
is her old job to the unbridled rocketship of opportunities and awesomeness
that is her new job.

------
AKifer
"At that time, here’s the order of what was important in my life:

1- Facebook 2- Myself ..."

Reminds me of the Gervais principle, this guy seems to be a clueless at that
time, a true believer in the firm. Glad for him he started his own venture.

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-
principle/](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/) (very long read)

~~~
sjg007
Now these are an amazing set of essays. I was wondering why so many people are
ineffective at work despite doing productive work.

------
mildbow
How many times is this guy going to rehash being fired from facebook as
validation?

His projected image repels me: the antithesis of a hacker - a smiley/slick
bro-dude.

Who ends up ruining your startup culture.

~~~
tc313
Noah is a content marketer. He'll repackage the same content over and over
until people stop clicking on it. I don't understand why people read these
kinds of blogs, but apparently they're popular.

~~~
Hydraulix989
In other words, he didn't learn his lesson.

~~~
billmalarky
>until people stop clicking on it.

Heh, sounds like he has. His goal is to drive traffic and it appears to be
working.

------
laurencei
He says it cost him $100m. Is that because of the stock options he lost when
he was fired?

To have $100m in stock - he would have been a very early hire?

~~~
paul
Facebook is worth $350B, so $100M is only 0.03% equity. He likely had more
than that, but the article is old so the number today could be more like
$500M.

~~~
huac
generally those %'s get diluted down with subsequent funding rounds

~~~
paul
Facebook didn't have that much dilution.

~~~
rhizome
Except in certain cases.

------
kzhahou
The good news is that most non-founder startup employees never risk losing out
on this much money.

------
mercer
I'm hesitant to submit this comment, but something _really_ rubs me the wrong
way about this post. It most reminds me of the 'uncanny valley' feeling. Or
Patrick Bateman, but that would be too hyperbolic a comparison.

Maybe it's the advertisement for his book at the end of the article. Maybe
it's the repeated 'what happened to me was justified and I thank those who
make the decisions' groveling-like contriteness, even though objectively that
should be a good thing. Maybe it's the informal-but-not-like-
idlewords/pinboard tone of voice. Or maybe it's just the connection with
AppSumo and the general dislike I have of people who do marketing as their
primary talent.

I feel like I'm being unfair and I deserve to be downvoted because I cannot
properly articulate what bothers me so much about this, but at the same time
it's so... unsettling that I can't keep myself from doing so. Maybe if I
talked to the guy I'd feel different. Maybe I'm just unfairly biased against
marketing as a profession. It's very confusing and my apologies for anyone who
read this whole comment.

------
ajamesm
Classifying employees as "growers" or "showers"? The author's a dick, either
way.

------
CurtMonash
I've only worked for one company that I didn't run. They fired me. They paid
me a six figure discretionary bonus anyway (in 1986 dollars). When I argued
that this was too low, they said "Well, we did fire you."

I basically was fired for not trying to fit in. This was a Wall Street job,
specifically as a stock analyst, in which you didn't work much with
colleagues. Still, I didn't look or act the part of a well-dressed Wall
Streeter.

Perhaps I should have changed my ways after an Institutional Investor Magazine
article, written because I was the youngest #1-ranked stock analyst ever,
attacked me for my clothing and personality. :)

~~~
shostack
Total random aside, but as someone who reached a level of prominence in that
space, what are your views on the investing strategy espoused by A Random Walk
Down Wallstreet, Bogleheads, etc.?

~~~
CurtMonash
When I was an analyst, I put together a portfolio of 5 stocks for my parents.
The value doubled in 18 months, even though 2 of the 5 went bankrupt.

After I was an analyst, however, I insisted there was nothing I could do for
them that was better than index funds. They ultimately felt neglected, and
went to a money manager, who of course charged them a lot for underperforming
the market.

------
devy
Here is the free Kindle version on Amazon:

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Lost-170-Million-
Dollars/dp/161961...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Lost-170-Million-
Dollars/dp/161961300X/?tag=ninjacard-20)

Note: interestingly, Noah said the lost was $170MM (in the book name) not
$100MM as titled on the blog.

------
ilostmykeys
Grow up. Get a life. A job is like a shoe. If it falls apart or gets worn
out... well, get another, and move on (or "run", if it's a new pair of
sneakers)

------
havetocharge
I don't understand where the 100m figure popped out of.

------
gerby
I didn't know California was an at-will state. I thought it was fairly liberal
there. At-will clauses tend to be written by right-wingers.

------
kenferry
"The product is strong with this one. Now learn some grammer. -Mark"

I hope the return gift was the Oxford English Dictionary.

------
troutaway123
> Error establishing a database connection

The real reason

~~~
kyle6884
heh, google cached version: [http://goo.gl/hRUKyu](http://goo.gl/hRUKyu)

------
clamprecht
(From 2012)

