
Skype Loses Engineering Chief (possibly due to TechCrunch commenters?) - donohoe
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/skype-loses-engineering-chief-ahead-of-offering/?src=twr
======
BobbyH
Here's a link to the Techcrunch comments mentioned in the NYT blog post:
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-
engine...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-engineering-
exec-for-key-technology-role/#comments)

~~~
dcurtis
The comments on that article are fascinating.

If you start with the link above, you'll see a bunch of really brutal comments
about Yarlagadda (they seem suspect, but there are so many of them, it's hard
to tell). If you continue through the pages, though, you can watch as the
thread becomes an outlet for Skype employees angry about the decision and
discussing what happened culturally at Skype after the guy was hired.

Skype employee responses: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-
yahoo-engine...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-
engineering-exec-for-key-technology-role/comment-page-2/#comments)

Here's a post from "Anonymous Designer" that is telling:

"Two engineers gave notice today and another one quit earlier in the week. I
am sad because it looks like Madhu is quick to have a negative impact on our
company. The engineers here are not happy with this recent hire and have been
very vocal. HR is talking to each and every engineer 1:1 so that they don't
loose anymore over this. While I am in design and less impacted the
environment is very tense. Makes me question whether it makes sense to stay
working at Skype. I haven't talked with Madhu but he is definitely rubbing a
lot of people I respect the wrong way and quite obviously doesn't understand
our culture. Hope there is a resolution soon so I can focus on pixels and not
whether I am wasting my time."

And another from "Skype Developer":

"Madhu presented yesterday for an hour and didn't say anything. Didn't really
address comments here and didn't show any technical depth. Josh what have you
done? Are we really follow this guy? May be Dan was right to leave. Look out
for good Skype engineers on the market.

The only exec I saw at Skype that admitted a mistake was Dan. And he did it in
front of his whole org. Josh it is your turn. Convince Dan to stay. Fix this.
Is the board listening?"

\----

The later responses -- which were posted several days later -- discussing
internal Skype politics lead me to believe the brutal comments are at least
partially genuine.

~~~
flatulent1
Back in 2009 he wrote Steps to Success

see his blog:

[http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/search?updated-
min=2009-...](http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/search?updated-
min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-
max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=2)

------
DanBlake
I dont know the guy, nor have I heard of him, but I suspect that many of the
comments in the TC article are from the same person. Alot of the language is
consistent, as are phrases and usernames chosen.

Also, If you go back a page or 2, practically all the comments are positive
and from people leaving their names. Why not ask techcrunch if they are all
from the same IP?

~~~
shirtless_coder
I am 100% with you, just on the basis that people aren't that obsessed with
slander in general. I can see 1-2 people commenting multiple times in a
malicious way, but if there are more than 2, it has to be 4chan. Normal
professionals do not have the time to sit on tech crunch all day slandering
former coworkers, even if they _are_ scumbags.

With that said, I feel kind of bad for Madhu. Slander, is illegal under U.S.
law. If the coward had not been anonymous he could have a court case against
him.

Although I am sure he has learned his lesson about not being a flaming dick to
people.

~~~
jacquesm
The lower boundary on the number of people that hate his guts can be safely
pegged at 1.

Now if more than 1 would step forward and do it in a non-anonymous way it
would amount to something. Especially since those left at Yahoo have nothing
to fear from their bosses in this respect. But maybe Yahoo has a policy about
not speaking publicly about ex-employees which extends to current employees,
and maybe they're afraid that this guy would sue. He might even have a case.

TC should analyze their logs for that thread and put up a count of the number
of IPs tied to known proxies and tor exit nodes and how many of the comments
were made from the same IPs. That way they would not reveal any sensitive data
but you'd get a much more reliable impression on how much of it is one guy
with an axe to grind and how much of it is real.

That goes for both the attackers and the defenders.

Referrers would be nice as well, especially if they came from some 'call to
action' somewhere.

~~~
Jun8
This should be irrelevant. I'm sure Skype didn't force him out _just_ because
these comments, they must have found extra information backing the claims. The
comments just acted as the initial warning signal.

~~~
jacquesm
> The comments just acted as the initial warning signal.

I sincerely doubt it. If skype execs would use anonymous commenters on a blog
as the input to their HR process they'd have a serious problem.

Assuming it's true the order is more likely that some people came forward and
voiced their concern, and now the public makes the link with this article
because they have no other knowledge. After all, would you start a fishing
expedition against a new hire post-fact if you saw anonymous text of the kind
posted in that article?

Personally I'd like something with a bit more substance before digging in.

Either way, substance or not, the guy will have a hard time finding another
gig after this. Google doesn't forget, and whoever does a background on this
guy at some later date is doing to find an awful lot of smoke, even if there
was no fire.

------
Jun8
This is probably how it happened: (1) This guy glammer-BS'es his way to the
position, based on talking to top managers, who probably aren't very sharp
technologically. (2) The TC comments hit the fan, which the execs see (this is
interesting, high level managers in my company don't even know TC exists,
kudos to Skype in this regard). (3) Execs do due diligence and find that the
rumors are indeed true. (4) Guy has to walk out.

This part is not very interesting. What's interesting to me, is how companies
like Yahoo nurture such people to VP positions. I now totally believe all the
criticisms that PG leveled at them in his essay, e.g. managers being termed
"producers", etc. I guess such guys exist in all companies, but their ratio is
a strong indicator of the weakness of the company.

------
keeptrying
These comments are probably true. And I say this from experience having worked
at a large corporation for the last 6 years. Yes it might be one or two guys
writing negative comments but it'll also be someone who has been really
wronged and cannot let go of the pain. But you can believe that there would
have been others who were also wronged during this guys tenure who are just
too meek (as we engineers usually are) to say it out in public.

Reasons why its probably true:

A) The comments by themselves would not have been enough to fire the guy.
There must have been enough complaints by their own staff. In my corporation
we managed to get our manager fired in the same way. Everyone complained to
HR. Though it took like a year. This guy actually had me on "communications
performance plan". It was right out of dilbert.

B) Its very very difficult to be a good manager.

This is because its easier to play the political game than it is to actually
be a leader with morals, the technical chops and great
communication/relationship skills. So most people just kiss ass and shit on
their reports and climb up the ladder.

The higher you go in a corporation the harder it is to be a good manager.
Because the amount of communiction/relationship/leadership skills necessary
really rises exponentially rather than linerally. I say this from my
experience of having worked in one corporation for 6.5 years. I have had MANY
managers but only one good manager.

C) Sucky indian managers (selection bias). But yes there are many.

Now, I'm indian but I have to say that most indians SUCK at being managers
(I've been a sucky indian manager myself :) . I've tried to figure out why and
the only ponits I can think of are :

1\. In tech companies there are a lot of indians and therefore a lot of indian
managers.

2\. Most managers suck at what they do. This because to be a good manager you
have to be able to lead your employees but also be able to take orders from
your own manager. Also you never get real world "practice" before your stuck
into the role.

3\. An indian on a H1-B is going to try harder to keep his job than one that
doesnt and I think thats why they do downright deceitful things to look good
to their own managers. Ie they become hardline task masters.

I've known quite a few bad indian managers. Infact if I get an indian manager
the first thing I'll do that day is start looking for another job. The manager
might turn out okay but I'm that disillusioned with them. Especially new ones.

PS: At the end of it all I did change. :) I got really huge pay increases for
my best engineers and saved 1 from getting fired.

~~~
ajju
I don't think the fact that you are Indian justifies your self-admitted bias
against Indian managers.

~~~
copper
He's had experience with many managers, mind you - and if a fair number of
those were from India, it would justify his bias.

In my experience, his third point (on them trying harder, and thus being more
willing to treat ethical boundaries in an elastic manner) is spot-on.

~~~
ajju
By his own admittance, OP worked for one company for 6.5 years and had ONE
good manager. I suspect his bad experience with managers, Indian or otherwise,
had as much or more to do with his employer and the work culture.

Another indicator that this is true is that he says that being on a work visa
required his colleagues to push ethical boundaries. Having worked for many
years, multiple employers and many managers on a work visa myself, I can
assure you that this is not true everywhere, or even most places.

Seriously, any one on a work visa who is being pressured to do something
ethically repugnant should change their job. In many cases this is easier than
you would imagine.

~~~
keeptrying
I agree that since we are in New York its a cut throat environment but I would
say that we have one of the best work cultures in the city. Other places
(banks + hedgefunds) are much much worse.

But yeah it might be very different on the west coast.

And your wrong its not easy to change a work visa because you lose your line
in the G.C race if your not in the 3rd stage. Thats the clincher.

With present EB3 approval rates, its possible this could set you back 5 years.
EB3 India is a mess right now.

~~~
ajju
I agree that the green card process is quite ridiculous. The inability to
change jobs while you are in it and in many cases, inability to even get
promoted are two of the most ridiculous policies I have ever seen.

------
callmeed
I generally don't keep up or care about executive moves at large companies but
I find this fascinating on a few levels ...

I know there are fairly serious legal risks/fears when it comes to checking
references and vetting potential hires. I wonder if this had a lot to do with
Skype not knowing how unliked this guy was at Yahoo! ...

I wonder how much money it cost them to recruit, hire, and then lose this guy

Most of all, it seems to me like there is a startup opportunity here IF (big
if) you can ease people's legal fears. Something like this:

(a) Maintain a largish db of tech workers that includes the dates they worked
at various companies (Joe worked at Yahoo! from 2004 to 2007)

(b) Large company wants to hire some manager/exec (Phil). They pay the service
$1,000 to _evet_ him.

(c) The service matches Phil's work history against it's database and compiles
a list of everyone who also worked at each company during those times. An
email goes out asking each to complete a quick recommendation page.

(d) Anyone who knew him can just say "I worked with/under him" and maybe a
thumbs up or down. Perhaps incentivise them somehow (unless that would taint
the results)

(e) Large company gets a report and never sees names of respondents, only
stats like "48 people responded and 75% said Phil is cool" ... maybe some
anon. comments.

(f) Profit

~~~
singular
What happens if only a few people respond including somebody like the guy
being criticised in the article? That way you'll potentially end up having to
defend yourself against unwarranted criticism to the hiring company, or simply
find they mysteriously don't hire you through no fault of your own.

"A friend" had a guy bully him from day 1 and who kept at him the whole time
he was there, until the bully eventually left the company under mysterious
circumstances following him making a physical threat of violence against my
friend in the workplace. What's to stop a guy like that marking my friend down
and making him look shit?

Additionally my friend works in a highly politicised environment where, by
trying to do the right thing has pissed people off, not because he sucks, but
because he cares - what if they vote too?

The problem is with these systems is that you can never be sure who's right
and whether other things are at play there.

We'd all like everybody to love us, for the nasty pieces of work to be found
out and the good people to be rewarded, but that very often isn't the case,
and we shouldn't base a powerful assessment of somebody on an ideal.

~~~
callmeed
I think some of the problems you describe are inherent to HR process in
general. People still go have to go to interviews, explain their
qualifications and (often) explain why they left past jobs. This would just be
another data point.

My original thought is that this would be for executive/managerial jobs. Big
dollar, recruiter kind of positions.

Plus, it would probably be best only applying a "bottom-up" approach ... get
feedback from former co-workers or subordinates–not from former bosses.

Finally, don't charge and don't submit a report if there aren't enough
responses to be statistically significant (or at least warn them). If 1 out of
2 people say this guys a tool, who knows. But if 78 out of 85 say it, it's
probably trustworthy, no?

~~~
singular
true, I think you'd definitely have to have a lot of controls in place; I mean
I in principle agree with it - there are plenty of incredibly sucky, actually
nasty, people out there and it turns your stomach to think they'll con their
way into another job. Plus the opposite - the great people you'd like to see
do really well. It's just trying to avoid abuse/errors, a big responsibility
given the potential consequences.

------
Castor
I don't know the guy but that video is pretty funny:
<http://www.bnet.com/videos/voip-ready-for-prime-time/187392>

the charisma of an oyster, combined with the engineering skills of my mother.

~~~
loumf
He misspelled "Simple" and "Traversal" in prewritten text (when defining STUN
and TURN).

I find a good indication that someone who doesn't understand something is they
spend a lot of time defining acronyms.

~~~
mkramlich
or they work in the US military :)

------
subpixel
Perhaps telling that his bio is almost as long as all the content he ever
posted to his blog:

<http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/>

------
minalecs
link to techcrunch article [[http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-
yahoo-engine...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-
engineering-exec-for-key-technology-role/)] techcrunch

------
oiuytghyuj
Company hires a new senior manager.

All the engineers that report to him start to leave.

The company decides the manager is the problem.

The company actaully fires the manager instead of blaming the engineers!!!!!

~~~
Devilboy
Do we really know that engineers left (or wanted to leave) the company because
of him?

~~~
oiuytghyuj
No that's just what they told HR and the blogosphere - they may have all left
to become supermodels.

~~~
Devilboy
No I mean besides the anonymous comments on TC, has anyone confirmed that this
really happened?

------
ericboggs
Oh my. Some of those comments are comedy gold.

That said - I'm a bit dubious of the TechCruch Peanut Gallery's role in the
departure. Surely Skype did their reference homework before hiring the guy...

~~~
jwecker
I'm not as dubious. Unlike someone's random blog entry, the NYT does do fact-
checking, and had at least one source they deemed reliable, as per TFA: "The
comments caught the attention of Skype executives who became concerned about
their new hire, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was
not authorized to speak with the press."

~~~
aaronsw
Sorry, but the NYT does not do fact checking for their articles or blog posts.
The New York Times Magazine factchecks their long feature stories, but that's
it.

~~~
staunch
This is extremely shocking to find out when you personally know the facts of a
situation they're covering. It would be funny if not for the damage.

------
azharcs
TechCrunch article which is cited in the article:
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-
engine...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/skype-recruits-yahoo-engineering-
exec-for-key-technology-role/)

------
itsalive
Comments on TC are obviousely from the same angry person. There are only two
things that can make a man this angry: a) you take his dignity or b) you take
his woman.

------
davidw
The guy seems a bit like the Indian version of Doug Nassaur.

~~~
imaginator
You just dredged up some long forgotten pain in me.

