
Firing Frankness - shawndumas
https://mondaynote.com/50-years-in-tech-part-13-firing-frankness-3d17e207d1cf
======
adrianmonk
Toward the end, he gives the backstory of how the breakup was brewing for a
long time, and it seems very possible the CEO may have already made up his
mind to fire him before the Palo Alto dinner.

So maybe frankness wasn't the cause. It's even possible they were interested
in his perspective and wanted to get his honest opinion before they lost the
opportunity. Or maybe they had nearly made a final decision but not quite and
wanted this conversation to see if what they learned made a difference either
way.

On a separate(?) topic, a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of saying
they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits, but when you
actually say something that goes against popular opinion or conventional
thinking within the organization, people aren't open to it or are even hostile
or dismissive. In my opinion, it's not as easy for humans to be objective and
open-minded as we think.

~~~
flukus
> On a separate(?) topic, a lot of tech organizations seem to be fond of
> saying they want to hear all ideas and judge the ideas on their merits, but
> when you actually say something that goes against popular opinion or
> conventional thinking within the organization, people aren't open to it or
> are even hostile or dismissive

Another one I often hear is some variation of "present solutions not
problems", often from developers and not just management. Except problems are
easy to spot and solutions often require a substantial time investment to
solve and present, time that won't be allocated unless problems are
identified. Even if you spend your own time on the solution it will often be
dismissed by people that don't see the problem in the first place, it's just
"how we've always done it". It's basically a long winded way of telling people
to stop complaining.

~~~
humanrebar
> ...present solutions not problems...

My favorite response to that is that understanding a problem is the first part
of a solution. We had names for the sound barrier, smallpox, and moon landing
problems long before we had solutions.

Also, don't hire problem solvers and then complain that they are good at
spotting problems.

------
rootusrootus
Ha! Many years ago when I was in the military, in tech school in fact, one of
the teachers (a sergeant, for what it's worth) flat out asked me to my face
what I thought of him. Apparently I was telegraphing my feelings pretty well
despite attempting to keep a completely neutral face. I asked, "off the
record?" and he said "yep" and then I told him.

Whoops. There is no such thing as off the record. Lesson learned. Though in
the end it worked out okay and I just got some mildly amused reprimands from
my superiors about telling someone [whom everyone agreed was a jerk] that he
was a jerk. I'm much better at keeping my flap shut now.

~~~
quickthrower2
Dishonesty greases the world. I don’t we could handle complete honesty from
everyone. Not unless we structurally change society from the ground up.

~~~
JohnFen
"Dishonesty greases the world."

Dishonesty only greases things in the very short term. Longer term, that
grease degrades and gets fouled with all manner of dirt, resulting in damage
to the "greased" parts.

~~~
AgentOrange1234
Hear, hear. I was dishonest for years in my personal life, to make things
smooth in the short term. Finally things got so bad that I stopped caring
about the consequences of honesty, and started saying what I really thought.
It really turned things around. There’s great power in communicating honestly,
and bugger the consequences.

~~~
humanrebar
Love rejoices in the truth. But love is also ready to take it on the chin for
others' benefit.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> _Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is
> willing to see less._

\-- Rabbi J. Gordon

------
ergothus
> I recall the moment’s emotion: I felt I was performing a good deed, being
> helpfully clear and honest,

I know this emotion well - it has led me to any number of problems. Some cases
where in retrospect I was being a self-indulgent jerk ("What did you think of
my performance/presentation/etc?") and some cases where I still feel I was not
being harsh but was pointing out valid and relevant concerns, but from both
I've learned to distrust this emotion. Perhaps saying what I think is good,
perhaps not, but it should never feel _good_ to criticize.

~~~
dwild
> it should never feel _good_ to criticize.

Why not? I feel good when I help someone. I feel good when I have made a great
project. I feel good when I made a good decision.

I feel good when I did something good.

Your sentence is true only if we consider a critic as a bad thing, which I
certainly don't.

~~~
syrrim
Model someone as in your ingroup. You associate actions happening to them as
happening to yourself. Criticising them feels like criticizing yourself, ie
admitting you've made some mistake. This could be: knowing you've made a
mistake, but only just now discovering what it was (eg debugging) - but this
isn't the critic, this is the correction. So the criticism must be informing
someone they've made a mistake before telling them how to correct it. While
correcting mistakes might feel good, finding out about them isn't.

Now model the person as in your outgroup. Same analysis but now you feel good
when they feel bad. Pointing out flaws will feel good, independent of
viability of correction. A real person will be somewhere in between ingroup
and outgroup, how good you feel for criticising them should tell you where.

~~~
nostrademons
Finding out you've made a mistake doesn't always feel bad. If you've got a
growth mindset, finding out you've made a mistake can often feel good, because
you've uncovered an opportunity for growth. If you've got a fixed mindset, it
feels bad because it's a judgment about your capabilities.

The trick is to hang around other people with the same sort of mindset.
Growth-mindset people constantly make this error with fixed-mindset people,
and alienate potential allies in the process. (Indeed, learning not to do this
could be an important area for growth.) Fixed-mindset people tend not to make
this particular error as much, because most people shy away from people who
constantly make them feel bad. In the process they develop a sort of
confirmation bias for their fixed mindset, though, because they don't come in
contact with anyone who could point out where they might grow.

~~~
bookofjoe
>Finding out you've made a mistake doesn't always feel bad.

Concur. Whenever a reader points out an error in my blog — whether of fact or
attribution or spelling or grammar or syntax or punctuation — I take the time
to thank them and ask for more of the same. Why? It only makes my blog better.
I love being corrected.

~~~
syrrim
I distinguish between recieving criticism and recieving correction. This is
normally dichotomized as criticism and constructive criticism. I suppose when
you write a blogpost, and many other tasks, you are implicitly assuming you've
made some number of mistakes. Recieving correction then doesn't tell you new
information regarding your mistakes, and furthermore makes your blog closer to
being correct. This is particularly true given how easy a spelling or grammar
error is to correct once you know it's exact nature. I think the situation
changes when the criticism pertains to some dimension in which you didn't know
you were failing, and worse still when the necessary correction will take a
great deal of effort or is simply not apparent. I don't think most people
would enjoy recieving such a criticism, even as it eventually makes them a
better person.

------
darkerside
Early in my career, I figured that, the code speaks for itself. If it works,
it works! Can't argue with that. That's one of the appealing things about
working with machines. They're almost never "wrong", it's always something you
can fix, do correctly, and ergo, win.

Later I learned, yes, a quick solution can be a good solution; but there can
be more than one good solution, and in fact, others can be better. More
maintainable, less verbose, so clear and simple there are obviously no errors.
Abstractions in the right place and the right level. Modeling a business
domain that stakeholders understand.

In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across.
But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people. As you grow in your
career, you learn that there are many ways to communicate with the people
around you. And different tones and patterns appeal to different people... or
even to the same person at different times, based on mood or context.

You can learn (if you care) to work well with these complicated organic
machines we call humans. And you can always get better and better at it, even
when you already think you're doing the brave thing, the heroic thing, the
right thing.

~~~
phyller
> In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message
> across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people.

What a great explanation for HN, and for me. Thanks!

------
acali
Always keep in mind that HR is there to manage the company's "human
resources"; they are not looking out for your best interest. They are acting
on behalf of the company.

~~~
Aloha
The corollary to this is - don't forget to take advantage of HR when its and
your interests obviously align.

------
baldfat
His firing led to Be OS!

That was the the prime example of the better tech losing. I know most of us
know about it but to actually use it was totally different. I couldn't get a
low resolution video to play but on Be OS I could have 12 high resolution
videos play at the same time move them around and if I unplug my computer I
can boot up and the videos would all start back up right where they left off.

~~~
DannyB2
I was hoping Be OS would be the OS that Apple would pick when it failed at
writing it's own new OS. But noooooo, they had to pick NeXT, and bring back
Steve Jobs, and the rest is history. Apple is still about tech, to a degree.
But not like the days when Apple was a great tech company. Now Apple seems to
be more about fashion.

~~~
protomyth
Having both a BeOS box and NeXTSTEP box at the time, I was pretty glad they
picked NeXT. I love BeOS, but NeXTSTEP was the superior OS on the whole
including development story. BeOS had some really great line items, but it had
some big holes too. Be just didn't have the time to get it all done.

That being said, I do wish Haiku well because I get the feeling that it really
could be great.

~~~
setpatchaddress
One of the big marks against BeOS in that fight was the lack of printer
support. That sort of thing still mattered in 1996-1997.

I don’t know. A BeOS-based MacOS would’ve been ready for prime time years
before Mac OS X was. And one suspects the Finder would have been usable. But
there would be no iPhone.

~~~
protomyth
_A BeOS-based MacOS would’ve been ready for prime time years before Mac OS X
was._

I'm not so sure. NeXTSTEP was pretty stable. I get the feeling that a lot of
the delay had little to do with NeXTSTEP and much more to do with Apple and
Adobe/Microsoft. Plus, the development environment was no where near as good
on BeOS.

------
m0zg
This could also be an impedance mismatch between European and US cultures.
When Europeans (especially Eastern Europeans) are asked to be candid, they
often are, without much regard for the consequences. As an immigrant I
fortunately learned this very early in the US leg of my career, and now I just
reply with inoffensive platitudes even if the person does deserve harsher
feedback. I'm sometimes candid with my reports. I'm _never_ 100% candid with
my bosses, after a couple of near career-ending run-ins (which, when you're an
H1-B as I was at the time, results in getting kicked out of the country within
2 weeks).

------
projektfu
The article's title is facetious because the author was a high level manager
at Apple, the boss was the CEO, and HR was the VP of HR acting in a capacity
as a trusted advisor, and it's not really about HR. I thought it was a good
read.

Relatedly, I remember that the Macintosh-oriented press hinted that there was
trouble brewing at Apple for a long time but they didn't want to come out and
say, "Apple's management is slowly killing the company." This story suggests
that Sculley would have cut off those reporters if they had.

Edit: at the time of writing, the submission title was "My boss asks me what I
really think of him. HR advises me to tell the truth. I’m fired."

~~~
Gibbon1
I had friends that worked at Apple during that time.

Everyone in the Valley knew Sculley was killing apple by installing a
parasitic Midwest style management class.

------
AlexCoventry
> Sullivan puts his arm around my shoulder: “Jean-Louis, I’m proud of you…”
> After half a decade in Cupertino, I know what this means: What I have done
> is irreparable.

I don't follow his reasoning, here. What is it about Cupertino which
immediately leads him to this conclusion?

~~~
leejoramo
For context: this is written by a Frenchmen from Paris who had moved to SV.
Gasseé previously has written about his French/US cultural mis-understandings.
Especially regarding being too blunt and assertive

~~~
AlexCoventry
Oh, OK. I was working with a French guy recently. I really liked that we could
bluntly tell each other when we're full of shit. Didn't realize it's
characteristic of French organizational behavior.

~~~
rurban
It's not typical French behavior, it's typical behavior everywhere but the US
and Asia. Only there you are expected to lie all the time. In Europe you are
better off telling the truth, even to your customers, not only the managers.

------
alexashka
> In 1985, after learning of Steve Jobs's plan to oust CEO John Sculley over
> Memorial Day weekend while Sculley was in China, Gassée preemptively
> informed the board of directors, which eventually led to Jobs's resignation
> from Apple. [0]

Did HR tell him to do that too? This guy is quite the politician - playing the
victim, sincerity card really well. I had to google to piece it together.

Good on him, what a master storyteller of self serving narratives.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Louis_Gass%C3%A9e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e)

------
wrs
I joined the Newton team in 1988 as an intern (and stayed for 8 years). It's
interesting to hear with 30 more years of perspective JLG's story of the Steve
Sakoman situation that resulted in that team's existence. At the time I had no
inkling of the drama that must have occurred that resulted in the creation of
a totally isolated team in that totally isolated building on Bubb Road. I did
realize how lucky I was to be working there, though. :)

~~~
mpweiher
:-) Does explain that it eventually "failed", considering it didn't really
have backing.

~~~
wrs
Oh, but it did — from John Sculley. Such a saga it was.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-
dream...](https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/business/marketer-s-dream-
engineer-s-nightmare.html)

------
nisuni
Never believe HR, they neither represent your interests nor are impartial,
even if they’d like to appear impartial.

HR represents your employer interests. Period.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I see this repeated often enough where it is presented like some nefarious
plot. While I think it is nominally true, I think a better way to think about
it is to think of what HR's incentives and motivations are, and to realize
there are many areas where your interests _do_ align with your employer's.

For example, a primary responsibility of HR is "keep the company from getting
sued" when it comes to personnel matters. A really shitty HR department will
interpret this as "sweep shit under the rug", but a good, competent HR
department will handle things above board, according to established procedure.
A good HR dept. does this not because they want to be nice, but they realize
that the best long-term way to keep the company from being sued is to make
sure complaints are handled above board.

In general, when evaluating how people will really act I think it's best to
leave morality out of it, and instead realize where their incentives are
coming from and try to align your goals with those incentives.

------
mlthoughts2018
Being fired in this situation is a gift. Move on and turn down options until
you find one you have good reason to believe would be healthy.

Same goes for people all up and down the career or hierarchy ladders. If being
charitably honest with thoughtful communication gets you fired, or if your
honesty is subverted by the politics of your organization to be used to
attribute something negative to you, just quit, take time away from working
and get back on the job hunt in a few weeks or months. Sticking around would
be too unacceptably bad for your health.

I’ve done this twice in my career, both times without significant savings to
live on, and even with the financial pressure to get a job, it was way, way
healthier to forego income and insurance than continuing to work in those
unhealthy situations. I also found that recruiters seemed mostly fine with my
reasons for a resume gap, most didn’t even ask or care.

------
wuliwong
Something I've noticed recently is people that say things like the author did
here

>Just for crossing the street, I’m rewarded with an even fancier President (of
Apple Products) title

I'm not saying this is happening more often, I just have been noticing it
recently.

Maybe I am misinterpreting the tone or misunderstanding the situation. But,
this seems in contrast to actual humility where someone is grateful for a
raise or promotion but possibly feels undeserving or lucky. The author comes
across to me as pretty detached from the struggles that the lion's share of
the world experiences. I get that this article is about some high level
corporate politics but it still seems tone deaf to me.

~~~
zebrafish
Typically in organizations this large, trouble makers are "promoted out" so as
to minimize the damage they can do to the organization while minimizing the
risk of any legal blow back from an outright firing. I think the author here
understands what is happening to him and seems to be describing these events
with a sense of melancholy or sadness about being removed from a project or
product that he cared deeply about.

~~~
hitekker
I agree. The author is clearly detached and saddened by events; any perceived
"tone-deafness" probably has more to due with the individual reader's jealousy
or envy of his station than with the overall story he's telling.

~~~
JohnFen
What is there to be envious about?

------
notJim
It's very obvious from the comments that no one is reading the article, and is
just responding to the previous, crappier headline.

~~~
JohnFen
I read the article. The only thing I could think through most of it was "that
sounds like a terrible place to work."

------
srmatto
Never do anything more than say hi/bye to HR.

------
baq
You want someone in the company backing you? Start an union.

------
crimsonalucard
"Soon, engineers are marching outside with placards that read Jean-Louis Don’t
Go."

How do you achieve that level of leadership and loyalty?

------
choeger
From reading the article it is pretty clear that the decision to let him go
was already made months before. So what's the point?

An exec that cannot deal with (polite) disagreement is probably on the way
downwards already himself. Of course you might hit a sensible spot with
honesty by chance but even then it is hard to justify an otherwise successful
employee.

~~~
Gibbon1
I've wondered if Sullivan set up the bomb on Sculley, basically daring him to
fire Jean-Louis. Sculley is a lose cannon that fires anyone that gives him
needed feedback. Jean-Louis is important enough that firing him will bring
that into sharp relief.

Sculley fires Jean-Louis, the resulting blowback doesn't convince Sculley of
anything and Sculley is too dumb to know he needs to leave. So two years later
the board is forced to can him.

------
anjc
With all that experience it's a wonder he fell for the oldest "does my bum
look big in this" trick in the book.

------
sonnyblarney
I don't think this story is related to 'frankness'.

It's hard to be an executive, and hard to manage them, sometimes they have to
go.

The only part that bothered me about this was the cringeworthy fake emotions
about the firing. "I'm sorry but we have to 'separate you from Apple'".

That's the bit of California newspeak that drives me nuts.

We can be honest and cordial the same time, and in both directions - and - if
we hav just a little bit of tolerance for those who are either a little to
frank or a little to effusive, then everyone gets along.

------
protomyth
I guess the golden rule is true, when anyone from HR says "be honest" its
basically a warning not a directive.

 _Apple management is concerned that some engineers might elect to follow me,
wherever I may land._

I would suppose that they looked back at 1985 and realized that Jean-Louis
Gassée was popular with a lot of engineers. I wonder if John Sculley was ever
popular in the same way and resented it. I look back at the navigator video
with the newspaper and realize that he really didn't get the effects of a
technology on how things would work.

------
devy
This reminds me of Leadership BS by Jeffrey Pfeffer. [1] And he gave a talk at
Google about his book [2]

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-
Caree...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-BS-Fixing-Workplaces-
Careers/dp/0062383167)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXcqSUi3EI)

------
megaman8
I suspect when someone asks you to tell what they really think of them, the
word really should come with an asterik.

~~~
Someone1234
If someone really wanted to know the answer they'd ask for responses
anonymously. Since then people are free to answer without reprisal.

~~~
toast0
Even then, if they don't like the responses, they may seek the deanonymize.

------
newnewpdro
When HR advises you to do something in particular, feign obliviousness while
taking at least a day or two to consult yourself/friends/family/attorneys
where applicable - Not coworkers!

HR serves the company, not the employee.

------
a-dub
... and to think... if it hadn't been for this fateful night, half the world's
smartphones wouldn't have that weird RPC mechanism...

------
crimsonalucard
Maybe deliver criticism packaged in positive comments?

"You're the greatest boss I ever had. You taught me a lot... I admire you... I
just disagree with you a bit on this...... "

------
0db532a0
Did the CEO maybe have a hand in making HR set the guy up to test his loyalty?
He seemed very loyal, but maybe to the wrong ideas/people.

------
debt
I find these interactions fascinating because from your own perspective it may
seem like everything is kosher.

Little do you know you’re a dead man.

~~~
a-dub
creepy.

~~~
a-dub
really creepy.

------
patrickg_zill
HR is there to protect the company. Not you.

~~~
Spivak
Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this? This seems like one of
those statements that everyone knows but thinks for some reason everyone else
doesn't.

~~~
gaius
_Does anyone, even HR, have a belief contrary to this?_

I think probably most people believe that if they have a dispute with another
employee that HR will resolve it in a “fair” way. But of course HR is only
really thinking of which outcome is less likely to involve lawyers or a
tribunal. Head on over to workplace.SE to see loads of this... if you can’t
bring a credible threat of a lawsuit HR will always side with your boss, no
matter what he or she has done.

------
mortenjorck
It seems at least half of the comments here are responding to the original
submission title (taken from the article subhead rather than the headline)
with no context at all of this being Jean-Louis Gassée, John Sculley, and 28
years ago. I see the mods changed the title to the article’s headline instead,
which will likely cut down on the title-only responses, but it’s still
surprising to see just how many people clearly commented before clicking.

~~~
Nasrudith
I clicked it and frankly the larger topic is more intersting than the specific
incident of Apple in its low point. Everyone already knows past Apple made a
bunch of dumb decisions. I think that may be another reason why that is a
focus of discussion. Everyone has their own stories and has seen the larger
problem.

------
Breadmaker
by Jean-Louis Gassée

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Yeah, that's some important information missing from the headline. The
comments so far suggest no one read the article and/or have no idea who the
author is.

------
jeklj
Keep it anodyne, pretty much always. You can tell your spouse what you really
think. Or better yet, your dog.

~~~
Someone1234
While I'd never condone being rude, combative, or unnecessarily offensive, I
think there's a time and a place to make waves.

And while the person doing so often personally suffers the consequences, it is
a healthy signal to an organization that those opinions could be shared by
others.

If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization
itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum.

~~~
jeklj
> If nobody ever heard anything counter to the group-think, the organization
> itself would very quickly become stuck by momentum.

Indeed, that's a great reason not to fire people when they're honest. And yet,
here we are.

At least in SV tech companies, in my experience, people really get their
feelings hurt over small amounts of honesty. More importantly, the
conversations you'll have to have afterward and the way people will sit on it
for months until it comes up in your review make it just not worth it.

------
crimsonalucard
“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes
character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

“Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually
makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds
a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses
resentment.”

\- Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people.

If you disagree with the quotes above. Be frank about it, I can take it.

~~~
thegayngler
I disagree with these quotes. You can be critical and understanding and
forgiving at the same time. People just get their feelings hurt way too
easily.

Criticism usually makes me think twice and reevaluate it if I feel it comes
from a good place and is even somewhat reasonable. Most times the criticism
isnt accurate enough to be useful or actionable...or the criticism is tone
deaf.

~~~
crimsonalucard
You're fired.

------
bitwize
Iron rule of the corporate world: if you have a problem with your boss, or
with something the boss likes and supports, from his end it's not a problem
that can't be solved with a pink slip.

If you value being able to feed your family, learn to love your boss and his
ideas.

~~~
cbanek
I feel like it used to be this way, but in tech these days it seems the rule
is speak your mind. If you get fired for ruffling feathers and are at least
halfway competent, there are plenty of companies willing to scoop you up and
pay you more money to do something more aligned to what you want. Although you
should have probably just that done in the first place, without the feather
ruffling.

~~~
bitwize
I hear this on Hackernews a lot, one of the myths of our age: "Any halfway
decent programmer should be able to just waltz right into their dream job."
Must be nice. So what dies that make me, despite all my study and effort?

