
Congratulations You’ve Been Fired - dcschelt
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/sunday/congratulations-youve-been-fired.html?smid=tw-share&referer=https://t.co/GST3iLv3Zn
======
chrisyeh
For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons
refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence
fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that
section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book.

1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually,
the book makes it clear that the duration of a tour of duty depends on the
mission the employee has agreed to tackle--tours of duty can be 6 months long,
but then can also last for a decade (think of NASA scientists working on a
deep space probe).

2) "Companies burn you out and churn you out when someone better, or cheaper,
becomes available." This is purely Dan Lyons; the point we make in the book is
that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company;
what people really want is lifetime employability and career progress. We
would consider companies that behaved like Lyons described as "breaking the
Alliance," which would harm their reputation as an employer.

3) "In this new model of work, employees are expected to feel complete
devotion and loyalty to their companies, even while the boss feels no such
obligation in return." Once again, this is the exact opposite of what our book
says. We believe that employers and employees need to recognize that
employment is a voluntary, mutually beneficial alliance, and that managers
should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help
develop his or her career.

Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right
to misrepresent our ideas.

~~~
T2_t2
I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more
fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations.
The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or
definitions he would understand nor recognise.

The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding,
where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element of a UX".

"Job security" is a specific example that can mean different things based on
worldview. It can mean "the business will employ you no matter what you do or
how bad you are" \- the classic 1970s Union paradigm. "Job security" can mean
"the creation of skills that will continue to have value in the market", i.e.
"a law degree means you will always have job security. Or "Job security" can
even mean something beyond the individual, to mean "working for a company that
will survive" i.e. "working for the government provides great job security -
they can never go out of business". Dan Lyons' sacking from Newsweek and the
dying of traditional media shows how industry viability is in some ways more
fundamental than the individual's talents to "job security".

Now, which of those definitions people understand - and which definition your
worldview puts front and centre - will dictate how you view a new sort of
life/work manifesto.

Dan Lyons idealises a world in which people worked their whole career for one
company, had a slow progression of minor promotions and pay rises & retired to
a gold watch they took to Florida. That reality makes me personally want to
buy a chair, some rope and to Google how to tie a noose, but my view is
certainly NOT universal, and I need to accept and recognise that.

I would hope people would go beyond seeing this as "misrepresent our ideas",
and get to bottom of the misunderstanding - to the fundamental worldview
misunderstanding at the core of the disagreement. Rather than defend against a
perceived attack, I think a policy of agree and amplify makes sense. Dan Lyons
is correct - the world has changed and in this new reality, 50 years of
depressing work for one company is over. The new world may not have a gold
watch at the end of the rainbow, but it should have a much brighter and
happier journey, and the a world in which employment is for a specific period,
the goal changes from work hard and hope, to maximise skill development. That
is the heart of "The Alliance" \- an acceptance the world has changed, and
making it work for you.

~~~
ec109685
Do you have a cite for being the 70's paradigm: "the business will employ you
no matter what you do or how bad you are" \- the classic 1970s Union paradigm

No Union protects employees no matter how bad they are.

~~~
gedy
The very often do and did! Read about the history of the Telsa Fremont factory
when it was GM, or teacher's unions for cases like Mark Berndt, etc.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The usual story told about the Fremont NUMMI plant is that it was a disaster
(drug use and prostitution occuring on the grounds) under GM and that when it
was taken over by the Toyota joint project with the same work force (and
union) became highly productive.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI#History](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI#History)

In this telling it's the GM management who are incompetent, not the line
workers. Clearly that's not the version you're selling though.

------
martin1975
Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much
better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of
egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You
want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his
own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes
camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cause (or a person) that supersedes the
workplace, an all in support to that cause by engineers/programmers alike.

For as long as the pissing contests over languages, productivity, hubris, etc
continues among intelligent people like programmers, their Jimmy Hoffa won't
be born and their cause will lie with the company's objectives.

In a nutshell, programmers -deserve- the Bezos and Hastings of this world.
Keep thinking you are God's gift to programming and insure the demise of your
own fellow programmers.

I have zero sympathy toward programmers (having been one for 17+ years now) -
not because I don't love the profession or the contribution we make, but
because of the infinitely immature attitude and disunion that exists among
engineers.

If there's one thing that has motivated me to think of doing something else,
it's that...

~~~
morgante
There's abundant evidence that there _are_ vast differences in the
productivity of different programmers in the same company. Denying that
doesn't make it untrue.

The best way to punish the Bezos of the world is not to work for them. Which
it seems like more and more people are—most of my friends wouldn't even
consider a job at Amazon.

~~~
naasking
> There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the
> productivity of different programmers in the same company.

That seems true for every type of job.

~~~
morgante
Actually the level of difference varies between jobs substantially. Many low-
skill jobs exhibit little-to-no differentiation between workers (it's hard to
be much more efficient as a security guard, for example).

~~~
naasking
That's only true if efficiency is your only metric, but that's not meanginful
for all jobs. Certainly there will be an order of magnitude difference in
_effectiveness_ of some security guards over others.

------
aleyan
Issues raised in the article aside, I am here to argue semantics.

The article used the word start-up 3 times, plus one more in the title of his
book. The company he worked for however, HubSpot is 10 years old and public
and thus by definition is not a startup. Other two companies mentioned, Amazon
and Netflix are both over a decade old and public and thus are not start-ups
by any stretch of the imagination. Startups and tech companies are not
synonymous and using them interchangeably is harmful to our discourse. If we
can't agree on what words mean, how can we agree on deeper issues?

PS. I also have issue with author's use of the word "tech worker" to describe
telemarketers. I maybe wrong, but a "tech worker" to me is not someone who
works for a tech company but rather is one who creating the tech.

~~~
dmix
Indeed. I've also noticed that we (as engineers and designers) have a better
lifestyle in terms of treatment, job security and pay at these startups/tech
companies - compared to the marketing teams which consist of the people who
typically write these negative articles.

Countless of these articles critiquing the tech work culture pop on HN and
it's rarely ever written by devs/management. The tone always comes off as
criticism from 'outsiders' who worked within the company, who treat the pride
taken in creating eccentric workplaces as somewhat alien to them. Maybe
because they aren't truly insiders to the culture... especially in the sense
that they aren't ever the creators/leaders or long term members. Only
temporarily working within the environment before going back to more typical
corporate environments from where they write their analysis with a certain
level of cynicism.

~~~
ljw1001
I'm a dev and I found the article to be spot on. HubSpot's impact on the world
beyond is vanishingly small, to pretend otherwise is either naive or cynical.
And anyone who calls being fired "graduating" is an ass.

~~~
andyidsinga
I had the a similar reaction to the article ..and the same reaction to the
interview on Fresh Air : [http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-
tech-journa...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-
journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult)

The part in the fresh air interview that talks about jargon is especially
interesting.

------
ianstormtaylor
Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons?

After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on
LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his
new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot
looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the
"Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in that sense.

Disclaimer: I really don't know anything about this story. Something just
feels off. Maybe HubSpot really is that bad, who knows.

[0]: [http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-
lyo...](http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/)

[1]: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-
comp...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-companies-
dont-even-bother-lie-dan-lyons)

\---

Edit:

After listening to the interview from @CPLX's response[2] I have to agree, he
doesn't seem outlandish or anything. And all of the points he makes about
HubSpot's content model being complete spam I agree with. I've definitely
never liked interacting with HubSpot as a consumer, that much I know.

I feel like in these scenarios he's incentivized to get outlandish PR for his
book, so some of the things I'd take with a grain of salt--sentences like,
"The offices bear a striking resemblance to the Montessori preschool that my
kids attended: lots of bright basic colors, plenty of toys, and a nap room
with a hammock and soothing palm tree murals on the wall." But there is
probably a lot truth to his story as well.

@ghaff also summed it up well: "That said, I find it's a cogent perspective
even if it probably shouldn't be taken as literally accurate reportage."

[2]: [http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-
journa...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-
joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult)

~~~
luckydata
I worked in tech for a while and nothing he says sounds implausible or
strange. Most jobs in tech are bad, all the perks are there just to confuse
young suckers about who's taking advantage of who, and the libertarian streak
of tech worker is carefully cultivated to make us weaker as a category.

The only glimmer of hope is that personally I'm noticing my peers and friends
working all over the Bay Area are starting to notice. Maybe in a few years
we'll do something about it.

~~~
eclipxe
>Most jobs in tech are bad

I'm not sure I can even understand how your arrive at this conclusion? Looking
over the entire set of available jobs, tech is clearly one of the best fields
to be in. From pay to autonomy to working conditions, etc etc. You want to see
a bad job? Coal mining is a bad job.

~~~
eropple
This is crab-bucket thinking, though. "You don't have it that bad!" Maybe
labor, period, kind of has it bad, and that the tug-of-war between labor and
capital is in a bad spot right now?

Being a little bit less screwed doesn't make you not screwed, it makes you
less screwed.

------
justin_vanw
So does the author think that everyone is great at their job? What do you do
when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are confident that
they won't improve?

Pointing out the age difference in the manager and the employee, and their
sexes, is just baiting. Unless he wants to make the case that there was sexism
or agism from the manager, or that the company engaged in sexism or agism, it
is just a red herring. In fact, it's quite cowardly, since it implies
something the author isn't willing to actually say.

Finally, the fact that the person who was fired was with the company for 4
years doesn't mean anything at all unless we also get the context. It may be
that this person struggled from the beginning, and they hesitated and didn't
fire her for four long years. Or it may be that they hired her to do some
specific job, and that job went away, and despite repeated attempts she just
could not manage to learn anything else.

The thesis that she was 'disposable' is just ludicrous. If she was good at her
job, then the manager is just an idiot who is cutting his and the companies
own throat, and we can't make a moral argument against stupidity. If she
couldn't do the job then there is no reason to be discussing this. If she was
borderline, we still can't make a moral case, since borderline situations are
at worst slightly wrong.

So once you cut through the left handed implications, I don't think there is
any argument left.

~~~
ryanSrich
> What do you do when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are
> confident that they won't improve?

Be an adult and make a tough decision without masking it as a great "thing"
(aka: graduation)?

~~~
sremani
Yes putting the lipstick on the pig, and ritualizing it, makes this an
emotionally sadistic exercise.

~~~
justin_vanw
Oh, I get it, like when you go to a funeral and people try to focus on the the
memories that make them happy, or find comfort in religious fairy tales about
'living forever'.

Or when people who are fired are allowed to 'resign' to save face.

I think this isn't as nefarious as the internet hive mind seems to think:

Imagine that someone quits to go onto better things, more money, etc. Of
course you throw them a going away party. Then someone else is fired, but you
want to let them save face. Do you throw them a party? You've established that
people leaving on their own get a party already...

You guys seem to think that the answer is obvious, you tell everyone "so and
so was just fired for poor performance, they are bad at their job and that is
why they are unemployed now." and have the person do a walk of shame out the
door and never feel like they can put it behind them or face any of their
former coworkers again without overcoming a massive amount of shame.

~~~
sremani
Firing is rejection, it does not necessarily mean that the person being fired
has anything to do with it. Whole unit moving to a different city, moving to a
different tech stack. Brining in pals of the New Director, etc. etc. There are
1000 reasons, but Firing is REJECTION. At a human level, only the vexed are
relieved that they are fired, most even after understanding the big picture
are not in a rejoicing state of mind, because they have to find some other way
to find lost Pay. So, no celebrating loss of Income is only fitting for few
and in most cases a Sadistic ritual. Its a different thing that co-workers
take initiative to send off a good bye, but the company doing it looks dubious
and the whole "Graduate" ritual is sadistic.

~~~
justin_vanw
Sadistic means that they took pleasure in causing the person pain. I really
doubt that.

~~~
sremani
If they are celebrating "graduation", aren't they celebrating pain and
suffering of the outgoing employee.

Again, the practice is sadistic at least at the emotional level to me. May be
it is Graduating as a Rock Star.

ps. Please stop moving the goal posts.

------
hartator
> She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without
> explanation by her 28-year-old manager that she had two weeks to get out.

I think that's a bit funny that the author implies you can't be good as a
manager at 28. Specially when you are writing an article about bias.

~~~
josh_carterPDX
Having worked at a few startups I can relate to what the writer is saying
(although I do agree the article is a bit slanted). It happens a lot in the
tech world under the guise of "thinking differently" about management. I agree
that age shouldn't matter, until you're 10-15 years older than your Manager
who is completely out of their element, has no clue what they're doing, and
you spend every day wondering how the f __k they got the promotion in the
first place.

~~~
BurningFrog
That sounds like it's more about the manager having no clue than their age.

~~~
josh_carterPDX
But what does it say about those that put these people in a position of power?

~~~
fleitz
I haven't see many places that that only have incompetent managers and no
incompetent employees. :)

Or alternatively, what does it say about people who have seen this culture for
4 years and are still there?

~~~
josh_carterPDX
Yeah there's a balance. Everyone thinks a company has it all figured out until
they work there and find out it's just like every other company struggling to
figure stuff out.

~~~
fleitz
Definitely, once you've been around the block a few times you realize that
it's the same everywhere.

Eventually, you just find the biggest pay cheque you can, and do the routine
of putting on your coconut headphones, sit down at your tiki desk and chair
and sip your mochas in peace as you wait for the morning calisthenics meeting
to begin, wondering what exactly the difference between waterfall, agile, tdd,
etc actually is because all you've ever seen anywhere is tiki driven
development.

------
dataker
The philosopher Slavoj Žižek explains this with the ‘postmodern’ boss:

>Not a master but just a coordinator of our joint creative efforts; the first
among equals. There should be no formalities among us, we should address him
by his nickname, he shares a dirty joke with us… but in all this, HE REMAINS
OUR MASTER.

~~~
overgard
I love some zizek, what piece did that come from?

~~~
distances
I seem to run to Žižek more and more often -- frankly he is the only currently
alive philosopher I can name. I really should read something more from him.

~~~
Jimmy
Zizek has written a lot of really fun and interesting books. I'd definitely
encourage you to check him out, but just a word of warning: if he's the only
living philosopher you can name, then you probably don't know enough
philosophy to really understand everything he's saying. He assumes a pretty
thorough knowledge of a number of past thinkers, like Marx, Hegel, Lacan, etc.

Do check him out anyway though, and also check out some general introductions
to philosophy if you find yourself intrigued and wanting to learn more.

------
capote
Though I do understand most of the criticism this piece is getting in this
thread, can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and
"graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Culture aside,
crying at your desk aside, spare me the extra layer of fake, pointless
language to disguise what is happening. I expect professionalism and respect
from an employer, and that involves being straightforward, respectful, and to
the point.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and
> "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face.

Completely agree. If the person is leaving on their own? Sure sounds great!
But firing or laying someone off? Seems borderline psychopathic to me.

------
tobbyb
This is an interesting perspective based on real life experience. The author
also has decades of experience around the tech scene in general. I don't
understand why he is being put on trial for sharing his experiences in a book
or seeking to promote it via interviews. That's the way books are normally
promoted. Reading this thread one would think its illegal.

Hubspot is a campaign management and lead management tool like Eloqua,
Marketo, Unica and dozes of other tools in this space. They are not remotely
interesting unless you are interested in b2b marketing tools. One does not
need to disparage hubspot, its a decent marketing tool. But it is not remotely
world changing in any way. That is hubris so the author appears to be spot on
with some of his observations.

Everyone recognizes the fakery and dubiousness of empty and vacuous corporate
slogans. A psychological tactic to induce frenzy and artificial value in your
workforce is exploitative and disrespects other human beings. Surely there are
more respectful and time tested ways to motivate your workforce without making
a mockery of them to promoting your own interests.

Repositioning a firing as a graduation is the stuff of comedy scripts, nearly
Monty Pythonisque. With material like this anyone would be tempted to write a
book. But this is not comedy, these guys are serious. In the real world this
can only be interpreted as insensitive, grossly exploitative and dangerously
disconnected from reality.

~~~
riveracct
Getting fired sucks. I really hate corp doublespeak, but it's a little
commendable that this corp is trying to soften the impact by calling it a
graduation - which it is in a way because you get some time off to reskill and
seek out other prospective jobs rather than doing the same thing everyday in
your current job.

~~~
CPLX
> reskill

I am pretty sure that's not a word. Which I only point out as using corporate
newspeak to reply to a post about disingenuous corporate newspeak is an
interesting conversational tactic.

------
superswordfish
Doing cold calls in a boiler-room is a shitty job. News at 11.

> Tech workers have no job security.

The bad ones have none. The decent ones might, it depends on circumstance. The
good ones almost always have plenty.

But don't call yourself a "tech worker" when you're making sales calls.

~~~
luckydata
Classism much? They definitely are tech workers, what they are not is
developers or engineers.

~~~
superswordfish
Would you consider somebody who sells cars an auto worker? I sure wouldn't. It
has nothing to do with "class" (as if engineers constituted such a thing).

------
kdamken
I find companies that do the whole "we're a family, we're changing the world!"
thing to be worse than your standard corporate gig that is more up front about
you just being a cog in the machine. At least those companies are more honest
about it, the other kind come off as fake and insincere.

Companies do not care about you. At all. You are nothing but a business asset
to them. They may value your work, but they do not act in your best interest -
they're going to try and pay you the least amount they can to have you work
there.

This isn't actually a bad thing. Chances are, you don't really care about your
company either, so it's kind of fair.

It's good to keep in mind - you are your own business, and you need to make
decisions that are best for you.

------
Scoundreller
> I joined the company in 2013 after spending 25 years in journalism and
> getting laid off from a top position at Newsweek. I thought working at a
> start-up would be great. The perks! The cool offices!

> It turned out I’d joined a digital sweatshop, where people were packed into
> huge rooms, side by side, at long tables.

It sounds like this journalist failed to investigate their new job before Day
1...

~~~
fleitz
Yeah it's like those people who have been working with J2EE for 25 years at
Big Company X that is now bankrupt, and constantly complain about the lack of
GANNT charts, or whatever the hammer and chisel tools they use to make J2EE
apps.

~~~
themodelplumber
Gantt charts helped me and a group of subcontractors compete against some huge
corporate teams. It's legit to complain about a lack of gantt charts.

~~~
sleepychu
The format is pretty unfriendly to the user though and rigid time planning is
pretty pointless for problem solving exercises, IMO. What do you think makes
gantt charts great?

~~~
ozim
Looks like they were able to coordinate with multiple teams using gantt
charts. Probably taking into account fuzzy nature of time planning. So I would
not think about gannt charts as rigid time planning it is just a tool so it
depends on how you use it.

------
JayHost
Amazon is new Walmart.

They don't care that you don't like their work environment.They have money;
you need money and have little options.

I think instead of being interested in recycling talent; Amazon is interested
in those who will take the most abuse.

~~~
deanCommie
Let's back off with the Amazon hate. Right below it on the same list is Google
with an average tenure at 1.1 years. Nobody tries to use that as an argument
that Google burns through workers who quit in dissatisfaction.

~~~
srtjstjsj
Does that 1.1 year average tenure reflect the fact that these companies are
growing and have many new still-employed employees?

~~~
seansmccullough
This is a big part of it. Amazon hired tens of thousands of people last year,
and it really pulls down the average tenure.

------
lsc
so, what I find weird is that everyone seems to complain that companies treat
them like mercenaries, while I have the opposite complaint. Whenever I
interview, I feel like I have to pretend like I want to be there forever, or
else I'm not dedicated enough.

I mean, yes, of course they are going to let me go when they are done with me,
and I'm okay with that. My problem is that they seem to expect _me_ to pretend
like this is the job I want or the company I want forever. They want _me_ to
pretend like we're family, rather than business associates.

Hell, even as a contractor, half the time you have to pretend like you really
want a full-time long-term job to get in.

I find it pretty irritating.

------
467568985476
It's the same Dan Lyons story about Hubspot that was on HN a week or two ago.

~~~
minimaxir
It is _slightly_ different. The old one was about ageism.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596)

~~~
swampthinker
So he's trying to push his book. Great.

------
devishard
The problem here isn't that jobs don't provide job security, it's that they
lie about it. How many times has someone called your company a "family"? Why
is talking about a future in which you don't work for your company taboo? I'd
have no problem working for a company that I knew wouldn't hesitate to fire
me, except that there's no way to judge when that might happen. I'd appreciate
hearing, "If we don't get this next round of funding, we might have to let you
go," but instead the funding talks are done in secrecy while we go out for
drinks and talk about how the company is such a family and how you're doing a
good job, until suddenly someone is getting laid off.

The flipside of this is that if you do have job stability, it's usually not
worth it to stay anyway. I've always worked for companies who needed me more
than I needed them, so I've never really had to worry about job security. Over
the past decade I've switched jobs 7 times, each time getting a 10-20%
increase in income. In 5 of those cases I wanted to stay at my employer, but
when I asked for a 10%-ish raise and explained that I could get more than that
by leaving, they came back with 4-5% answers. In two cases they noted that 3%
was "standard" (which was true for them--I talk to my coworkers about pay). In
many cases, never giving significant raises works for companies: I still know
people working year after year at my previous employers and accepting their
annual 3% raise.

The underlying problem in both cases is that companies simply don't care about
your goals. You're an equation to them, which can be tipped in their favor
either by treating you like a liquid asset and firing you at their
convenience, or by not paying you what you're worth. It's not an "alliance":
that implies shared goals. It's companies using their workers for the
company's goals, no matter what that entails, even if it means pretending that
it's a family or an alliance when it's not.

------
jsmith0295
I have a hard time thinking of people making 6 figure salaries as being an
instance of capital exploiting labor. Part of why the average length of
employment is only around a year is probably that employees are choosing to go
elsewhere for higher pay because the demand for good engineers is so high.

------
shadowfiend
The interesting thing about this is that Lyons quotes Jeff Bezos's letter to
shareholders, which some places described as ‘a very late response’
([http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-
corporate-c...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-corporate-
culture-comment-jeff-bezos)) to the NYT's own story from earlier this year…
Lyons quotes it to demonstrate how Amazon is totally down for this
exploitative culture he's trying to describe. But while I was pretty horrified
reading the NYT's original story, Bezos responded—admittedly
internally—shortly after the original article came out. He basically dismissed
the idea of the type of culture Lyons is describing (‘I strongly believe that
anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT
would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.’), and that
response was fairly widely circulated.

To me, while I recognize some of the anecdotes that Lyons is describing as
indeed representative of things that happen at startups, this is the kind of
cherry picking that rapidly turns a potentially interesting book (or article)
into total nonsense. If you can't choose your supporting arguments well, your
main argument falls over.

(Worth noting: Pretty sure these sundry* articles all just possibly-adapted
excerpts from the book.)

------
blisterpeanuts
It seems to me that the author was generalizing from one specific experience
he had, plus some anecdotal experiences he has gathered from others, to impugn
the entire start-up community.

There may be some validity to what he says; I'm inclined to agree that there's
disproportionate age-ism and sexism and probably several other kinds of -ism's
in the start-up community, perhaps because their founders tend to be younger
and less well versed in mainstream corporate behavior which in recent decades
has been moving _away_ from discrimination.

I don't see how a "glorified telemarketer" working on a desktop that watches
him is a typical start-up tech worker, though. It sounds like tough and
thankless work and I hope people get the message in the VC funding community
that the way to build a high value company is not to treat people really badly
and thus create this kind of bad press. At least, I hope it's _not_ the way
you create a good return on investment! Otherwise we're all in trouble.

I'm curious as to whether the comments about Amazon are broadly valid. Have
not worked there myself, but have interviewed over the phone in the past (very
negative experience). Yet, as a customer, I admire Amazon and consider them
one of America's great companies. Could they really have gotten to this point
by treating their rank-and-file like a disposable commodity? Could Apple?

~~~
riveracct
Really I have to say, are you that naive? Apple and Amazon absolutely treat
their employees like crap. Actually the employees behave with each other like
crap because these companies are publicly traded and everyone is a
stakeholder. The good work comes out of the employees being in competition
with one another. You might like this approach, but at this rate we will be
left with an Earth full of impressive monuments but no people to view them.

------
cortesoft
I am kinda getting sick of these Dan Lyons "pr for my book" pieces.

~~~
smacktoward
If it helps, think of it as "growth hacking."

------
WalterBright
> Given the choice, I think I’d rather make furniture.

So go start making furniture.

~~~
Scoundreller
Likewise,

> Companies sell shares to the public while still losing money. Wealth is
> generated, but most of the loot goes to a handful of people at the top, the
> founders and venture capital investors.

Then become a founder if it's such an easy way to generate wealth.

~~~
knz42
Wealth is generated by the employees. The founders channel that wealth to
them.

The challenge with being a founder is to find the right business plan at the
moment then hire and maintain the right team to achieve it. It's a challenge
indeed but this challenge does not deserve nor does it morally justify taking
most of the wealth generated by the employees away from them.

~~~
WalterBright
The difficulty with that theory is explaining why competitors don't spring up,
copy the business plan, and entice the team away with higher pay.

------
cleandreams
I dunno. I've worked at startups a lot and none are dismal in quite the way
described here. They are dismal because the founders are irritating and have
bad judgment. Or they are dismal because the idea flops. Or you run out of
runway, etc. But I have never gotten deluged by this kind of b.s. Who has
time? This sounds to me less like a tech startup than something dreamed up by
marketers with fancy degrees and no sense.

------
reuven
I read this article and said, "Yup, that sounds like a lot of startups I've
worked with."

I should say _with_ , and not _for_. I've been a freelancer for 20 years, and
while I love to help my clients succeed, and I definitely work too many hours,
I don't have someone standing over me, expecting that I'll work 60-hour weeks,
be around for 7 p.m. meetings, or explicitly tell me that my needs are
secondary to the company's needs.

Startup employees -- and hi-tech employees in general -- are expected to work
long hours, and to put family and friends aside, all in the name of... well,
what? Sometimes it's lots of money, but too often it's because this is what
they're expected to do in so many companies.

It's true that tech companies are (and have always been) desperate for good
talent, and people who are great can often get great salaries and benefits.
But it's rare for a company to say, "Yeah, we'll pay you tons, give us access
to our cafeteria, and offer on-site massages, and you don't have to be here
more than 40 hours per week."

I'm OK with asking employees to pitch in before a deadline, or in an
emergency. But that should mean a few days every few months, not a few months
out of each year.

And those descriptions of "graduation" e-mails that Lyons mentions in the
article just gave me the chills.

Something is wrong if these are the expectations at lots of high-tech
companies, and I have to wonder if Lyons is right, that we're looking at some
very well-paid people who have little or no power, and move to a new job every
year or two not just to get more money, but to get a bit more control over
their own schedules, or some better work-life balance.

------
codeddesign
Can someone tell me why in the first paragraph age was brought up? The author
initiates the argument by bringing up the age of the manager, as if there was
an age requirement. If you are going to make a compelling argument, it's
probably best that you don't begin by belittling others.

------
Kinnard
I think I'd be significantly more interested in reading proposals about how to
improve the nature of work and all working relationships.

------
jondubois
It's like stabbing someone with a rusty knife and then calling it "Iron
supplement... Delivered intravenously."

------
Mikeb85
Interesting article, but this has nothing to do with startups. This is simply
the new equilibrium in the job market. Employees have lost power. Unless you
guys unionize or something, it'll only get worse from here...

~~~
Gibbon1
I've noted as employee power has collapsed over the last 30-40 years that
workers who still had some sort of market power would look down on those that
had lost theirs and used such as a status marker. And then that became an
impediment to action. Why would I work to give losers the same status as I
have?

You can also see this with doctors. For decades they thought their position
was secure. Unlike nurses they never unionized, as such was beneath them. Now
they find themselves being treated badly. And they are angry and confused.

------
kelukelugames
There is glassdoor review for my last company about how they are saving money
by hiring only from colleges. Any number of my colleagues could have written
it. Or for any number of companies. :)

------
bhewes
Nassim Taleb's "How to Legally Own Another Person" or David Graeber's book
_The Utopia of Rules_ and now this article could be categorized as welcome to
working in a bureaucracy. I grew up in corporate land and I am use to ex PGW,
Deloitte, or McKinsey employees being called alumni. So it makes sense as the
current generation of tech companies mature they become more bureaucratic.
Hopefully this means we will see a new batch of startups hit the scene soon!

------
facepalm
I don't understand where employees get their sense of entitlement from.

I don't like the working conditions in many companies either. But the correct
answer is to try to establish a company with better working conditions. Nobody
owes you anything. OK maybe society owes you a proper foundation, but
individual companies don't owe you anything. Don't like them, quit, and don't
buy their products.

------
pj_mukh
Unpopular opinion but current SV workplace culture is not the final refined
product in the evolution of the workplace. It is a stepping stone. I consider
it to be better than the drudgery of blue-chip, 9-5 (especially for the
current generation).

Most of these workers at the large firms (Amazon, Google etc.) are empowered
enough to leave their jobs if they don't believe in the founders' mission.
They remain long enough for the companies' viability.

As for compensation (or "sharing of the riches") at all levels, most of SV's
leadership have identified issues [1][2], as the culture evolves this will
certainly get better.

P.S: This is the first time I've heard of Hubspot's problems, but don't doubt
them, rotten eggs abound.

[1] [http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-
equity](http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity) [2]
[http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-
market.htm...](http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-market.html)

------
jim-greer
I don't know much about Hubspot, but Lyons should know that sudden firings
without an explanation are not common. The norm is quarterly reviews, and
firing only after you've had several negative ones.

Extortion is obviously not common either...

Content farms are also not common at solid companies - more typical of fly-by-
night marketing-driven places without much real tech.

The claim that there's a lot of pressure to perform is more valid, but that's
not unique to tech at all. The bias problems are also there at many companies
(though I think racial bias is less common than age or gender).

Overall he seems to be generalizing from a company with an unusually bad
culture.

(The extortion charges:
[https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-
re...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-released-
hubspot-probe-involving-author-dan-lyons/VZH4CN4kR5p7iyhsKEdwJI/story.htm))

~~~
ditonal
I've worked at several tech startups with sudden firing. The "norm" from my
perspective tends to be a one month Performance Improvement Plan, usually just
serving as a paper trail with very little hope of getting off of it, though
I've seen people just suddenly walked out as well.

I appreciate Dan Lyons cutting through the bullshit on tech startups and I
recognize a lot of what he's talking about from my own experience. The thing
that bothers me the most is the disingenuity of it all, the "we're a family"
and "we're changing the world" when it really is all standard capitalism
business practice, not so different from Wall St or Walmart.

It's funny Netflix and Reed Fisher got brought up, because I at least respect
Reed's honesty about the whole arrangement. The "we're a family" companies
frighten me a lot more.

These companies are also masters of PR and marketing. Many of these companies
that are Kafkaesque places to work for are frequently cited on #1 best place
to work etc, and you seem crazy to complain when you work at one. People don't
realize that the ping-pong table doesn't make up for the uncompesated 24/7
PagerDuty rotations, how little job-security you have long term, how anxiety
inducing a lot of the performance-driven culture and open-office plans can be,
etc. So it's refreshing to see a different take.

~~~
jim-greer
So people get 1 month performance plans after positive or neutral reviews? Or
are these places that don't do regular reviews? I've honestly never heard of
that. Want to name names?

~~~
eropple
Out of four full-time jobs I've had in my career, I have had a performance
review (three, actually--every six months!) at one of them. That was the one
with a NASDAQ ticker. The gong-show "unicorn" startup, the technically
impressive startup that was acquired to bolster a bigco's portfolio, and the
medical startup where I managed three people and reported to the CEO. No
performance reviews. Couldn't even pin down a manager to have a status update
sometimes. (At one in particular my manager basically avoided talking to me
until it was time to try to rip me a new one. Fun times.)

This happens a lot--and it being gross and a real bad way to manage doesn't
really change that it happens a lot.

~~~
jim-greer
That sucks. It's absurdly short-sighted to skimp on giving feedback to
employees.

~~~
eropple
I agree, as it happens! Even at the company where I _was_ managing people, I
had regular sit-downs with my guys (and I was intentionally not really "a
manager", I was _primus inter pares_ and I made sure that showed). Never had
one going upwards, even when we got reorg'd under the guy who thought Six
Sigma was a good idea. ;)

------
yason
And this would be all right if the pay would correlate with the possibility of
enjoying this "graduation", much like CEOs get paid a lot for their work and
paid a lot when sacked supposedly because the risk for a CEO to get fired is
much larger than for normal workers.

------
linkmotif
to me it's not that you get fired willy nilly. that's fine imo.

what's scary, though, is the doublespeak you find in these environments.
people act like you're part of a family. which is weird, because you're just
working for a company.

------
mikehines
Dan Lyons is just another gold rusher mining the gold rushers with papers and
pencils.

------
thetruthseeker1
This article talks about how companies over inflate the value of the work tech
workers are providing almost to the extent of feeling like being in a cult -
which was something I was thinking all along but didn't want to say out of
fear of being called a kill joy.

While in many successful tech companies this might not be to the same degree,
I bet the scale is tipped towards the direction of cult like indoctrination.
My guess is the part of the problem is in many technology companies that are
not seeing huge profits, there are no true metrics to measure the value of
your work - so they can get away making bold corny claims

------
skennedy
> Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and
> you have an idea of what it’s like [working at a startup].

Is this an accurate description? I feel this might be more of the well funded
ones but would not know.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
It varies. Some years back, I interviewed at a San Diego startup that was
flying in a dozen people a week, with a $300 reward just for showing up, to go
through a five-day interview process, at the end of which perhaps one or two
would be offered the chance to work for them...for $50k a year. In San Diego.

Most of their employees lived together, 2-4 to an apartment, because they
couldn't afford solo housing.

The CEO gave a speech on the first day where he explained that they paid
poorly on purpose, because they wanted people who cared more about striving
for excellence (or some such buzzword) than petty concerns like money or
stability. And people ate it up.

So, yeah, some startups are totally run like ridiculous cults that prey on
starry-eyed young tech grads. I'm sure there's many that are sane and
reasonable, too. None of them have paid me to vacation in California, though.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
"some startups are totally run like ridiculous cults..."

I'm open to the possibility that this is true, but you've only presented one
example, though certainly an egregious one. Got any more?

------
bitwize
Our tech business culture is officially turning into Logan's Run.

------
BogusIKnow
"She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without
explanation by her 28-year-old manager"

What's the fuzz about the ages? Age discrimination by NYT author?

------
Evenjos
Working at various tech companies, I've observed a major shift towards the
fine art of bullshit. Employees constantly have to prove their worth and put a
fresh spin on how valuable they are to the company.

Talent and merit and work ethic is falling by the wayside. The top salaries go
to people who make themselves sound talented and worthy, while the shove the
actual work down the line. I've seen projects outsourced on nine levels.
Everyone wants their cut.

------
thieving_magpie
I like the part where he shits all over software and romanticizes early 19th
century woodworking in factories. Yes - I'm sure those were just lovely
conditions to work in. We created laws to protect laborers and children as a
direct result of those conditions - but let's all whine about how Amazon views
its employees as a 'team' and not family.

------
beatpanda
You know that old saying about playing poker, that if you're sitting at a
table and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you?

Well if you work in the SF Bay Area tech industry and this sentence doesn't
ring true to you:

"Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and
you have an idea of what it’s like."

Congratulations; you're the sucker.

------
arikrak
> The average Amazonian lasts only about a year at the company, according to a
> 2013 report by PayScale.

This study was very flawed, see [https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-
employee-turnover-so-hi...](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-employee-
turnover-so-high).

------
xiaopingguo
>"like-minded people"

This particularly obnoxious phrase seems to be coming up a lot more these
days. Maybe it is just people admitting they really do not want diversity
except in looks rather than substance. It seems to reflect a lack of ability
or desire to deal with real world conflicts of opinion.

------
Create
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years
in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified
to find other possibilities?" \-- H. Schopper on the Future of Particle
Physics, Prestigious Discoveries at CERN 2003.

------
gmantom
Look startups aren't perfect. You will most certainly work harder than at a
large established firm. Your life balance will be no where near as good as at
a large firm.

But why are you electing to work at a startup?

1) You are getting some options and have the possibility of a big upside which
does not exist at a large firm.

2) You want more responsibility and you will certainly get it in the form of
wearing many hats, but you will work harder.

3) If things are working out you will be promoted faster and move your career
forward much quicker than most established firms.

4) There are many other points I could make here but arguably the most
IMPORTANT reason to work at a startup is to LEARN, and learn you will.

There are tradeoffs with working at a startup, startups aren't perfect. To say
that they are much worse than large corps who are scared of key man risk and
keep you at an arms length so they can fire and lay off thousands at a time is
disingenuous.

Corporations are generally only after profits big or small. You as an employee
have a responsibility to make the right decisions for you.

Edit: some spelling mistakes.

~~~
pascalo
Would you say companies the size of Amazon, Netflix and HubSpot still fall
into that bucket?

To me they are large tech companies that have kept some sort of startup canon
in place, and not in a good way.

~~~
gmantom
That's very fair. I can't speak about Amazon, because I've never worked there.
You're right that some companies are hanging not on to that startup canon, at
least from the outside it seems that way, even after they are large and it's
not just Amazon but Amazon is probably the biggest.

My comment generally holds true though that startups have tradeoffs to large
corporations. If large corps are trying to take advantage of that then we, as
top talent, need to stay away from them so they fail and this trend can go
away.

------
mark_l_watson
I like the spirit of the article, but I think that Douglas Rushkoff makes
these ideas more clear in his book "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" in which
he nails workers vs. employers issues, growth of corporations, etc. That said,
I also enjoyed the article.

------
pdkl95
> when you got fired, it was called “graduation.”

"Smile or Die" (RSA Animate)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo)

This seems to be a variation on the Wall Street style of magical thinking.

------
sjg007
Top Talent is a myth...
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth)

------
iolothebard
Imagine if the government did its job and protected labor instead of capital.
What a world we could live in in the "richest" country in the world.

------
majidben
[https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35](https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35)

------
Your_Creator
while being upfront about employment terms is always a good thing,

this sort of arrangement is unilateral in the company's favor. you sit there,
churning out codes and solutions and they get to keep it after you leave.

what do you get other than a pat on your back and some space filler on your
resume?

shares of the company?

free software updates for life?

a chance to preview new hardware before anyone else?

how about free hardware? or at least the chance to buy it at cost?

what about using whatever you help create, somewhere else?

there are non-tech businesses that work this way and the morale is typically
through the floor. you see this at brick and mortar businesses when there's no
room for advancement within the company, because the company isn't expanding
geographically they have one location and they like it that way.

most of those companies, love these loopholes they can take advantage of, like
less than full time hours so you don't get healthcare benefits and because the
turnover rate is so high, no one ever really gets a raise. oh, they have
protocols on the books, but no one makes it that long.

it's like the rat box experiment -

one box of rats has food and a way out - they spread out and flourish

one box has no food, but a way out - they all leave

one box has food and no way out - when the food runs out, so do they

one box has no food and no way out - you end up with one really fat cannibal
rat

just because we humans like to pretend we are civilized, we are not immune to
succumbing to our animal instincts.

interestingly enough, this behavior can also be observed in neighborhoods in
NYC where there are many NYCHA buildings grouped together like Queensbridge
and Morrisania Houses. from their perspective there's no future, no food, no
money, no hope - no discernible way out.

so what do they do? they turn on each other.

what do humans do where there is a massive blackout and we are suddenly back
in the stone age? we behave like the animals we are. we've seen it time and
time again.

I recommend becoming well versed in IP law if this is a 'lifestyle choice'
anyone wants to make. at least then, you can protect your own right to profit
off of anything you create in these set ups.

------
mbleigh
I'm so glad Dan Lyons is here to tell us all how hard it is for middle aged
white men.

------
hvmonk
And, being the top thread, he is doing a good job in getting the PR ship :)

------
bikamonki
This is from HubSpot's homepage:

SALES SOFTWARE Stop cold calling. Start closing.

Funny, uh?

------
partycoder
Collective bargaining?

------
drharby
funny, I am on a second round interview at Hubspot...

------
passionstefani
Passionstefani

------
vacri
> _Tech workers have no job security._

To generalise in the same manner as the article, they also have no loyalty -
job-hopping is more common in tech than any other industry I've seen,
excluding perhaps hospitality. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

~~~
andyzweb
it's been that way since Noyce left Beckman/Shockley in the late 50's and
formed Fairchild

------
joesmo
"Treating workers as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded is a
central part of the revised relationship between employers and employees that
techies proclaim is an innovation as important as chips and software."

Really? I've never heard that and never met a single person who thinks this. I
guess pieces like this just like to pull things out of thin air. It makes zero
sense for any non-executive to think this way and most techies are not
executives.

------
neurobuddha
I have to wonder how many anti-Lyons comments in this thread are HubSpot
employees in stealth mode. Doesn't HubSpot do 'Sentiment Analysis' and that
sort of stuff?

~~~
dang
It's against HN's rules to accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling
without evidence. If you're worried about it, you're welcome to email
hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data and investigate (which we always
do). But it's not ok to turn threads in that direction based on nothing more
than opposing views. Few things are more destructive of civil discourse, and
it's nearly always the case that opposing views are honestly held.

