
OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team" - lleims
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/01/omgpop-ceo-tweets-that-only-employee-not-to-transition-to-zynga-was-the-weakest-one/
======
zrgiu_
Like Notch said... "you are an insane idiot!". What did the CEO of OMGPOP had
to gain from making those remarks ? He surely didn't expect the world to take
his side.. Even if Shay Pierce really was "the weakest link of the team", you
just don't say that.

You just got bought for $200 million, now it's the time to show that you
deserved to be the CEO of that company, by being diplomatic, respecting those
around you (or who used to be around you) and now calculating your every move.
Your opinion no longer just affects yourself, it affects your whole company,
as well as (in a lesser extent), the company that just bought you.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
True. It is indeed very unprofessional. But how come people like him are held
up to such high standards? When you're not anyone important you can be
brutally honest and say what you want like everyone else does. But as soon as
you're in the public eye you're put on this pedestal. This is what scares the
hell out of me. I'm a very uncensored person who says what he means and means
what he says (and am an asshole sometimes). So the thought that one day IF I'm
successful in getting my business off the ground a life of censorship awaits
me. :(

Then I see celebrities like Snoop Dog (who owned a porn company), Sarah
Silverman (who has some of the most offensive jokes imaginable), lil john
(self explanatory), Colin Farrel, Charlie Sheen, Lindsey Lohan, and other well
known figures who say and do anything they want yet still have successful
careers, keep starring in movies, and even get in on really good business
deals and endorsements. Lets not forget the Lady Gaga / Polaroid event where
during the unveiling she said "smile you're fucking famous" and other
unprofessional phrases.

It's like there's absolutely NO consequence for them. I guess because it's
their "image" and it's "expected". So I guess the moral of the story is,
become an offensive comedian /or/ celebrity known for being crazy and work
your way up towards serious entrepreneur. That way you can talk shit and get
away with it. OR start out as the well spoken guy, and just 1 accidental
F-bomb later, show up on the news as the bad guy and get thrown out by your
company board.

EDIT: ALSO, wtf did Notch gain by saying "You're an insane idiot"?! What did
he gain from his remark?

~~~
caidan
Just to be clear, you are comparing two hip hop artists, two comedians, two
actors, and an avante garde pop artist to the CEO of a mobile games company?
In fact you are comparing a group of individuals who are all famous or
infamous in their own way for being edgy and/or a mess, to a company that
makes family friendly games. There is a very large difference between the
responsibilities of an entertainer and a CEO. The responsibilities of some of
the aforementioned celebrities could arguably _include_ being "offensive".
Witness the scorn heaped upon Eddie Murphy when he decided to shed his Raw
persona and turn to family movies.

If you are worrying about having to censor your public persona in the future,
go into a line of business where being edgy is part of the attraction.
However, it is never a good move, whether as a CEO or public figure or basic
human being to get up on a soapbox and say bitchy, petty, mean spirited
things. The OMGPop CEO is not speaking "brutal honesty", he's just acting like
a dick most likely because his ego has swollen out of control by the sale and
the success of Draw Something and he can't stand that this "little guy" is
pissing on his parade. This is the behaviour of a child, not a leader.

Lastly, this isn't about "holding people to high standards", as if it is some
sort of conscious thing we participate in. In societal interactions there is a
implicit understanding of the range of acceptable behaviour for a public
figure, it is unconscious and breaching those boundaries will have immediate
emotional consequences on how people perceive you. If Snoop Dog says fuck or
calls himself a pimp nobody will blink, if he punched a child in the face
people would immediately react negatively. Likewise if he stopped all of his
Snoop persona and started working for the Rick Santorum campaign. If you are
the CEO of a company that makes family friendly mainstream games, people
expect that you will act like an adult in possession of self-control are good
judgement. If you are the CEO of a company that sells coke spoons, maybe less
so.

Notch is able to say what he did because he has garnered significant good
will, and because it embodies the mass public reaction to the OMGpop tweet. If
he tweeted this kind of thing all the time he would lose that good will
eventually. As a one off though.. it IS idiotic and insane to publicly
belittle former employees as a CEO.

Moral of the story is don't be a dick in public view, unless you are in public
view for being a dick ;)

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Very well explained thank you.

------
hipsterelitist
I'm glad this happened in such a public way. I once heard him speak at a VC
event about his firing practices with the same sort of attitude. I won't get
into the details, but I was shocked that such an individual could be so
championed, but he's quite business savvy and very personable... I guess as
long as you're on his good side.

Very good fit for Zynga.

~~~
wmeredith
>Very good fit for Zynga.

This was the first thing I thought when I read the headline.

~~~
Macsenour
I had the same thought. His "explanation" read like spin to me. Which fits
well with the Zynga style.

------
scott_w
What a fool. Shay Pierce's article was incredibly polite and graceful, so
there's no way OMGPOP can come off looking like anything but pathetic and
vindictive.

I think the worst thing I've heard our CEO say about a former employee is "it
was time for the company and X to part ways" after X took a job elsewhere, and
this was an internal meeting. We don't take to tweeting the inner workings of
our company.

~~~
huggyface
_"Earlier this week – days after Zynga bought OMGPOP for $210 million – a now
former OMGPOP engineer named Shay Pierce wrote a column for gaming news Web
site Gamasutra explaining that he would not join Zynga because it is "evil."
He said that companies like Zynga think of users as "weak-minded cash cows.""_

Come on. OMGPOP was a fast rising company with a very green CEO. Expectations
that they're going to act like the CEO of Oracle (boom, bad example) or
something seems out of place. The CEO is a person just like everyone else, and
had a moment of weakness.

The CEO took it personally. And rightly so, because in his implications Pierce
was saying that everyone else _were_ willing to join an "evil" company that
treats people as "weak minded cash cows". When we make personal statements of
values and their justifications ("I don't eat meat because I don't like
murdering innocent animals, blood on my hands"), we naturally raise the hairs
of those who make different decisions.

EDIT: Normally I just bear those downvotes, but in this case I find them a
little disturbing. The whole narrative around this has taken on a distinctly
"we are the 99%!" type of schism. The CEO is a human being too, and there is
no reason to value or respect the opinion of Pierce.

~~~
whateverer
It's very childish, to say the least, to take offense and _lashing out_ upon
hearing of someone else's morals.

Or more accurately, it's self-centered, oblivious and aggressive. I'm more
than content with the outcry all over the net.

~~~
huggyface
_It's very childish, to say the least, to take offense and lashing out upon
hearing of someone else's morals._

Many would see Pierce's media efforts as childish and unprofessional. I
originally saw it presented with the title "The one smart OMGPOP employee",
and it was pretty obvious what the deal was (when you make demands and the
other side ignores you, it means you aren't in a position to make demands).

Further his "morals" went so far as demanding that they provide some sort of
oddball waiver for him, which they didn't feel worthy of the time required.
I'm not sure if you're reading a different story than I am, but the one I read
had him completely fine with joining Zygna until they said stuff it, at which
point he retroactively gained a higher calling.

~~~
wpietri
That is not an "oddball" waiver. Saying that creative people continue to own
what they owned before they took the job is a common contract feature. I know
we have that in the IP agreement that our developers sign -- anything they
explicitly list as theirs continues to be theirs.

------
droithomme
So this guy Pierce wrote his game Connectrode before he even went to work for
OMGPOP. It's completely standard to NOT seize ownership of preexisting IP as
part of hiring, unless that's a negotiated part of the deal for which one is
compensated. I always have a disclosure list of my preexisting IP as a rider
to contracts, this has never been an issue anywhere. Trying to seize ownership
without negotiation and compensation is an instant "no thanks" as far as I am
concerned; it indicates bad faith.

It seems since Pierce is the only one who ran into this problem that he is the
only person working there who had actually written an entire game from start
to finish and created a company to sell it. That means he is the most
experienced and competent person there. The assertion that he is incompetent
and they were about to fire him can't be taken seriously at all; it's
obviously said in spite.

It is interesting that CEO Dan Porter identifies himself in the tagline to his
@tfadp twitter account as " _creator_ of epic game Draw Something". This
pretty clearly suggests he created that game. Which actually, he didn't. He
doesn't even know how to code or to design, and the game itself is a clone of
another game so he didn't come up with the concept either. Only in this blow-
up's damage control attempts does he even acknowledge that anyone other than
himself was involved in creating the game. His assertions that Pierce was
stealing credit are _obviously_ psychological projection about his own
actions.

In his CV we see that Pierce has a long history of positions, quite varied,
and none of them held very long. This is consistent psychologically with the
sort of person that the rest of his situation indicates he is.

~~~
wging
>In his CV we see that Pierce has a long history of positions, quite varied,
and none of them held very long. This is consistent psychologically with the
sort of person that the rest of his situation indicates he is.

Do you mean Porter, not Pierce?

~~~
droithomme
Oops, sorry, yes. (Would correct, but edit link has expired.)

------
rdl
I bought a copy of Connectrode
(<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/connectrode/id438450056?mt=8>) to support the
guy, but it's actually a pretty fun game on its own.

It'll be hilarious if he ends up on the leaderboard because of his former
boss's lack of civility and professional decorum.

~~~
krig
Same here. It's underdeveloped, but I think it could be brilliant with another
revision or two. I hope he does well.

------
mattmaroon
"Porter’s response to Pierce is being seen by many as petty."

If by "many" you mean everyone who knows what the word petty means, then yes,
it is seen by many as petty.

As a CEO this reflects very poorly on you. If he was so weak, why was he on
your team?

~~~
mjwalshe
um I and those with any HR background would call it "bringing the company into
disrepute" and "Gross Misconduct"

------
v21
Sounds like he's well shot of them.

And this seems bizarre behaviour on OMGPOP's part - he was entirely
complimentary to OMGPOP and he publicly disclaimed credit for Draw Something.
Even if you did hate him and the press he stirred up, the best way to make it
go away is to completely ignore it. Why on Earth would you make this the
story?

~~~
brooknam
It was a poor decision, but I can see being furious/frustrated that the story
of your company's success had mutated into one on how your new parent owner
was evil.

~~~
wpietri
True, but he shouldn't blame Shay Pierce. Porter's the one who decided to do a
deal with Zynga. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Further, Porter's the one who set up the retention process in a way that
forced somebody out the door over a perfectly reasonable issue. A manager
who's first instinct for a problem is to blame others has a big problem. One
who does it publicly is a fool.

------
RexRollman
I don't understand this. Pierce didn't slam OMGPOP, from what I have read,
just Zynga's unwillingness to exempt his personal project from its IP
clutches. I have to wonder why OMGPOP's CEO felt the need to do this.

~~~
fleitz
He sounds incredibly insecure about it which probably belies a lot of the
truth about what Shay Pierce contributed to the team.

Shay probably didn't have a lot at stake and it was just a job, as a leader
it's a sign of leadership failure if your troops don't follow you which is
what the CEO is likely insecure about. He's also working at Zynga and who
knows what the management team will think next week about what OMGPOP really
contributed to Zynga.

Both of them look incredibly insecure, but Mr. Porter is the guy with $200 mm
in the bank who is expected to show some class. If Shay's weak why even pay
attention, just smile that you avoided bringing a weak link with you.

------
zaroth
Most times I see a sensationalized twitter post where everyone is saying, "I
can't believe they just said that!" I just look at it and shrug, and wonder
where the PC police will strike next. This tweet, however, had me staring at
the screen in disbelief.

Now, I had read Shay's post when it made headlines on HN. Maybe I have to go
back and re-read it, but I didn't click away thinking that OMGPOP's _best
programmer_ decided to bail on the buy-out. I don't think Shay claimed they
would _fail miserably_ without him.

Obviously Shay was seeking to gain some publicity off recent events, maybe
even boost revenue on his side-project game. Yeah, I can see how Dan Porter
might think Shay's pissing in his soup. So, Dan, respond to the damn
allegations, don't just go all ad hominem on Shay's ass.

I would have gone with something like "I disagree with what Shay had to say
about OMGPOP, we're loving it here at the _evil empire_ , but I wish him the
best at his next venture." You even have 2 characters to spare, Dan!

------
geuis
Well, I had ignored the whole Draw Something phenomenon until a few days ago.
I downloaded the game, and for the last 3-4 days have been finding myself
enjoying it quite a bit and anxiously refreshing the app to see if my game
partners had updated their drawings.

Needless to say, having just read this I deleted the app a couple minutes ago.
They can keep my dollar, for all the good it will do them.

Remember that if you choose to uninstall the app, also go into Facebook and
remove the app from their as well.

------
j_baker
Porter forgot the number 1 rule of politics: If your opponent is making a
mistake, don't stop him. I understand what Pierce is saying (and can't help
sympathizing), but I can't help thinking that writing that editorial was poor
taste on Pierce's part, and probably would have reflected poorly on him had
Porter kept his mouth shut and not turned him into a martyr.

I mean, if you disagree with a potential employer's" values", it's career
suicide to write a widely distributed Op-Ed about it unless that value is
something like "Don't club baby seals" and you have hard proof that said
employer is actively clubbing baby seals. Calling them evil over what is
essentially a contract dispute (even if it's a perfectly valid contract
dispute) would make me think twice before negotiating a contract with him. If
he's writing an Op-Ed about them, what's to prevent him from writing an Op-Ed
about me if he doesn't like my terms?

~~~
zedshaw
> I mean, if you disagree with a potential employer's" values", it's career
> suicide to...

It's not career suicide. People should talk about shitty places to work more
often, and there's no way Zynga can keep another company from hiring the guy.
The only time you see "you'll never work in this town again!" work is when all
the companies are colluding to control the labor market. In programming that
hasn't happened yet, so he can say pretty much whatever he wants and still get
a job.

In fact, it was easier for me to get a job after I demolished Ruby on Rails
for being the piece of shit that it is. People like honesty.

~~~
j_baker
There's a world difference between speaking ill of an open source project and
speaking ill of someone you couldn't negotiate a contract with. We're used to
people ranting about open source projects. It happens every day.

In a perfect world, people would be able to expose employers who are doing
wrong with impunity. In the real world, it's difficult to do so without
repercussions. How do you think companies like Zynga can still recruit
developers?

~~~
JGailor
Well, given how many people Zynga is buying vs. the mass exodus that seems to
be happening in S.F. from them, I'd be interested in seeing their recruitment
numbers.

------
itsprofitbaron
FWIW Dan Porter (OMGPOP CEO) has responded on Twitter[1] saying:

    
    
      What I meant to say was... I want to celebrate the people who worked on the game. Who have stuck together. They are everything. Thank you.
    

He also responded to Notch[2] saying:

    
    
      @notch it's been a the craziest ride. So yes I may be temporarily insane. I just wanted my team who stuck with us to shine.
    

[1] <https://twitter.com/#!/tfadp/status/186436787617529856>

[2] <https://twitter.com/#!/tfadp/status/186439284767719424>

~~~
andypants
He also said this:

    
    
      What's so interesting about success is the number of failures who try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is just one of many...
    

Although now he's deleted the offending tweets and posted this:

    
    
      I'm sorry for what I said on Twitter last night. No excuses.

------
remi
Looks like he just apologized:
<https://twitter.com/#!/tfadp/status/186460580201238529>

~~~
jaylevitt
And actually _apologized_ : "sorry for what I said", not "sorry if anyone was
offended by what I said". I still don't think it looks good for him -
apologies only mitigate, not erase - but that's the right response. If he
follows up with a "it was a stressful transition and I was afraid that
Pierce's understandable legal concerns would sour the whole deal and frankly I
drank way too much", all the better.

~~~
asr
On twitter, it looks like he apoligzed: "sorry for what I said ... no
excuses." But then he e-mails VentureBeat with--you guessed it--a bunch of
excuses:

    
    
      When the game blows up ... and one employee, who didn’t work on the product,
      and is more about his own games then the team, jumps in the press and becomes
      the story, it is very hurtful to all the people who are on team.
    
      [W]hen you give blood, sweat and tears on something and someone who doesn’t
      even work on the project, and prioritizes his own games as his own professional
      development over the team, becomes the story it is very demoralizing.
    
      [M]y point is that it wasn’t about Shay. It was about the 41 other people who
      made it happen. Those are the people I would throw myself in front of the
      train for and those are the people I want to celebrate.
    

So, to recap, Shay was fired (for refusing to accept a change in the terms of
his employment) and wrote about it. Porter still seems to take offense that
Shay wrote _anything_ to distract from OMGPOP's preferred message, continues
to call out Shay for not being a team player, and says he would throw himself
in front of a bus for every OMGPOP employee _except_ Shay.

He didn't apologize. After an apology, you need to back up your words with
actions.

------
JanezStupar
If this is an April 1st it is in extremely bad taste.

If it is true, then I gues that OMGPOP will be a great addition to Zyngas
"culture".

~~~
FreakLegion
The tweet appears to be real:

<https://twitter.com/#!/tfadp/status/185901238477537281>

------
chrisdinn
Can't help but think this whole controversy must be (at least in part)
motivated by that $30-million for "employee retention" mentioned in the
article. I suspected as much when I first saw the uproar on Twitter, but
didn't know if the Zyna/OMGPOP deal had any such incentive.

Does anyone know how those retention clauses usually work?

~~~
muyuu
Yep... I'd be interested in knowing how much did they lose by not keeping all
employees, and why wouldn't they just leave Conectrode alone.

------
tzs
The subject misquotes the tweet. It did not say "Shay Pierce". It just said it
was the one employee who turned down going to Zynga.

However, there was a second tweet that did explicitly mention Pierce. Here's a
screenshot showing both: <http://i.imgur.com/Dob8n.jpg>

The text of the other tweet is "What's so interesting about success is the
number of failures who try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is just one of
many...".

These tweets were on March 30, so they are not April fools jokes.

~~~
mattkirman
Shay Pierce was the only employee not to go to Zynga [1]. Even though the
tweet doesn't explicitly mention Shay Pierce I'd say that the subject is still
fairly accurate.

[1]
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167244/Turning_down_Zynga...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167244/Turning_down_Zynga_Why_I_opted_out_of_the_210M_Omgpop_buy.php)

~~~
latch
I know this is pedantic but the subject is a quote, so your parent is correct.
It really should have either used square brackets around the name, or been
written differently. Personally, I feel that once you open a double-quote
there's a certain responsibility.

~~~
rictic
The adjacent tweet from the CEO mentions Shay by name. I'm usually a stickler
for this kind of thing as well, but this one reads as entirely unambiguous to
me.

~~~
latch
But it isn't about ambiguity. If someone said:

Our window for reaching its peak was gone. I sat in our tent, unable to do
anything, while my dream of climbing Mount Everest faded

It's wrong to quote them as saying

"Our window for reaching Mount Everest's peak was gone"

Even though the "its" is clearly referring to Mount Everest. There are a
couple options, the simplest being:

"Our window for reaching [Mount Everest's] peak was gone"

What worries me is that people don't know this. That you can just
substitute/fill in a quote because it's obvious that's what the person meant.
Rather, it should be thought of as a recording device that can only play back
exactly what the person said.

------
v21
Notch weighs in : <https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/186359914657091585>

------
kapowaz
I'm not sure how many folks who read Hacker News work in videogame
development, but for any who are, I'd like to propose something simple: refuse
to work for Zynga. Extend this boycott to any videogames company that behaves
in this contemptuous and insulting manner towards the people who actually
generate the real worth in the company.

Sentiment towards the likes of EA and Sony are at an all-time low for their
consumer-hostile behaviour, and I think the market is ripe for being shaken
up. We've already seen in recent weeks that the games-playing public are
prepared to reach into their wallets even in the middle of an economic
downturn and help fund videogame projects through Kickstarter.

If the people who make videogames refuse to be treated like disposable
commodities by obnoxious pricks like Dan Porter by boycotting working for
them, then eventually these organisations will have to change their ways, or
risk being replaced by companies who will treat their staff with respect and
humility.

------
scoot
Draw Something... deleted. (Not that it will make any difference to OMGPOP,
but as a matter of principal).

Connectrode [1] - purchased. It's not my usual kind of game, but it's the best
way I can think of to show support.

[1]<http://www.deepplaid.com/connectrode/Site/Connectrode.html>

[Edit - actually it's pretty good!]

~~~
nielsandersen
I bought it too. Any tiny fly in the ointment for the people who brought
Farmville on us is worth a dollar to me.

------
Jare
[Edit]: Oups sorry, this was already linked in the original article.

Apparently the company's backlash against Shay Pierce had begun on Thursday:
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fg%2Fa%2F2012%...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fg%2Fa%2F2012%2F03%2F29%2Fbusinessinsiderthe-one-omgpop-
engin.DTL)

~~~
wpietri
It dumbfounds me when alleged journalists print anonymous slander like this.
Whatever one thinks of Shay Pierce's editorial, he signed his name to it and
is answering questions about it.

------
thetron
Sounds to me like Shay Pierce was the smartest employee on the team.

------
mtoddh
I'm curious, could these sort of statements made by a CEO in regards to a
former employee be crossing the line into defamation? As in, if Pierce is
looking for a job in the future and this is what a potential employer finds...

~~~
sgentle
Could well. I've heard a lot of larger companies have a policy of only
providing references of the form "X worked here from Y to Z" for that exact
reason.

~~~
tbsdy
I also agree - but then he said something potentially defamatory :-)

However, I think if an employee looks up Shay's details, they will first find
his op-ed calling Zynga "evil". I guess if they are concerned about the OMGPOP
tweet, then they will be REALLY worried about the op-ed!

------
tankenmate
Sour grapes; makes you wonder if they intended all along to embrace and extend
Connectrode.

------
meow
Looks like he would fit very well with Zynga.

------
amitagrawal
Within the same industry there are people like Dan Porter and Notch. Both are
at the top of their game. With one major difference..

One bad mouths a former employee because he refused to join the acquirer on
grounds of principles. The other distributes wealth among employees.

I have no doubt Mr Pincus and Mr. Pierce will have a lot in common at Zynga.

------
doktrin
I'm glad I hadn't yet bought into this particular craze. There is no way I
will sponsor a company whose leadership behaves in this manner.

------
subdigital
Even more reason to buy the developer's independent game, Connectrode. It's
only $0.99. <http://www.deepplaid.com/connectrode/Site/Connectrode.html>

Show him he made the right decision.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I'd like to but can't, because his "actively destructive to the healthy
functioning of that ecosystem" also applies to Apple's iOS app store and the
independence of my profession. I hope he reconsiders the landlord he accepted.

------
verelo
I would hate to be a recruiter for these guys now. Ignoring that i hate
recruiters already...I don't think this will help their case.

In general I'm just amazed by this. Is it even legal for your employer (even
if it be an ex-employer) to talk about you in this way?

~~~
georgemcbay
I am not a lawyer, but I do know that HR departments at larger companies coach
their employees not to speak poorly of any ex-employee for fear of defamation
lawsuits. The industry standard even for horribly incompetent employees is to
say only when the employee worked for you, what their salary is, and on the
very edge of acceptability is "would you hire this employee again?" as a
simple yes/no only question.

Most employers would have a fit if you got on the phone, even in a private
conversation, and bad-mouthed an ex-employee you managed because of defamation
lawsuit fears. And that's from a one-on-one, he said/she said deal. Blasting
this stuff over twitter is so much worse.

tl; dr -- Zynga's lawyers are probably in crisis mode right now.

------
unimpressive
There's a lot of words in the comments; for me it boils down to:

Dan Porter has gone from startup to upstart. With all the negative
implications that word brings.

And with all the brevity a tweet requires.

------
samstave
My reply tweet:

>Loved Draw Something, saddened by your acquisition. Disgusted by your tweet
Have deleted Draw Something. Will never use Zynga Games.

------
kamaal
When a CEO thinks about his own interests and the interest of his product : He
is upholding the ideals of company, competition and capitalism.

When a Employee things about his own interests and the interest of his product
: He is selfish, evil and a non team player.

Good hardworking people != somebody who MUST work for free sacrificing their
time and energy to make somebody else a millionaire.

------
alextingle
So Porter screwed Pierce over in a way that would be illegal where I live,
while pocketing $200m for himself. And now he's libelled him?

Wow. Just wow.

------
LVB
I'm sure we'll get the real story from Zynga PR on how Porter's was one of the
accounts hacked via Tweetdeck.

In other news, they're excited to announce the opening of their Siberian
office.

------
larrys
Damage control:

"Porter admitted that the he was harsh in his language describing Pierce. “Yes
it was, but my point is that it wasn’t about Shay. It was about the 41 other
people who made it happen,” Porter wrote. “Those are the people I would throw
myself in front of the train for and those are the people I want to
celebrate.”

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3784322>

------
lhnz
This is probably the most immature and mean thing I've seen for months. But
can't we just ignore it?

~~~
sehugg
I believe that accepting a portion of a $200 million payout from public
investors subjects you to a certain amount of criticism.

------
samstave
You know, this guy just sold his company for ~$200MM -- I'm going to believe
that he took several thousand and bought a shitload of coke and was high as a
kite when he tweeted this - while saying to himself "There it is, my tweet.
There is NO WAY this was a bad idea!"

------
loso
While I don't agree with how Dan Porter came across on Twitter I think I can
understand the frustration. You are having one of the best days of your life
and then out of left field someone you know does an article that sideswipes
it.

I read the Shay Pierce article when it was published and it was very
respectful of his former employers...but it didn't have to happen now. Why did
he write that article NOW? There is already a well deserved Anti Zynga
sentiment and that article made his fellow employees look as if they were
traitors to the forces of good. He admits that he has done work for Zynga in
the past but then drops lines like "Not everyone shares my values, and not
everyone is in a position to pick and choose job offers.". While true I can
see how it can rub the people who choose to move forward with the Zynga
acquisition the wrong way.

I don't agree how Dan Porter dealt with it, but I can understand being upset
by that article being published right at this moment.

~~~
Klinky
_There is already a well deserved Anti Zynga sentiment and that article made
his fellow employees look as if they were traitors to the forces of good._

How would holding off on the article change the contents? It wouldn't.

Timing matters, he struck while the iron was hot. There is no reason he should
self-censor himself for the benefit of a company that looks like it's run by a
bit of an ass.

~~~
loso
I'm not talking about for the benefit of the company. I am talking about for
the benefit of his fellow employees who took the deal. His article does not
put them in the best light.

~~~
nknight
They made a choice, why should he be trying to shield them from the
consequences of their choice?

------
Uchikoma
How low.

~~~
k-a-r
a new low.

------
toddheasley
I'm mostly wondering how long these lunches were that they even rate
mentioning, let alone mentioning BEFORE code quality?

------
tonetheman
Just another pathetic roach who works for zynga... nothing new to see here
move on.

------
mcfunley
Classy move

------
jimfl
App idea: Twitter client with a breathalyzer.

~~~
read_wharf
That's actually not a bad idea, particularly if you generalize it. You could
make a device, or you could do some cool text analysis that predicted whether
you are drunk.

I have the Thunderbird Confirm-Address addon installed, to give me one last
chance to check if I'm sending a message to someone who probably shouldn't
receive it. Like the boss. Which happened.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/thunderbird/addon/confirm-a...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/thunderbird/addon/confirm-address-5582/)

I remember once I sent some email to some friends, after a very hard night of
drinking. I knew I was drunk while I wrote, and I tried my damnedest to write
coherently, with no errors. I was very proud when I checked it over and
clicked Send. I was astounded the next morning when I read it over, at how
obviously drunk the writer was.

------
spitfire
My browser was showing me pictures of fat cats at the bottom of that article.

Then I figured out adblock was showing me cats for april fools day, and I was
a bit disappointed.

------
read_wharf
Who was the second weakest? Third weakest?

------
pasbesoin
Like attracts like?

------
ditojim
Stay classy, yc...

------
ThomPete
Aprils fool?

------
michaelochurch
Warning: this is going to get very long and ranty.

I worked on Wall Street 2006 to 2008, and I had friends on the Street before
that. I went into "tech" in 2008, saw the mini-crash and read the Sequoia
ScareDoc, and now I'm watching this bubble.

Wall Street has a bad reputation, but I've seen far worse ethics and much less
professionalism in technology, which is supposed to be above that garbage. On
Wall Street, people know what the rules are. They're pretty clear, because the
scummiest shit has generally been tried. You front-run your customer, you go
to jail. You get a reputation for being unethical, it ruins your career. You
defraud people, you get fired for life from the securities industry. You have
to take a Series 7, so you have no excuse. Sure, the industry has some
slimeballs and some slip through, but not so brazenly, and they at least are
supposed to feel bad about it. In technology these days, there are so many
people who don't give the square root of a shit about making good software but
just want to play the angles. The vast majority of them aren't engineers,
those who are tend engineers turning into junior executives by putting their
ethics through a fire sale, but none of those fuckers belong here.

Google: generally professional and probably ethical macroscopically, but
careerist to a fault. Bureaucratically overgrown. Full of horrid legacy
systems that are built to flip-- specifically, to be "interesting" enough to
merit a promotion for the original architect, who then moves on before it goes
into maintenance phase and falls to pieces. That's how you get promoted at the
big G. Launch and flee, every 18 to 24 months.

Startupland: I can name two major ($100M+ valuation) VC-funded companies that
have committed major ethical faults in the past 6 months (one wasn't published
and won't be, one developed last week and might be in the next 3 weeks). Both
of these startups have some of the best, nicest, and most interesting
engineers I've ever met... but are run by scumbag executives that would have
fit in better with 1980s private equity people than with the (more decent,
much more boring) typical Wall Street quant. I've never met a VC and I'm sure
they're not all bad, but my theory is that the scumbaggery in so many VC-
funded startups has to come from the top. I assume they fund people who are
like them, and that would make sense, given that VCs are mostly MBAs, and
something like 60 percent of B-school students at top schools cheat in their
coursework.

Why do I bring this up? Because it's fucking nuts that some unprofessional,
vindictive jerk like this guy was just acquired for $200 million. The world is
seriously on tilt here. What are we even doing?

~~~
haberman
Your dig at Google here is astonishingly out of place. Even if what you say is
true, you're comparing fraud and serious ethical violations with... being
bureaucratic and having bad legacy systems? I don't even know what to say.

Also, what you say isn't true. Google has the shallowest management structure
and the most aggressive attitude towards refactoring (both in the large and
small) of any company I've ever worked at. I'm sure that you could find
plausible complaints to make about Google, but these two aren't even close.

~~~
michaelochurch
Google has a lot of really stupid policies that are unethical and hurt
peoples' careers. For example, Perf. Five percent of employees end up on PIPs
for no other reason than getting shat on in Neutron-Jack-style stack-ranking.
People on PIPs can't transfer. They rarely actually get fired (most quit, most
PIPs on people who stay are inconclusive; rare is for a person to get fired
and even rarer is for a person to actually _pass_... inconclusive PIPing isn't
"passing" because it leads to a shorter and more obnoxious PIP, 2 quarters
later) but the effect is just the same-- an utterly fucking pointless waste of
peoples' time, jobs lost for no good reason, billions of dollars of capital
being destroyed. I'd guess that most of those people who run afoul of the
completely arbitrary 5% yank-point are on those launch-and-flee systems.

Then there is the rampant abuse of process that goes on related to Perf. I
know one person who, as a protest, wrote negative unsolicited feedback to 5
random Googlers each cycle. I would actually say that he is a lot more
unethical than Perf's designers, but it just shows how silly the whole system
is.

Then there's Real Names (for which people were PIP'd if not fired, even though
Google is supposed to be so open it would never do that). Don't get me started
on that shit. With Real Names, I can only ask: do you not _want_ your product
to succeed? Are you afraid of users?

I think Google is unethical to promote and retain, in management positions,
sometimes with global impact, severe and obvious incompetents in the same way
that it's unethical to let a 4-year-old fly a plane. If you're a billion-
dollar company, you have no excuse for promoting the kinds of stupid fucks who
think that company-wide stack-ranking is good for your culture. That shit
might make sense in a piece-rate sweatshop, but not in tech.

~~~
haberman
I was going to respond that you seem to have an axe to grind. Then I realized
you're Michael Church. Never mind, carry on.

[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-14/tech/31163139...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-14/tech/31163139_1_google-
engineer-google-project-larry-page)

~~~
yuhong
I think this post does have some good points. For example, I still remember
Google Wave. I even did a Slashdot submission on the real name fiasco:
[http://slashdot.org/submission/1778830/google-is-gagging-
use...](http://slashdot.org/submission/1778830/google-is-gagging-user-
advocates)

------
ktizo
I suspect that the ceo might actually be the weakest employee on the team.

------
zackattack
this is the former president/founder of Teach for America...

~~~
usaar333
president. while quite early, not considered a founder

------
begus
I guess some CEO have contempt for their employees?

------
joejohnson
Good. This community hadn't had a good Zynga-bashing thread in a few days.
Let's repeat the same tired anecdotes and all jump on the bandwagon hating
Zynga! Don't forget to downvote any minority opinions or skeptics of the evil
Zynga narrative.

~~~
joejohnson
Really?

