
Bullshit Startup Experiences - supjeff
http://totalgarb.tumblr.com/tagged/startupbullshit
======
ditonal
Feel free to steal mine:

#1

me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes.

CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and
err on the side of caution!

...later

CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis!

#2

CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world!

me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary.

CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we
can't even do that....

~~~
nojvek
CEO: We need X done Manager: That's too short of a timeframe CEO: Buy the Devs
pizza every night if you need to, just get it done.

~~~
megablast
I mean, they may need something delivered by a date. It may be impossible, but
that doesn't change the fact they need it. This is where you step up and say
it's impossible.

~~~
xyzzy4
Anything that is important enough in business can have its deadline extended.
I think strict deadlines are more about managers trying to save face than an
actual need.

~~~
supjeff
I think sometimes strict deadlines are sometimes about coordinated efforts, as
in the case of a Superbowl ad. If you're the company responsible for producing
the ad, then submitting it a week after the game is unacceptable. I feel like
where software is concerned, it's most often like you've said.

------
bflesch
This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash
startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor
level day in and out.

I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could
anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these
guys are totally out of their mind.

As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours
about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your
face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors'
management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying
for three weeks, etc.

I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads
and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants
German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves).

We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business
angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in
(his, kind of) round. They not once called him.

So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically
for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.

~~~
colordrops
The reason your comment is so highly rated is that your description of
European VCs pretty much matches those of US and Asian VCs as well. Many VCs
got where they were by being sociopaths that threw a lot of social convention
out the window.

~~~
bflesch
This thought is often voiced, but I think on a partner level most of them are
somehow nice and clever guys.

What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind
of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards
their partners / managers.

Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff",
but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon
or IoT US-to-EU rip-off.

Very anecdotal of course!

~~~
AndrewKemendo
>Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff",
but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon
or IoT US-to-EU rip-off.

Actually worse, they end up investing in some low risk company doing CRM for
government contract management or even better some kind of non-scalable thing
that was their friend's company.

Oh and they are all "early stage" but tell you that you are "too early."

------
sijoe
Been thinking about doing the customer version of this.

[after a long indepth technical discussion with a qualified opportunity,
quoting, resources allocated, ready to pull the trigger on a large project]

me: So we are ready to go, waiting on the PO

them: Sure, just working through our process

(falls off internets, doesn't respond to phone calls/emails/rejects visits)

Months go by

them: We set up an RFP and bought from someone else.

me: Er ... you used our confidential material (marked as such) to set up a
public RFP, that you didn't even invite us to, or respond to our queries?
Seriously?

them: Yes.

[bangs head on table, but it gets better ... no ... the other thing]

them: the system we bought (not yours), isn't performing nearly as well as
your system that we POCed on.

me: So? Why not call your vendor and have them help you?

them: they aren't able to. They don't know this stuff as well as you do.

me: So, let me get this right ... you want me to provide consulting services
to help a competitor of ours ... compete ... with us?

them: Not so much consulting, as free advice and guidance. Like you did during
the POC.

[resumes banging head on table]

them: hello? whats that noise?

[years pass]

them: we need to rethink our strategy, it was an order of magnitude slower
than your unit at about 2-3x the cost.

me: no kidding Sherlock

them: we want to start this process again ....

me: (fits of laughter) uh ... no.

~~~
beachstartup
uhm, this is your fault. why were you working for free?

a quote is one thing and as a sales professional you should expect to waste a
huge amount of time on quotes that never go anywhere, but a proof of concept
is supposed to be something you charge for. it's engineering work!!!

if they don't want to pay for a poc, that's a _real good sign_ that they're
not worth working for.

~~~
sijoe
We've limit "working for free", to things that should help us close business
against existing quotes with a commitment from the customer to execute on the
quote in question. Our work is hard enough to replicate elsewhere that there
is a natural incentive to work with us if we meet their objectives. More
formally, we had at least an agreement to work together if we met their
objectives. We blew them out (way better than they anticipated), which worked
strongly in our favor.

Unfortunately, while you are correct it is our, and specifically my (the buck
stops with me) fault, I've run into variations on this from very small "free
advice" requests, through what amounted to fake RFPs, where the 'customer'
loved our design, and in one case specifically asked us to train our
competitors and share our IP (with no compensation) to have them deliver it.

This POC was piggy backed atop another project that had ended, and it amounted
to getting some run-time in for them, after they indicated a strong preference
for us (given our recent domination of an industry benchmark at the time). The
'customer' swore they would buy, and I worked to get an operational quote in
front of them that they agreed to push through if the POC was in fact viable.

So much for that.

One thing I've learned over the years (no, decades) of startup life is, you
don't have the deal until the check clears. Curious how similar this is to
raising capital.

The cost of this POC for us was power/cooling, some of my time, and the
opportunity cost of not using the machine for other engineering work. But the
long term cost to the customer for their poor behavior and poor choices can't
be easily measured, other than them not hitting their KPOs.

I do take full blame for this failure though. It was mine. But it is still
annoying. All teachable moments leave marks.

~~~
CPLX
> Curious how similar this is to raising capital.

 __Exactly __the same.

~~~
beachstartup
interestingly, a lot of our sales woes went away when we started asking for
some money up front. we're all first-time sales people at my outfit.

people who are willing to pay a small fee up front are the only people you can
work with as a services startup, the rest are worthless.

------
Roritharr
My favourite:

Founder Institute

\- run by international group of millionaire magazine-cover entrepreneurs

\- doesn’t invest a penny in its companies

\- charges founders thousands of dollars for mentorship

\- well-regarded startup accelerator

\-------------------

I was once offered the position to head the local chapter, after having a
private phonecall with Adeo, I declined as I couldn't see the value offered.
The next person took it, and as expected, the local chapter failed
spectacularly and the people founding it were out of a lot of work and didn't
get anything in return.

It's still a mistery to me why that organization has credibility.

~~~
argonaut
In their limited defense, they do position themselves more as an educational
program than as an incubator.

~~~
tomasien
In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around
Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.

------
leroy_masochist
> me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position

> CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers

> me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position

> CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball?

> me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position

This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it
especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few
employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you
care about culture fit?

It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by
good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on
getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.

~~~
tedmiston
I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to
getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I
hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?"

Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed
startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.

~~~
DanBC
You're filtering out people who don't drink alcohol.

That probably doesn't have much to do with whether they're any good at the job
or whether you like working with them.

~~~
_yosefk
Actually, wouldn't you expect drinking to correlate negatively with a
programmer's output? Whatever bullshit people say about drugs enhancing their
output, I've never heard similar bullshit about alcohol/hangover being a
stimulant and if someone drinks a lot there's a decent chance they'd program
when drunk or hungover.

(Personally I've tried once to program when drunk - I ate nothing the whole
morning and drank half a bottle of wine, which is more than enough for me
given my very little drinking experience; I couldn't stop laughing at any joke
by the guy we drank with - or at pretty much anything he said, really. I did
write pretty decent code in the couple of hours it took me to become sober
again, in retrospect, and I think it actually gave me courage to tackle the
shit I had to at that moment, but then I thought about it all a lot before
getting drunk and it was almost done and all I had to do was finish it. It
didn't feel like I'd do very well in general in that condition.)

~~~
tedmiston
Even in a startup environment with a keg in the office, I wouldn't typically
drink and code, besides perhaps a Friday afternoon beer.

That said, for personal projects in the evenings, I find having 1-2 drinks
helpful for removing barriers to perfectionism when you have simple coding
tasks to solve.

~~~
shopkins
Bingo. Implementing features doesn't usually require it, but keeping an entire
system in your head with all its complexity and chain reactions from making
something work another way keeps me from moving ahead sometimes -- especially
when it isn't clear what the best option is. A beer or two helps me pick one
and keep moving, to discover the answer as I go.

------
rcurry
Startup: We need an experienced Foo programmer.

Me: Those are easy to find.

Startup: Our lead developer keeps shooting them down because they don't know
(obscure keyword).

Me: How long would it take an experienced programmer to learn (obscure
keyword)?

Startup: I don't know, maybe an hour?

Me: How long have you been hiring for this position?

Startup: About six months.

Me: Would it help if I sent you a transcript of this call?

Startup: What?

Me: Never mind...

~~~
chrisbennet
I might have down voted you by accident. Was trying to up vote you, little
arrows/big thumbs/mobile. Sorry.

------
ninkendo
\-- me: sits through yet another mandatory hours-long meeting where the
loudest two developers one-up each other to find the best hypothetical
solution to the most convoluted problem they can imagine as it relates to the
urgent, critical problem we currently face whose simple, plain solution goes
entirely ignored and where no decision is made. \--

I have trouble laughing at what I know is supposed to be humor, because of how
tragically true this is and how much this affects me on a regular basis.

But I don't work for a startup! I thought it was supposed to be different in
that world.

Perhaps some problems are just universal.

~~~
ratsmack
How about the meeting where the non-problems and false concerns are beaten
like a dead horse by people without the knowledge or skill to be in the
discussion. But you have to just sit there with your face in your palm because
if you say anything to try and correct the misdirection, you will be
considered not a "team player".

~~~
ryanmarsh
This is the default for Fortune 500 work.

Case in point, grossly expensive COTS implemtation requiring 80 consultants to
build ETL pipeline to handle roughly 5,000-10,000 transactions A DAY simple
XML files to DB rows.

Told client a few smart devs could build this in a few months. Got the ಠ_ಠ

------
adeadb2bcompany
Hi, so this is all happening at the startup I work at:

#1

CEO: We just closed a XX million dollar Series C funding round!

\-- later at an a company wide meeting ---

CEO: we have zero revenue. if we asked our customers to pay us, they would
drop our product in a second... so, uh, we really don't have product market
fit yet.

me: ...

CEO: no worries. we are attacking such a large market. surely we'll find
something. and when we do it will be HUGE... it'll be... it'll be... it's so
huge I'm having trouble even describing it!

#2

\-- at an important weekly product meeting --

CEO: okay it's been ten minutes. where is [cofounder]

CTO: oh he's in china for the week.

CEO: ...

CTO: On vacation.

everyone else: ... (your cofounder didn't tell you that?)

#3

me: your company name "cadabra" sounds like cadaver.

ceo: nah, dude.

me: you had to spell it out when I asked you to pronounce it.

ceo: nah, we just need to hire more marketing people.

#4

wannabe designer: so tell me how you approach design.

me: well I really like being apart of the process from start to finish, since
I've also done UX wor--

designer: great, let me tell you how we do design here. i draw up the stuff
and you do it, unless there's a technical problem. you can argue and you will
be wrong, ha ha.

me: you're joking right?

designer: * proceeds to create barely passable UIs *

And the list goes on. I have plenty of more stories to share but I am
currently busy seeking employment elsewhere.

Shameless plug: If you're looking for an American android developer (10,000+
install base on play store), or a front end web developer ( Tech Giant), a
back python/java developer ( past startups ), let's talk shop at
snarkyhackernewsuser@gmail.com.

~~~
colmvp
It's honestly baffling to me how much #2 resonates with a company I'm working
for.

I just don't get it. There typically aren't that many co-founders in a
company. How hard is it to keep one another on the same page. Sometimes it's
about vacation times. Sometimes it's about resourcing. Sometimes it's about
projects being worked on.

~~~
adeadb2bcompany
It's not a question of "how much effort" but more "what kind" of effort. In my
situation, I'm getting a firm impression one of the cofounder is "checking
out"[1] so the kind of effort needed to notify his fellow cofounder is
probably not something he can summon at the time.

I find it particularly distressing because, in my view, your cofounder is like
your lifelong partner. Imagine going to another country without telling your
husband or wife for a week. Maybe it'll be fine if you apologize afterwards...
but what would you tell your kids? Metaphorically, the "kids" are everyone who
sat in on that meeting and were amazed at the lack of communication between
the two.

[1] He doesn't really seem to have a huge role in the company anymore. He does
not seem anywhere near as stressed as his cofounder. He kept silent when there
was a "we don't have product market fit, oh shit" situation when it was
revealed to the company.

------
bsdpython
A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that
waste your time. I guess it's not limited to just the startup space but one
thing I've learned is that there is an unlimited number of people that are
willing to waste your time and boy is it frustrating.

~~~
trimbo
On the bright side, at least you get a free latte or cappuccino while having
your time wasted.

~~~
ant6n
I don't do coffee or alcohol.

~~~
AznHisoka
I just want to talk over Thai iced tea damn it! Screw this coffee and/or beer!
Thai iced tea!

------
tdaltonc
> married hetero male founders: we're thinking of getting an intern

> me: okay but I don't see what we could offer. You know we're on a really
> tight

> married hetero male founders: we're getting an intern.

> intern: (beautiful 18yo girl)

Young male intern --> Everyone assumes you're a Wunderkind.

Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you.

Startupbullshit

~~~
neilk
Hells to the no. In my experience, if you see a useless young male intern,
he's probably the nephew of the dumbest investor.

But the pattern holds in one way, because to keep up appearances, we're
supposed to put the useless male intern on coding projects. So he's more of a
net negative.

------
tonecluster
So many... so many.

me: (up all night fixing bugs in production due to technical debt and mistakes
from overworked and tired devs. Sleep from 5am to 9am, show up to office at
10am)

CEO (sales background), walking by as he sees me enter the office: "Hey tone,
I want butts in seats, including yours. We have a culture of hard work here.
Set an example."

...

CTO: "We don't need to hire expensive devs. Just hire from overseas and
promise them an H1B. They'll work for the minimum."

me: "That's not only unsustainable, it's unethical. H1B is a lottery, we can't
promise that!"

CTO: "I don't expect them to know that, and you're not going to tell them! Get
them on-boarded and working a.s.a.p."

me: (goes home, writes resignation email)

------
sohcahtoa
Interviewer: We need someone with [describes soft skill set for my dream job]

Me: Great career opportunity, I'd certainly be willing to move across country
for this

Interviewer, day 1: Here's your desk, now I'm going to assign you a ticket off
the backlog. Let me know when you're done and I'll assign you another one.
[pats me on the head and walks away]

Bait'n'switch, and I fell for it. I think it's the only way they can get
people to come to this no-good podunk town, with not a sushi bar for miles,
and 19th century development practices. And yes, I am preparing my awesome
flameout exit. I hope to hear the lamentation of their womenfolk.

~~~
rco8786
Not sure what your dream job is. But pulling a few tickets off the backlog is
a pretty normal way to ramp up new hires.

~~~
sohcahtoa
I take your point, and I do that with new hires myself.

I'm compressing things for comic effect, but I promise you the core of the
story is true - I got suckered in by wonderful promises, and interviewing in
the industry hot spot I _was_ in is going to involve significant time and cash
outlay.

------
nlh
A lot of these appear to stem from inexperience -- the founder/CEO/CTO doing
and saying what they think they're supposed to do or because "that's what
successful people do."

I'm going to be slightly reverse-ageist for a moment: I'm at a startup where
the average age is over 40, the founder is deeply experienced as both an
engineer and a manager, and I can honestly say that NONE of this stuff
happens. I took my reading these anecdotes to appreciate how nice (and
apparently rare?) this is.

~~~
stanleydrew
The anecdotes show inexperience on both sides. If you are taking interviews
with so many bad startup founders that you are able to compile a list like
this, maybe you should work on your own filtering mechanism to stop talking to
people who will waste your time.

------
meesterdude
I loved these! I certainly have been through some of that nonsense.

i would add:

job offer: salary range $100-$130k

interviewer: the max for this position is $80K

interviewer: hello?

~~~
lucisferre
I see this a lot with startups hiring on Angel List. Angel List makes them
specify a salary range so they do, but always offer well below the minimum.

At best they are blatantly insulting the candidate, at worst they are liars.
Probably both.

~~~
meesterdude
wow, they've all been from angel list for me too! i didn't realize the
connection till now.

~~~
amitm
Sorry to hear about your experience. We take abuse like this seriously. If
possible, could you email me the names of the companies at amit@angel.co?

~~~
lucisferre
I think it's awesome that you take this so seriously. I also think it's great
that you ask companies to be upfront about compensation (I say this as an
founder). It irks me when companies aren't forthright with potential hires.

------
padobson
Based on my experience, there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the type
of charismatic pitch founder capable of raising money and getting people to
work for less than their market rate, and the bean counter-oversight founder
capable of running an efficient business. But it's the former type that is
able to raise money, so they find themselves in a position to have
conversations like these.

~~~
fredkbloggs
That's fine, but if you're that kind of founder you have to know your
limitations and hire a top-flight COO to handle that side of things. If you
can't, or won't, you're just another shitty founder-CEO whose company is going
to fail.

------
hwstar
Problems are not just limited to startups. Here's some of the shenanigans
which went on in the last company I worked for:

Company is constantly on credit hold. Engineers receive calls from suppliers
stating that they haven't been paid and no one in accounts payable is
returning their calls.

Company does layoffs on a recurring basis, and then hires different people for
a new project. In one case they hired back the same people they laid off a
year ago and paid them signing bonuses.

CEO shows gross indifference when someone leaves the company. Just shrugs it
off.

CEO walks into VP of HR's office with someone and states that you're fired,
and this is your replacement.

CEO constantly worrying about getting delisted from NASDAQ.

CEO and VP Engineering "chum" thinking they know the price of components and
stating that that should cost $5, when everyone supplying stated item is
asking $15.

------
supjeff
I've worked for startups as a full-stack dev for about 5 years, and spent the
last year trying to land a position in as a technical manager. This specific
pursuit has lead to some of the most bullshit encounters I've had with
startups. What are some of your bullshit experiences?

~~~
sokoloff
In the phrase "technical manager", technical is an adjective; the noun is
manager.

What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager
without tech management experience?

It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than
many devs think.

~~~
ToPutItBluntly
Every single manager I have had in the SF Bay Area is at least one position up
from where they would be anywhere else in the country. This area has a
reputation for being the best place to start a career. Well it also should
have the reputation for being the best place to jump into management.

Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not
demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you
need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions.

If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to
get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay
front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to
jump).

~~~
supjeff
Good advice. Thanks :)

------
Jean-Philipe
I had this:

young male intern: talks a lot but is not working young female intern: does
all the work of the male intern, gets half the pay

me: why? ceo: because the male intern is from some important school!

~~~
mziel
Not trying to start a flame, but what difference does it make that they're
male or female? The difference is as you said "some important school".

~~~
Jean-Philipe
Okay, I actually consider that a valid question. The thing was: all the female
employees in that team got half (!) the pay of the guys. The guys of that team
didn't work, but the women were _much_ more productive.

The fact that he's "from some important school" wich in this case didn't
provide any value at all, was just a lame excuse for "he has a p*nis".

Another excuse I heard from that CEO, when one of the underpaid team members
asked him about the difference in pay, was this: "It's your market value!"
which reads quite clearly as "You earn less because you're a woman"

PS: Had a lot of these cases in that company and the gender was the only
common denominator. I'm glad I left. Meanwhile they have a new CEO, and things
have improved.

------
smcl
The "less than half for cash" one is something I used to see from customers
all the time when working in a bar. You'd say "£10.50, please" and they'd
reply "£10 for cash?" as if I'd happily chip in 50p myself (till shortages
need covered somehow) instead of having to accept a card payment. I never
understood the mentality - it costs £x, so pay £x or go away

~~~
jacquesm
They assumed that you'd simply pocket the 10 quid rather than book it
officially so 'everybody would come out ahead'. Never mind that you'd be
committing fraud.

~~~
tedmiston
On a recent trip to Greece, I found this being asked by businesses, especially
restaurants and bars, but down to my hotel that I reserved with a CC: "Could
you please pay in cash instead?"

~~~
jakub_g
It's not unheard of in Europe to get 2-3% discounts if paying by cash
(particularly in computer stores). The reason is that in some countries,
merchants pay that percentage of Visa/MC commission (and in case of Amex even
more) plus a fixed fee per transaction. For that same reason bars usually
accept cards only over a threshold of 5-10€ or so. Though if that happens in
hotels indeed it is strange then.

------
doctorpangloss
It's probably unfair to pin all the sexism stuff on startups. If you've ever
been to a big company, you'd know that the pink collar workforce idea is way
worse. There are a lot of women in junior or administrative positions who can
only really interact with their bosses and immediate peers professionally but
whom the entire organization, from CEO to lowly PA, tries to hit on.

------
eitland
Three of mine:

Recruiting company: Someone needs a php developer for work in X industry.

I work on the industry, take the test they give me, get a perfect score, never
hear a word, no interview.

Big company : I travel across the mountains to an interview, 15 minutes before
arriving I get a call, "we can't meet you today, we will come back with
another time".

Startup: we need someone with strong cognitive skills and php and javascript
experience (8 y ago, before everyone had 10 y javascript experience). In
interview: you are one of two qualified, the otherone is from <other country,
more than two hours away, by plane>, -goes on to advertise the position again,
then after realizing there are no other goes on to offer me below market
rates. I go on to learn Java in a better paid job with better well -
everything.

------
tonecluster
Here's one (not solely experienced in startups, however):

manager: "Since you're single, can you work through the holidays and cover the
systems/push this feature/go the extra mile so that the people with families
can spend time with them?"

~~~
mrbill
Being that guy before, and with family an 8-hour drive away, I've volunteered
to do that more than once.

Earns goodwill from the people with families, the boss has one less thing to
worry about at end of year, and the holidays are usually "dead time" so I got
a lot of slack time in.

~~~
tonecluster
Volunteering is one thing, and very cool to do to take some of the stress off
of people with children. But asking an employee is quite another (IMO). It's a
form of soft discrimination, though not intended as such I'm sure.

(Though, thinking about it, I was told once "Yeah, well, you don't have kids,
so this [the holiday] isn't that important for you." that wasn't a startup,
however, that was a F100)

------
cinquemb
After a round of interviews/ in person with a public software company in
Boston (who just acquired last pass):

Company recruiting lead: The team enjoyed meeting you. They felt you are very
smart and personable. [VP of engineering] liked your work with machine
learning. At this time, they feel you are a bit junior for the team.

I had to laugh, glad I dogged a bullet.

------
htaunay
CEO: We gonna need to do some crunch time the next 2/3 weeks. Unfortunately,
we fell behind schedule and we can't let this next delivery be late. We can't
pay any of you overtime because we are already on a tight budget, as you know,
but to raise moral after we deliver the company is going to take everyone out
to this great restaurant + drinks to raise our morale and toast of the future
of this great and promising business!

The team: Ok. Not what we expected, but we have some equity, its a tough
market, and we have been working on this for a while. Let's hope it pays off
in the future.

Three weeks - working from Sunday to Sunday - later...

The Team: Yes! I can't believe we delivered! We are more motivated than ever!
Now let's celebrate!

CEO: Yeah, sorry, no time for that. Here's a $40 dollar check for each of you
to go out and grab a bite. Oh, and by the look of our roadmap we might need to
crunch some more next month.

The Team: [starts quitting one by one]

------
spinlock
Am I the only one who would have really appreciated a trigger warning?

------
kelukelugames
YC helps young founders because of stereotypes against them. I wouldn't imply
that someone lacks merit because she is 18 and attractive. There needs to be
more context for that post.

~~~
moron4hire
Who says this has anything to do with YC?

~~~
kelukelugames
Hi. Thank you for asking. I should have clarified. The tumblr post is not
related to YC. I cited YC's philosophy as an example of why we shouldn't judge
people by their age.

~~~
supjeff
Funny thing is, this happened at a YC company.

------
randycupertino
My first startup's CEO practiced "The Game" and used to bring the dev team out
in SF to practice peacocking, negging and other ridiculous seduction
techniques on unsuspecting women. I'm in an ltr and dreaded having to go, but
didn't want to be left out so I would tag along. It was horrible.

~~~
JBReefer
How many sexual harassment lawsuits were there? Why would anyone think this is
OK?

~~~
randycupertino
Ugh I don't know. I've since gotten a new job but he's still there as a
figurehead CEO... the COO makes all the decisions/runs the show from what I've
heard. Glad I got out. It was just one of many many juvenile actions from that
boss.

------
kevinthew
happened to be recently:

Manager: Hey you're here for the xx position right? You know, you sound like
you'd be a really good fit for this new job that opened up, I just fired this
guy, millennials amirite, so let's talk about that for the next hour.

------
Jemaclus
me: I'm here for the engineering manager position

them: great, can you come in for a front-end developer interview at 2?

me: I'm here for the engineering manager position

them: here's an offer for a front-end position making below-average $

me: thanks for your time

them: ???????

CEO: Why won't anyone work for us?

them: we offered them a job!

------
junkilo
one from the devops/sre trenches...

> (devops guy) hi, im here for the lead devops role > (CTO) awesome, you'd be
> a great fit here. can you write a sudoku solver in ruby real quick? >
> (devops guy) [writes solver in ruby] > (CTO) wow looks great... when can you
> start? do you have any questions for me? > (devops guy) I do have a
> question: how do you shard your bigdata installations and what is it built
> on? > (CTO) oh I wrote my own, we call it redisbigtable -- its the worlds
> first CAP compliant data store. oh, and we shard by customer. > (devops guy)
> thank you for your time.

~~~
dlitz
> (CTO) Look, we're a startup; we don't have time for the perfect solution
> here. You should consider being more pragmatic...

------
giis
>Would you sign something saying you'll give me $250k in cash one year from
now if I work for the company?

this is classic ! :)

------
pyb
I've had 2 of these exact interactions, in the London local startup scene, and
that was just last week.

------
eecks
Are these just made up or are they coming from somewhere?

~~~
ddebernardy
The examples ring very true, unfortunately. If you pop in on the Startups
Stack Exchange (or the Work Life Stack Exchange), you'll periodically find
concrete examples.

------
giis
\---

During interview with founder:

me : I believe 'honesty is the best policy'

founder: Great! we need like-minded people like you.

(after few months)

founder: He creates negative environment within the team!

~~~
taurath
Honesty is in general the best way to foster trust, but extreme honesty and
off-the-cuff opinion-giving is a good way to make everyone afraid of giving
honest assessments.

------
pbreit
Many/most seem more an indictment on engineer lack of understanding what it
takes to get a startup off the ground.

~~~
HiLo
You're getting downvoted, but I have to agree to an extent. To be fair, many
business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it
takes to get a startup off the ground.

The irony is, I guess, that most people involved in a startup don't know what
it takes to actually get it off the ground, because the formula they've been
sold doesn't really actually work, and they don't have the business (or
technical!) savvy to correct course.

~~~
pbreit
"business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it
takes to get a startup off the ground"

I would not totally disagree with this. But here's the thing: no-one really
does. It's extremely difficult. If many people did know, it wouldn't be as
lucrative. Being the boss is by far the hardest position in the whole
endeavor.

------
mrbill
Reminds me a lot of

[http://clientsfromhell.net/](http://clientsfromhell.net/)

------
fny
COO: We need to crush the MVP, so unfortunately we'll be working weekends now.

Designer: ...

COO: Don't worry everything will cool down after Thanksgiving!

Designer: Fine...

(Week before Thanksgiving)

COO: Finish everything? Like is X, Y, Z all good to go?

Designer: Yep, everything's finished!

COO: Awesome! Unfortunately, we're going to have to let you go...

------
bsg75
Has anyone done the math to show if your odds are better at the typical
startup vs the typical craps table?

Equivalents of time and money, and the odds of wasting it all on chance?

~~~
huac
craps is expected value of ~0.96 of what you put in. i don't know how you want
to quantify 'startup odds'

~~~
bsg75
> i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds'

Perhaps, a sampling of people who took the option to work for equity, and the
ratio of those whose investment in time made the equity valuable, over those
who would have had a better income with a typical salary.

------
b123400
We are working in a coworking space, but the CTO doesn't seems to like this
idea at all, he keeps asking people in the common area to shut up.

------
velox_io
It's quite scary how many startups treat Lean Startup as the gospel and follow
it word for word.

------
Giorgi
It's beyond me why would anyone would want to give away part of his/her
company just because of some shitty development work, and most of developers
do just that - write shitty code because they don't give a crap about quality

As a founder you are better of paying some random developer do have viable
product and then if it works - hire someone.

NEVER GIVE AWAY EQUITY FOR JOB.

~~~
hamburglar
It seems like your "developers only produce crap" and "don't make offers that
are favorable to developers" philosophies may be more related than you think.

------
michaeloblak
This is so true! Awesome (and sad)!

------
mrcrassic
this is amazing.

------
the_cat_kittles
love the equity one. imagine asking "what is the expected value of the
equity?", getting a number, and then saying "ok, pay me that when it vests
instead of giving me the equity".

------
cft
Somebody who dedicates his time to publicly spew this toxic attitude will
likely not archive success that is pleasant for him.

~~~
sohcahtoa
This sentence sounds like an Evil Fortune Cookie.

~~~
chvid
I like it!

