
Undisrupted: HubSpot's Reflections on “Disrupted” - bognition
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/undisrupted-hubspots-reflections-disrupted-dan-lyons-dharmesh-shah
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55555
I'm only a quarter of the way into the book, and it's really pretty funny, but
also insufferably harsh and cynical and misanthropic and holier-than-thou and
self-righteous and downright mean. Oh, and I guess I should apologize to Dan
for being 25 and therefore knowing nothing at all and being useless. In my
opinion as a business owner, the world doesnt owe you a job and if you
immediately think you hate the place maybe you should quit. I understand that
he had twins though (and thus was doing the wrong thing for the right
reasons).

I guess I'm not used to reading something so mean-spirited.

Disclaimer: I don't work at HubSpot and they do indeed sound like a stock-
pumping cult that has a large boiler room selling average software.

~~~
DKnoll
I'm about halfway through. So far I find the book to be an amusing send up of
startup culture. A bit like an updated version of Coupland's Microserfs with
slightly more factual basis. Although, I am confused by his condemnation of
HubSpot and his former colleagues for age discrimination when he regularly
questions his colleagues for their own (lesser) age. Especially since many of
his younger colleagues obviously had more industry experience since this was
his first time working for and not writing about a tech company.

~~~
galtwho
Dan has written on Linkedin a summary of his experience as well.

[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)

~~~
DKnoll
Basically the same arguments as the book... just condensed. Slightly more
bitter if anything. Comparing ageism to sexism or racism, as he constantly
does, is a complete cop-out. He was 23 once... as I am now, and I'm in a worse
economy. Everyone ages... it's a shared experience; we all do one day. I
should add, if he was such a toxic employee from day 1, as his own commentary
suggests, he was lucky to make it two years.

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gizmo
This entire post is just PR spin. I looked for substance. Couldn't find any.
Exactly the sort of response I should expect from a company as awful as
claimed in the book.

In 'Disrupted' Dan claims the company is cultlike, ageist, sexist, and whiter
than a Klan meeting. The book argues HubSpot is cruel and the management
engages in childish as well as grossly abusive behavior. In the postscript
even criminal behavior is alleged. I'm not sure whether Dan is a reliable
source (and he certainly has his share of character flaws), but the book is
utterly damning of HubSpot as a company. Unless HubSpot figures out how to
counter some of the claims their reputation is (perhaps irredeemably)
tarnished.

~~~
swampthinker
What do you mean by substance?

~~~
username223
Well, this is the opposite of "substance":

> improving our margins by 12 percentage points in Q4 2015 (non-GAAP)

i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two
numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other."

The rest was pretty standard damage control lip-flapping. Here's another good
bit:

> When people were fired did you actually call it a graduation? Unfortunately,
> yes. In certain groups we used the term graduation to describe the event
> when someone was leaving the company, either because they resigned or we let
> them go.

The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words
"Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.

~~~
swampthinker
>i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two
numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other."

Numbers don't lie:
[http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db...](http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db-22b2-4d98-bf1a-6dc4537e2286.html#)

> The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words
> "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.The curse upon
> the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called
> firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.

Because not everyone is fired from a company, sometimes they leave on their
own accord?

~~~
username223
> Because not everyone is fired from a company, sometimes they leave on their
> own accord?

Absolutely, but most humans recognize the difference. Maybe HubSpot could use
"X has graduated" vs. "X has been graduated."

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swampthinker
My 2 cents (Well, 1 cent really):

Something that stuck out to me when reading an article about Hubspot that Dan
posted: "Hubspot's offices were colored bright like a Montessori school" as
some type of criticism.

However, having walked around their offices all too many times, I can say that
it's orange and white splattered around a brick-and-glass warehouse[1]. Pretty
standard way to brand your own offices, and stark contrast to Newsweek's
offices[2].

If Dan is making a fuss about something like this, I'm really not inclined to
take him too seriously, despite the good points he makes.

[1][https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-
area.jp...](https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-area.jpg)

[2][http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles...](http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles-
large-image/articles/images/000_arp2469692.jpg)

~~~
xiaoma
Wait, so you think orange and white is more standard for an office than wood
colored and white?

The Newsweek office looks like it could be anywhere. There's nothing even
remotely non-conventional about it. The Hubspot one screams pretentious start-
up, probably in SF or someplace in the US following its lead.

~~~
visakanv
He said "Pretty standard way to brand your own offices", meaning using your
own brand's color scheme to color your stuff. Yahoo's offices are purple,
Virgin's offices are red, etc etc

~~~
chris_wot
Purple offices. Sigh.

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762236
Remember that this book is entertainment, and Lyons advertises it as
entertainment. I have already forgotten everyone's names, and would have
forgotten the company's name had it not come up in the news recently over this
book. But the book has valid revelations about the industry (one reason I read
the book was to hear this, since I am a software developer with lots of
startup experience and now some big-company experience); and it also has sad
material about poor inter-personal interactions with lots of covert aggression
(which can happen in any industry, but it will be mitigated or exacerbated by
company culture and the quality of the role models --- which is one reason you
want elders in your company, for if you don't have role models and coaches,
you are in for a sorry life).

To make a book entertaining, you need material. This startup and some of the
employees gave him lots of material that he didn't want. I think that Lyons
would have been much happier if the startup had provided a flourishing
environment rather than material for writing such a book. I do not think that
he sought this out --- I've experienced a languishing environment and it is
punishing. The irony is that (based on his telling of the story) people used
quite a bit of covert aggression towards him, assuming that he would be some
powerless guy out of fear of losing his job due to his age, yet he has power
through an audience that will read his books, and the aggressors walked right
into it with poor behavior.

~~~
chris_wot
A similar thing happened to the Australian comedian Judith Lucy when she was a
breakfast DJ for 2DayFM. She turned the experience into a stand up comedy tour
called _I Failed_.

[http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--
i-fa...](http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--
i-failed/2006/04/14/1144521489741.html)

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ChuckMcM
I thought that was a solid response, take ownership of some of the more
egregious things, re-contextualize some of the impressions. But I was pretty
amazed at the 12.6% annual turnover? That is 126 people a year, it would be
interesting to know the mean and median tenure length. Its very expensive to
replace that many people a year.

~~~
devishard
Turnover rate is one of the best indicators of whether a place is a good place
to work. You can game most indicators without significantly impacting people's
quality of life. But ultimately if people don't like working at your company
they'll leave. You can delay that a bit by having equity take a while to vest
but that doesn't prevent some people from leaving and when it does, it really
only delays the turnover by the vestment period, doesn't change the rate.

~~~
collyw
Thats true in my experience as well.

Is there any way that data can be accessed easily?

~~~
devishard
I ask in the interview. A lot of companies are willing to share. It's a small
red flag if they won't or can't tell you.

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shockzzz
Good response, I'll give him that. It succeeds it bringing focus away from the
fact that they tried to kill the book before it got published

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
bognition
Trying to kill the book doesn't mean anything what company wouldn't try to
kill a book like this?

~~~
shockzzz
Could you expand on that more? From my perspective, there are a lot of ethical
concerns with silencing opposing viewpoints. In fact, one of the execs was
publicly admonished and fired because he tried to do so:

[http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-
ct...](http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-cto-discuss-
firing-of-companys-third-founder-over-ethical-lapse/)

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rl3
Sounds like the book was just sour grapes because the author didn't receive a
J.E.D.I. award despite having so much H.E.A.R.T.

Using a 128-slide PowerPoint presentation to convey their culture is ironic at
best.

~~~
bognition
How so?

~~~
rl3
Overly verbose. Good culture isn't compromised of four-letter acronyms, or
photos that suggest conflating professional and personal relationships is a
good idea.

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rdl
I read the book on Sunday. I think there was a lot of selection bias -- a
company which would hire a random journalist at a high salary to write
blogspam, badly, and not fire him for underperformance, is the kind of company
which will have asshats in various management roles, too. You end up with the
bozo explosion.

Imagine that book if he had gotten hired into a meaningful role at a company
like SpaceX. I suppose that is ultimately what happened -- joined a great
writing team at HBO and performed as well as the team.

~~~
pjc50
Well, yes, that's the point of the book - war stories from an awful workplace.

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SFLemonade
Really impressive response - they took the high road here and the data was
nice. The whole time I was reading the book, I just felt like something was
off. Like he was sort of out of touch and hypocritical in a lot of his
arguments (like accusing the company of ageism, right after complaining that
his manager was 28). It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book
before even taking a job at the company. Too many low-ball shots and
unsubstantiated stories of hearsay. Glad to see the other side of this.

~~~
visakanv
> It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book before even taking a
> job at the company.

This seems pretty likely to me.

~~~
ant6n
He worked at the company for 20 months. That's almost two years. If this was
an undercover stunt, then he was pretty committed to this.

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cplease
They are pleased that, to their knowledge, they employ over 100 parents. First
of all, it's fricking telling that a company isn't even aware whether or not
its own employees have kids, and has to resort to eyeballing insurance
numbers. That kind of screams "doesn't give a crap," especially for a company
which otherwise seems to feel a need to invade every aspect of its employees'
lives.

Google says HubSpot has 785 employees. i.e. 12.7% of their workforce has
children. 75% of U.S. adults have children and only 5% do not want children.
Granted that number might be lower in Singapore, but it's higher in Ireland.

So this is basically a definitive admission that HubSpot is a workforce that
is incompatible with having children, hostile to them, and in all likelihood
actively discriminating against parents. And it doesn't take much probing to
see why.

Mr. Shah editorializes on the "over 40" statistic that it "needs work," but
apparently not the fact that only 12% of its workforce is managing to raise a
family (at least for the time being).

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payne92
As my mom says, class never goes out of style.

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chris_wot
"We were pulled into the process". Yeah, kicking and screaming, I'll bet!

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obelix74
The book is the "Liar's poker" for startups. Biased, cynical take, but worth a
read if you are into startups / > 30 / work for an unicorn startup.

I am disappointed with the post above, they did not address the FBI part of
the question. What did Cranium do to get fired? How badly did they mess up Dan
Lyons' life?

