
HQ CEO: If You Run This Profile, We’ll Fire Our Host - coloneltcb
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ceo-of-hq-the-hottest-app-going-if-you-run-this-profile-well-fire-our-host
======
geofft
If anyone here is looking for a startup idea: hire Scott at twice what he's
making, clone HQ Trivia, and make him a cofounder instead of a contractor. The
market has been validated, it's clear that the market cares about Scott as a
person (they're dressing up as him for Halloween!), and it seems doubtful that
he _enjoys_ being a contractor given all of this.

~~~
Abundnce10
> Over 170,000 people waited in the game’s lobby to play the HQ on Sunday
> night.

It seems like no easy feat to build out an app that streams live video as well
as trivia questions/answers to 170k concurrent users. Does anyone have a guess
at how they went about architecting a product like this?

~~~
geofft
I feel like I'd buy that in the short term - that's what VC money is for. (And
perhaps in the long term too.) The hard part is the live streaming; sending <1
kilobyte of _data_ to 170k concurrent users every few seconds isn't a
fundamentally challenging problem (it's on the order of 1Gbps outbound
traffic). YouTube has a live-streaming API I'd be inclined to build a proof of
concept with and see how far that gets me; if not, a couple minutes of
Googling finds me Ustream, owned by IBM, charging $99-$999/month for their
"professional" tier, and Livestream (.com) charging $799 for their
"enterprise" tier, with both having a call-us-if-you-need-more tier. That's
cheap enough that you can fund the tech side on this on even just the old-
school YC $20K until you have enough traction to do a better job of it.

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jlgaddis
Wow, that is a completely absurd reaction from the co-founder. He could've
gotten some great, free PR for the company out of the story.

Instead, he's about to be on the front page of HN and probably several other
media outlets, in a story centered around him and portraying him as a shitty
boss that nobody would want to work for or with.

Hopefully everything works out well for Mr. Rogowski.

~~~
mattmanser
Especially as the guy's a contractor, he can do whatever the hell he wants.

It's like it is becoming the new normal in startups, treat contractors like
they're your personal slaves, while you can drop them whenever you want.

It's a reminder of why employment laws are so necessary.

~~~
nso
I guess the problem could be that he find himself in a situation where his app
is being associated with a contractor they hired, and he doesn't want to
further solidify him as "the brand".

Imagine if MySpace Tom was just a contractor that could leave to join the
competition any day.

Panic mode, which result in observed nutty behaviour.

~~~
jonwachob91
So why use him on all your marketing material if you are afraid of him just up
and leaving?

~~~
ben_jones
Greed. They want the short term profit from it.

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minimaxir
The founder profiled in the article just tweeted:

> Looking for a good PR agent. DM me if interested!

[https://twitter.com/rus/status/933075047039856642](https://twitter.com/rus/status/933075047039856642)

~~~
theDoug
Needs help and media training badly. Past that, good sense to know to not
apply additional pressure to your popular contract employee, while on another
phone call with a reporter, and ask

> “Now they want to reframe the story as me threatening to fire you. Do you
> think that’s a good idea?”

~~~
iufbuidsbfi
The problem isn't his media training, the problem is his moral compass. Treat
your employees with respect just as you'd treat any human being with dignity.

------
minimaxir
The article title is _not_ clickbait.

This is an extremely _bizarre_ reaction for a founder who has already had
successful startup experience.

~~~
TillE
Seems like a control freak who assumes the worst initially, then continually
refuses to back down when corrected. It's bizarre, but it's a great example of
how certain allegedly desirable traits in a founder can turn pathological.

~~~
rhizome
I think even "assuming the worst" gives him too much credit, it's just
irrational control freakery.

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crsv
I had literally never heard of HQ before reading this article, and I work in
the tech / software space. This has to be the weirdest attempt at guerrilla
marketing ever.

~~~
mmanfrin
It occurs 2x a day and there are around 80k people who log on at those moments
-- I don't feel this is an attempt at marketing.

~~~
a13n
Over 100k now

------
kelnos
It's not unusual for employees/contractors to be forbidden from speaking about
their employer with reporters, at least not without clearance from PR and/or
some vetting of questions and responses.

That said, this CEO's response is completely off the rails. Presumably he
_didn't_ have a pre-arranged agreement or contract with Rogowsky regarding
talking to reporters, and was trying to shut them up after the fact. Lame.

~~~
paulgb
Just to play devil's advocate, it could have seemed to the CEO as if Rogowsky
approached the media instead of the other way around, and that he was trying
to gain leverage ahead of the contract renegotiation. It wouldn't surprise me
if their contractor agreement / NDA covered not talking to the press.

Seems to take a real stretch of the imagination not to see the CEO as in the
wrong here, though.

~~~
bearcobra
Assuming that was true, I'm not sure why that'd be the Daily Beast's problem.
His accusation seems to be that they're doing something wrong by publishing an
article or talking to an employee. The responsibility for maintaining any
agreement/NDA isn't on the news outlet.

~~~
paulgb
Yes, frankly I'm surprised they even cooperated enough to read him the quotes.
They didn't have to.

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n4r9
If the reporting is faithful (big if) then Yusupov is demonstrating neurotic,
paranoid and controlling tendencies. Maybe that's just his personality; if
focused correctly I imagine those traits could benefit a startup's growth.
Another plausible explanation: his regret over what happened to Vine after
selling it to Twitter has led to obsessively avoiding any chance of making
similar "mistakes".

~~~
rhizome
"Generals are always fighting the last war."

------
jedanbik
I wonder if Yusupov realized that this would be the way that I and many other
readers would learn about his app for the first time.

~~~
buu700
Interesting point. I'd never heard of Rus or HQ, and was only loosely familiar
with Vine, but as someone who watches Jeopardy daily I'm interested enough
that I'll at least test HQ out because of this.

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throwaway2016a
This CEO needs to Google "Streisand effect"

Unless that is actual what he wants. Sounds like this contractor (no
employee?) is critical to the company's success and firing him would be
suicidal without first diversifying.

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moz-hx
The founder/CEO comes off as absolutely unreasonable and reactionary in this
article, and the title is surprisingly not clickbait (assuming everything
happened as reported). It seems that startups oftentimes attract those kinds
of big egos, although the brutal startup marketplace oftentimes punishes those
people for their hubris.

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TheGRS
I think the host should very carefully consider what his employment will be
like with HQ if he signs a longer-term contract, the founder seems prone to
huge mood swings. They need to get a publicist pronto.

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paul7986
I was going to do a search for this HQ app but lost interest after reading
about the founder....

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jpatokal
Oddly, this is likely to get _way_ more press than the original interview,
which seems to consist of deep revelations like "[I] enjoy making people happy
and giving them the trivia they want" and "he’s had a woman ask him for a
selfie while he was retrieving money from an ATM".

~~~
ggg9990
This article introduced me to HQ trivia which I just installed.

------
jack9
Looks like a marketing ploy by a company which is comfortable being meta. The
headlines giveaway what it is.

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doug3465
Is this a bizarre PR stunt?

Maybe the CEO is just overly paranoid and controlling after seeing what
happened to Vine.

~~~
notatoad
If it is, it's still stupid. As other commenters in this thread have
mentioned, he has exposed the fact that his star is a contractor, and opened
up the possibility of a competitor essentially hiring away his product.

Yes, this story has introduced a whole bunch of new people to HQ. But it's
also reinforced how important Scott is to their product. Not a good position
to put yourself in.

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jimnotgym
Another inductee to the Silicon Valley asshole CEO hall of fame. It's getting
a bit full now don't you think? They say there is no such thing as bad press,
but I still don't want this app. Hope the presenter scores a Netflix deal as
others have said.

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CodeWriter23
So he threatens to fire his top talent, freeing him to go to work for the
first guy with some cash and the willingness to knock off this trivial app?
(No pun intended) I’m not buying that. Nor his solicitation for a PR agent.

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ggg9990
This CEO just might be taking the Donald Trump approach to publicity. I had
never heard of HQ trivia but from this article it sounds fun and I just
installed the app and signed up. Mission accomplished?

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intro-b
what a bizarre, disproportionate response over an article that's basically a
lighthearted character-sketch

i can't imagine what the relationship between Scott and the startup founders
is like right now

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vonnik
Someone please teach Rus Yusupov how to think about the media and relate to
the press. This is embarrassing. He did himself so much more harm than any
profile could have done...

~~~
jasonmp85
Why is he owed that? Let him fail. I loved Vine and was excited about HQ. I
knew nothing about Rus until today. People like this are toxic to our culture
and industry.

~~~
vonnik
He's not "owed" that. It's kind of a manner of speaking. But teaching someone
how to behave better removes a little of the annoyance from the world, so...

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samfisher83
Maybe the whole thing was a publicity stunt. I had never heard of HQ before.

[https://twitter.com/rus/status/933144474263339009](https://twitter.com/rus/status/933144474263339009)

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DavidPP
He since said sorry on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/rus/status/933144474263339009](https://twitter.com/rus/status/933144474263339009)

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walshemj
Sounds like Mr Yusupov is having some sort of nervous break down

~~~
razakel
Or, more likely, he's just an asshole.

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russellbeattie
I just downloaded this app to see what the hell the fuss is about. I guess
it's true that no press is bad press...

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chrischen
My hypothesis is that they had an agreement where Scott couldn't talk to the
press, but he did anyways. Since it happened the CEO just didn't know how to
handle it well and was probably somewhat serious that the repercussions would
be firing Scott (as the only option), something he probably didn't want to do.

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whack
Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I can't imagine a previously successful
founder doing something so stupid. Is this a _" any PR is good PR"_ stunt?
I've certainly never heard of HQ before this, and this story is crazy enough
to go viral and reach millions of people.

