
How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows - Raj7k
https://steveblank.com/2018/11/13/its-not-change-you-fear-its-loss/
======
makecheck
While working at a company, be loyal to your local team (other people just
trying to do good work) and yourself (e.g. build new skills you can use). And
really, those are variations of the same thing because co-workers that value
you can help you get what you want or even your next job.

Blind loyalty to a company means nothing though. First, managers change: _any_
promise, especially a long-term one, is one manager-change away from becoming
vapor. Projects are cancelled or relocated or reprioritized. Layoffs occur at
times convenient for the company so don’t be surprised when you’re unable to
count on stock vesting. Perks go away. Ultimately, treat most company-level
things as “sounds nice” and never _count_ on them. For example, I would never
buy a house based on stock I _should_ get or a bonus that was promised.

~~~
dba7dba
_First, managers change: any promise, especially a long-term one, is one
manager-change away from becoming vapor_

Sometimes, you don't even need a manager-change for your job to be in danger.
I know a guy who had a manager who was pretty cool and a good mentor to him.
And then one day, something happened to the manager and he stopped mentoring
him. No, he stopped interacting with him. Frequent lunching together came to a
screeching halt. Eventually he was left out loops, projects and eventually out
of job.

He still doesn't know if the cause was one of these:

1\. manager broke up with girlfriend (which did happen) and started not caring

2\. my friend said something about politics that offended him?

3\. the manager saw 1 mistake by my friend, and just decided he didn't want to
waste his time on him.

~~~
agsamek
4\. The Manager spent too much time investing in your friend but eventually
realized that actually it was not your friend but the manager himself who was
delivering results and realized that it was not going to change

~~~
llampx
5\. Friend caused the breakup of his manager with his girlfriend.

~~~
wolco
6\. Manager of manager asked him to change the relationship.

~~~
pellucide
7\. reddit ?

------
madeuptempacct
A consulting company I worked for fired a sales guy who basically built it
with the two co-owners. He basically found all the clients to place developers
with and found / interviewed a bunch of devs. Then the company grew and they
hired a fancy Ivy League / Wallstreet experience guy in his place.

They gave the original guy zero warning. Kind of messed up.

~~~
hinkley
The conversations I've heard on this topic seem to agree that they pull the
lever quickly on sales people because they don't want the guy copying all of
his contacts and trying to poach customers/sabotage the company.

But I can't see how that would work because only the really bad salespeople
don't already know to have their own contact list. Once you've seen it happen
to someone else or heck watched certain movies, you should know better.

~~~
bduerst
This happens all the time. In a past company I worked at, I had test email
accounts in the CRM, and those fake-contact email accounts would receive blast
messages from reps who were now working at competing companies.

I always reported it, but damn, at least have the foresight to scrub your list
of stolen accounts for contacts that have the last name "TEST". Pretty obvious
where you got the list from if you don't.

~~~
alasdair_
I worked at a firm in the UK where this happened. Due to the UK having fairly
strong data protection laws, the salesman ended up being arrested and charged.

~~~
lurcio
Hmmm... yet somehow a sales person/consultant of any worth is hired on the
strength of their book...

~~~
jsjohnst
> strength of their book

Exactly, _their book_ , the contacts they personally have. Not an arbitrary
dump of a previous employer’s contact database, but the folks they had
relationships with.

------
charmides
To the author:

This does not add up. After they fired you and then had you fight to get your
job back, you said they hired a "coach" to help you learn new skills. But at
the end of this training, the coach reported to your boss that you "had a long
way to go." It certainly does not seem like the coach was hired to help you
out. It seems like it was just a backhanded way to get an assessment on you
while you had your guard down.

To me, it seems like this company was just taking advantage of you and your
youthful enthusiasm until they had no more use for you. By blaming yourself, I
feel like you are drawing all the wrong lessons from this experience.

~~~
joelx
I agree completely with charmides.

I'm founder and CEO of a company with over a hundred thirty employees now and
I have a strict policy not to hire anyone as a team lead or manager or
executive from the outside. I always promote within and always reward people
who've been committed. If no one is ready to be a team lead or manager, I have
the team operate with that one until I spot someone who is ready.

I would highly recommend to everyone out there to never work for a hired gun
CEO. Companies that are run by their founders are far more likely to succeed.

~~~
kaspm
This is too broad and general of a statement to make. Depending on the size of
the organization, the work you're trying to do, the pipeline and network of
employees you've worked with at other places, bringing in a leader from
outside not only could be important for growing the company in a new direction
but also provide an outside and objective perspective on a team that isn't
performing. I have seen managers promoted from within with negative results
and brought in from outside with great success. Don't remove a tool from your
toolbelt as a leader unnecessarily.

------
IvyMike
There's another question to ask: Do you actually _want_ to keep your job as
your company grows?

This is not to imply "yes" or "no"; it's a very personal answer. At the
companies I've been in, there are some who thrived moving into new roles as
the company grew, and there were others that would have been happier and more
successful taking their skills to the next startup.

~~~
sdrinf
The fundamental principle-agent issue here, is that startup-y people, who
thrive on small teams getting stuff done, are essential for getting a startup
up the ground; however it is exactly the point where startups hold the least
cash to compensate with.

This generally leads to stock-option based compensation; which, in turn,
expires 30 days after employee leaves.

This economics -as practiced presently- strongly implies for savvy startupy
people to work _only on startups of their own_ ; which in turn makes early
hiring extremely difficult.

There are 2 points of equilibrium here:

* The current one is people leading less savvy people on. This leads to a lot of resentment; see rest of HN for that.

* a much less wrong solution would be to have secondary markets set up significantly earlier in the game (post series a); which would make stock & options immediate liquid. Despite sales difficulties(for finding counter parties for that), this can be a huge advantage during hiring, as employees don’t have to take on lottery tickets; and allow early employees to resign with much less resentment.

~~~
jcroll
Can you elaborate more on how this "secondary market" would work?

~~~
pbreit
Easiest would be to offer employees a small % of liquidity during a
fundraising round. Not sure why this is not done more frequently.

~~~
goldfeld
Because anything of value is kept tight for investors and for the possibility
of more investors? Early startups don't have much else to offer, which is not
to say the way startups is done is morally commendable.

------
philosophygeek
What a fantastic read. As a CEO who has grown my company from 6 to almost 100,
this is one of the hardest discussions to have with someone. It's not that
they did anything _wrong_ , they're just no "right" for the position in its
current state.

He suggests that it's impossible to retain employees through such changes. I
haven't found this to be the case. One technique I've used is to keep the
company title-light, so that changes in title aren't as stark. I've also had a
few people who have gone from IC->manager->IC, which shows the company that I
value people no matter what their role is. Retaining people after hiring above
them requires a lot of careful, honest conversations not just with the
affected employee, but with messaging to the broader team.

~~~
hadsed
I'd love to know how you approach the messaging to the broader team about
hiring above someone (perhaps if they've always been an IC, or if they tried
management and weren't performing). In my view it seems quite difficult to
maintain face in such a scenario, and it's not obvious how one can alleviate
that.

------
mixmastamyk
Great post. The author is polite enough to avoid drawing attention to a
mistake of the CEO, but I thought it was worth mentioning. (Assuming the boss
already knew the lessons learned.)

Believe the CEO would likely have received a much better response had phrased
the same idea as:

\- Great job!

\- Business is changing, we need to take it to next level.

\- Let's improve our Plans, Vision, Strategy

\- I've got a coach on retainer to help get us there.

Then Plan B, where early employee can't make the transition and is replaced,
can be left unsaid. If it happens the employee will be a lot less surprised,
and have a greater chance for retention.

~~~
gcbw2
Well, you have to have seen it from the point of view of the CEO. Playing
devil's advocate, what would you do if you jumped onboard, and the first thing
you saw was that all your clients were interacting only with your VP of
marketing/Sales on a personal basis? ...well, granted, if it was that exactly
he would still be employed to this day :D but you get the picture, maybe it
was bad enough that what the CEO did was already above and beyond.

------
sharadov
I don't think there is any real way to plan that. Keeping your ear to the
wall, schmoozing can help, if that's your forte. But it's a lot of work. I've
seen people who seemed irreplaceable get chucked out because of dirty politics
and the team suffer because, the person in question was a fantastic worker,
not merely someone who had tribal knowledge. I am not loyal to a company, am
loyal to an ethical code that says that I try to do by best, but not at the
cost of my health or time. No matter what, don't stop learning, if your job
allows you to, then great, otherwise just find time in your schedule to do it.
Eventually, you are the master of your destiny.

~~~
kradroy
You definitely have to be aware which way the wind is blowing when re-orgs are
happening. The closer the re-org is to you, the more you should pay attention.

I was recently in one of these situations where I came out on top and was able
to assist my department head in a favor to a friend. None of what happened was
ever made explicit but the summary of the subtext (in hindsight) was: "We're
pushing out so-and-so and you're up for a promotion, ostensibly to his role.
However, I have a friend whose contract is ending soon and needs a new job.
Would be you interested in this other role that's a promotion but also allows
me to make a future org change I see as necessary?" All the players and pieces
were mentioned. I had to infer the game plan.

I took the alternate role and the rest played out. It was definitely a
learning experience, and as you advance in your career these types of soft
skills matter just as much as any hard skill.

------
nimbius
disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning
python.

ive worked for small shops from the ground up, starting with mostly off the
shelf hand tools and paper records, and moving into automated and well run
repair businesses. The key i think is to find a company that realizes when
they are squandering your potential and takes action before you're gone.

I went from brakes to suspension in 3 months and from there with consistent
demonstration of talent, became the shop lead, then master mechanic, after 4
years. Im not so much a guy who twists oil filters anymore, but I'll still
walk the floor and see whos doing what. I'll check our ticket queue to see
what hasnt moved, or if parts in the crib need stocking. In my line of work we
call it 'old timers.' guys who know and have the experience to guide, but dont
necessarily care to leave the comfort of a comfy chair very often. Not a
manager, but the first line of defense against having to talk to one.

I go out to fleets and take part in bids for maintenance jobs, not because Im
a good mechanic, but because I know which mechanics I work with that are good
for certain things. Im also known for bringing in a bucket or two of fried
chicken for lunch on the weekends. I still have a workbench in the repair
area, but my coworkers mostly leave weird parts I might enjoy or tricky
problems to solve that nobody else has figured out.

~~~
echelon
> disclosure: i dont work in software, im an engine mechanic whos learning
> python

You don't work in software. Yet.

Good luck with learning! Find fun problems to work on, like making games or
programming your lights. Perhaps scraping web pages for content and emailing
you. Automate some small things. If you keep having fun, you'll stay
motivated.

The more you build, the better you'll get. It just happens naturally. You'll
think, "I could have done this better by doing X instead", or, "I could have
organized this more efficiently".

Before you know it you'll be ready to make a career jump (if you want to). A
lot of people in our industry never went to university and studied on their
own.

A few recommendations:

Learn lists (aka vectors, arrays) and dicts (aka hashmaps, maps, etc.) These
are the core data structures in scripting languages like Python. Knowing how
to use them effectively with looping constructs is key to becoming a good
programmer.

Next learn how to organize your code. Functions, classes, and files where
appropriate. You'll learn this naturally as you continue to build things.
You'll also learn by reading other code.

Use libraries to accomplish work that other people have conveniently made easy
and packaged for reuse. Image processing, HTML scraping, game engines, website
frameworks, etc.

When you graduate this and want to become more "academic", you'll want to look
into two areas especially :

\- data structures, which are things like arrays, linked lists, hashsets, etc.

\- algorithm analysis, which will teach you how to write efficient code (big-O
notation and analysis, etc.)

You don't necessarily need these, but they're a huge leg up. Mastering them
can get you into FAANG.

If you like web stuff and servers, look at distributed computing. Also look at
principles of operating systems to understand how threading, virtual memory,
etc. etc. work.

Hopefully this helps. It's not stuff you need to jump on right away, but it
can be a roadmap for the next few years.

Best of luck! Hope you enjoy everything you're doing and never feel
discouraged. There are always people out there that are better than you, and
it doesn't mean you aren't good yourself. Don't doubt what you're doing.

You got this.

~~~
eutropia
It was nice of you to put all of this effort into writing up this post, but
what gave you the idea that GP wanted to do software full time for a living
when they've got a great job already? Seems like they have autonomy, efficacy,
respect from their co-workers, and enough money to share lunch.

seems like a good gig, imo.

~~~
josephv
That's what I was thinking! Enjoy being up and walking around. Being chained
to a desk is not always a dream job by any stretch of the imagination. There
are very direct mental and physical health ramifications impacts that can only
be partially mitigated.

~~~
milesvp
Also, I might argue if you have talent with programming, and already a
mechanic, the better trajectory might be specializing in automotive
electronics repair. I keep hearing about the parts costs to replace
electronics in cars, and that's only going to get more and more expensive, and
often a bench repair might be replacing a blown capacitor (after drilling
through the epoxy). If you can get good at troubleshooting electronic problems
with cars, and can save people from having to buy entire new replacement
boards, you can capture some of that savings.

------
gunnr15
More folks should give additional thought to what STAGE of company they want
to specialize in. It is totally ok to want to be a great early stage
engineer/salesperson/marketer where the ability to make decisions and move
forward when the environment is vague/uncertain is HIGHLY valued. In my
experience (leading teams at both early stage and 1000+ employee companies)
most of the folks that thrive in the early “Wild West” stage start to wither
when things get more formulaic as the business matures.

~~~
brobdingnagians
I've thought a lot about this and I agree. I find a certain social environment
at work and a certain structure to be what I enjoy, so I figure I will always
try to get myself into situations where I have a lot of responsibility, lots
of latitude to learn new things, and a wide variety of roles. I wouldn't be
happy in some jobs that limit that, but there are lot of people who wouldn't
be happy in my job. I had a roommate in college that saw very little allure to
entrepreneurship or risk, but was an excellent electrical engineer and wanted
to have a corporate job forever.

------
tc
The basic problem is that what he was doing for the first 12 months was
_right_. Doing what a big company executive would have done would have been
_wrong_.

When the new CEO comes in and wants things done immediately in the big company
way, it's going to feel like the new guy is saying he was doing everything
wrong. Further, the actions he was taking will be perceived by others in the
company and by new management as his _identity_ rather than as a rational
response to the circumstances of the early company.

A smart and observant person in such a role might come around over time
naturally. He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as
well any longer and would adapt. That may even be better for the company than
going overnight from "small company mode" to "big company mode".

Or the person may not come around. Either way, it's likely change will not be
perceived as fast enough. Difficult problem for all parties.

~~~
castlecrasher2
>He or she would notice that what worked early on isn't working as well any
longer and would adapt.

I've seen a few execs not be able to do this, so I don't really blame the CEO
in this situation. They did fine and dandy as the product started out but were
flailing in the wind once we got big enough.

------
ian0
Ive been thinking that a properly constructed company-wide and long-term
profit sharing scheme is the best way to combat this.

Early employees take onboard the most risk with a venture and even if they
don't want to be or are not able to be VP of X when the company sales they
should still maintain the material (and psychological) benefits. I bet people
would have less of a problem being demoted if they knew their eventual payday
would be larger than their new boss.

It's possible to construct a profit sharing scheme where x% of future profits
is dedicated to a pool of employees and weighted more according to risk than
seniority. And to offset the negative aspects (investor wise) of this with
buyout clauses based on some fair metrics.

~~~
ccostes
It's a nice idea, but I don't see how you can objectively measure the risk or
value of individuals like that. For example, if a company spends 5 years
treading water/pivoting before it takes off, how do determine how much of
future profits an employee who joined and left in year 1 should get?

I agree that the current system is far from ideal (just read through the Ask
HN post asking early employees how much they made from their startup's exit).

~~~
ian0
You can use vesting schedules to deal with the time component. Any measure of
value is going to be difficult (it is under any scheme) but risk taken is a
little easier. If I look at the companies I have been involved in there are
very distinct phases during growth in terms of salary, prospects and job
security.

------
rf_
There is a pattern and it has nothing to do with how hard the author worked or
the CEO.

> No one knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t explain why I was doing it when
> asked.

> I had shut down. Even as we were meeting, I was obsessively thinking about
> the change

> I literally paid zero attention. In my righteous anger I was unreachable.

The common thread is communication; specifically the lack of it. These quotes
are huge red flags.

The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you've gotten results but
cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward. The
author even had a chance (real or not) to act on this feedback by way of a
warning and a coach. Instead of embracing and acting on clear feedback from
his new boss, he panicked and shut down; allowing one negative interaction to
throw his entire sense of self into disarray. This is strong evidence that
indeed they were likely not the right candidate for the position as the
company grew.

~~~
matfil
_The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicated it -- you 've gotten results
but cannot explain how or why, and that isn't good enough going forward_

That is clearly the CEO's point of view in this case, but it's a view I find
rather perplexing. It leaves no room for intuition and good judgement.
Potentially, it can force people to _try_ and write down explanations of stuff
they are not actually confident about, which just end up confusing whoever
comes next.

~~~
dasil003
Once you grow past Dunbar's number you can no longer rely on individual
intuition and good judgement alone, you need higher level communication and
alignment around strategy because there is simply not enough interpersonal
bandwidth to communicate otherwise. Of course you want everyone to continue
using judgement, but the leadership needs to go the extra mile to project a
vision and strategy across the org.

You can argue over whether the CEO was right or wrong in this case, but at the
end of the day it's the CEO's job to make these calls.

------
itronitron
There is danger in being too productive while coworkers focus their efforts on
'shaping' the company.

~~~
maxxxxx
Agreed. I have seen it multiple times that people didn't get promoted or
transferred to a new interesting task because they were so good at what they
did at the moment. Instead people that didn't perform well got promoted or to
do the new thing.

One example: At my company the high performing experienced people are stuck
with our legacy products so new things get either explored by interns or new
people who don't know the company. I have pointed out several times how insane
this is but everybody just shrugs.

I think the lesson is to not leave too much of a footprint so management has
no qualms transferring you to a new task.

~~~
khalilravanna
You could argue both parties, the managers and the high-performing,
experienced people are to blame in this scenario. Sure, the managers should
have the foresight to make sure there are continuing opportunities for the
experienced people by training up people to replace them in their current
roles. But shouldn't those experienced people have the foresight themselves
and make sure they're not "stuck" and instead have mentees ready to take their
place?

I write this comment as someone currently in this place myself. Or rather,
planning so that I _don 't_ end up in that "stuck" place. I want to start
working on bigger picture problems in the engineering organization but it's
hard when the buck stops with you for a multitude of tasks that have to be
done to foster the continuing growth of the company. Training the next gen. is
an interesting problem I'm exciting to work on mastering.

~~~
CardenB
How do you "have mentees" without management on board? Legacy products tend to
be inherently unsexy and it's hard to attract mentees to those projects.

~~~
khalilravanna
I guess I’m ignoring the situation wherein the experienced devs are stuck in a
corner without a team. In that situation, without management on board it seems
quite difficult to get out of that situation without some tough conversations
directly with management.

That being said, that, I hope, is the exception rather than the rule. And I
should think intelligent, self-aware devs wouldn’t let themselves fall into
that situation. I personally would start looking for better opportunities once
things started looking as dire as that.

For devs not in that situation it’s still a non trivial problem you bring up:
how to entice the next gen to work on legacy-type projects. That I think comes
down to a problem of selling. That is to say, solving it will depend on the
audience and the product. Some strategies I’d think might work would be: 1)
the opportunity to learn a great deal, for those who are very junior, 2) the
opportunity to master an important part of the business (if it’s being kept
around with resources allocated, there must be a reason why), though a dated
one.

------
vim_mercenary
Throwaway obvious reason.

All of this stems from you caring about your job and the status it gives you.

After being burned twice on two startups that went on to Series B's, I'm done.

I no longer give a shit about my employer or if they live/die. I clock out at
5pm on the dot. I clock in whenever. Pay me, I'll get your features out and
that's that. No I don't care about your estimates, no I don't care about your
stock, no I don't care about your company's potential. Pay me, and I'm out.
That's that.

My most recent gigs I choose the path's with the least amount of stock and
most amount of salary.

I no longer give a shit.

~~~
john_moscow
BTW, that's your reason behind ageism in tech.

~~~
vim_mercenary
Did you reply to the wrong comment?

I have no bias against older developers. I think older developers are
fantastic because they want to fuck off and do other things and get their work
done on time.

The ones I hate are the 25 year old thundercats no-lifers who want to stay
until 11pm for some unknown reason.

~~~
meesles
There's this common misconception that young workers never put in extra hours
before the Silicon Valley culture picked up. That's just untrue.

Younger workers have always used energy and enthusiasm to make up for
experience and skill in the workplace. Either they work more hours, accept
more work, or just accept more stress than their peers to offset their junior
status.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's competition that you can
either use to motivate yourself, or you can just complain about it as others
advance past you in the workplace. I think the stigma against the young
developer who _wants_ to put in these extra hours is more of an issue. These
people don't deserve to be looked down upon just because they're putting in
more, just like you don't want to be judged for working 30-hour weeks even if
you deliver. Much like you want to do your work and bug off, they want to do
something else with their time. Trying to find reason when you're so far on
the other end of the spectrum seems futile.

~~~
vim_mercenary
It's literally working for free so I will continue to think less of them. I
can't respect someone who works overtime for no money.

------
anon57325
I was a one of these “new hires” to a startup that was growing. It was chaotic
because a lot of knowledge wasn’t transferred and we had to basically figure
out a lot of the business logic because those original people were all gone.

I jumped ship after a few months and eventually the startup failed. I heard
from former colleagues the main reason is those original people went to work
for several big companies, who were all customers of this startup. They still
held a grudge and persuaded those companies to stop working with them.

~~~
deanmoriarty
Exactly what seems to be happening at my current startup (more context in my
other comment).

------
m104
Most valuable and uncomfortable part of this article:

    
    
      What I wish I knew was that if you’re an early company employee, it’s not
      likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as the
      company scales to the next level. This sentence is worth reading multiple
      times as no one – not the person who hired you, the VC’s or your peers -is
      going to tell you when you’re hired that the company will likely outgrow you.
    
    

Pure gold from a career-building perspective.

------
k_vi
‘if you’re an early company employee, it’s not likely that the skills you have
on day one are the skills needed as the company scales to the next level‘

This resonates with me

------
matchagaucho
As a CEO, I experience the same emotions when there is change at a strategic
customer. It sucks, but it takes work to rebuild trust you thought was already
earned.

The "new decision maker" has just inherited your product/solution and likely
wants to establish their vision and network over yours.

Start from scratch and re-earn their trust :-(

------
purplezooey
There is no "transition". What happens is your investors decide they want the
latest recycled executive face to take the helm. That person usually goes for
short term results at the expense of long term ones, because they'll be gone
in a year or two and they don't know anything about the product anyway. And
the cycle continues. To pretend it is some process you can navigate rationally
is not healthy.

------
Throwaway211219
I know Optimizely isn't as relevant these days, but this article matches my
experience there. Just about all the early employees were pushed out or
encouraged to go when the business matured a bit and the adults from
SalesForce were brought in. Of the first few dozen employees, only a handful
are left.

------
pcpcpc
I'm in a similar position to Steve Blank: early employee navigating various
role transitions as the company grows. Would appreciate additional resources
like the above, recommended coaches, books, etc. if anyone can offer.

~~~
brm
I'm not sure it's exactly the coaching or books you're looking for but YC
itself did a series of interviews called Employee #1 about how different
people in different roles navigated being an early employee of a successful
company to varying outcomes. I found it helpful if not directly instructive.

[https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/employee-1/)

------
DanFeldman
[https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-
other...](https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-
commandments-for-scaling-startups/)

I found this post to be in a similar vein, and helped lessen the scare of
growing (or not growing) with my current startup, Starsky Robotics. What it
made me realize is I loved the ability to switch direction, to "give away my
legos", and I needed to focus more on making that an easy transition if I
wanted to do it successfully. Learning to onboard a new employee or a new team
onto your "complex tower of legos" is high impact and extremely important as
teams scale.

------
z3t4
You can make good use of the startup people by making them repeat the success
in new markets. Sacking them is such a waste of talent.

~~~
ergothus
I like your view, because sacking them doesn't waste their talent (usually),
it wastes all the time and effort of recruiting them, filtering out others,
and forming a well-functioning team.

This applies even in cases where someone isnt fired, but you've changed the
job to something else. I'm leaving my current job right now because they
dissolved our vertical product teams and formed horizontals that have no
consistency of focus, codebase, or any larger input into product direction. I
really work well with the people of the company, but after 6 months of feeling
like IT support doing superficial changes in ever changing repos I'm done. (No
offense to anyone that enjoys that style, but it I'd not for me and not how we
worked for the 3 prior years).

So now I'm out. I think the new job may be even better, but it is a gamble and
I wouldn't have even looked had they not changed the company on me and failed
to respond to my concerns. I'm not indispensable nor irreplaceable, but in
this market it is not easy to find someone, convince them, and build
relationships and domain knowledge. My email to individual people I work with
that should know I'm leaving went to over 50 people - rebuilding that's a cost
that doesn't show up as a line item on the balance sheet.

------
throw2016
A new CEO will not just come in and fire a senior exec unless there is a lot
of behind the scenes activity we are not privy to or the CEO already has
someone lined up for the position.

A lot of CEOs have got into the habit of building teams with people they
already have trust with, in which case this whole article is overthinking.

If not that it's strange that the first thing the CEO did without even working
with him is to fire him. If things were so bad that why wasn't he talked to
earlier? That could mean some 'history'. These things are so contextual its
dangerous to try to draw any insights or lessons.

~~~
charmides
The insight I drew from this article is that I never want to be an early
employee of a startup and put my heart and soul into it unless I own a
significant part of that company.

------
simonebrunozzi
I am currently going through a very intense transaction, from being the CEO of
the company I founded, to no longer having a full-time position at the
company. (looks like I will simply remain as an external advisor).

I am curious to hear if any of you had a similar experience, and if you have
any suggestions or tips to share.

~~~
aytekin
Start again. This time don’t take that dirty VC money. Bootstrap.

------
deanmoriarty
I could really relate to this post, since I've recently (past couple years)
gone through exactly this.

I was hired as a senior software engineer for a very early stage startup, and
quickly became the de-facto engineering leader, ran multiple teams for a
couple years (backend/frontend/ops), and most of the technical products of the
company still have my clear fingerprints on them.

Result? After the early success, founders and VCs brought in new official
managers (VPs and directors of engineering) to scale the company, and I
"regressed" to an IC role. Due to all the technical context I have about the
company, they essentially let me roam around without having to account or
report to anyone. Essentially, I do whatever I want, whenever I want, which
these days means working on very experimental stuff that selfishly interests
me, but that one day might be used for the company technology (long term
plan). I suspect once all the former systems are replaced they might terminate
me, which I'd welcome so I'd get some severance as opposed to quitting (and I
have passed several FAANG interviews so I'd find a new job relatively
quickly), but it hasn't happened yet, and have been in this limbo for a couple
years now.

I'm not gonna lie when I say this caused a lot of shock to me initially, along
the same lines of the blog post, but I eventually dealt/coped with those
feelings (sort of). I say "sort of" because I haven't changed job purely due
to the financials of the situations: even if my title/role changed, my
original equity grant is still vesting at the original rate, and as the
company becomes more successful it's unlikely that I could find another
opportunity as good as this one (from a financial point of view).

However, I am really not happy with the changes that have been implemented: in
particular, the new management is really really bad, like severely technically
incompetent. These people were hired as "experienced managers" from companies
such as Cisco/IBM/... where they held a management position for 10+ years.
These people are not technically bright or inspiring, they just live by
processes and jira tickets.

This caused two very big problems:

1) The quality of these managers caused very good people, mostly individual
contributors, to flee. Essentially, a lot (50%+) of my peers who were
originally in the company and were extremely strong individual contributors
left for greener pastures, and in informal conversations they all told me they
were fed up with the level of incompetence of the new managers. They didn't
have a strong equity package such as mine, so it was a very easy decision for
them, I would have done exactly the same.

2) These managers are effectively unable to deal with high pressure and
customers. We had customers who churned on us, explicitly listing as the main
reason the inability to effectively interact with our engineering team during
support escalations. A quote I remember from a customer is: "It seems like you
guys lately don't know your product and what you're doing anymore".

It seems just now, two years later, the upper management is slowly realizing
this, as this incompetence is starting to make a real dent into our revenues.
I have seen this all along since the very first few weeks they were on board,
but I always carefully refrained myself from escalating this to the founders
because otherwise I would have just been seen as a "negative nancy" acting out
of jealousy, so I decided to put a good face and take what's in for me
(freedom in my current position).

But I truly and humbly believe that, had I been put in charge of engineering
instead of those new people, I would have done a better job scaling, hiring
other more talented managers and keeping ICs motivated (I value a lot
technical excellence and I always go above and beyond to make sure I am
technical enough in every conversation, and all the team members always
appreciated that a lot when I was leading things).

~~~
SubuSS
Why do you think those bad managers were hired and how would you have avoided
the same mistakes?

~~~
deanmoriarty
Very simple: a much higher hiring bar, which requires more hiring effort, but
it's well worth it. To me, every manager should be deeply technical: that
doesn't mean they should be wizard developers, but they should be able to
discuss very well technical solutions, have opinions (this is very important!
being opinionated and not just go with the flow is really really good, it
shows you care!), and also be able to troubleshoot the systems their teams
work on, so they don't interrupt everyone as soon as there is even a minor
customer escalation. That's key to gaining respect from your team and be
effective, from what I've seen. Otherwise, you're basically just a glorified
delegator and you're not sheltering your team in any way.

The VP that was hired chose a different approach and decided to poach people
with very long management experience in "stagnant" companies, who jumped ship
at being promoted to "director of engineering" from their previous
"engineering manager" title: of course these folks don't know much about the
technical stuff, and are basically just there to manage processes and remind
everyone to fill some bs on jira. The major thing these people care about is
making the VP happy, it's incredibly comical. Whatever he says, it's law
(paradoxically, I have many conversations with the VP and he instead likes
that I am frequently confrontational and argumentative, in a good way, when it
comes to technical opinions).

This is also dangerous for another reason: as new IC people get hired, they
can quickly sense the weaknesses of their managers, so they either 1) Leave
out of frustration 2) Stay, because it's convenient for them (it certainly
allows average performers to cruise through their job) 3) Or, more
dangerously, they manipulate their boss in order to drive their personal
agenda (e.g. do horrible work saying to the managers "all the other solutions
would be too difficult", and the clueless manager trusts without verifying,
since he/she is not capable of verifying).

~~~
laurentl
And do you know why you didn’t get the job when they added the new layer of
management? Were you considered but rejected, did you even get a chance to
apply or did you wake up one morning to a new boss and new title?

I really feel for what happened to you, but I have trouble believing that a
whole raft of incompetent VPs were hired just because they had BigCo du jour
in their CV.

In other words, what would you have done differently to avoid this outcome, if
you believe it was avoidable?

~~~
deanmoriarty
This is what happened. It's important to understand I'm not bitter about it
(anymore), so I'm really just listing the exact steps that led to my "fall",
as they happened:

1) About a year after me being into the company and having taken substantial
lead in all the engineering initiatives (I was working like crazy and hugely
motivating the other folks, always at least 12 hours a day, but it didn't feel
like it because I was really excited, so nowhere close to burnout), one of the
founders (the CEO) talked to me and said I was doing an amazing job, better
than the other technical leads. He said when the time would come, he would
seriously consider me for a VP role (we didn't have any VP by then and the
company was still just experimenting, we had a few paying customers but no
clear vision on how to go to market).

2) After a couple years of tenure, the founder/CEO came to me and said that
the company was doing really well (we were growing exponentially by then, and
taking new funding with very favorable terms) and that it was time to bring in
an experienced VP of engineering. The candidates he had in mind (introduced by
the VCs) were all in their late 40s with at least a dozen years of experience
as executives, so clearly I wasn't the right person for the role since I was
in my very early 30s with much less management experience. He described the VP
role as someone who would take on a lot of the overhead I had to do myself,
like hiring and keeping a tab on the deliverables, but that on a day to day
basis I would still fully lead the engineering team. I kind of believed the
story so I didn't think too much of it, and didn't think it was the time to
raise drama.

3) Shortly after, the VP (one of the candidates from VCs) came in. He spent a
month or two observing things, then talked to me and told me how I was doing
amazing things and how everyone in the team loved me (he had 1:1s with
everybody where I was praised a lot), and how he wanted to concentrate me more
on working on experimental projects while he would be looking to make "big
changes" by hiring experienced managers. He said my experience was very good
as an IC, and that by managing people I would be "wasting my talent" and that
it was all part of scaling the company. I told him I still wanted to be
involved in the team operations, and initially he said it was ok, but then
over time he proceeded to sideline me more and more (e.g. not including me in
relevant technical meetings where I could have easily provided good input). Go
figure why, I don't believe I was ever hostile to him or anything that would
make me appear bitter. It felt like he was thinking "let's see if I can
succeed without him, as opposed to using his help to succeed". At times, I was
excluded in things where I more than obviously needed to be in (e.g. niche
areas that I architected). Occasionally some of my peers would IM me and say
"Hey why are you not in this meeting?".

4) From then until now, the VP has installed this new layer of mid and upper
management (directors and managers) by hiring people who strictly have at
least 10 years of experience as pure managers. Since we are a startup and we
can't exactly steal people from FAANG due to our lower offers, he had to
settle with those C-class players (in my opinion) coming from big "stagnating"
companies. These people have a completely different perspective on the role,
duties and responsibilities than our original culture. They have no vision,
just process, which causes the problems mentioned in my initial comment.
During this period, my impact on the company has been minimal since I have
been put on the sidelines as per VP's request and, while I still have fun
because I get to spend time on cool stuff, I haven't affected the bottom line,
which I think I could have done had I been still involved in the teams.

~~~
SubuSS
I pretty much try to look at every issue from what I could've done better
viewpoint - doing the same here. So no offense:

\- as a small company CEO, you get less leeway in terms of who you can hire.
So there is a high chance his hands were tied and the on paper experience folk
probably looked much better than a really really good newbie. Think about it
from the perspective of a lay person or busy board member: it's pretty much
like how you'd choose a cardiologist. You gotta play the numbers unless you
have some great insider scoop. Playing safe is a sad reality :/

\- if you really had the ceo ear as you say and carte blanche, you have a part
in not making that a productive setup: a ton of people would love to be in
that spot, probably would produce more too.

\- at the end of the day, your only irreplaceable value in life is your time.
By messing around with 'cool projects' that didn't mean much, the biggest loss
here is yours.

\- ratholing again on the privilege part, if you were that established, no
lifer would've been able to affect you that much. There is probably a
miscalibration here in your opinion of yourself.

Again - really no offense. Just what I would take away if it were me.

~~~
deanmoriarty
I appreciate your honesty.

On the loss of time: true, but as I said my equity appreciated significantly,
at the current valuation (I am very aware of all our details about funding
terms, dilutions etc, so I can calculate a reasonably accurate average case
outcome) my total compensation is essentially $1M a year without even counting
for possible future growth, and FAANG offered me basically 40% of that, so
it’s wise for me to stay put at least until I see the company significantly
doing worse. I wouldn’t necessarily consider that sum of money something worth
throwing away just for the sake of making a better use of my time. The day
I’ll see the probability of my equity becoming zero rise significantly, I’ll
leave in a heartbeat, that’s why I interviewed with several FAANG companies
over the past 12 months, so I always have the doors open when it’s time.

The cool projects don’t mean much to the company but mean a lot to me, since
I’m sharpening my skills in areas that I would bring with me to another career
opportunity (e.g. machine learning in a project, and low level system
programming in another one).

On the miscalibration: that’s certainly possible, I’ve tried to write facts
more than opinions explicitly to avoid that, and all the things they told me
indeed happened (e.g. founder said I was the only one to be considered for VP,
former team members saying it was so much better when I was leading the team,
...).

~~~
SubuSS
Good job on the comp haul. You made exactly the right call staying considering
the options were only 40%! Feel free to ignore my points about making yourself
useful if that will disturb the status ka'ching quo.

Thanks for the civil convo. Clearly you have put a lot of thought into this
and I wish you all the best! FWIW, money is never a waste on smart people :).
Money is freedom and an amplifier. I hope you find good uses for the same!

------
empath75
Maybe it’s because I’ve never really been attached to a company I’ve worked
for but the second I left that meeting, I’d be negotiating my exit package and
talking to other startups, not trying to save my job.

------
Raphmedia
Itamar Turner-Trauring latest Software Clown newsletter¹ (#105) was about
this. The author wrote about a similar story where a company he worked at
changed as it grew and layoffs were made.

He concluded with some really good points:

| I came away from the experience unable to commit myself to a company. In
part this was an ethical stance: who controls the company can change, and
change quickly. So loyalty to a company meant committing to follow people who
shouldn't be followed, not because authority is inherently bad, but because in
most companies authority cannot be rescinded by the workers in its power.

| But it was also an emotional reaction: I'd put a lot of myself into my job,
only to see my work—and my friends' work—destroyed in an incompetent power
grab. I didn't want to go through that again.

| The thing about loyalty, though, is that it's motivating: you give your
loyalty because you want something or someone to succeed. So if you're past
the point of pure survival, where do you find motivation if not in loyalty?

| Eventually I came round to solidarity, a thornier path than loyalty. Loyalty
is simple, because it starts with an answer: your country, your cause, your
company, your friends—above all. Solidarity is complex, because it starts with
a question: beyond yourself, beyond your friends, beyond your cause, beyond
your country, what ought you do to help everyone?

¹
[https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/](https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/)

~~~
ElBarto
Loyalty can only exist between individuals.

Never be loyal to a company because a company will never be loyal to you.

~~~
vinceguidry
The way loyalty has always worked is that your first loyalty is to
individuals, like yourself, your family, boss and immediate coworkers, and
your second loyalty is to the collective you all belong to, like your company,
extended family and neighborhood.

People who can't recognize second loyalties can't be trusted, and need to be
weeded out of an organization before it hits hard times, otherwise they just
won't be able to be relied on.

Your company isn't just some faceless entity interested only in profits. It's
face is all of you and it exists to keep all of you fed and with a roof over
your head. A company with a headcount of 40 people can provide for 200+
individuals. All 40 of those will work together to bail out the company
because the company provides for themselves and their families. It's simply
immature to not recognize that.

You shouldn't be expected to choose your second loyalty over your first,
except in very rare situations. But those situations exist and you should
recognize them. When it's crunch time, it's crunch time. Crunch time all the
time demands a re-evaluation of priorities, but so long as it's relatively
rare, put in the hours and build solidarity with the people you're working
hard with.

You shouldn't make your second loyalty your first, is how the sentiment should
be expressed.

~~~
scarface74
_People who can 't recognize second loyalties can't be trusted, and need to be
weeded out of an organization before it hits hard times, otherwise they just
won't be able to be relied on._

Do you think if a company hits hard times they aren’t going to lay people off?
The first loyalty of a company is to the owners of the company. I’m not making
a moral judgment. If a company is going through hard times, it would be
irresponsible for them not to lay people off. I would even go so far as to say
that if a company isn’t going through hard times and they saw that they could
be more profitable with fewer people they should.

 _It 's face is all of you and it exists to keep all of you fed and with a
roof over your head. _

No, a privately held investor backed company’s primary goal is to provide a
return on investment for its investors via an exit. A public company’s primary
goal is to provide a return to its shareholders. The employees are just a
means to that end. Anyone who doesn’t understand their place in the hierarchy
is doing themselves a disservice.

It is _my_ responsibility to keep my family fed and not my employer. My
employer is just a means to that end. If I can find another employer that can
do that better, and the other trade offs are worth it, I will leave.

~~~
bluGill
A company shouldn't be laying people off in hard times. They might let some
contracts end, and if someone leaves for other reasons they won't be replaced;
but they shouldn't be laying people off. They should have savings for hard
times. That might mean no rasises for a couple years - including the CEO, but
everybody has a job. Every time they lay someone off they forever lose
everything that person knew.

Hard times are should be used to invest in the next product free from the
distraction of supporting the current ones (since nobody is buying). When good
times return they are met with the introduction of great new products.

A layoff should mean that the company is exiting whatever industry you are in.
Thus it should not be a few people - but everybody at once.

The reality is few companies are managed well enough to pull the above off.

~~~
freewilly1040
You use the word “should” a lot to describe things that a non executive
employee has no control over, and only limited visibility on. The point is
that trust in your company to do these things for your sake is misplaced.

~~~
bluGill
You should have visibility by past behavior. A company that has a history of
lay-offs is going to do it again. A company that has managed downturns without
layoffs is likely to do pull it off again.

Of course a company can change, so you have to be prepared for anything. This
isn't a bad idea for other reasons: there are a lot of people right now not
living at home because of the California fires which requires some emergency
savings.

~~~
scarface74
What company hasn’t had layoff during a downturn?

~~~
realityking
Germany companies are heavily incentivized not to lay off people in downturns.
Workers here are generally less mobile (esp. outside of tech) so when you
loose an employee and then go somewhere else, they’ll probably never come
back.

The federal government has programs to assist companies with this. With the
approval of the goverment, you can impose “Kurzarbeit” and let your employees
only work, for example, 3 days a week for 6 months. The other 2 days a week
they’d then get“Kurzarbeitergeld”, equivalent in amount to unemployment
benefits (~65% of your net salary). This obviously only gets approved in
economic downturns or for things outside of the control of the company
(weather, natural disaster), not of one company is mismanaged but the sector
as a whole does well.

~~~
scarface74
That is the complete opposite of what happens in the US.

At one company that I worked for, one guy was laid off and came back 4 or 5
times on contract in different roles (QA, L2 support, and as a field
technician).

~~~
realityking
I believe it! From a Western European perspective, US labor law is a joke.

The downside of that is a far less mobile workforce that causes its own
issues.

~~~
scarface74
I see both sides. As someone in a high demand field in an area with plenty of
tech jobs (not on the west coast), it doesn’t bother me personally. I have
literally gone from “I want another job” to “Ive got another job” within less
than a month on numerous occasions.

If I were hiring, I would be a lot more reluctant to hire someone if I knew I
couldn’t let them go without a lot of red tape. I might just try to get by
with fewer people.

But, I consider myself to be a big government free market capitalist. Make
hiring and laying off easy and provide a large social safety net paid for by
taxing corporations- a better form of unemployment insurance.

------
brian-armstrong
I agree with the general thrust of this article - the company grows and its
needs change over time. You will need to change along with them. But I think
the last 1/3 of the article is a little too self-congratulatory. It's not
really clear the retaining early employees _is_ important, and in fact they
may become more dead weight as the company grows. The concept of maintaining
"company culture" is silly, that changes as the company grows anyway. The
company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely.

~~~
stock_toaster
> The company owes nothing to early employees and some churn is likely.

Given the fact that early employees are usually under-compensated (and who
usually thinks of buying out any options right after they are canned, while
job hunting?), this is doubly sad.

------
gaius
_until the new CEO called me in for a chat._

Maybe that CEO was infallible... or maybe he just wanted to give the job to
one of his b-skool buddies. Who can say?

~~~
stock_toaster
I have indeed seen this happen several times.

------
spicymaki
This was a good article. You don't even need to be in a startup to feel this
way. Product road maps change and skill sets that were valuable at one point
are not valuable the next. We should always be improving our skills,
integrating constructive feedback, and looking for opportunities to grow.

------
lifeisstillgood
What strikes me is how parlous vocational training (for want of a much better
phrase) is - it took him (a clearly talented and successful individual) _two
decades_ to understand his situation.

I am a better _person_ in many ways than my 20-year old self, but I do wish I
had learnt my lessons a bit faster as well

~~~
extragood
The only way to learn some lessons is to have something you care about blow up
in your face. That's the cost of the lesson. Sometimes it's not worth the
price of admission.

Steve Blank is a celebrity of sorts around here, but who is to say that that
experience, as terrible as it was at the time, wasn't responsible for setting
him up for his future successes?

I'm somewhat earlier in my career, and undoubtedly have similarly devastating
events waiting for me, in addition to the select few behind me. Framing those
as "learning experiences" softens the blow considerably when things don't go
as they "should".

------
kraig911
People change and so do businesses. I think this is kind of click bait but I
see he has something to say. Bottom line I feel if you're at a startup that
grew you changed with the company as well and I don't think you'll want to be
doing / working like you did.

------
osrec
I hope the gig economy develops to a point that people do not need to bow down
to the whims of corporate overlords. I spent 7 years in investment banking,
and the corporate environment contributed to much unhappiness and anxiety for
me personally. It gave me financial freedom fairly quickly, but I've always
wished there was a better way to obtain the same, and I hope for future
generations, the gig economy can go some way to providing that, without them
needing to "sell their soul".

P.S. I know that currently, the gig economy can be seen as taking advantage of
people (Deliveroo and Uber come to mind), however, I'm hopeful that things can
be improved so that workers are rewarded more fairly.

------
gwbas1c
The problem is the CEO never approached Steve correctly. _Never_ threaten
someone's job unless the situation is dire. He should have said something
like, "now that we're growing, we need you to ..."

~~~
megaremote
It is so weird. It is really hard to find good people. If you have a good
person, you don't get rid of them, you help them grow with the company.

~~~
gwbas1c
It's very clear that the new CEO tried to help Steve do just that. Just the
way that he framed it as, "you're a candidate for your job" set Steve's
defenses up way higher than they needed to be.

------
iamaziz
Guess the question should be: how to keep your job as your company decline?

------
HillaryBriss
still waiting for the companion piece _How to Keep Your Job as Your Company
Shrinks_

------
graycat
A short answer: Own the company.

------
ttmb
From the title, I didn't know which direction the post was going to go in.

This one: grow with your job title. Alternate version: how to keep doing the
same tasks you enjoy and not be forced into a different (likely managerial)
role.

~~~
ergest
I would have liked an exploration of the alternate version. Are there any
resources you might know about that?

------
atmosx
Does this approach guarantee success?

Are there any companies who brought in _this_ or _that_ CEO/VPoE/Lead Engineer
and failed miserably instead of successfully going to the next level?

~~~
atmosx
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442816)
\- apparently...

------
qqqwerty
> it’s not likely that the skills you have on day one are the skills needed as
> the company scales to the next level.

I don't really buy that this is a major issue. Founders and early employees
tend to share very similar skill sets, and yet it's standard practice for
founders to get put into c-suite level roles, while it's much more common for
early employees to get pushed aside. In some cases it is probably warranted
(as is occasionally removing founders from CXO roles) for
performance/skill/fit reasons. But I think a more common issue is that early
employees are just poorly prepared to navigate the 'politics' that inevitably
emerge in a growing startup. There are a few likely reasons for this, in
somewhat chronological order:

1\. Most founders, from day one, are preparing for a leadership role. This may
not be obvious to the early employees, but the founders are probably
reading/studying leadership and management material. They are highly likely
getting advice and mentorship from other founders, executives, and/or VCs. And
they may even have a paid executive coach. Early employees rarely get this
type of advice/support/encouragement.

2\. No company or startup is free from 'politics', even early stage startups.
But early stage startups can trick you into thinking that they are. The org
chart is non-existent or flat, early employees work alongside the founders,
and every one is working on critical projects. In BigCo, employees navigate
the politics by choosing their projects carefully, presenting their work in
the best possible light, and currying favor with the right managers. In a
fast-paced early stage startup, it's hard to do any of that. Projects are
often assigned to whomever has the most bandwidth. And the nature of early
stage startups mean a lot of these efforts are going to be wasted and/or
failures (usually due to reasons beyond your control, i.e. product market fit,
etc..). Ideally this early-stage chaos doesn't get held against you when it
comes time to promote people, but that leads me to point 3...

3\. As the company starts to grow, the primary motivations of subsequent hires
will likely start to shift. The earliest employees are probably more focused
and excited about building a product. Later employees are more likely to be
focused on their careers. So while early employees are tied down with fixing
obscure bugs and supporting and maintaining legacy projects, the later
employees are busy playing the political game, i.e. picking cool/exciting
projects, spinning everything into big wins, and scheduling lunches/meetings
with the founders any chance they can get. And at some point, the start up is
going to reach a size where some hierarchy is needed, and before you know it,
promotions are getting handed out and you aren't on the list. Which then leads
to point 4...

4\. Ideally, your newly promoted colleagues should realize your value to the
company and seek out your input and participation as much as possible, right?
Wrong! Your deep knowledge of the product/stack/company is more or less a
threat to them and their new found authority. Even if you make it abundantly
clear that you don't aspire to be more than an Individual Contributor, you
will find yourself getting left out of meetings and pushed more towards legacy
support. And of course, this behavior puts you at a severe disadvantage for
subsequent rounds of promotions.

I think what it really comes down to, is that companies are inherently
political, no matter how small or large, and it feels like in addition to poor
pay (relative to risk) and long working hours, early employees also carry
significant 'political risk'. The founders have plenty of leverage to keep
their own positions secure, and at the same time they are incentivized to hire
the fanciest resumes they can afford (Stanford MBA's, ex-googlers) into
management roles to make the company look attractive to VC and acquisitions.
My advice to early employees out there, is if you want to grow with the
company, you need to start preparing from day one. Get yourself on the winning
projects, treat the founders less as colleagues and more as judgmental
managers that you need to constantly impress, and spend some time working on
'road maps' and 'hiring plans' to show off your 'managerial' skills. Or just
go the easy route and start your own company;)

------
wehadfun
Honestly if this guy was able to bring in business he will be an asset to
whatever company he goes to and can probably negotiate a golden parachute of
some sort.

