"Although, we were ultimately not acquired by Facebook, this framework helped us, and key members of our company, make the decision to join Facebook." -> Ah OK.
Given the details they decided to leave out, I'm not certain that the sentimental navel gazing they posted on their site does much other than make them look bad.
What would have been better than what they wrote? More honesty. A lie of omission is arguably more dishonest that one told directly. Something more straightforward like "We're tired, and decided to pursue a new opportunity. By the way, here's what we're doing to help our awesome employees move on to new and better things, too" would have been more direct, more useful, and less likely to backfire on them.
As it stands, what they wrote is mostly about themselves, with a paragraph thrown in about the people who helped them achieve success. A more gracious approach might have been to invert the ratio of introspection:gratitude. A smarter approach might have been to write nothing at all.
I could easily see 40 people who live in Toronto not wanting to pull up and move to the San Francisco Bay Area.
That said, the posting does read a bit like the partners were tired of doing all the work of running a company and wanted someone else to be the 'boss' for a while. I can understand that feeling as well.
Have you been to Toronto? I think you underestimate the degree to which America, and particularly NYC and SF, are glamorous to Canadians who've spent their careers doing largely the same work for about half as much money.
Contrary to your perspective, I've grown up in Toronto, lived in the Bay Area, and have come back to Toronto because I genuinely feel it's a more balanced city to live in.
Sure, but that's not the point. The average Torontonian has never been to SF and doesn't have first-hand knowledge for comparison. A lot of young, naive people see it as the figurative land of milk and honey where everybody is driving a Tesla, making $200k and there are no winters.
Really? Having grown up in TO and lived in both, I would not live in SF for less than $500k/yr and even then only to retire early and GTFO. SF is a decaying, dangerous, smelly, hobo-infested dump with terrible weather.
Housing is getting expensive, but most Cost of Living indexes put NYC/SF 30%+ higher than Toronto proper, and areas around Toronto are still somewhat affordable.
This does put the original announcement in a weird light. Although it doesn't specifically say that the 40 employees were let go without any kind of compensation... I suppose it's possible they all got a nice payout as part of the partners' FB deal? I don't know, just trying to avoid jumping to conclusions based on limited evidence.
Is everyone aqui-hired by Facebook required to say something like "we like what we do, but at Facebook we get to work on something that is used by a billion people!" I swear, every single blog post announcing an exit, acquisition or hire by Facebook includes this.
Is that it? Is that the ultimate metric by which a developer or entrepreneur measures success? So what if you're contributions are going to be used by a billion people - Facebook is fluff, an advertising supported business where the product is free to use and the usage data is mined for revenue.
I feel like what they're really saying is "Facebook wrote me a giant check that I couldn't refuse" - why is that so hard to say? I don't think many working for Facebook leap out of bed thinking they're going to change the world - but your startup might.
Man up, admit when you're being paid enough to silence your discontent or burn your old bridges for the city on the hill.
Why is so hard to believe that some people would be excited to continue what they love doing, but potentially supercharged at Facebook? Clearly it's not for you, but it doesn't seem far-fetched. And like everything else in life, I'm sure there were multiple dimensions to this -- including a good dollar offer.
Oh right, they should be tacky and talk about money instead.
I've written software used by thousands of companies for a couple decades. That makes me happy just as much as the salary I made writing it. Providing utility to large numbers of people is satisfying.
And for your startup to change the world...well, a billion users certainly puts you further down that road, doesn't it?
Why can your startup change the world outside Facebook but not inside Facebook?
I appreciate you saying this because meaningful work doesn't need to be highly visible but I dislike your cynicism. It isn't difficult to imagine why a designer would want their work to be seen by the largest possible audience and to suggest it must just be the money is pretty cynical.
I hope they keep http://labs.teehanlax.com/ up and running, so really awesome projects and cases studies there. It'd be a shame for that to ultimately be pulled down.
I don't think archive.org would be enough to keep it intact and useable. Are there any other archiving services built for JS-heavy web sites?
TBH sites never look the same when seen in archive.org, they must be leaving some stuff out, even if in theory it should make no difference if all the files and URLs were replicated.
Been let go on a Friday, and it is seriously one of the shittiest things you can do to a person. Here's to hoping those folks who aren't joining FB land on their feet. I'm sure they will.
