#1
me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes.
CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and err on the side of caution!
...later
CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis!
#2
CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world!
me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary.
CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we can't even do that....
Everyone says that. So everyone is really smart. So it doesn't matter.
If I see one more "kitchen" where everything is either fried, made of corn, or both....
I said no and gave reassurances, they didn't hire me, the guy who did the peer-programming part of the interview (stage 4) me changed his LinkedIn to "Apple" about a week later.
They've taken down that ad and reposted it about a month later three times since then.
I'm not even involved with hiring, and I hear this so often it makes me hurt. Also, I'd add:
CEO: drives off in over-priced car to fly to Europe on the company dime for "business"
Team lead at 9pm on Saturday: "Hey, where's the CEO? We need him to review a few things, he wanted sign-off before we got too far."
VP Product: "He's in Vale all weekend with his family, skiing. He's off the grid until late Sunday night."
"We hire extraordinarily productive people, who are very good at interviewing and are also ready to work for peanuts. We can't seem to find any, there is a crisis in this market"
CEO: "Although he was a strong candidate, he was more engineering focused than what we need right now. We need a Product focused person."
> CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers
> me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position
> CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball?
> me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position
This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit?
It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.
Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.
I think the litmus test should be, "do I not dislike spending a lot of time with this person", not "do I really like spending time with this person". Shooting the shit over beers and foosball is really testing for the latter, not the former.
Plus let's face it, a lot of technically gifted and experienced people ain't exactly extroverts. And people act different when they know they're being evaluated anyway. So some founders' insistence on fratting it up for step one of the hiring process just strikes me as stupid.
And by the way...I'm a tall, white, former college athlete male. I'm VERY comfortable in a "drinking beer in bars with dudes" environment; it's what I often do with my friends on my own time. I'd likely be even more opinionated about this if I were not as naturally comfortable in a bro-y environment.
That probably doesn't have much to do with whether they're any good at the job or whether you like working with them.
Considering the vast majority of startups fail, maybe this is one aspect that needs rethinking.
Turned down the job in favor of a bigger, more corporate experience.
Surprise surprise, a few months later, the start up in question was lambasted for being the exact stereotype of a dudebro startup, from underpaying its employees and expecting them to work 16 hour days to outright sexual harassment.
It feels so...frat boy to me, and I was never a frat boy.
While it is an obvious culture to examine, realize that most companies (and certainly all startups) have a cultural expectation. Sometimes it is as highly overt as the above, but other times it is a quieter expectation that is more in keeping with mainstream corporate American culture.
For example, in many companies not caring about sports can make casual conversations and friendly connections with coworkers difficult. Also, certain departments (such as IT) can be overwhelmingly focused on standard geek culture.
It is a really tough and interesting problem to examine. A strong culture can bind a team together in fantastically productive ways. However, a strong culture can also lead to groupthink and exclude voices that would help build an even better team. The exclusionary aspect can also be seen as sexist/racist/bigoted from an outside perspective even though it is doubtful that the team intends it that way.
On balance, I think a founder focusing on the type of culture they want is good as it allows both founder and employees have a clear understanding of what the jobs expectations. That said, a culture of beer-and-foosball hardly seems like the most productive and conducive to success.
Sometimes they do, and it's not about "brodude startup"
If there are some founders and they share a vision/way of doing things that's their culture already and that's how the company is going to do things.
I'm not saying it's bad, quite the contrary.
What's your focus? What's your way of solving problems? How do you prioritise stuff?
I work where I do now largely because my friends do. I mean, if you're going to spend 60 hours a week in close-ish quarters with people, it'd be nice if you enjoyed it as much as possible.
Granted, there is an extreme, and there are discrimination laws, but I do want to spend time with people I get along with.
imo company culture isnt how a company acts
it is how people within treat each other
The CEO met me in an office in SV so lavish it would not have been out of place as a Ferrari showroom. Halfway during the meeting - we didn't hit it off all that well - he made the momentous announcement that if we did not accept his offer we'd be going on a head-on collision course for a game of chicken and he had just thrown away his steering wheel.
I just laughed, bade my farewells. They failed spectacularly (not a bankruptcy but the service was shut down) several months later after burning through a very large fraction of $30M.
What puzzles me to this date is what he thought he was trying to accomplish by showing me that he was a reckless cowboy with very little sense for business relations but it certainly wasn't going to end in a partnership with him 'at the wheel' (since he'd just thrown that out).
He's still around, selling toothpaste.
What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager without tech management experience?
It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than many devs think.
Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions.
If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to jump).
---
founder: I have a modest, growing business, but the marketing costs are rather high. What can to do to bring that cost down?
wannabe-founder: whoa, you really failed to validate the core concept and establish your basic value prop. You're going to see an astronomical CAC until you ultimately pivot and achieve LGTM or BBQ. I'd recommend you shut down and find another vertical.
CAC : Cost to Aquire a Customer
LGTM : Looks Good To Me?
BBQ : ? Not a clue other than a delicious way to prepare meat. Maybe something Quality?
Having been both a founder and an employee, these examples don't really ring true to me. At least personally I've seen a lot more employees and consultants wasting founders time than the other way around.
As an employee, it might still be attractive if you're in the habit of stealing from the owner. Obviously if there's any documentation that the drink was served, it won't work as the contents of the till will be wrong and usually that comes straight out of your pay. That in turn takes us into all the various ways the help can steal from owners, which is another topic altogether.
If one assumes that everyone involved in the operation of the bar is law-abiding, then your point stands. But that's less common than you probably imagine.
[after a long indepth technical discussion with a qualified opportunity, quoting, resources allocated, ready to pull the trigger on a large project]
me: So we are ready to go, waiting on the PO
them: Sure, just working through our process
(falls off internets, doesn't respond to phone calls/emails/rejects visits)
Months go by
them: We set up an RFP and bought from someone else.
me: Er ... you used our confidential material (marked as such) to set up a public RFP, that you didn't even invite us to, or respond to our queries? Seriously?
them: Yes.
[bangs head on table, but it gets better ... no ... the other thing]
them: the system we bought (not yours), isn't performing nearly as well as your system that we POCed on.
me: So? Why not call your vendor and have them help you?
them: they aren't able to. They don't know this stuff as well as you do.
me: So, let me get this right ... you want me to provide consulting services to help a competitor of ours ... compete ... with us?
them: Not so much consulting, as free advice and guidance. Like you did during the POC.
[resumes banging head on table]
them: hello? whats that noise?
[years pass]
them: we need to rethink our strategy, it was an order of magnitude slower than your unit at about 2-3x the cost.
me: no kidding Sherlock
them: we want to start this process again ....
me: (fits of laughter) uh ... no.
I told the customer I wanted a written release from the other company to use their stuff, especially since some of it would end up in our promo/marketing info.
They called me "not a team player" and cut my team loose from the project. Six months later they fired many of the senior staff for missing funds and a lawsuit from that other company.
Karma is a bitch.
Weeks went by after they proposed the project. Later, I found out in a slightly roundabout way they went to another developer (overseas, cheaper) after sharing my quote and spec with the client :)
a quote is one thing and as a sales professional you should expect to waste a huge amount of time on quotes that never go anywhere, but a proof of concept is supposed to be something you charge for. it's engineering work!!!
if they don't want to pay for a poc, that's a real good sign that they're not worth working for.
Unfortunately, while you are correct it is our, and specifically my (the buck stops with me) fault, I've run into variations on this from very small "free advice" requests, through what amounted to fake RFPs, where the 'customer' loved our design, and in one case specifically asked us to train our competitors and share our IP (with no compensation) to have them deliver it.
This POC was piggy backed atop another project that had ended, and it amounted to getting some run-time in for them, after they indicated a strong preference for us (given our recent domination of an industry benchmark at the time). The 'customer' swore they would buy, and I worked to get an operational quote in front of them that they agreed to push through if the POC was in fact viable.
So much for that.
One thing I've learned over the years (no, decades) of startup life is, you don't have the deal until the check clears. Curious how similar this is to raising capital.
The cost of this POC for us was power/cooling, some of my time, and the opportunity cost of not using the machine for other engineering work. But the long term cost to the customer for their poor behavior and poor choices can't be easily measured, other than them not hitting their KPOs.
I do take full blame for this failure though. It was mine. But it is still annoying. All teachable moments leave marks.
I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind.
As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors' management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying for three weeks, etc.
I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves).
We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in (his, kind of) round. They not once called him.
So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.
That site has been around for years and it works really well: http://thefunded.com
I figure if you make something like this in a legal safehaven (slandering rich people etc) with a proper tweet button it has the potential to piss people off.
I have about a dozen entries if you ever do start this. My one from last week was a doozy.
What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards their partners / managers.
Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off.
Very anecdotal of course!
Always remember: nothing is impossible when you're an asshole.
/s
Founder Institute
- run by international group of millionaire magazine-cover entrepreneurs
- doesn’t invest a penny in its companies
- charges founders thousands of dollars for mentorship
- well-regarded startup accelerator
-------------------
I was once offered the position to head the local chapter, after having a private phonecall with Adeo, I declined as I couldn't see the value offered. The next person took it, and as expected, the local chapter failed spectacularly and the people founding it were out of a lot of work and didn't get anything in return.
It's still a mistery to me why that organization has credibility.
Is the Founder Institute a good deal for entrepreneurs? Why or why not?
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Founder-Institute-a-good-deal-f...
#1
CEO: We just closed a XX million dollar Series C funding round!
-- later at an a company wide meeting ---
CEO: we have zero revenue. if we asked our customers to pay us, they would drop our product in a second... so, uh, we really don't have product market fit yet.
me: ...
CEO: no worries. we are attacking such a large market. surely we'll find something. and when we do it will be HUGE... it'll be... it'll be... it's so huge I'm having trouble even describing it!
#2
-- at an important weekly product meeting --
CEO: okay it's been ten minutes. where is [cofounder]
CTO: oh he's in china for the week.
CEO: ...
CTO: On vacation.
everyone else: ... (your cofounder didn't tell you that?)
#3
me: your company name "cadabra" sounds like cadaver.
ceo: nah, dude.
me: you had to spell it out when I asked you to pronounce it.
ceo: nah, we just need to hire more marketing people.
#4
wannabe designer: so tell me how you approach design.
me: well I really like being apart of the process from start to finish, since I've also done UX wor--
designer: great, let me tell you how we do design here. i draw up the stuff and you do it, unless there's a technical problem. you can argue and you will be wrong, ha ha.
me: you're joking right?
designer: * proceeds to create barely passable UIs *
And the list goes on. I have plenty of more stories to share but I am currently busy seeking employment elsewhere.
Shameless plug: If you're looking for an American android developer (10,000+ install base on play store), or a front end web developer ( Tech Giant), a back python/java developer ( past startups ), let's talk shop at snarkyhackernewsuser@gmail.com.
I just don't get it. There typically aren't that many co-founders in a company. How hard is it to keep one another on the same page. Sometimes it's about vacation times. Sometimes it's about resourcing. Sometimes it's about projects being worked on.
I find it particularly distressing because, in my view, your cofounder is like your lifelong partner. Imagine going to another country without telling your husband or wife for a week. Maybe it'll be fine if you apologize afterwards... but what would you tell your kids? Metaphorically, the "kids" are everyone who sat in on that meeting and were amazed at the lack of communication between the two.
[1] He doesn't really seem to have a huge role in the company anymore. He does not seem anywhere near as stressed as his cofounder. He kept silent when there was a "we don't have product market fit, oh shit" situation when it was revealed to the company.
(at a party, in a group of 6-8 acquaintances)
Me: Oh hi Fred, how're you doing? I heard you got a new job. Where are you now?
Fred: I'm at Clustra Systems.
(entire group laughs spontaneously)
[explanation: everybody in the group other than Fred simultaneously thought, "That sounds like a Clustraf*ck of a company." OTOH maybe Fred did too.]
She's extremely stressed and there's a lot of pressure on her. I understand that and I commiserate-- the problem is that at this point, it's all just "playing house".
Me: Great career opportunity, I'd certainly be willing to move across country for this
Interviewer, day 1: Here's your desk, now I'm going to assign you a ticket off the backlog. Let me know when you're done and I'll assign you another one. [pats me on the head and walks away]
Bait'n'switch, and I fell for it. I think it's the only way they can get people to come to this no-good podunk town, with not a sushi bar for miles, and 19th century development practices. And yes, I am preparing my awesome flameout exit. I hope to hear the lamentation of their womenfolk.
I'm compressing things for comic effect, but I promise you the core of the story is true - I got suckered in by wonderful promises, and interviewing in the industry hot spot I was in is going to involve significant time and cash outlay.
* Google SWEs aren't typically swiss army knives. I need a swiss army knife, so this is not a SWE position, if that matters to you.
I have trouble laughing at what I know is supposed to be humor, because of how tragically true this is and how much this affects me on a regular basis.
But I don't work for a startup! I thought it was supposed to be different in that world.
Perhaps some problems are just universal.
Case in point, grossly expensive COTS implemtation requiring 80 consultants to build ETL pipeline to handle roughly 5,000-10,000 transactions A DAY simple XML files to DB rows.
Told client a few smart devs could build this in a few months. Got the ಠ_ಠ
Other times they know they need to get things back on track, but they don't know how to stop the runaway train that is a developer ruminating on something that gets more convoluted with each syllable.
> me: okay but I don't see what we could offer. You know we're on a really tight
> married hetero male founders: we're getting an intern.
> intern: (beautiful 18yo girl)
Young male intern --> Everyone assumes you're a Wunderkind.
Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you.
Startupbullshit
But the pattern holds in one way, because to keep up appearances, we're supposed to put the useless male intern on coding projects. So he's more of a net negative.
Well, to be fair, a young, attractive, competent female intern has far better opportunities than intern at a shitty startup.
Actually, I would say I would stereotype first on their credentials before their gender (since I would likely see their resume first before seeing them in person)
i would add:
job offer: salary range $100-$130k
interviewer: the max for this position is $80K
interviewer: hello?
At best they are blatantly insulting the candidate, at worst they are liars. Probably both.
This should be enough as an illustration of "bullshit experiences".
How could someone like that possibly make sound business decisions?
The irony is, I guess, that most people involved in a startup don't know what it takes to actually get it off the ground, because the formula they've been sold doesn't really actually work, and they don't have the business (or technical!) savvy to correct course.
I would not totally disagree with this. But here's the thing: no-one really does. It's extremely difficult. If many people did know, it wouldn't be as lucrative. Being the boss is by far the hardest position in the whole endeavor.
1. VCs, who refuse to adequately capitalize their portfolio companies.
2. The cultural environment that encourages this approach.
3. The founders, for their lack of business sense and willingness neither to bootstrap nor demand adequate startup capital.
4. The employees, for going along with it.
Especially if, like OP, you considered a cash offer for half this amount you've pulled out of thin air to be a damned, laughable insult, a ridiculous slight, completely amateurish, a clownshow run by idiots. (Although multiple of them have suggested this as an appropriate rate.)
I wish everyone in life were as easy to please as OP. (Just pay him the number he wrote down on a piece of paper, approximately twice what he commands in that market.) Of course, you're never going to build something big with him, I would never try.
I have no idea why he's applying to startups.
Also his objection to someone getting an internship at a startup because they're a "beautiful 18yo girl" is the most sexist thing I've read in a while.
young male intern: talks a lot but is not working young female intern: does all the work of the male intern, gets half the pay
me: why? ceo: because the male intern is from some important school!
The fact that he's "from some important school" wich in this case didn't provide any value at all, was just a lame excuse for "he has a p*nis".
Another excuse I heard from that CEO, when one of the underpaid team members asked him about the difference in pay, was this: "It's your market value!" which reads quite clearly as "You earn less because you're a woman"
PS: Had a lot of these cases in that company and the gender was the only common denominator. I'm glad I left. Meanwhile they have a new CEO, and things have improved.
As a founder you are better of paying some random developer do have viable product and then if it works - hire someone.
NEVER GIVE AWAY EQUITY FOR JOB.
I'm going to be slightly reverse-ageist for a moment: I'm at a startup where the average age is over 40, the founder is deeply experienced as both an engineer and a manager, and I can honestly say that NONE of this stuff happens. I took my reading these anecdotes to appreciate how nice (and apparently rare?) this is.
manager: "Since you're single, can you work through the holidays and cover the systems/push this feature/go the extra mile so that the people with families can spend time with them?"
Earns goodwill from the people with families, the boss has one less thing to worry about at end of year, and the holidays are usually "dead time" so I got a lot of slack time in.
(Though, thinking about it, I was told once "Yeah, well, you don't have kids, so this [the holiday] isn't that important for you." that wasn't a startup, however, that was a F100)
> (devops guy) hi, im here for the lead devops role > (CTO) awesome, you'd be a great fit here. can you write a sudoku solver in ruby real quick? > (devops guy) [writes solver in ruby] > (CTO) wow looks great... when can you start? do you have any questions for me? > (devops guy) I do have a question: how do you shard your bigdata installations and what is it built on? > (CTO) oh I wrote my own, we call it redisbigtable -- its the worlds first CAP compliant data store. oh, and we shard by customer. > (devops guy) thank you for your time.
Equivalents of time and money, and the odds of wasting it all on chance?
Perhaps, a sampling of people who took the option to work for equity, and the ratio of those whose investment in time made the equity valuable, over those who would have had a better income with a typical salary.
Me: Those are easy to find.
Startup: Our lead developer keeps shooting them down because they don't know (obscure keyword).
Me: How long would it take an experienced programmer to learn (obscure keyword)?
Startup: I don't know, maybe an hour?
Me: How long have you been hiring for this position?
Startup: About six months.
Me: Would it help if I sent you a transcript of this call?
Startup: What?
Me: Never mind...
During interview with founder:
me : I believe 'honesty is the best policy'
founder: Great! we need like-minded people like you.
(after few months)
founder: He creates negative environment within the team!
me: (up all night fixing bugs in production due to technical debt and mistakes from overworked and tired devs. Sleep from 5am to 9am, show up to office at 10am)
CEO (sales background), walking by as he sees me enter the office: "Hey tone, I want butts in seats, including yours. We have a culture of hard work here. Set an example."
...
CTO: "We don't need to hire expensive devs. Just hire from overseas and promise them an H1B. They'll work for the minimum."
me: "That's not only unsustainable, it's unethical. H1B is a lottery, we can't promise that!"
CTO: "I don't expect them to know that, and you're not going to tell them! Get them on-boarded and working a.s.a.p."
me: (goes home, writes resignation email)
Company is constantly on credit hold. Engineers receive calls from suppliers stating that they haven't been paid and no one in accounts payable is returning their calls.
Company does layoffs on a recurring basis, and then hires different people for a new project. In one case they hired back the same people they laid off a year ago and paid them signing bonuses.
CEO shows gross indifference when someone leaves the company. Just shrugs it off.
CEO walks into VP of HR's office with someone and states that you're fired, and this is your replacement.
CEO constantly worrying about getting delisted from NASDAQ.
CEO and VP Engineering "chum" thinking they know the price of components and stating that that should cost $5, when everyone supplying stated item is asking $15.
Recruiting company: Someone needs a php developer for work in X industry.
I work on the industry, take the test they give me, get a perfect score, never hear a word, no interview.
Big company : I travel across the mountains to an interview, 15 minutes before arriving I get a call, "we can't meet you today, we will come back with another time".
Startup: we need someone with strong cognitive skills and php and javascript experience (8 y ago, before everyone had 10 y javascript experience). In interview: you are one of two qualified, the otherone is from <other country, more than two hours away, by plane>, -goes on to advertise the position again, then after realizing there are no other goes on to offer me below market rates. I go on to learn Java in a better paid job with better well - everything.
Company recruiting lead: The team enjoyed meeting you. They felt you are very smart and personable. [VP of engineering] liked your work with machine learning. At this time, they feel you are a bit junior for the team.
I had to laugh, glad I dogged a bullet.
The team: Ok. Not what we expected, but we have some equity, its a tough market, and we have been working on this for a while. Let's hope it pays off in the future.
Three weeks - working from Sunday to Sunday - later...
The Team: Yes! I can't believe we delivered! We are more motivated than ever! Now let's celebrate!
CEO: Yeah, sorry, no time for that. Here's a $40 dollar check for each of you to go out and grab a bite. Oh, and by the look of our roadmap we might need to crunch some more next month.
The Team: [starts quitting one by one]
Manager: Hey you're here for the xx position right? You know, you sound like you'd be a really good fit for this new job that opened up, I just fired this guy, millennials amirite, so let's talk about that for the next hour.
them: great, can you come in for a front-end developer interview at 2?
me: I'm here for the engineering manager position
them: here's an offer for a front-end position making below-average $
me: thanks for your time
them: ???????
CEO: Why won't anyone work for us?
them: we offered them a job!
this is classic ! :)
Designer: ...
COO: Don't worry everything will cool down after Thanksgiving!
Designer: Fine...
(Week before Thanksgiving)
COO: Finish everything? Like is X, Y, Z all good to go?
Designer: Yep, everything's finished!
COO: Awesome! Unfortunately, we're going to have to let you go...
