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Comment by snprbob86 | Hacker News Reader

"A company with a culture of quitting does not have ex-employees; they have alumni."

That point really hit home with me. You can beat around the bush and say "hit by a bus". You can put a positive spin on things and say "win the lottery". Or you can actually embrace a common social phenomenon and reap the benefits.

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I've had the pleasure of working for one such company. My experience was exactly as described in the article: even though I enjoyed the team and the environment, eventually I was simply not getting what I needed out of the job. My manager was very understanding, and didn't try to feed me any HR "career" BS - he knew that there wasn't enough room for the growth I wanted, and that it made sense for me to move on. He simply said I'm welcome back at any time.

The word "alumni" in the article really hit me. Three years later I still occasionally join that team for a beer, and I'm actually introduced to new members as an alumnus. So, yes, such places do actually exist.

In our consulting company we have noticed that a lot of the ex-employees become our customers. Somehow, we have built good relationship with them and when they go and work for somebody else they call us. But I never saw it the way they put it in the article. It really is a good idea. Embrace turnover and get the benefits.

That's certainly an interesting way of getting customers. Employ people, have them quit, they get hired into a position that has the ability to give their old company money.

Viral. I like it.

I can't ascertain if you are being sarcastic or honest in your post, so I'll give my 2 cents.

If you run an organization that experiences the phenomenon of a lot of an organization's alumni become customers, then this is a pleasant and welcome side effect of what is described in this article.

See Goldman Sachs.

Or McKinsey et al. I find connections into the private sector ethical OK, but connections to the government worry me. Just a gut feeling.

See: members of congress and lobbyists.

I don't think it has anything to do with giving their previous employer a kickback.

Rather, it's simply that they're already aware of their old employers strengths and weaknesses, so vendor evaluation is made a lot simpler.

This is pretty much how consulting firms get their contracts. The ex-employees aren't actually your customers directly. That would imply that they are giving up their own money of your services (something any reasonable ex-consultant would never do). What they do instead is convince the companies they work for now to hire your firm. They are tricking the new company into becoming a customer and shelling out cash for a service that probably offers very little value to them.

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