Jason Calacanis at his finest
pastebin.com
pastebin.com
We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story.
Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath after hearing half of a story, then look like fools when the second half emerges. I don't like to think how many times I've been fooled myself, between Reddit and HN.
It would be nice if Internet culture could evolve to reserve judgment when a story like this appeared, in the same way it has evolved not to trust any story that appears in a much-forwarded email. I would be proud if HN was the place that mutation began.
Line 46-48 in that email are pretty clear.
Gracious and leaving, maybe in person would have been better, but as those emails come it is pretty good.
It's not as though he was fired.
But Evan clearly does not seem to be aware of any reason like that, he's literally clearly confused about the amount of venom that gets thrown his way, for exercising a right that every employee has, to hand in their notice.
To go to work for a large company like Yahoo and to be allowed to work on an open source project is in and off itself plenty of reason to switch and any mature employer would recognize that.
>"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." 10:06 PM Apr 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry®
The employer may take on certain expectations, possibility choosing a hire based on that enthusiasm and apparent commitment. Either way, no one expects a new employee to a) dislike a place soon after coming onboard, or b) abruptly take another offer. Is 12 months abrupt? Depends on the expectations.
It's a difficult situation that has to be handled tactfully on both sides. Doesn't appear to have happened here: Jason for his response, Evan for resigning _via email_.
Had it been a face-to-face conversation, then a letter, the fireworks could have been avoided. Speaking from first-hand experience, it can be absolutely gut-wrenching, but ultimately feels like the right thing to do.
invariably hr gives you the "we're looking for someone will grow with the company ... ", and you're expected to oblige them with some reassuring "enthusiasm".
Is anyone really doing that? I see Trophy Kids (btw, new term for me, and I am one, I suppose) as a characterization rather than blame. There is no doubt the term is pejorative, but if I think canned green beans taste like crap, am I blaming the beans, the can, the producer, or am I not placing any blame at all?
FWIW, I do agree that parents are largely responsible for their children's behavior.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter; Jason has a poor reputation here anyway and, assuming this is the full email conversation, this goes a long way to proving why.
How you treat people that piss you off is important in any business; acting like that looks immature and hissy. Polite anger would seem the correct response (if he was angry) - otherwise it just looks like your throwing toys out of a pram.
So we have a one-sided story, from a source who contradicts himself. I'd rather not jump to conclusions just yet.
In fact; it could well be complete bunk. He might have hated working there. But if so it's an example of how to deal with these situations - polite and positive.
As the employee, you get away with some things that "structurally" (as pg said) from the legal perspective that employers cannot.
So you might lose your job. You'll get a reference but nothing that your future employer is really going to base a hiring decision on.
I'm not convinced that the old employer loses any money by replacing and retraining employees once you subtract raises that would have been earned and benefits, so I tend to think there's still a tremendous amount of power on the side of the company rather than the employee.
The corporation is favored by law over the individual in almost every law that governs corporate-individual commerce, of any kind, in the US.
And they wonder why their employees don't feel loyal.
As much as Mahalo is a total diarrhea stain on the internet, and as much as I'll vote up articles about yet another angle of its spamminess, Calacanis' internal business stuff is simply not apropos.
I'll keep this goal in mind, and try to remind participants here not to jump to conclusions based on first, partial reports.
BTW, the comparison to how skeptically we read forwarded emails makes the point well. We should treat most blog postings, and especially most viral tweets, in much the same way.
So, Calacanis got emotional and snippy about losing an employee. It shows he cares. Despite the armchair philosophizing about its effects on morale or recruiting, it might be a net win for the Mahalo team for Calacanis to show a little anger/disapproval/impatience when this happens.
You'd think some of the finger-wagging fuddy-duddies had never heard the stories about Steve Jobs' "soft touch" with employees and partners...
Compared to that, Calacanis making the resignation effective immediately -- often a good practice for other reasons -- and taking a couple parting potshots at an employee's choice/tenure-length and new employer is mild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9DUK_4fbg
While the email was obviously a mistake on my part (I would take it back it I could), it was a personal message from me to an employee who I was very disappointed in. It was real--perhaps too real--and it is based on my passion for young people and their potential. Nothing more.
There's a ton of backstory, but I don't want to make this anything more than what it is: a personal issue between a startup founder and a kid with a lot of potential who left to do something else.
Rock on HN
Hey Evan,
We're mighty sorry, but we understand. If things don't work out at yahoo! as planned we want you to know the door is always open to return, after all we hate to see you go.
Please tell the rest of your team that you go with our blessing and that we look forward to seeing you do great things in the future. We all know if there is one thing they need over there it is quality people.
Since we still owe you more vacation days than your severance we can of course not hold you to stay longer but we'd really appreciate it if you could somehow squeeze out an extra few days to transfer your duties to John, of course we'll compensate you for that.
All the best!
j
But as these emails go (and they do, I've been on the receiving end of a few of those) it's about as good as they get.
It would be ideal if an employee parting ways didn't seem like a betrayal or bad break-up.
If you fire the wrong person like that/send off emails like that it could easily lead to a mass walk-out by sympathizers, so it is not only 'nice' to be nice, it also makes good business sense.
Who knows when and how you run in to each other again.
The "pack and get out now" is actually very standard upon resignation, but more so for sales people, less engineers, unless .. there's something going on (which obviously we don't know).
Btw, as the employee: resigning via email is also not very classy, and could be done better: e.g. handing an official resignation letter in person to your direct superior face to face.
Just a suggestion. Also, if you want to air your dirty laundry, come forth with the stuff that you didn't tell us about. There's 2 kinds of lies:
(1) commission: you explicitly fabricate non-facts
(2) omission: where you fail to mention details that matter
Both are still lies. I think the employee knows how snowball started, but is refraining from telling the public. Which if that was the case, perhaps it shouldn't have been brought to light in the first place - because that'd mean the employee wants public to make a decision street-justice-style based on incomplete information.
The moment you give the employee a reason, you open the door to a lawsuit. The best way to let someone go is simply say "your services are no longer required" and leave it at that.
Most workers in the US do not have contracts and can quit at any time, just as they can be let go from their jobs without reason.
You can leave immediately even subjected to this clauses, but then you suffer a penalization (one day of pay each two days you cut). Most times, the company owes you money at any given time (holidays, extra pays), so it's wise to stay unless the new salary nulls the difference. Also it's always good to keep good will with former employers, you never know.
If that was the first communication he had with Mahalo about his resignation, bad on him. Given my perception of Jason (as a douche-nozzle leach/blight on the internet), it wouldn't surprise me at all if he tried to portray it as if that was the first and only communication from Evan to Mahalo and that Evan was somehow the bad guy here. Employees quit. Get the F over it, and don't extend your reputation as a petulant out-for-number-one dickhead.
Other than that he's not a graceful entrepreneur and an attention seeker (I refrain myself from using a harsher term).
2. Open Angel Forum has been hosting in five cities in the first four months of 2010.
3. I've done seven angel investments including gdgt.com, gowalla.com and blippy.com.
4. TechCrunch50 has made millions of dollars, but more importantly launched amazing startups like Mint.com, Powerset and yammer.
5. This Week in Startups about to have it's one-year anniversary and advertising has been sold out for two years. Also, ThisWeekIn.com is closing a small angel round and have almost 10 shows.
6. ON the board of Savings.com, GDGT and another company not yet announced.
I'd list ten more things... but it would start to get a little silly.
I'm getting a lot done these days, but you are correct I'm far from graceful. I'm blunt and to the point... sometimes I say things in private, or public, that I shouldn't.
A private thing that should have stayed private is now public. Yawn. There is more to the story, but I'm not going to comment HR issues publicly--that would not be professional. Part of me would love to unload however.
best j
Funny... Sam Odio thought the same thing.
http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2010/03/confession-i-was-one-who...
2. good for you
3. The only one I've heard of is 'blippy', and that's only because of some fairly sloppy coding there.
4. great. I'm fairly sure they would have made it without your personal contribution though, you can't possibly take personal credit for that, just like Paul Graham doesn't take personal credit for dropbox or any one of the other YC investments.
And so on. The list would indeed be silly if you continued.
You're one hell of an entrepreneur, I'll give you that but you're way out of line in how you treat people and the basic business model of mahalo simply sucks.
Do you really believe that even if such email should stay private that that absolves you of what you wrote there?
I used to look up to you, that has changed dramatically in the last 18 months or so.
It's been an ongoing thing, mostly related to his company being pretty spammy, but there are other episodes mixed in as well: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+cal...
... and we've reached the Godwin point!
(considering Fascism as a proxy for Nazism)
Agreed.
Being a part of something bigger than yourself is something to be proud of. I'm a part of a lot of teams and organizations and while I don't credit for their success (or failures) I might point to them as evidence that I'm at least keeping busy. Promoting startups is a noble endeavor as far as I'm concerned. I'm very inspired by how many people want to encourage people who want to start something of their own. It's something anyone who does it should be proud of.
'You have done nothing' 'I did XYZ' 'Stop promoting yourself. The work should speak for itself'
...
There's something to be proud of.....
Still, your business, your rules.
(obviously this only applies to some employers. I've worked for some employers who were very compassionate and mature for both layoffs and resignations).
Do we really think it's appropriate to air a company's dirty laundry and/or conflicts on Hacker News? I mean, that's the type of shit they do over at TMZ isn't it? Gossip about people?
I don't care who's an ass, who's been wronged and who has sand in their ovaries today. I don't come to HN for this.
Hopefully someday, in years to come, somebody on the verge of writing a similar email will suddenly remember this story and think better of it.
I'm glad that this came out, because it's given me some more perspective on Mahalo and Jason.
Does it really happen in this day and age? Don't companies lockout high value employees immediately as a matter of security and anti-sabotage?
e.g. instead of 'never return, do not attempt to contact us', you could say 'We're sorry to see you go. Monday will be your last day, come in to pick up your belongings and say goodbye and we'll all go out for lunch.'
Just because other companies do it doesn't mean you have to act like a jerk when you do it too.
The manager is almost always better off by letting the departing employee off immediately to hedge risk. You pay him for the two weeks, and let him sit at home.
What I find most puzzling is why announce the resignation via email? This is almost always best done face to face, or at least via phone. Doing this electronically strikes me as immature.
If someone's resigned rather than been fired or made redundant, they'll already have had plenty of time to do that, won't they?
"What I find most puzzling is why announce the resignation via email? This is almost always best done face to face, or at least via phone. Doing this electronically strikes me as immature."
I agree that handing in your resignation is best done in person, maybe it's an age thing.
Would not work somewhere that handled employees leaving that way. Sorry Mr. Calacanis!
Employees who are fired or laid off sometimes are locked out, but that's a more confrontational situation where the employer might fear retaliation.
Admitted, this was a small company, at a larger company it might have been different because of rigid policies.
When I was employed myself (long long ago, fortunately) I usually ended up with some contract work from my ex employer to help them tide over until they had found a good replacement, in one case this period extended for 6 months.
edit:
+) To be fair, he actually emailed me last year, almost a decade after it happened that he was terribly sorry about what he did, so in the end even with him I'm still in contact of sorts, and I've forgiven him for what he did, he really seems to have learned his lesson.
I suppose it does depend on the situation - in particular the trust that already exists - and this is probably also related to the size of the company.
This is in England. I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that things work differently in the US.
#1: I gave several months notice. At their suggestion I took me my last week off paid in return for being willing to answer emails if problems arose after I left.
#2: I gave 2 weeks notice. I was personally thanked by multiple people for how I wrapped it up, and for a final project that I took on and did in my last 4 hours. They asked me to contract for them some time later, but it didn't work out.
#3: I gave 2 weeks notice. I got contracting work from them after I left, and still have VPN access.
#4: I gave a month notice and had a break before my next job. (A vacation which I spent contracting for #3.) I told them that during that period I would be available on an emergency basis if anything broke. They were happy to take me up on this offer.
In every case I was considered a high value employee. However I had established trust, that was maintained through the process of my leaving, and to the best of my knowledge that trust still exists. (As a matter of corporate policy, my access was usually withdrawn after I left. But not because anyone was concerned about me personally.)
This was Ireland, though.
It was originally on http://evanculver.posterous.com/ but he appears to have since removed it.
Edit: Adding original link bit.
And it will continue to be amusing gossip for the rest of us :)
And I say this as someone who used to quite enjoy Calacanis's podcasts a few years ago.
I'm an undergraduate student at University of Texas with entrepreneurial ambitions who met Jason personally at SxSW for the first time. I am pretty much a nobody and yet he treated me with utmost respect and was a pleasure to talk to. Personal relationships are a delicate matter. You can't use a computer to solve all your issues.
@evanculver Good luck at Yahoo, dude. It's not as dead as some say, as is evidenced by the excellent code they churn out. -- http://twitter.com/codeshaman/status/12584315658
@codeshaman Thank you sir. I was going to delay the announcement, but you know, people do things that make you jumpy. -- http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12585519584
/me needs glasses ?
It was there. :)
Literal quoting seems to be a good protection against that.
It's a really insightful and petulant reaction to what I thought was a perfectly nice resignation note from the Evan guy.
There's no way I'm doing more work tonight. I'm done. Have to quit kidding myself.
11:12 AM Apr 19th
A day before he sent the resignation email.
who cares about jason cala... whatever the fuck his name is.