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Comment by _aarti | Hacker News Reader

The employee never worked on the actual product. He joined as a contractor 1 month before launch to work in the IT department on the website. He had been with the company only 3 months.

So, I disagree with his comments about the product. His points about management should be taken into consideration. The shutdown was mismanaged.

The core engineering team had folks with 3+ years working on Mechanical, Electrical, Firmware, iOS, Android and Backend engineering. This was not an easy feat to pull given the small team and that the manufacturing was in China on the same lines that build Apple's iPhone with the same level of quality.

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That makes it sound worse. Based on what you say he wasn't paid for 2 out of 3 months. And presumably they were bringing new people on until the very end, when they must have known it might fall apart.

He fought hard to become full time, he came in as a contractor and became full time within a month. He was paid until the last day. The contractors in the engineering team were all given option join full-time from the get go - they chose not to become full-time. No one in engineering knew we were shutting down. We were told 2 days before shutdown. I worked until 11 pm with many team members, including my manager until the night before.

So what if he wasn’t there the entire time? Why are you trying to attack his credibility?

I mean - think about, would you listen to someone who had given 3+ years of blood/sweat to a company and product vs 3 months.

The shutdown was mishandled, we all felt the pain. Most of all the contractors and I wish I could pay them. I would if I had the money. But I am also looking for a job.

> I mean - think about, would you listen to someone who had given 3+ years of blood/sweat to a company and product vs 3 months.

I think both people would be worth listening to. The one who was there for three months would probably have a very different perspective on the corporate culture and management, by virtue of not having worked there long enough for those things to seem normal.

This is the same reason some companies get value from bringing in outside consultants -- their different perspective enables them to recognize aspects of the business that have not occurred to the long-term insiders.

Right, and I would agree with you - we had outside consultants who worked alongside us, in iOS, in Firmware, in Cloud, in EE, in Security. We all worked as a team to put the last finishes on the product. Also, there were a lot of new employees as well. The whole SW QA team was hired this year.

We did not know about insolvency - no one did - except the leadership team, or many would have raised concerns or left. Maybe this was the fear. Who wants to acquire a company where people are jumping ship.

We wanted the product in people's hands. Heck, it's on my door at home.

I also would say that this employee has the right air his grievances. I disagree with his criticism of the product and the company's mission and vision. I believe - there was no malice. There was mismanagement.

He doesn’t blame malice, he blames negligence and greed.

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