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Comment by armie | Hacker News Reader

Hmm - I think Away's CEO apologized because of the public pressure that had been building up over the past couple of days. She didn't have much of a choice given how much the story had been trending.

Anyways, my point is around the dangers of using individual narratives to generalize and paint a picture. It also sets a dangerous precedent. Such a narrative could be written tomorrow about any startup/company really - You can substitute Away with Tesla, Amazon, Uber, JPM and a whole host of 'successful' companies. There is lots of employee turnover at these companies; all you need to do is go and find a bunch of unhappy former and current employees and you've got a cover story.

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There can be a lot of truth to these stories and often they end up backed up by OSHA reports, etc..

A company can make money and not be a good company to work for, many companies make money by being horrible employers..

I think you are trying to defend things that clearly don't need help defending themselves.

I agree re your 2nd point - a company can be a horrible employer and make tonnes of money; indeed, many companies exist within that realm. That is why regulation is important and if there is any gripe with modern day capitalism, it is the loss of union protections and the failure of regulation to keep up with worker protections (particularly for companies like Uber, Airbnb)

I am not trying to validate any culture. I make this clear in the piece too - I've got no idea about Away's culture and dont have any data points other than the 'Verge piece'. But I do have friends who work at startups/investment banks/hedge funds/consulting firms and naturally work and workplace oddities is something that gets discussed among us often. My point being that such stories can be constructed about any employer if the complaint is of the type 'We've got a passive aggressive boss who doesn't respect work-life balance' Hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

Yes, well I can see your narrative.. :)

At any rate, all I am saying is workplaces are astoundingly good at filtering negative information about themselves from past employees and there are plenty of psychologists who can tell you why whistleblowers are rare and often get the brunt of the negativity.

There are a million examples of the Rashomon that don't have the same flaws as using it to discredit what little information you can find in public about a workplace.

Obviously you should not assume everything is true or literal, but if many ex and even current employees are talking then its highly likely they were traumatized in a way that overrides their natural self interest. So ignore them at your peril.

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