That said, I've never seen all those things under the same roof, much less in a single day. The perfect storm of insanity makes me doubt the author's story a little bit, but each of the things she's brought up I've seen.
Shit, I literally just read a racist internal email an hour ago about the new cleaning lady at the office.
Plus the pointless credential-rundown you get every. single. goddamn. time. you meet a startup person in this city. Oh, you went to Harvard 10 years ago? That's so relevant considering we just met 2 minutes ago! You used to work at Goldman and now you're doing a consumer-tech startup? Yeah, that really needed to be in the first 3 sentences you've ever spoken to me.
I once worked under a CTO who remarked "it's not like we're going to hire a woman" after interviewing a female dev candidate, which would be horribly offensive even if he was just kidding (he wasn't kidding, I was shocked he even took the time to interview her).
There's definitely a sense of "startups are the new banking." It's frustrating because there are also a lot of good people, but man is there a glut of bros who fit all the worst stereotypes of old boys club business.
We need a new word. "Startup" has essentially become as meaningless as "agile". Semantically, "startup" is now just an umbrella under which the same paper-pushers and conference-call-bros we were trying to escape from are convening.
"A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup."
Wikipedia says a startup is "a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model"[1]. The relevant Wiktionary entry defines it as a "new organization or business venture"[2], fairly similar to the OED's "newly established business" definition[3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company
[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/startup
[3] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...
I think if we place emphasis on the word "scalable," PG + Blank's definitions are compatible. Both distinguish "startup" from "new company." I don't think most people would categorize building a tech company and starting a hair salon as the same activity because of the force multiplier of scale.
There is a prevalent and totally erroneous school of thought which naively assumes that people do bad things simply because they don't know any better, and so all you have to do is take them aside as you would a misbehaving kindergartener for some "training" and then all will be well. It doesn't work that way. Some people are just assholes and always will be, irrespective of any amount of "training" you give them.
It doesn't matter if somebody is a racist/sexist/homophobe as long as they don't act it out.
Their only purpose is to deflect liability from the company in case any employee should bring a court case. "Your Honor, we couldn't possibly be held responsible for condoning a hostile work atmosphere, we have our employees sit through those execrable things once a year." Judging from just how popular they are, this tactic is working well.
Only time to brag is if you were a cofounder of the company you're referring to.
Who hasn't worked for a Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/etc?
You worked at goldman? Ok, so I'm to take from that the assumption that you're entitled and incompetent to be leading a tech startup? Good to know.
You went to Harvard? And you think this is relevant? So you care about pedigree more than competence? We can expect nepotism as you hire your friends? Good to know.
These are great services they are offering-- you know not to take the job.
http://www.elpais.com.uy/vida-actual/felipe-primer-uruguayo-...
That's the biggest newspaper in the country, which incorrectly identified the first Uruguayan who worked for Facebook.
Interestingly, there are quite a few Uruguayans at Microsoft, and I think there are a couple at Google.
During the sit down on the marketing meeting a new person was introduced to the team (not unusual). They came up to the group and was obviously another senior, experienced addition to the group, hopefully with a long and interesting career behind them.
They walked up to the front of the group and introduced themselves, "Hi I'm <name>, I went to Yale" and sat down at the table and proceeded to offer nothing of any substance over the next 8 weeks until they were quietly asked to go "contribute" their Yale credentials somewhere else.
I've been hit with every kind of credential wagging since then, "When I was at McKinsey..."* or "When I went to Harvard..."+ are usually immediate signs of an immensely useless person and I go out of my way to avoid them. It's actually kind of pathetic.
The best people I've ever met actually seemed a bit shy about notable credentials in their past and it wasn't until after months of probing that I could finally learn about some cool job or notable place they went to school.
* I wrote this before reading the article
+ seriously, it's like a cliche
As someone who was coming from a very different background to a lot of these people, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.
While I would be the first to admit that things are less than perfect in a number of ways, generally speaking the people I met and eventually ended up consulting for couldn't possibly be much further from some of the personalities described in a number of the comments here.
Overall I was super impressed with the humility, the intelligence and the general standard that I saw in a lot of these people.
Then again, there is a world of difference between someone who chooses to live on next to nothing in a 3rd world country where they are there primarily to help others and the types described in the article.
bad Bane, stereotyping is bad!
No, all Americans. But from a wide variety of backgrounds.
I agree that it's a bit pointless to mention that you studied in a prestigious university, but unlike the other commenters I think it makes sense to say that you worked in a company that is reputed to pay well, because if you left that well paying job it means that you have high hopes for that startup. Of course it would be douchey to say "Hey, I am Sam, and I used to work at Goldman, so kneel in front of me!", but saying "I worked at Goldman but I believe there is more money to be made in the house cleaning space" is a sign of confidence in the company - something I would like to see in a founder.
If someone says that they worked at a well paying job, my suspicion would be that they were run out of it, doubly so if they were engaged with such a shoddy, rag tag start-up. It would take pretty strong evidence to the contrary to believe otherwise.
Serious question. What did you do about it?
Doesn't matter. They still get millions in funding.
Do people think this is acceptable? Building shitty businesses and just subsisting off VC dollars, businesses that would otherwise never have a chance but get subsidized because they use an app or website to interact with their customers.
I can't wait for all of these people to get wiped out.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/14/handy-hits-1-million-a-week...
I've encountered a couple of startups and founders like this and as much as it pains me to defend Handy, t does seem unlikely that they could have accomplished this if they were actually as dysfunctional as this story makes them seem. I'm skeptical of the author's claims.
I've known coworkers to suffer daily humiliations while I'm treated with absolute respect. They'd quit, often causing obvious pain to the bosses, but the company kept growing. The bosses could replace them eventually, as the corporation is structured to treat them as cogs.
Higher-up priests & bosses are treated well. Those nearer the bottom are miserable.
This company is a disaster on so many levels. It sounds like three employees low-paid are performing a critical service function and it's very easy to see them all walking out the door.
In a booming market a company that is only half functional, often to do overtime or heroics, can appear very successful. But as soon as the market cools down to normal or even still accelerated pace companies like this (assuming it's 100% true) start to drop like flies.
High profit or customer acquisition numbers can hide serious fundamental problems for a few years.
But when there's a boom going on in an industry it can be so easy to make money and gain new clients that it can cover-up a lot of fundamental problems with the way that business is run.
Because money is pouring in the door (either by earning it or from VCs) the company can afford to give out a lot of perks and raises. It's easy to hire extra employees to pick up slack or for employees to get away with wasting large amounts of time or being semi-competent. If customers buy your service once and never come back who cares if there are beating a path to your door? There will always be more so you'll stay in the black. The atmosphere can be really relaxed and fun and casual. Lots of different ideas can be tried in a "throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks" manner. It doesn't really matter if you fail, things are going really well!
The problem is what happens when the market starts to cool down. The perks suddenly disappear in the raises stop happening. Manual processes that wasted a lot of employee time or cost extra people to have to be hired suddenly get cleaned up and people find themselves working overtime or without jobs. When the executive start seeing the money disappear the feeling inside the place changes completely. You better not make any mistakes or trying waste money with a new idea. Best to stick with what used to work; that must've been correct. Wasting money is the last thing you need.
But it doesn't really matter if the employees were doing their best job and weren't slacking off or wasting resources and all. Even if they are model employees the business model may have been unsustainable (like pets.com) and never would've succeeded even if everything had been run perfectly. $300/customer acquisition cost doesn't work well when the average customer ends buys $25/year in products.
If you knew all this was going on, employees could get out near the top or skip the ride altogether and work in a company that's solid building up their reputation there. Instead they might get laid off or have to leave under desperate circumstances and might have to find another job on the quick.
All because a change in the market revealed that there was a company that never should've been successful in the first place and may have only grown through an accident of luck.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Handy-Reviews-E680570.htm
The positive reviews seem fairly obvious fakes too.
And self reported income is often bullshit income. The figure is probably triple their best week which itself was a one off, before cancellations and charge backs.
Are you kidding me?
EDIT: Here's something from the CEO a month ago, in response to "dude/bro" culture:
> Dude / bro / elitism - As a leadership team we have been guilty of focusing on high performers and not giving enough coaching / support to under performing team members. We need to work on this.
I thought myself more or less immune to much of these schemes as I have been around that industry a number of years in the past, but recently feel for a company pretending to be a local locksmith on google maps, when they are actually a lead gen company that sold me on an unrealistically low quote. When the guy showed up at 11pm and told me it was 5x the quote and explained all the reasons why the person on the phone really did not "lie" to me, I suddenly remembered what lead gen is...
Perhaps it could be partially automated by looking for storefronts in google street view?
This is probably one of the more obvious downsides to strict capitalism. All that matters with regards to funding is whether or not the company is making profit doing this. If they can abuse their staff, have a toxic culture and still make money, they'll get funded and eventually probably succeed.
Even if they do get sued for sexual harassment or whatever much later down the line (ie. when they're worth suing), it'll still be peanuts compared to their total profit and thus no disincentive to their behaviour.
There is no real capitalistic answer to this problem that I've ever heard of. It requires scruples from the start and that often requires regulation in a more "socialist" style. Regulated work hours, regulated holiday, regulated minimum pay, etc...
Interesting example you use there as some sort of proof against "strict capitalism". Indeed, you claim that the individuals can sue, yet then you attribute the lack of sufficient penalty as a failing of capitalism? And not of, say, the state that's failing to regulate it to a sufficient amount of your liking?
A capitalistic answer is this: leave it alone, and it'll correct itself. You can't create an imaginary problem and then blame an economic system for not fixing it to your liking. By imaginary, I mean to say arbitrary, imagined by each individual based on his views/limits/boundaries. Take your examples, you seem to think that "toxic culture", "abuse" and "sexual harassment" are problems, and not just inconvenient situations. Others, like Ashley from the article don't see them as problems enough to warrant her losing her job over. She has other values in mind.
If you want to call "strict capitalism" then you have to admit that people will value non-tangible things. Sexual harassment, toxic culture, weird work hours. They're all factored in by individuals based on the their situation. And the mere fact that they're in that situation means that the return they get from the job is valued higher than the negatives.
Does bad stuff happen? Sure, that happens all the time. Some do cross the really bad boundaries that the majority of individuals agree on. Those are the sorts of things that your state should be "regulating", and not the fluffy stuff below that people are willing to work-around. We suck up and ignore all sorts of stuff all the time, just look at the numerous examples in this discussion. And of course, they also stand up and complain/leave/quit if something crosses their boundary. The big difference is that a lot of people don't go crying to the state to make their special little boundary a legal binding, enforceable on every single employer and employee that may or may not be affected by it.
These problems aren't something that should be sucked up. They're abhorrent and I'm surprised that you're trying to defend it. It's not like it's difficult to not be sexist/racist/homophobic...
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/10/05/sept... [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=customer+service+worker...
>> There is no real capitalistic answer to this problem that I've ever heard of.
Of course there is. Exposure. As soon as this behavior is exposed, again the experience shows the pressure is enough to make pretty big companies to listen and move. Smaller companies probably would be even more susceptible to the pressure. Of course, that wouldn't solve the basic problem (some people are assholes) but it can go a long way to make them not feel welcome and encouraged.
US capitalism is also a caste system. Unlike the Indian system, it pretends very, very hard not to be.
Us capitalism is nothing like it. Something closer to the caste system might be the tribalist cultural grouping of people in the us (e.g. fishtown and Charles Murrays other subgroups, or Scott Alexanders reds and blues).
I know its fun to say capitalism is just like all historical bad things, but its silly.
http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/handybook
Their included Twitter feed is blowing up with damage control.