1/5, would not recommend.

Weird. He's only 9 years younger than Tim Cook and Jeff Williams (current COO) would be a great replacement should anything to Tim.

Plus the Tony Fadell era culture at Apple has noticeably shifted under Tim. Not sure it would change back anytime soon.

Larry and the rest of the leadership should really look into how Nest is run internally and fix things. This cannot be the norm and status-quo. This is anti-thesis to being Googley, and I personally know a ton of current and Ex Googlers who will be ashamed and hurt to hear this kind of abuse at Alphabet/Google. I am sorry you had to endure this. I am happy you are in a much better place. I am happy for your family now.

[1 word edit for grammar]

This is so depressing. My gut tells me that absolutely no one should have to put up with this in an employment situation, but what are your options, other than to either "deal with it" or face the income and career insecurity that comes with quitting?

My advice to anyone else in this situation is to do just that. The first time abuse happens, just walk out, have a laugh about it (it reflects on them not you), and find another gig. There are a lot of great jobs out there.

I have a lot of empathy now for all the crummy jobs where people don't have that agility to move - we are really privileged in that we don't have to put up for this.

Stayed way too long and some of my shares vested. Now they're worth some money on paper, but it wasn't worth it - my advice for anyone in a similar situation would be to get out as early as possible.

I wouldn't bat an eyelid hiring somebody who's already quit or is genuinely on the verge of doing so.

While there may be a lot of tech companies in SV hiring (debatable--there are certainly lots of them _interviewing_, but hiring?) there are only so many Alphabets and Facebooks in the area. Outside of opportunities at companies like these, you'll have to sacrifice some "career and income stability" which the parent poster pointed out.

Definitely leave if you're being abused, but it would be foolish not to prepare for a salary hit and/or 3-6 months of joblessness.

With all due respect, why not look them directly in the eye and reply: "Don't speak to me that way" and wait?

That sort of response helps other employees see how inappropriate it is.

Its harder when its real life, you are getting a paycheck literally from this person, and you are usually surrounded by sycophants who think this is perfectly normal.

Termination of any of the other sorts is much less serious, usually results in severance and unemployment eligibility, and if you're coming from a place that mistreats its workers, it's generally not a hard story to sell that you stood up for yourself and got whacked for it. Other employers know the jackass employers by reputation, at least in the local area.

My strong wager is that standing up for abusive management practice would not trigger the "violation of company rule" clause and an employer with a penchant for acting like a jerk is unlikely to fight such a UI claim.

http://www.mass.gov/lwd/unemployment-insur/resources/questio...

Get a firm job offer before you give your notice. You won't face any income uncertainty, and you'll have much more leverage while negotiating with potential new employers (unless let you it show that you're really desperate to leave your current gig).

Next to zero chance of that for a developer in Silicon Valley. But don't think it doesn't happen to people in minimum wage jobs everywhere.

I dunno. "Yeah, you remember last January when you came home from work and your dog was frozen solid? That, uh... that was my code."

You can complain but you will get forced out eventually for rocking the boat plus it may affect your reputation in the market place. You just need to do what everyone does. Grit your teeth, stay positive and plan your exit strategy to another company.

Somewhat related, I've been considering putting my birth year (IGY) at the top of my resume. I'd rather someone silently bitbucket my resume than show up for a useless interview.

I recall one phone-meeting with engineer where he praised her for 10 minutes how great her programming skills were and how he "looks forward for many more years of working together". When the conversation was over, on the same breath, he told us (team of 5 in the meeting): "we need to replace her immediately - she's too expensive!". We looked at each other and felt really stupid. I don't think anyone of us ever been in such situation...

Suits need to get out of the thinking that engineers/developers/designers are a liability to be minimised.

It's not just suits either, it seems to be most non-engineers, I've met people looking for web designers before and they've tried to go with the most cut rate designer they can find, and then they wonder why their websites look like shit.

Was that back in pre-Apple days?

As an industry we're also pretty terrible at recruiting - people who've figured out how to network effectively and come through the side doors do pretty well, but the bulk of the industry still pursues the model of "see job ad, send resume through front door, quietly wait for call back". This adds to the frustration of job hunting.

Many people also find interviews extremely stressful - our industry makes this worse by sticking them through exhausting full-day marathons full of seemingly pointless trivia.

Not so long ago I was stuck in a horrible job with truly abusive managers. Everyone hated it and commiserated copiously after work (we drank a lot back then), and everyone talked about leaving. Out of the 20-odd people only 4 actually ended up leaving (including me).

When I asked people about it it was nearly universally about anxiety and fear. People loathe interviewing, applying, and all that, to a point where they're willing to put up with a lot of pain just to avoid it.

I just imagine how much BETTER those companies could be with more positive leadership though. It's a waste.

If Nest is this way under a tyrant, imagine how it really COULD be, and how many more interesting things they could create.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/042519...

It's by a guy who was a counselor for abusive men, often ones attending therapy as part of a court order. It is the single most astute book I have read. He spent more than a decade listening to people's bullshit, and in this book he breaks it down brilliantly. Particularly relevant to you are the sections on how abusive relationships benefit abusers and why the abused stay so long.

Many people will allow themselves to be abused at work without doing anything about it. They'll commiserate with their coworkers, or vent on Glassdoor, or fantasize about leaving, but without ever following through.

So some good ones leave, and the rest get ridden hard and work on weekends and stay late to make their managers happy and rich.

Cribbing from that "book"- Destroy their sense of self-confidence & self-worth. Pick 'em young- they are easier to fool. Give them brief moments of sunshine to make them hope it'll get better. Promises. Threats. General megalomania.

The reason why Jobs and Fadell could be assholes and still succeed is because they were/are Jobs/Fadell. That doesn't mean you or I can act like assholes and still succeed. Perhaps we could be assholes after we succeed, but that's a highly unlikely hypothetical.

You can demand greatness without being an asshole.

You can tell someone the work they did isn't good enough without being an asshole.

You can also truthfully review someone's bad code without being an asshole, for what it's worth.

Being an asshole != "telling it like it is" though most people confuse the two.

This reminds me of an old quote.

"People who are brutally honest generally enjoy the brutality more than the honesty."

You tell someone something they don't want to hear, but need to hear, and you are now known as an asshole.

... but usually they're saying something that they want to hear themselves say.

I’ve seen it time and time again.. and then pushed out on social media to make the person that said it look like the bad guy...and since it’s usually one person against another, it’s impossible to defend.

This is why when the technology gets cheap enough, I will have a secret body cam on me at all times.

It’s already been proven many times that privacy no longer matters. Hell, a guy got an entire basketball team taken away from him based on private conversations.

Here's some advice, since you think you can take it. When striving to correct others: (a) Make sure you're actually correct (b) make sure you're doing it to reach a common goal, rather than to uplift yourself and (c) understand that a defensive reaction is not a weakness, it's an entirely normal human reaction, and try to empathize with the person as you deliver the hard news.

A lot of people think that others don't want to hear the truth, but it's not that. Most people want to know what's going on. What most people don't want to endure is the embarrassment of being wrong in front of someone -- which is an entirely different thing.

People get corrected on stuff all the time and take it in stride. It's when there is a blow to their ego or you're actually wrong that they get upset. So, you need to either make it clear it's not about them in particular (it usually isn't, hence the "common goal"), and even if it is, you need to make sure they know it's about making them better, not tearing them down. And, you have to be willing to consider counter-arguments -- that is, not pretend you are the sole arbiter of truth.

Bluntly stating an uncomfortable truth (or opinion!) with no quarter is not what people who seek the truth do, it is what people who want to be in control do.

So rather than develop the interpersonal skills that would allow you to say those kinds of things without sounding like an asshole, you're just going to secretly record everyone you run into (which is something that will solidify you as an asshole), and have this video record of you being an asshole to people.

"...you are now known as an asshole."

My personal opinion is that the answer lies in the more primitive parts of the brain. Investors, acquirers, and customers are all human beings, and as human beings they all respond to primate social dominance cues. Investors fund, acquirers acquire, employees perform for, and customers buy from aggressive dominant alpha males because... well... that's what the alpha wants you to do and your brain stem is telling you to obey them. They are pushing ancient buttons that way pre-date the neocortex.

Again, not universal, but there's a part two:

Some investors invest in these types not because they themselves are taken in, but because they know on average others will be. Could a more quiet, reserved, polite personality -- even a more intelligent one -- have managed to sell a simple cloud-connected thermostat for $3.2 billion dollars? Maybe, but statistically probably not.

This will remain true until we find a way to remove legacy code.

Lawrence Joseph Ellison has a reputation like that, and his company seems to have done OK.

Many successful companies are founded/led by sociopaths.

I've read supposed accounts where he sounded worse than Nest's management.

IMO this was because Apple knew how to make hardware, generally, and hence things didn't go far off the rails - he got a lot of support from Apple.

However, Tony didn't know the first thing about software and appeared to assume that it was something you threw new grads at because they'd hammer at it until it got through QA. Each year the teetering pile of crap grew higher and harder to ship...

Now he's master of all he surveys, he's worked out that actually consistently delivering complex projects (which have rather more complex software than an iPod) is damn hard. Shouting is his reflex reaction when this doesn't go well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company

I'd probably get fired for bursting out laughing.

Even in the "utopia" of SV (as some people seem to see it) boss can say something a mile over the line to Google executives and come out fine, but if an employee so much as puts a toe over.. it's almost like behind the hype we have the same bureaucracies and cultures as everyone else...