the original comment is at https://medium.com/@ben_73928/as-one-of-the-team-members-let...

> @joshelman do something. Help us. Two days notice before a holiday with no compensation for the fact that not a soul hires during these weeks. You have the $ to pay severance when you terminate 70 people. So you decided on letting us all get screwed. You need to help us.

This isn't even an uncommon occurrence. I had coworkers (at one of the big 5) who were making pretty decent money who were still in the hole for similar reasons.

Have some compassion man, jeez.

So we're not talking about responsibility anymore, you're moralizing on people's life choices. There's no way to responsibly live in SV without being already rich.

Now, if you can get into a remote position, awesome, but I could see living in SV or NYC or similar and feeling middle class pangs at low 6 figures.

If said person has animals, children, or a spouse it becomes even more complicated.

My partner worked in an industry that laid off 50% of their employees. It took her 8 years to get close to her old salary. No matter what anyone says, the reality is very few of us are truly prepared to have our jobs/industry vanish.

My brother who doesn't earn much money had significant health bills for one of his kids. I hadn't planned to spend that $10-$15k.

My idiot nephew road a dirt bike on a road (against all his parents' rules) when he was 15 and didn't have a license. He didn't look both ways, there was a truck coming, and he was hit by the truck. His parents had to buy the guy a new truck because my nephew wasn't licensed to drive, and pay the deductibles for several surgeries.

If Ben realized this, he should have never worked at this company in the first place. It sounds like it was a failure of a product strategy.

This is absolutely the kind of thing you should be asking about and they should be telling you on the way in. As an early stage startup employee you are basically an investor. You should deeply understand how the businesses you are joining are going to work, and if they wont tell you you should consider it a red flag.

Also, it’s a damn internet-connected door lock with Bluetooth. Do you really need $45M and designing new mechanical systems from scratch to make it work? I’m sure their team did amazing work but all of it sounds incredibly head-in-the-clouds.

The mechanism of a deadbolt is pretty simple. Other smart lock companies do fine with simple mechanisms. The way to differentiate a product in that space is ease of use and battery life, not by needlessly over-complicating a part that the users won't see.

C’mon really?

Similar to Juicero they could have gone to market with a simpler and less over engineered product and have a viable company but leadership had their heads in the clouds. He even starts the article with how amazing the Swiss watch engineer respected their work - as if that matters in the door lock market.

From the article: “... our customers would fall in love with the way they engaged the product and actually experience joy as they used it.”

I’m having a hard time visualizing myself experiencing joy unlocking a door.

He doesn't seem to have literally copy-and-pasted that palaver from somewhere else, but the first page of these search results suggests a malfunctioning robot stringing together memorized phrases at random:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=our+customers+would+fall+in+love+w...

I would argue that it wasn't really engineered at all. Almost anyone can build something with a practically unlimited budget; engineering is a game of trade-offs. That juice press was ridiculously over-designed and didn't need to cost anywhere near that much.

If you don't intend on making just a "damn internet-connected door lock with Bluetooth", of which there are many, but a great one, then very possibly yes.

The market for people who care that their door locking mechanism is as precise as a Swiss watch is so vanishingly small, it feels almost self-evident that there's not a viable business there.

>I define startups as companies that don’t have control of their own destiny because they rely on investor cash infusions to operate. When asked, “How’s business?”, I always replied “I don’t have a business yet, we’re still a startup.”

I despise this definition. I have grown my hardware startup sustainably while pursuing an engineering degree and maintaining full control of the company. I may soon look for VC funding, I may continue to use revenues and personal savings, but nothing will change my responsibility for my business' future.

The fact that you've had money invested into your startup means you have increased control of your destiny, not the opposite. Use that money shrewdly and build a product people want, and you will succeed. That Otto was able to burn through $45 Million in funding without shipping a product makes me believe that poor management and product strategy is behind their failure, not bad luck as the article would ask you to believe.

Being a stable bootstrapped small business is more worthy of respect than being an unstable underfunded startup, in my opinion.

The defining characteristic of a startup - as the word is used in the real world - is being unprofitable and funded by investors. That literally means one doesn't have control over their company, because they've sold ownership to investors.

What you have is a sustainable, bootstrapped small business. It may not sound sexy, as 'dfcowell points out, but IMO, it should - it suggests that the company is actually doing something useful, unlike many startups, which exist only as long as they can keep the growth up to solicit more investments.

Can I ask how you had time? And what was your source of income and funding while you were doing that?

And engineering degree alone is a huge workload, no?

To the people you love, you don't send a code or some app or procedure. You greet them at the door.

If you need to send people a code to enter your property, you're not loving them, you're running a business. Which is fine -- just don't pretend it has anything to do with "love".

Or if you truly love everyone... then you don't need a lock.

For example if I love a junkie, I wouldn't want to enable that person to easily enter my house to steal something to pawn for drugs.

Simple counterexample: An aged parent with severe Alzheimers. Maybe it's not OK for them to have unfettered access to the car.

You want oversight/control/verification because you love them, not despite it.

For me, love is multi-faceted and can’t be defined as a single attribute like trust. People love food that literally kills them. You don’t always get to choose whom or what you love.

Yes you may. I have 3 (8-9-12). I don't "trust" them to not eat candy that I said they shouldn't eat, but I do trust them not to kill me in my sleep -- which is what trust is about (IMHO).

In fact I think I trust them more than I love them, and I love them a lot. But sometimes I'm upset with them. Being upset or angry doesn't affect trust.

Trust is a kind of binary quality that is either on or off; it may be too strong to say that love == trust, but I really can't imagine how I could love someone without trusting them.

I just can't imagine not loving my kids even if I knew I could not trust them. Another example would be family with mental illness to such a degree you may actually fear they will kill you in your sleep, but hopefully they would be placed in a safer environment and still have their families love and support.

http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centrefor...

Page 5:

> xx. In all four UK countries, most patients convicted of homicide also have a history of alcohol or drug misuse, between 88% in England and 100% in N Ireland. In other words it is unusual for mental health patients to commit homicide unless there is a coexisting problem of substance misuse.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/como...

The case of mental imparemeent is interesting and I had not considered it. It would be possible to argue that the person isn't there anymore if they're crazy, and there needs to be someone to exercise love against. I'm not sure.

Also, maybe persons with mental illnesses could be trusted more in our society.

OK, so if love is unconditional, then what about situations where you love them but they hate you? If it's unconditional love, then you love them regardless of their feelings towards you.

What do you do if your kid is an actual psychopath and doesn't love you. Do you still love them unconditionally? Would you trust them with the keys to the gun safe?

What do you do if you have an adult child that has made some really bad life choices and is spiraling out of control addicted to hard drugs? Do you still love them (unconditional, right)? Do you trust them with the keys to your alcohol cabinet? The details to your bank account?

Love != trust.

There are some situations where if you truly love someone you do not extend them trust (because they will abuse it regardless of your love for them).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

If not, that's ok but it's not "love" in my book.

Indeed, that was just poor management. Did they have a board that accepted that too? It seems like having a sole bidder is the single worst way to get a good price. You only do that if there's no other choice.

Sam was a general partner at Mohr Davidow, and a Managing Director at Internet Capital Group. He was a 12 year early employee at Microsoft. He had to know better.

protip: never be desperate.

easier said than done, sort of like "eliminate refined carbs from your diet" or "save enough for retirement" or "stop looking for love in all the wrong places"

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.

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 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.

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.