https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/killer-wh...
I guess Garg is just as weak on marine biology as he is on leadership and business ethics.
But maybe I'm giving him too much credit.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bettercom-ceo-vishal-garg-thre...
Last fall, employees at one of America’s fastest-growing startups began making anxious phone calls. They believed that CEO Vishal Garg—a volatile entrepreneur with a history of disgruntled business partners—had been giving huge amounts of equity... https://www.thedailybeast.com/bettercom-ceo-vishal-garg-thre...
So we did grants with super low cost basis (it was very early there was nobody else to placate), and the recipients did 83(b) elections to recognize the income at the low cost basis, so when they exercised at fair market value soon after it wouldnt be income at that point in time, only capital gains when they sale (which is offsettable much more easily than income, or gets a lower tax rate if you hold it ling enough anyway). This just nullifies a big income tax bill.
Fun game, if you know what you’re doing. Expensive annoying game if you dont.
Pretty sure it was the threatening someone to burn them alive
it also presented the shareholdings and the compliant ways of transferring consolidated ownership in a negative light
Huh? It’s not a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure why a key goal would be that each fired person is taken completely by surprise.
If a company told me they were going to fire me in two weeks, the worst risk the company would be taking is that I might just decide that they can't fire me in two weeks because I quit. I wouldn't do any other deliberate harm on the way out. Perhaps that's most people.
It certainly isn't all people, though.
Maybe it would be nice if we could all get along well enough to see being fired in some period of time as just business and not worth lashing out. Then again, maybe your sympathies lie with the employees lashing out. But in that case, the company has no choice but to get you out the door with as little warning as possible, to defend both itself as an abstract entity and all the rest of the employees.
In Germany (and I believe most of Europe) several months notice is usual (three months minimum), and typically people keep working until the end of that time (aside from taking unused vacation). Sure, motivation suffers in that time, but don't think the cases of employees taking revenge on their employers is any higher here than in the US (in fact, I suspect it's less).
Not to mention that temporary jobs are also extremely common, so this explanation that the only thing ever preventing employees from sabotaging their employer is the hope that they will be employed there indefinitely is pretty clearly insufficient.
You can’t explain this as “managers/executives have no choice.” They have the choice, and they sometimes choose the option that they determine is easier for them. Not surprising, of course, but also not worth defending.
Most people wouldn't cause any problems, but a small fraction will cause trouble if they're put in a position where they feel harmed and can retaliate with no consequences to themselves.
Maybe that's just a German thing, but here you'd (usually) be loosing the severance pay and some social benefits if you quit instead of being fired w/o direct cause.
These stories always float around, but this is quite rare and depending on what “wrecking” means, could end in jail time for the ex-employee. Most are capable of making that connection therefore most don’t. Yet the fear and treatment from upper management for this mostly fictitious hypothetical still runs rampant. There’s even a high profile case of an ex-Ubiquiti employee having a real good time because they wanted to extort their employer.
After all, if you know layoffs are happening, and your boss schedules a confidential one-on-one meeting with you tomorrow, how well are you going to sleep tonight?
And what of the people who aren't getting fired - you can't really reassure them their jobs are safe before you've told the people whose jobs aren't safe. So you'll be keeping them in limbo too.
Of course, no amount of careful management is going to make people enjoy getting fired (except perhaps a generous voluntary early retirement package)
I was at a company that did ~400 people layoff during pandemic. The place didn't even have a great culture but everyone, even people remaining (> half the company) got a one-on-one chat with their manager.
There was, of course, a company all hands later.
Sure people know what's up, but it's dramatically more human to have your manager call you and tell you a.) you are going to be okay or b.) we're very sorry this has happened, it's been a pleasure working with you, please use me as a reference anytime you need. We even personally called each candidate we were supposed to hire.
Company wide zoom as notice of layoffs is grotesque.
“I did this before and I cried”
If you're being laid off, you probably have a lot of questions. A 1:1 meeting would allow for that.
In a way, I think this is better - it's quicker, everyone knows where they stand, there is no uncertainty about it.
However, I do agree that
1) the communication from the CEO could be better
2) people should be given an opportunity to then still ask questions, either for HR or their managers(if still employed).
I was in a company that had a mass layoff (well, it was getting bought for IP/assets and a few employees). I found out about it from my boss one morning, knew I was getting laid off, then scheduled meetings with my direct reports later that day. It was pretty easy to find time to schedule the meetings since it's not like anyone had any project work to do any more.
By mid day the cat was pretty much out of the bag and everyone knew what was happening, but I and other managers still held the individual meetings.
Managed to hire most of my my former direct reports at my new job.
It doesn’t have to take all day. Managers meet with the people being laid off in the morning. If it is too large to do 1on1, you can do small meetings with a few people and their manager.
Point is that it should come from your direct manager (or the closest direct manager in the chain if managers are also being laid off).
Yeah, I imagined all of this and it seemed like exactly what a competent company would do.
Any questions about "why" are reduced to essentially "your individual job performance and role does not matter, it's just that this business unit ceases to exist as of yyyy-dd-mm". Any questions about "what next" are answered by "Here's the details on the severance conditions for you - the exact same as for the other 899 people".
I believe a good approach would be to have those first line leaders (who actually have that relationship built with their subordinates) break the bad news and then the CEO speak to everybody and own the decision.
Surely after seeing your relationship status change on Facebook, they would understand?
What if the whole chains are axed? Recursive "or the next manager" could easily lead to exactly what happened: a CEO lucky to have a pandemic voiding all expectations to do something like that in person.
The entire reason companies have hierarchical power structures (in theory) at least, is so that information can be passed along with the log of the company size.
Having every manager have 10 min call with each direct report, or in the worse case a team meeting, would be much more human and could accomplish the task of notification in roughly the same time window as an all hands firing.
Is it? I can plausibly make the other argument that not having to do it yourself and offloading it to middle managers/HR is also "objectionable and disrespectful".
vs.
"YOU ARE A DUMB DOLPHIN BLAH BLAH BLAH"
Massive difference.
The former is a warning rooted in a sincere desire to lead the org/employee towards positive change. The latter is verbal abuse that accomplishes nothing but placating the ego of the abuser.
This is not a random person on the street corner shouting at other random passers by. This guy is in a position of power over the people he is communicating with.
Calling a group of people "DUMB DOLPHINS" on an email chain ... Inappropriate, un professional, dis-respectful all seem like a better way to characterize it.
Its like the reverse of when Prince Andrew described Jeffrey Epstein behavior as "Un-Becoming". There is probably a better way to characterize it.
Partner A was just venting frustration after having a terrible day. Is that abuse? YES! Unequivocally, yes.
There is no excuse for insulting, yelling, or otherwise treating other human beings as lesser than. It's abuse, always, even one time. And frankly if it happens once, it's very unlikely it isn't a repeated pattern of behavior.
Also how would our knowing more about the CEO/employee relationship here improve our perception? The most "positive" thing I can think of is, the employees are so used to it they would tell us something like "oh, that's just CEO, he communicates really passionately". That's not actually positive, though. It's Stockholm Syndrome. [1]
Hold on though. You don't have the full context/relationship between GP and the people who downvoted them. It would be irresponsible for you to jump to conclusions about Hackernews or those commenters based on just a one-line grayed out comment.
Product: "What are you working on?"
Engineering: "That is up to you. What is important? The answer can't be everything."
Product: "Why is it taking so long?"
Engineering: Here is what the developers expect it to take. It will almost certainly take longer. When are we supposed to get X project done with our current workload? What falls off? If we crunch we will lose our best talent who will leave to go do the same work for more pay somewhere else.
"The Dark Secrets That Dolphins Don’t Want You to Know"
https://slate.com/human-interest/2009/05/the-dark-secrets-th...
He didn't even need to lay them off, according to the article. He just wanted "a fortress balance sheet going into the holidays"
One and done is the way to do it in my opinion. Dragging out bad news seldom works out well.
Assuming 1 manager for 10 employees, that's 90 managers each doing a 3h20 minute block of 20 minute meetings, allowing all to be fired in one morning.
We'll have to wait for it to show up on https://twitter.com/TechEmails
> In another email obtained by Forbes last year, Garg wrote:
> > ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”