That sounds really frustrating. They did things like that a few other times too, as I recall.

Companies burning their goodwill is such a painfully negative thing about the modern world. Like just.. don't do it, even for the money. It's shameful.

What's more shameful is that we've done nothing to make that behavior illegal, at least in the US.

(Otherbranch founder)

The privacy thing is a legitimate criticism. It was not my call (I wasn't part of the leadership at the time) and I disagreed with it both then and now. It was a screwup, and it is a big part of why I want to make aggressive honesty one of our major cultural points - because I think once you start with spin it's easy to roll down a slippery slope to "well it's in our pragmatic interest so sure do whatever".

@sama was hyping 3B on podcasts ~2016-2018. I thought it would've had an iota of integrity because he put his name out there with it, so I gave it a go not expecting much. I've interviewed ~100 candidates, have been on the other side of the table ~300x lifetime, and been a client-facing consultant with basic sales experience. I've seen and heard pointless shit, crazy shit, and illegal shit in hiring process but thankfully these situations revealed themselves early enough in process so I could bounce before getting too involved in less professional shops.