Actually, he just signaled why the firings happened. People were claiming to do work, and there was not proof they actually did work in their email, documents or the systems they were supposed to do work in.
Any worker who has carried tons of (usually "rockstar", "bad-ass" or "pedigreed") people who don't even understand the work they are pretending to do (or worse, supervise) knows this is a rampant anti-pattern in business and in many cases has the potential to transform the business. When I was younger and worked for a boss, I used to really hate watching 80% of the others disappear at 4:30PM without regard to customer expectations and come in in the morning, only to start working around 10:30 after making the morning rounds (coffee, chit-chat) the next morning... only to hit a critical lunch with the team at 11:45-1:30pm.
In every company I've managed or started one of the facts I try to be on top of is "actual work done per day". I've found that if I look at productivity and use that to inform who gets invited to help make decisions. It makes a profound difference. People who work hard tend to come to meetings prepared, are respectful of everyone's time and most importantly know the facts about their work. You end up with better decisions.
We saw an antipattern developing at this job where most or all of the people who actually solve problems that come up would agree to use one tool or solution by the greater team would prefer some other solution.
The person who cleans up the mess should get some say in how big and the kind of messes that get made. The rest of you all fuckers disappear when the going gets tough.
I don’t entirely recall how we solved that problem but I believe it involved less transparency, which sucks, but so does burnout.
Many founders are that unusual sort of person who likes working more than anything else, and a lot of them get the idea that this makes them virtuous and everyone else ought to feel the same way.
"Sure, we don't pay as much as some, but look at all this work you get to do!" I've interviewed with people like this. They honestly think that's an incentive (if you're a "good" employee).
I failed an interview once when a founder started bragging about how his wife is sad that he doesn't come home to see her and their young children enough, and he was proud because it meant he was working hard enough. He asked me if I was a hard worker and I told him I preferred to "work smarter not harder" and gave some lines about being efficient and not burning out. I gather that he was not impressed, given I got no offer after appearing to pass the technical screen, getting along great with the engineering team as a whole, and applying to a team where I had direct (uncommon) experience and knew every member of.
I’m that type of person that enjoys working way too much. But as a founder I had unlimited vacation time, which I quickly realized lead to no one taking vacation. So now I say “ten days minimum vacation”, and if you are dragging your feet on taking time off, you’re getting your Gmail, GitHub, etc access cut off on Friday’s, weekends, and or Monday’s when you’ve been working hard.
Currently not a founder, but a senior employee - never mentioned to my CEO that was my policy, and it’s quite nice to have a boss that does the same and forces me into long weekends.
It’s the flip side of something that can actually be good, which is not asking people to do something you’re not willing to do, like work weekends for a deadline or take a pay cut.
But your relationship to the company is different than ours. A pay cut still leaves you with a 40% stake in the company, while we get nothing in a fire sale (your preferred stock doesn’t get diluted nearly as much or as frequently as ours does). Equally or perhaps more importantly, this was your dumb idea/baby in the first place, we just showed up to work. You had better be more invested than the rest of us our why are we even here?
Comments
Wow what an underhanded insult. “We can help you be the lazy, unmotivated slacker you secretly aspire to be”
Actually, he just signaled why the firings happened. People were claiming to do work, and there was not proof they actually did work in their email, documents or the systems they were supposed to do work in.
Any worker who has carried tons of (usually "rockstar", "bad-ass" or "pedigreed") people who don't even understand the work they are pretending to do (or worse, supervise) knows this is a rampant anti-pattern in business and in many cases has the potential to transform the business. When I was younger and worked for a boss, I used to really hate watching 80% of the others disappear at 4:30PM without regard to customer expectations and come in in the morning, only to start working around 10:30 after making the morning rounds (coffee, chit-chat) the next morning... only to hit a critical lunch with the team at 11:45-1:30pm.
In every company I've managed or started one of the facts I try to be on top of is "actual work done per day". I've found that if I look at productivity and use that to inform who gets invited to help make decisions. It makes a profound difference. People who work hard tend to come to meetings prepared, are respectful of everyone's time and most importantly know the facts about their work. You end up with better decisions.
We saw an antipattern developing at this job where most or all of the people who actually solve problems that come up would agree to use one tool or solution by the greater team would prefer some other solution.
The person who cleans up the mess should get some say in how big and the kind of messes that get made. The rest of you all fuckers disappear when the going gets tough.
I don’t entirely recall how we solved that problem but I believe it involved less transparency, which sucks, but so does burnout.
How do you measure "actual work done per day?"
I mean he properly leans into it in later comments too, so I don’t think it’s meant to be underhanded, just plainly aggressive
But if there are jobs paying more and asking less than xSolla then why does anyone work at xSolla?
Many founders are that unusual sort of person who likes working more than anything else, and a lot of them get the idea that this makes them virtuous and everyone else ought to feel the same way.
"Sure, we don't pay as much as some, but look at all this work you get to do!" I've interviewed with people like this. They honestly think that's an incentive (if you're a "good" employee).
I failed an interview once when a founder started bragging about how his wife is sad that he doesn't come home to see her and their young children enough, and he was proud because it meant he was working hard enough. He asked me if I was a hard worker and I told him I preferred to "work smarter not harder" and gave some lines about being efficient and not burning out. I gather that he was not impressed, given I got no offer after appearing to pass the technical screen, getting along great with the engineering team as a whole, and applying to a team where I had direct (uncommon) experience and knew every member of.
I’m that type of person that enjoys working way too much. But as a founder I had unlimited vacation time, which I quickly realized lead to no one taking vacation. So now I say “ten days minimum vacation”, and if you are dragging your feet on taking time off, you’re getting your Gmail, GitHub, etc access cut off on Friday’s, weekends, and or Monday’s when you’ve been working hard.
Currently not a founder, but a senior employee - never mentioned to my CEO that was my policy, and it’s quite nice to have a boss that does the same and forces me into long weekends.
That's a lovely policy. Well done.
It’s the flip side of something that can actually be good, which is not asking people to do something you’re not willing to do, like work weekends for a deadline or take a pay cut.
But your relationship to the company is different than ours. A pay cut still leaves you with a 40% stake in the company, while we get nothing in a fire sale (your preferred stock doesn’t get diluted nearly as much or as frequently as ours does). Equally or perhaps more importantly, this was your dumb idea/baby in the first place, we just showed up to work. You had better be more invested than the rest of us our why are we even here?
So you’re saying that anyone can just get any job they want? At any time? Sign me up :)