What every founder fears

by mef • 12 years ago

160 81 12 years ago

I don't understand why people in these situations feel compelled respond. Why defend yourself? Why say anything publicly at all? Curious if any PR-knowledgable folks around here know if there is any benefit to such statements.

eyuelt• 12 years ago

Why wouldn't you? I think it's natural to want to defend yourself when you're being attacked. No one wants their name dragged through the mud. It's hard to stay silent, especially considering that many people will see your silence as a sign of guilt.

hadoukenio• 12 years ago

In the PR world, it's called "Damage Control". From http://smallbusiness.chron.com/public-relations-damage-contr...:

"While many duties of a public relations department involve building the reputation of the employer, with damage control it is primarily about minimizing the negative perception caused by a crisis-situation. A crisis is sometimes the result of an unexpected event. It might also be about something that the public relations department hoped to conceal from the public or hoped would not happen. Those involved in damage control are typically on call 24 hours a day, ready to minimize negative public perception."

Bahamut• 12 years ago

If the truth is on your side, you have a strong incentive to let out some significant details to change the conversation.

It depends on your view. Many times it's not worth commenting on, and unless you can refute it completely, it devolves into a he-said/she-said argument.

sosborn• 12 years ago

Right or wrong, many people interpret "no comment" as a sign of guilt.

kawliga• 12 years ago

PR 101 - When something bad happens you do one of three things:

1. Don't talk about it.

2. Spin it.

3. Burn it. - Let the lesser known news sources get the scoop so the big news sources won't want it.

I think they're trying to go with 2. "This is a good thing... Oculus Rift Technology... leaving for other, more important reasons... etc..."

I would have gone with bullet 1.

cpeterso2• 12 years ago

3. Burn it. - Let the lesser known news sources get the scoop so the big news sources won't want it.

That's any interesting tactic. Do you have a good example of a company "burning" bad PR?

HillRat• 12 years ago

Generally, it's best not to say anything more than the minimal amount necessary; if you want to get a particular angle on the story out, you float it through friendly media, of which SiV has a preponderance. ("Sources close to the story say that ...".)

It appears that GitHub and the Preston-Werners aren't coordinating their messages (though no doubt all counsel involved have reviewed them): the GH release is appropriately terse, giving away the bare minimum of information in order to minimize both PR and legal exposure, while the P-Ws are working their angle to the story while still minimizing actual information. The P-Ws really don't have any legal exposure, so there's very little downside to their attempts to work the refs, while GH is operating under the continued threat of legal action (even if it's remote, their attorneys are obviously being appropriately cautious here, so kudos to them).

Of the two statements, Tom Preston-Werner's statement is far more effective and well-crafted than his wife's; he comes across as -- at least for public consumption -- sincere, open and genuinely remorseful while affirming his dedication to Good Things and avoiding admitting to actual culpability. It's a very nicely-handled statement, and it's instructive to compare it to how MoCo and Eich handled their crisis du jour. (The OP statement by Theresa P-W, however, is less artful, more defensive, and personalizes the criticism. Understandable from a personal point of view; not good PR.)

How much of this is true? Well, does it matter? Truth is for courtrooms and confessionals; what matters here is spin. Again, consider MoCo. In both cases, an executive was ousted but, in GH's case, the company looks stronger for it (investigation by outside counsel! No wrongdoing found! Action taken!) and the P-Ws don't look much worse (we support diversity! Created an open culture! Feel terrible that some people felt hurt!).

The ouster of Eich, however, just made moCo look opportunistic and weak, and Eich personally came out looking pretty bad due to his inability to craft a solid message (he said the right things about diversity, but failed to connect it to his personal narrative, so it rang hollow). The lesson, I think, is either move quickly and aggressively (as GitHub did), or else buckle down and stay the course (as Mozilla should have -- though, as I've said previously, I have no issues whatsoever with the campaign to oust Eich). Anything else is going to make a problem into a crisis.

lobotryas• 12 years ago

Excellent analysis. I'm also surprised why MoCo decided against staying the course and jettisoned Eich. The majority of the complaints would have blown over in several weeks as people got bored/distracted/found something else to be outraged about. The few remaining die-hard complainers could be safely ignored as all companies have some amount of detractors.

yuhong• 12 years ago

It seems that the SEC has been pushing for admission of wrongdoing in lawsuits. I wish it was the standard practice too.

cpeterso2• 12 years ago

Eich was not ousted by Mozilla, though I can understand why reasonable people might think that. Eich chose to resign because of the toll on him and his family (including your garden-variety internet death threats) and to draw fire from Mozilla. MoCo's board tried to convince him to stay the course as CEO or CTO. The board was unprepared for the media storm, thinking the Prop 8 issue had been settled back in 2012, and it never found its footing. I think this has been a heartbreaking experience for many Mozillians.

Here is Mozilla's updated FAQ: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...

Disclosure: I am a Mozilla employee.

kohanz• 12 years ago

After weeks of silence, we learned that, despite, being found not guilty of the harassment accusations, questions popped up regarding Tom’s judgment in a separate area. We learned that unnamed employees felt pressured by Tom and me to work pro-bono for my nonprofit.

This appears to be the real reason for Tom's resignation.

jaredmck• 12 years ago

Or it's possible that they want you to believe this?

I find it strange that both of the Preston-Werners posted blog posts directly after the github post came out. Usually I'd think lawyers would not encourage this...

mtrimpe2• 12 years ago

You can bet your ass that Tom and Theresa negotiated the right to share these posts and that they were reviewed by all lawyers involved.

The right to make public statements (or not) is always a heavily contested point as I personally both can and can't talk about. ;)

bradhe5• 12 years ago

I find it strange that both of the Preston-Werners posted blog posts directly after the github post came out.

Totally! I mean, it's almost like they've been waiting silently for the go ahead to speak out or something!

rmrfrmrf• 12 years ago

With this post, I also think that Tom's wife has inadvertently incriminated herself of meddling in company affairs. Given that she was not an employee at all, I do find it highly inappropriate that she would interact at all with GitHub employees regarding her business. Strangely enough, I think that most of this situation could have been mitigated if she had even a $1/year figurehead role in the company.

vajorie2• 12 years ago

... and didn't harass the employee.

bolaft• 12 years ago

Giving a symbolic position to a spouse so she can mine for talent? That's nepotism with a papertrail.

dclowd9901• 12 years ago

She couldn't have possibly thought that broaching the topic of her own venture with her husband's employees could've been construed as anything but pressure to help her on it. Are people really this fucking dense?

bradhe5• 12 years ago

Er, I originally came to the comments section to say the exact opposite. I guess this is what happens when you're too close to your colleagues and your company grows up.

x0x05• 12 years ago

or, for a slightly more cynical take:

JAH is honest, and github's board decided Tom can't stay. Unfortunately, admitting that exposes them to massive legal liability (starting with the unaddressed allegation from JAH that she was penalized at work because she wouldn't fuck a coworker, and moving on to the options she was forced to give up when she left. Plus penalties. And a hostile work environment.) So this is an excuse from the board and/or ceo to get Tom + wife the hell away from github without admitting guilt.

I don't know what to believe, though I'm naturally a cynic.

abalone3• 12 years ago

This is rampant speculation. If a board was trying to cynically minimize legal exposure they wouldn't admit guilt of any kind.

firstOrder• 12 years ago

We learned that unnamed employees felt pressured by Tom and me to work pro-bono for my nonprofit. We racked our brains trying to understand this new allegation...I am so very sorry if anyone felt that I was pressuring him or her for advice, labor, or to sign up. I truly never had that intention...my idealistic belief in the status-free community of GitHub, I failed to recognize that power structures cannot ever be obscured entirely.
employees view them as disconnected and only trying to build empires of gold. Tom saw himself not as CEO, but as the architect of a unique business structure...He wanted to invest heavily in employees and to create a space that gave each employee the autonomy, tools, and support to build great things. In our home every night, he spoke passionately about how to build a company that gave employees freedom.

Other than being a Github user and customer, I know nothing of the details of this case other than what I've read. She admits she was obtuse about "power structures" in the company, but this also is not a unique thing in Silicon Valley - she's not blind to these things in a unique way.

That said - it's like someone believing their own press releases. "A space that gave each employee the autonomy, tools, and support to build great things". To me that sounds like saying Platt from "Twelve Years a Slave" got an excellent bag to pick cotton from, and build up the glorious plantation he was working on. Preston-Warner can snap his fingers, and someone who was getting a check to put food on the table and a roof over their head is suddenly not going to have the rent check by the end of the month. Especially when the next employer is asking for references, why you left the last job, are there any gaps in employment etc. People on an H1-B visa are dependent upon the company so they can't be thrown out of the country, so their green card application can not be restarted etc.

This is in the default structure of a corporation, and the laws, and all the default papers that super-angels and VC's put forward. Ownership and control of a corporation is 80-90% in the hands of the angels, VC's and founders. Of the scraps left over, executives and top-level experienced techs get the lion's share. This is the reality, and everyone knows it. People believing their own press releases about people building great things are delusional. It's like the Tuskeegee or Dr. Mengele subjects happy about how they are helping contribute to science. No one is fooled by this other than naive, new to the workplace, socially maladjusted programmers in their early 20's. This is why there is such a feeding frenzy over this small pool of naive young men.

swombat2• 12 years ago

Preston-Warner can snap his fingers, and someone who was getting a check to put food on the table and a roof over their head is suddenly not going to have the rent check by the end of the month.

Very, very unlikely. Even though employment laws are very employer-friendly in the US, from the sound of it, Tom built an inclusive, open company culture. One of the side effects of that is that if you abuse your power as a leader, you cause irreparable damage to the culture - which is not something you want to do at practically any cost after spending so much effort building the culture and getting it to stand up on its own feet.

Ricardo Semler, major shareholder and CEO of Semco, explained it like this: "I have a handgun in my desk drawer with a single bullet in it."

If he really had built the kind of culture where he could just fire people by snapping his fingers, surely the easiest thing would have been to fire the troublemaker at the first sign of trouble instead of waiting for her to resign and make a fuss.

kjhgkhjf• 12 years ago

How is that unlikely? Unless Github has a very, very atypical employment contract, all employees are at-will[1]. Sure, it might damage Tom or Github's reputation if he just randomly fired people[2], but he could. Saying that it would also bring down the rest of the company doesn't really help.

[1] Of course, you still have to give two weeks notice if you want to exercise that at-willness for yourself!

[2] I mean, unless he "randomly" fires all the people of race X, or something like that

ballard3• 12 years ago

Richard Branson had/has critics that accused him of all sorts of things. His advice, which is similar to Napoleon Hill's, would be to demonstrate actions that are discordant to the accusations.

(The bigger of a celeb / more successful you become, the bigger of a target you wear on your back for people to try to tear you down.)

dredmorbius2• 12 years ago

Reference on that?

pmh• 12 years ago

It seems to correspond to #9 here: http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/my-illustrated-top-10-...

jmtame• 12 years ago

Contrast this to Elon Musk, who is very direct and open in responding to criticism. To each his own?

ballard3• 12 years ago

Denying something doesn't carry the same weight and it seems like a PR move, whereas "actions speak louder than words."

gruntmaster9000• 12 years ago

I suspect that what founders really fear is being misunderstood in their motivations as their companies grow. They fear that employees view them as disconnected and only trying to build empires of gold.

These are the fears of a bad founder. Their job is to set the vision of the company. If the founder fears the employees feel they are disconnected, the founder probably is disconnected. If a founder should fear anything, they should fear not creating a safe environment where the employees can feel comfortable bringing their concerns to superiors — about any aspect of the company — instead of that self-centered fear of being “misunderstood”.

tryp2• 12 years ago

Theodores• 12 years ago

It could be worse: it is not as if Github has a Hans Reiser on the books! Yet the way this story has been gone over you would think that something of that magnitude of catastrophivity had gone on.

vajorie2• 12 years ago

Hmm, so, not a single comment about how absolutely none of the issues raised by @nrrrdcore are addressed by neither github (whitewashing it all) nor these folk (one of which threatened everyone who questions him with a lawsuit). And none of the comments even mention @nrrrdcore or what she raised.

We seem to be witnessing the convenient limits of discourse.

AznHisoka• 12 years ago

Yawns In a few months, nobody will remember. I'm a HUGE Github fan, but the world doesn't revolve around you, not even the tech world. We all live in a bubble here.

debt• 12 years ago

I'm sorry to offend but she is incredibly full of herself and quite immature. Like she's on some sort of pulpit, spouting things she thinks people give a shit about. I mean, she quotes herself numerous times in this post. She indirectly hints how her lifestyle is so similar to other rich CEOs. Also, from what everyone else says, she seems to be begging her "friends" to donate to her charity as to validate or eclipse her husband's success.

Honestly, this whole situation shows that all three of these people don't know how to interact socially, like for real, with other people. I'm saying "for real" because it seems their social perspectives are heavily skewed inward and towards themselves.

Also, it's super odd because towards the end of the post, the lines get blurred; she seems to be equating her husband's success with her own. She had literally zero to do with the success of Github.

euphemize• 12 years ago

I think you're right. I've worked and been close friends with both people like her, and with people who have had a rough ride at work like Julie Horvath - and although we'll probably never know what really happened in the end - I have a lot of trouble believing Ms. Werner's side of the story after a write up like this.

She seems to vaguely admit fucking up, but that any sort of passionate founder eventually leaves to work on something new and exciting anyways, or that "even when their company was at the height of success [...] they try their hands at something different". I think that's total bs, and that it's certainly not necessary to plug the name of your charity 3 times in this post, because this whole situation has nothing to do with your charity.

mwetzler• 12 years ago

Part of me is nodding in agreement, but another part is wondering 1) am I (unfairly?) biased against the author due to the story from Horvath and 2) is this another example of a woman being criticised for having a voice? Are we unfairly expecting her to be polite, not powerful and proud? Her husband's post was very proud and he didn't get the same criticism, though I think he did a slightly better job apologizing and focusing his message.

Not criticizing. Just sharing my own mixed feelings.

calibraxis• 12 years ago

Definitely agree that it's more socially encouraged to see a woman's egregious faults than a man's. And her husband and his buddies clearly had more power.

On the article though, the aristocrat-wannabee pseudo-fears of "being misunderstood in their motivations as their companies grow", is ridiculous compared to the employees' fears: wasting their one life, humiliation, unemployment, impostor syndrome, abuse, etc.

roeme2• 12 years ago

2) is this another example of a woman being criticised for having a voice?

No, it is not - it is rather that you fear it's the case. It's no wonder given the growing emphasis on PC in recent years. Compare the OpenSSL/OpenBSD affair - nobody gave a true shit about attitudes years ago; whereas todays some harsh git commentaries generates a multitude of comments on many blogs; spawns two to three camps sometimes creating cute flamewars and a wikipedia section "Controversies" on an individual's article. And gender didn't even come into play.

Then again, I don't know all of the commentaries on that piece.

abalone3• 12 years ago

I agree except we haven't really had a direct response from the cofounder. It could be that he was just naive enough to let the other two work it out amongst themselves. That doesn't work so well when you're dealing with certain personalities. Laissez faire people can get taken advantage of, like to pimp someone's startup internally, or by backstabbing social manipulators. That stuff needs to be proactively kept in check.

nashequilibrium• 12 years ago

What i cannot understand is why the co-founders wife is so involved with the company when she is not an employee there? I would find this very awkward, does anyone know why she is so involved with Github, is there any other ceo's with this precident?

chacham15• 12 years ago

How can you be so judgmental? You have read all of a few paragraphs and you think you know her? You have no idea what these people are like. I know people who, if you listen to them, sound like the most arrogant people you'll ever meet, but if you actually get to know them, really arent that arrogant and are actually really nice. Furthermore, in situations like these, people understandable tend to get really emotional so it is even harder to determine what they are really like.

In fact, your post comes off as arrogant and immature. For example, you say "She had literally zero to do with the success of Github." I dont know how many relationships you've been in, but women I have dated have helped me keep my sanity and my happiness while doing difficult things. That in and of itself has helped me do better and therefore increased the chance of success of whatever I have been working on. There are also many historical examples of this effect at work. In short, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

roeme2• 12 years ago

You put a vague feeling I had while reading her piece somewhat into words; but IMO, the attribute immature suffices. All I thought after reading was "For the love of $DEITY. Please just grow up.". And I do not consider myself very grown up.

Honestly, this whole situation shows that all three of these people don't know how to interact socially, like for real, with other people.

I my opinion, the whole affair, and a whole another in the IT/incubator society where the average (not median) age hovers around 25, are sufficiently summarized with these words.

tzs• 12 years ago

I'm sorry to offend but she is incredibly full of herself and quite immature. Like she's on some sort of pulpit, spouting things she thinks people give a shit about. I mean, she quotes herself numerous times in this post.

I'm confused. What do you find wrong with her quoting herself? If she had been quoting herself for her wisdom or wit, the way one might toss in quotes of Thomas Jefferson or Mark Twain, then yes, that would qualify as being full of herself. That's not what she was doing. The self-quoting here was part of the narrative. For instance, she wanted to write about something that someone said in answer to a question she asked. She quoted herself to tell the reader the question.

troels• 12 years ago

"Sign in to continue"

What is this, Quora? When did Medium start with that?

asadlionpk• 12 years ago

exactly, they will lose readers by doing that.

nppc• 12 years ago

This is so NOT what every founder fears !

btreesOfSpring• 12 years ago

I don't know the personalities of anyone involved in this ordeal and that makes the whole thing difficult to judge. If this is a case of the workplace sociopath, I pity all involved. In my own experiences working with manipulative people, they typically find a narrative to support their abusive behaviors and when these people are called on for those actions, they either act surprised or hurt and often both. This person is hurt by being called things like "naive" because it is reflective of their own incompetence. Certainly "optimistic" is a better way of putting it because it means all of the "good intentions" were squandered by everyone else who just didn't get it. The manipulator shouldn't have to suffer the consequences, since it is his/her trust that has been betrayed. You see, all along, the manipulator was trying to be the good guy. The one making the office better, "more fun", it was always good intentions but the other people either misunderstood or just want to spoil it for the rest of us.

I sincerely hope no one has to work with this personality type but I am willing to bet most everyone has seen this bad faith behavior in action. You know the office bully who, when called out for pushing a person around says in some form, "come on, can't you take a joke?" Isn't it odd how this same person never calls the thing a joke when he or she gets what is wanted out of the same behavior?

"I was totally joking when I said I needed you to work over the weekend or else. Seesch. Lighten up." I can assure you, I have never heard of a single person getting a monday apology email for putting in that weekend work from this sort of office "practical joker."

So it is not too surprising to see HR departments and lawyers finding themselves implementing "PC" policies and "buzz kill" practices as a means of mitigating these sorts of power abusive strategies since the bully is ultimately going to act the victim of misunderstood intentions when asked in any form to stop.

Isn't it odd how the biggest tragedy for this personality type is having to admit how their actions might have hurt others?

adnam• 12 years ago

This is quite some schmaltz

bowlofpetunias• 12 years ago

"Naive, no. Optimistic, absolutely."

Neither. Arrogant it the right word. Not maliciously so, but arrogance nevertheless.

An arrogance that is far from unique in the start-up world, the arrogance to think that in spite of centuries of documented history you can create an organization that doesn't have clear formal structure and not have it end up as a cult-like snake pit.

As companies, they fail to provide the kind of safety and security people who are not entrepreneurs need, and call it "freedom". And it may feel like freedom for a while, when it's still a small group of close friends, but after that it's just a Darwinian social experiment.

And when the shit hits the fan, it doesn't matter who exactly did what. It's the arrogance and narcissism of the founders that is responsible. Founders who believe that everyone who works for them should be like them, and then everything will magically be good.

"Tom saw himself not as CEO, but as the architect of a unique business structure. He wanted to create a company where he, himself, would have loved to have been an employee."

This isn't visionary. This isn't naivety. This isn't optimism. It's narcissism.

Jgrubb• 12 years ago

I dunno. I think it could be any of those things, or all of those things, and ultimately depends on who you're talking about.

Question though - isn't one of the points of starting your own business that you're having a hard time finding a perfect job working for someone else? Ergo, don't a lot of us "[want] to create a company where [we], [ourselves], would have loved to have been an employee."?

edit - I totally agree with the rest of your comment about arrogance.

mathattack• 12 years ago

The naive nature of this note is almost incredulous.

Ummm... Perhaps it's because you're the CEO's wife and you're asking them to do something. It comes with the power.

I was the wife of the CEO, but that never entered my mind when I hung out with any GitHubbers.

Ummmm.... ok....

I have never known anyone like Tom. When I was interviewed by the 3rd party investigator, she abruptly asked if I thought Tom was naive. I was dumbfounded, unable to answer until she offered a different word; “Perhaps, you would call him optimistic?” Naive, no. Optimistic, absolutely.

ok, so at least it's not her husband that was naive.

Apparently there are still threats of legal suits around all this fun too. http://news.easybranches.com/news/1844059.html

What every founder fears

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