You may indeed believe that and have said that, but the question for us is: Was it reasonable for EA leaders to think this degree of bad behaviour was particularly out of the ordinary for the early days of a startup?
To take Nathan Young’s four examples, looking at some of what major news outlets said prior to 2018 about these companies’ early days...it doesn’t seem that unusual? (Assuming we now know all the key accusations that were made—there may of course have been more.)
Facebook
“The company and its employees have also been subject to litigation cases over the years...with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named “HarvardConnection” social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began… The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.” (Wikipedia, referencing articles from 2007 to 2011)
“Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, no longer works at Facebook. He hasn’t since 2005, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg diluted Saverin’s stake in Facebook and then booted him from the company.” (Business Insider, 2012)
“we also uncovered two additional anecdotes about Mark’s behavior in Facebook’s early days that are more troubling...— an apparent hacking into the email accounts of Harvard Crimson editors using data obtained from Facebook logins, as well as a later hacking into ConnectU” (Business Insider, 2010)
Google
“Asked about his approach to running the company, Page once told a Googler his method for solving complex problems was by reducing them to binaries, and then simply choosing the best option,” Carlson writes. “Whatever the downside he viewed as collateral damage he could live with.” That collateral damage sometimes consisted of people. In 2001, frustrated with the layer of managers overseeing engineers, Page decided to fire all of them, and publicly explained that he didn’t think the managers were useful or doing any good.” (Quartz, 2014)
“Page encouraged his senior executives to fight the way he and Brin went at it. In meetings with new hires, one of the two co-founders would often provoke an argument over a business or product decision. Then they would both sit back, watching quietly as their lieutenants verbally cut each other down.” (Business Insider, 2014)
Gates
“Allen portrays the Microsoft mogul as a sarcastic bully who tried to force his founding partner out of the firm and to cut his share in the company as he was recovering from cancer.” (Guardian, 2011)
″...he recalls the harsher side of Gates’s character, anecdotes from the early days...Allen stopped playing chess with Gates after only a few games because Gates was such a bad loser he would sweep the pieces to the floor in anger; or how Gates would prowl the company car park at weekends to check on who had come in to work; or the way he would browbeat Allen and other senior colleagues, launching tirades at them and putting them down with the classic denigrating comment: “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!” (Guardian, 2011)
“They met in 1987, four months into her job at Microsoft...meeting her in the Microsoft car park, he asked her out” (Independent, 2008)
Bezos
Obviously his treatment of workers is no secret (and it seems natural for people to think he’s probably always been this way)
It’s not surprising to me if EA leaders thought most startups were like this—we just only hear stories about the ones that make it big.
I’ve only worked for one startup myself and I wasn’t privy to what went on between executives, but: one of them said to a (Black, incidentally) colleague upon firing him “You’ll never work again,” another was an older married man who was grinding up against young female colleagues at an office party (I actually suggested he go home and he said, “No—I’m having fun” and laughed and went back to it), and another made a verbal agreement with some of us to pay us overtime if we worked 12-hour days for several weeks and then simply denied it and never did. [edit: I should clarify this was not an EA org]
You may indeed believe that and have said that, but the question for us is: Was it reasonable for EA leaders to think this degree of bad behaviour was particularly out of the ordinary for the early days of a startup?
To take Nathan Young’s four examples, looking at some of what major news outlets said prior to 2018 about these companies’ early days...it doesn’t seem that unusual? (Assuming we now know all the key accusations that were made—there may of course have been more.)
Facebook
“The company and its employees have also been subject to litigation cases over the years...with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named “HarvardConnection” social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began… The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.” (Wikipedia, referencing articles from 2007 to 2011)
“Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, no longer works at Facebook. He hasn’t since 2005, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg diluted Saverin’s stake in Facebook and then booted him from the company.” (Business Insider, 2012)
“we also uncovered two additional anecdotes about Mark’s behavior in Facebook’s early days that are more troubling...— an apparent hacking into the email accounts of Harvard Crimson editors using data obtained from Facebook logins, as well as a later hacking into ConnectU” (Business Insider, 2010)
Google
“Asked about his approach to running the company, Page once told a Googler his method for solving complex problems was by reducing them to binaries, and then simply choosing the best option,” Carlson writes. “Whatever the downside he viewed as collateral damage he could live with.” That collateral damage sometimes consisted of people. In 2001, frustrated with the layer of managers overseeing engineers, Page decided to fire all of them, and publicly explained that he didn’t think the managers were useful or doing any good.” (Quartz, 2014)
“Page encouraged his senior executives to fight the way he and Brin went at it. In meetings with new hires, one of the two co-founders would often provoke an argument over a business or product decision. Then they would both sit back, watching quietly as their lieutenants verbally cut each other down.” (Business Insider, 2014)
Gates
“Allen portrays the Microsoft mogul as a sarcastic bully who tried to force his founding partner out of the firm and to cut his share in the company as he was recovering from cancer.” (Guardian, 2011)
″...he recalls the harsher side of Gates’s character, anecdotes from the early days...Allen stopped playing chess with Gates after only a few games because Gates was such a bad loser he would sweep the pieces to the floor in anger; or how Gates would prowl the company car park at weekends to check on who had come in to work; or the way he would browbeat Allen and other senior colleagues, launching tirades at them and putting them down with the classic denigrating comment: “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!” (Guardian, 2011)
“They met in 1987, four months into her job at Microsoft...meeting her in the Microsoft car park, he asked her out” (Independent, 2008)
Bezos
Obviously his treatment of workers is no secret (and it seems natural for people to think he’s probably always been this way)
It’s not surprising to me if EA leaders thought most startups were like this—we just only hear stories about the ones that make it big.
I’ve only worked for one startup myself and I wasn’t privy to what went on between executives, but: one of them said to a (Black, incidentally) colleague upon firing him “You’ll never work again,” another was an older married man who was grinding up against young female colleagues at an office party (I actually suggested he go home and he said, “No—I’m having fun” and laughed and went back to it), and another made a verbal agreement with some of us to pay us overtime if we worked 12-hour days for several weeks and then simply denied it and never did. [edit: I should clarify this was not an EA org]