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by Sk1pp 2961 days ago
Theres an interview (iirc) with him in Tim Ferris's Tribe of Mentors. He said something that stuck with me, that made me think slightly less of him.

I'm trying to recall from memory here since the book isn't in front of me.

He's talking about selling his first company, its all about making hard choices and such. The company is dying so he had two options either sell the company now (for a smaller amount) or fire most of the staff and sell later. He mentions how he had to let go of the staff but later sold it for a larger amount of money. He then says something to the degree of considering it a "win".

I don't know that I consider laying off a ton of people for a greater exit a win. I consider it a move to get more money, but I doubt anyone chasing money is going to "fix the internet".

3 comments

Probably worth noting that Blogger went on to become one of the top ten most trafficked web sites on the Internet. So I'm sure he considered that part of what he meant by win.

Also, this idea of small amount now or large amount later doesn't quite make sense. My understanding is that Google didn't pay that much for it (as measured by Google's stock price at the time). A lot of times when a founder says they have a small offer they mean "returns 10% of the investors money and employees half of the team at 80% of what they could make if they just went out an got jobs on their own. So as I read between the lines, that small offer was probably easy to walk away from under any conditions.

The interview was very short, numbers would have definitely helped. I agree there could definitely be a circumstance where it could possibly be better for the employees to leave.
Business is business, it's not personal. What should concern you is his attitude in thinking that he knows best for everyone. He's created a lot of toxic environments, most notably Twitter, that would go a long way in cleaning up the internet.
"Business is business, it's not personal."

OK, Laurie Bream...

Culturally, thankfully, it seems the negative outcomes from this attitude are on display right now. Mainstream life is very partitioned, dissociated, maybe. I think of my parents who can't stand BLM protests at football games because "there's no place for politics at work." #metoo is somehow related here, too.

The walls are coming down; I believe we need to take a more holistic approach to life to truly survive, succeed, and thrive. I'm sorry if this sounds a little scattered to the more thinking-oriented type, as I'm more of a feeling/intuitive personality myself.

I'm explaining this to myself as much as anyone else, but the end-result of "Business is business, it's not personal." is AI / Machines continuing the business at the expense of all human employees resulting in massively efficient business and corporations that slowly congeal into a single mega-corporation that does all products end-to-end, and then attempting to sell these products to the humans who no longer have any money because none of them have any work to earn it.

Heyyyy, it's just Business. Capiche?

"Business is business, it's not personal" said the gang enforcer before cutting a finger off someone who was late paying their protection money.

"Business is business, it's not personal". And that's part of the problem.

I haven’t read the book, but that sounds like the Blogger story and his staff walked out on him because they thought the business was doomed, which it probably would have been if it hadn’t shrunk down to just Evan Williams.
Interesting, if thats the case, I wish he would have clarified, because thats very different. The interview made it seem condescending.
Agreed. I am having a terrible time finding a better source, but the WP article provides a good summary and it was Ev’s first company that he sold. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyra_Labs

I could believe that he is putting a spin on it now since not paying people and expecting them to stay on is less than ideal employee treatment.