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by busterarm 4851 days ago
Tom is from New York. He's also a founder. Both roles typically imply/require a certain amount of dickishness.

Thing is, somebody had to take Heroku to task over this, and until they fix the problem somebody has to keep taking them to task.

I worked in the office beside Tom's for a year (pre-Rap Genius). He's a sharp guy. More importantly, he's right. I don't think being nice has any relevance to Rap Genius' bottom line.

2 comments

If I have a problem with my ISP or my car dealer, nobody bats an eye at a blog post or an online complaint about the service.

But if I'm a customer of an admired former startup to whom I pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, I'm not allowed to go public with my complaints when I--and maybe hundreds of others--have been deceived and have suffered intentionally worse service than what I was promised?

I find the "enforced positiveness/optimism" of the startup community very disheartening. The essence of engineering is honesty (preferably quantified) about capabilities and limitations of systems. In this case, a former startup owned by a public company deceived their customers and then papered over (my impression) a valid, quantitatively-documented customer complaint once it became public.

Tom should be commended for speaking out. If he's right, dozens of startups have spent far more of their precious and limited capital on excess dynos and monitoring tools that could have been better spent elsewhere. I can't imagine a better service to the startup community than making this sort of thing public.

Are you saying being from New York implies "dickishness"?
It's a self-preservation thing. Many New Yorkers are nice by default, but don't you dare fuck with us.
Or what, exactly? I recently moved to NYC from Iowa and I haven't noticed much of a difference except more aggressive driving.
This is exactly what I mean. Thanks.
We're just very direct. There's not much value placed on unnecessary politeness or platitudes. The biggest social faux pas to a New Yorker is wasting our time.

Some people see that as us being rude and others actually appreciate it.