I finished reading Disrupted by Dan Lyons and while most reviews are about the experience of a fifty something joining twenty somethings at a startup there is a lot more going on there including bad manager’s, bad management, childish behavior and petty passive aggressive behavior. This book is very troubling in so many ways and it should be a wakeup call for a LOT of people.
I highly recommend that you read Disrupted but I dare you to read without saying to yourself “you have to be kidding”. The fact that two executives were fired just before this book was published is just a charade for senior executives who have made themselves very rich at the expense of duped customers and hard working employees. However, to me, the most troubling things that happened include..
-It costs Hubspot $1.50 for ever $1.00 in sales. Did anyone ever go to basic business accounting?
-HubSpot seems to recruit a certain kind of person: young and easily influenced, kids who belonged to sororities and fraternities or played sports in college. Many are working in their first jobs. So the people producing content have no real business experience and we’re supposed to believe their content?
-Self promoting new articles via blast emails to employees to add them to their social media posts.
-VP of Marketing who doesn’t acknowledge employees or very qualified job candidates (he is one of the people who was let go).
-The termination, for no reason, of two women in their 30’s, one of whom was pregnant with twins.
-When the author resigns, he gives 4 weeks notice, but finds out via email that the company says he is being terminated that Friday.
-A boss who harassed him every day and then, when he resigns, says he still wants to be friends.
-Meetings talking to a Teddy bear.
-Being moved away from coworkers into the telemarketing department as punishment.
-A churn and burn mentality for employees who are often terminated for no reason other than the fact they are “independent thinkers”.
-The company has not made any profit yet the founders have pocketed tens of millions of dollars in stock while those on the bottom rung are compensated with a college like frat house environment.
-Coworkers who refuse to stand up for others. Coworkers who are so petty they IM each other about people when those people are less than three feet away.
-No management processes, learn by watching, and immature employees who are brainwashed by the environment at Hubspot.
Now there are some of you that might say “they have good software”. My point is that it’s not supposed to be “good”, it’s supposed to be exceptional software. It’s not. Frankly, if I was one of the VC’s who invested in this company I would have called for a management overhaul and shown a lot of people the door. What they need are some seasoned business people who can turn this into a BUSINESS and concentrate resources where they are needed in engineering and development. Hire people to write content who have experience not people fresh out of school who think it’s great to wear orange.
This book is disturbing in so many ways and it would make a great movie. I just hope we can learn from this mess of a company before it’s too late.
