Slashdot Mirror
How Noah Kagan Got Fired From Facebook and Lost $100 Million
First time accepted submitter abhi2012 writes "Noah Kagan, a former Facebook product manager, has written a brutally honest article about how and why he got fired from Facebook in 2006 and what he learned from it. The experience must be particularly painful, given that it eventually cost Kagan a $100 million fortune."
Would suck
What exactly does Facebook _do_ ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
http://www.jwz.org/hacks/
I actually mostly read TFA. This guy sounds like an asshole, but at least he does a decent job admitting it. For those of you too impatient to slog through it, he basically says "I was a product manager but I wasn't very good at product managing" and "I used the brand more than I added to it" (w.r.t holding parties at the office, self-aggrandizing on his blog about working at FB). Not to mention going behind people's backs, like all of Marketing, on a new feature.
Short version: I was a liability, and they fired me for it. At least I learned something.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The person may be an ******, but that does not mean the article is worthless. It is a lesson to take with you.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
At that time, here’s the order of what was important in my life:
1- Facebook
2- Myself
3- Food / Shelter
OK, it sucks the get fired, but he lied in that list above, in reality he actually put himself above everything, and really abused his relationship with Facebook. As he later admits:
I wanted attention, I put myself before Facebook. I hosted events at the office, published things on this blog to get attention and used the brand more than I added to it.
Add to that he wasn't paying attention at all in meetings (well, I don't blame him for that but sometimes meetings are important), he didn't work well with others, and eventually he just annoyed the wrong people too much.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There isn't really a how here—just (rather gamy) reflections on possible "why"s. The piece is not really very good at generating sympathy, either; the author comes across as erratic, impatient, and insecure—more than a little like a stereotypical teenage girl in disguise. Perhaps the true lesson is that marketing is a strange, shallow world. (And more importantly, why doesn't the blog article mention any attempts at intervention before he was let go? Do they just randomly axe underperformers at FB, or was that another critical part of the coherent thinking process left out of the story?)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
to me, that would be the more interesting article now that we know where he ended up.
You haven't been in this business long enough.
Expect to work long hours at low pay with promises of riches, stock options and extravagant benefits, real soon!
This kind of arrangement usually comes with a huge increases in pay when the product ships.
Of course, you only collect one check at your new higher pay rate.
As soon as the work is done, you contemplate pulling into the path of that logging truck on your way home that last day.
And is still a millionaire. So who gives a fuck.
He didn't lose the money when he got fired, I would say he lost it by not having a golden parachute.
And he wasn't very insightful, I mean, he named 3 specific events and a SINGLE reason he thinks contributed to why he was fired.
His reason is stupid. He's was a show-er (rigid non adapting thinker) and not a grow-er (some one who adapts and 'grows the brand') or a veteran (some one who grows a bunch).
Completely arbitrary and meaningless stuff. He sounds like he was working in an environment where hyperbole sold, just apparently not for too long.
Anyone who trusts Michael Arrington needs to be canned. This guy was a walking social engineering liability.
it teaches humility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The guy's basically a marketing manager. You might be the smartest person in company, but if a glorified salesman is all you are, you can easily be cloned. The exception is if you developed enough good connections OUTSIDE the company that you can take a shitload of the client base if they fire you. I don't think this is the case with Facebook users, fake or otherwise.
Of course, marketing types get paid more than the typical engineer if the product is successful. But if you want a more stable job, it's better to be the craftsman working at the product, than the pretty face selling it at the counter.
I've already been humbled enough in my life I don't need to be humbled at my job I already know how to work hard k thx bye.
"The product is strong with this one. Now learn some grammer. --Mark"
Guess he should have replied to him with a dictionary.
and its front page on Slashdot 6 years later?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It's a familiar story. I worked with a guy who interviewed at a certain small software company back in 1982, and refused their offer because he thought their CEO was an insufferable dork. And of course that dork's name was Bill Gates.
Another bunch I worked with on a skunkworks startup had been with a certain other Big Name back when (this one I have to keep to myself) and just barely missed out at cashing in when they got bought out. The whole point of the startup they had brought me in on was to try and recreate that magic moment they had missed the first time. And of course the startup's product was hopeless, since all it's motivations were the wrong ones.
Which kind of demonstrates the stupidity of the whole approach. I don't mean the obsession with might-have-beens (though that's pretty unhealthy). I mean the obsession with getting rich by being part of The Next Big Thing. Unless you're a fucking genius (and trust me, you're probably not), you're not going to invent something really brilliant, and that's the only sure way of cashing in. Otherwise, you're just rolling the dice. OK, you roll the dice every time you start a business. But to have any hope of succeeding, you have to be focused on the the basics of making your company work, not crapshoot aspects, which are simply beyond your control.
I'm not saying that nobody ever lucks out and gets big bucks. But it's just not something you can plan. If you want to gamble, buy a lottery ticket: the odds in your favor are just as good, and it'll screw up your career a lot less.
Fired for the sake of being fired then? People who do good work should be fired?
How about this lesson: be a little less superficial and worry about something besides getting famous.
Two lessons not learned: discretion and the ability to abide by someone else's decision when you disagree.
He figures he somehow "lost" $100 million that he never had, and that he had no hand in creating. I'm always surprised at how people view that they were "cheated" out of other people's money. This is similar to saying the Winklevoss's "lost" $400 million.
People who do good work should be fired?
It happens.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Worry not, Noah. Once hyperinflation hits, $100,000,000 bills will litter the street, as worthless paper.
To which I would reply to Mark: 'Learn some spelling.'
And then Noah would be all 'Nice burn, dude!'
End scene.
about some asshats reflection and regret brought on because he lost money
Anyone else notice that the comments on his page are disabled. A whiny asshat bitches that he sucked and got shit-canned, and he ends up afraid of what people might say on his blog about it. Yeah, that's being "brutally honest" and manning up to it.
One of his lessons learned is that "everyone is replaceable", which is the sort of things action movie villains say when they're pointing a gun at the hero's head.
From TFA:
First, sure you are special. Everyone, best or otherwise, bring something different to anywhere they work at (unless it's a soul crushing place). Yes, there is guaranteed to be someone better than you on this planet (well, there is a 1:7,000,000,000 chance there isn't). If, however, you are one in a thousand, the company is highly unlikely to find those better people.
To summarize my comment so far: You are special, and it is possible that the company cannot get any better than you. You are still replaceable.
Yes, your replacement will not be as good as you are. They might cost more (at least when amortized over the time it takes them to complete a given task). They might not be as organized as you. They might turn out inferior solutions. At the end of the day, however, they will get the job done.
Shachar
That's right! There are millions of people who will tell you, with a smirk, that you suck. They aren't doing it for you. Their criticisms aren't constructive. They're trying to get ahead, and if they can get ahead of you by convincing you that you really do suck, they'll do it. Bullying doesn't end when childhood ends.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
1. First job, not even out of college, I got sucked into a marketing firm that was doing ... okay... And I invested time (a lot) to make things going from ok to profitable. I n exchange I was supposed (no contract... I was naive) to inherit 50% of company. I even worked over 100 hours per week sometime, no overtime charged, only vacation 1/1. All that just above minimum wage.
2. I changed jobs 10 years after because the first company got bankrupt. But at that point I was exhausted, as in depression exhausted. I rided it for over a year (good pay, good insurance plan etc...) but not two. When I finally fell, I was unable to work for over a year. That is when I decided to move to the country, no matter what, cause I cant stand stress anymore. Even to that day.
3. I worked as fuckin representative for a clothing company based in my new home town. Middle of the wood to be precise. But it was a family business, and the niece of the big boss was my boss and she knew I was more competent than her. Felling cornered, shed cornered me out of a job using clever and subtile subterfuges.
4. I am currently unemployed, developped a C++ library to handle fuzzy inputs (ai principles applied to user inputs to resolve them in certain time), and no one would employ me around because I have the tag "depression" hangned around my neck. I will probably go to work again in couple weeks as labor for a cheese factory, me, professional of communication products and hobby programming guru.
Life is a bitch... as they say. Is it your bitch? That is the question.
Enjoy my rant!
Tomorrow is another day...
You can certainly see why Mark bought him this book, his writing is terrible.
The product is strong with this one. Now learn some grammer.
Now learn some spelling.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
who fucking cares? also, he didn't lose 100 million dollars. he lost his options. there is a big difference between losing money and not making it.
Here's what I got out of it:
"I did alright at first. Of course, I spent way too much time browsing and not nearly enough time actually doing anything. However, I knew how to use flashy three-letter acronyms and how to sound smarter than anyone else, and I'm amiable / someone's friend, so I got away with it. Then, the company grew and I could no longer get by on my personality and ability to appear busy while actually doing fuckall. The same reckless attitude and lack of consideration for other people that allowed me to cruise by on reading Livejournal and my friends' pretentious WordPress blogs also caused me to completely miss that I shouldn't be throwing fucking PARTIES at my fucking COMPANY. By the way, I am such a raging dickhole that I thought it would be okay to do an end-run around marketing (which I will contradict in another session by pointing out how good I am at marketing.) I also think nothing of making allusions to flaccid vs. erect penis length in a mea-culpa.
BUT: It's actually because of these MINOR, CORRECTIBLE FLAWS that have nothing to do with the above, and not because I'm essentially a fuckup! I swear, guys!!!!!!!!! Now, here are some Stockholm Syndrome-induced bullet points about firing people, which I am now doing, and feeling fairly sanctimonious about. Please beleve I am not lying. I am not lying to myself. Especially.
Man, I'm so glad I didn't have to suffer in Facebook and have to take a hundred million dollars. Shit, I'm so lucky that I now work for a company no one has heard of & have lost all my stock options."
I'm not an asshole like the poster (although I'm reasonably sure I'm as equally ass-holey in my own special way).
I joined a small company as a graduate, stuck with it as it grew, stuck with it as it was eaten by an 'evil' enterprise company etc.
Job was always tough - but for every bit of despair (I've no idea how we're going to do this, we need to lay off half the company etc), there were an equivalent number of great moments (I've just made a perfect little piece of code that solves that problem, does something with half the clicks, delivered a great solution and come back bearing a piece of paper with some silly-large numbers on it).
Not had those good moments for quite a time now. I think I've finally moved through "Those bastards have destroyed my company" stage and am emerging into the next stage of acceptance.
Basically, I think my own motivations are no longer aligned to the company, and more importantly reflected in the majority of my colleagues (although there are plenty of amazing ones left). I genuinely couldn't give a toss about my dept's quarterly figures - sure I want the company as a whole to do well, but it's quite apparent that success/failure of my dept is mainly based around how our managers haggle with those in other depts ($200k to lease dev environments from another internal dept for example). Or, yes development was slower than you'd expected, but surely that may be connected to the fact we have no suitable staff and you 'cancelled training' 4 years ago - and I'm reasonably sure I did mention this as a potential 'bad idea' 4 years ago.
More generally though, I just don't think I'm suited to work for a large company. I didn't mind breaking my back to get something done - we were all on the same side, striving to get the same goal achieved. Now should I say work the weekend, but then have to spend the next few days sat on my arse waiting for a somebody else to do their bit (sure a 3 day SLA on rebooting a database is fine, not something I wasn't capable of doing before you didn't trust me with an admin account) - well I just go from 0->bitter immediately and can just feel the motivation shrivelling up.
Not quite sure where I'm going with this, so I should probably stop. I think if I had a point, it's just that the original article touched me a bit - you have to accept that you change, your employer changes - and at some point it's likely it's just not going to become a good fit, through no real fault of either side.
What do you think the letter section is?
Oh and what are you doing when you create a post on slashdot which generates revenue from advertising?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful Information.Great job.
Accountancy Firms in Dubai
...and not whether the guy is an asshole, but (a) he is an asshole and (b) what the hell WAS the lesson? This dipshit can't put together a coherent thought. To wit:
Lesson 1 is not only wrong, it's uninformative. A company gets famous by making a fabulous product? No s**t. Or was it that a person gets famous by making a fabulous product? But he's a manager, not a creator. Did he mean he figured HE could get famous by... managing... a fabulous... product? F**k it, I'm done with that one.
Lesson 2 insists in two consecutive sentences that he shouldn't have gone around the marketing guys, but what he did (i.e., go around the marketing guys) wasn't wrong. So, it's not wrong. But he shouldn't have done it. F**k it, I'm done with this one, too.
Lesson 3 is that you need to see if your weaknesses are hindering your ability to do the job. That's... a lesson he needed to learn? Did he also learn that he needed to put on pants when he left the house in the morning? Who IS this idiot?
The guy actually admits that he thought the company missed him after firing him, like Facebook (even in its early days) was some high school s.o., pining away for him. You're kidding, right? Who the hell has that kind of sense of self importance, especially a guy who, by his own admission, wasn't one of the driving forces at the company? I love that he actually follows this up with the insight that "everyone is replaceable." In fact, most people (but not all) are replaceable. Most of the people who are replaceable are business types who specialize in bureaucratic process control... like this dope. The creative types... less replaceable, depending on their skill and originality.
Seriously, he talks about how he just wants to focus on the job instead of, you know, self-promotion, but here is bloviating on the internet about his "insights," all of which would be old news to anyone with emotional and intellectual maturity of a sixteen year old.
it teaches humility
That didn't work for Jimmy Carter...
Ooh, that's truly heartbreaking. I feel so sorry for this lad missing out on a completely disproportional lump of money.
Back to important things. I wonder what's on the menu in the cafeteria.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I presume the $100 million figure comes from stock options, and not from salary or personal investment. However anyone who has been watching the facebook stock (and smart enough to not buy it) knows it has been dropping rapidly; already less than half its IPO price. Being as employees are still not allowed to sell their shares, you can't say the employees have made anything off of the stock values yet.
We'll see what its worth when employees start to cash out - or if it survives that happening.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I suspect that /. might be selling him slightly short - after all, he says he was promoted a while before that.
What I suspect happened is that he was a fine worker where he was, and someone up thought of promoting him. What resulted was him peacocking as he admits, and not being of particular use at his new place, even creating fuckups. Well, they couldn't quite demote him again because he'd read it as being a stop to his career and would leave anyways, not doing much in the meantime - the logical, if nasty option was to show him the door as unexpectedly as possible.
The actual lesson is: getting promoted doesn't mean you have everyone in your pocket yet.
I really wish people would get over this ridiculous "I hate jews" crap. You literally cannot hate an entire category of people regardless of how precise you are about it. And "jews" (kikes if you must) is an extremely imprecise categary.
I *want* to hate the jews. I really do. Convenient to blame problems on. And we've got lots of them. We've got the money systems. We've got wars. We've got victims being victimizers and lots and lots more. But with few exceptions, every jew I have known personally, I found to be endearing and intelligent people. At best you're looking at a small selection of very powerful assholes.
According to the blog's archtypes, but a veteran of getting fired :)
The thing is, these are all completely normal situations. The guy is discribing exactly what people go through after getting laid off or fired. It happens. It just so happens that the company was Facebook. Meh.
For for any of you who though t TLDR, here's the lessons learned:
Keep your ego in check, you are replaceable.
You aren't gods gift to anything, even if you work for facebook.
Move on and be kind to people.
That page will go over great on his next job interview. Even if you could overlook the fact he was incompetent as a product manager, would you want to hire someone so willing to air his dirty laundry in public?
If you are in business to provide a service/product then you may actually pass up a few things to serve The Greater Good.
an example Chick-Fil-A is in the business of selling Chicken but they have a Moral Obligation as a rider for thier company so
1 They always promote Traditional Family Values
2 the whole company is CLOSED ON SUNDAY (as an Operator you could use sunday as a Fix Day if you had to but the Corporate Office is Closed)
but in any case your BOD does need to know what you are aiming for so they understand.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
That is all this is.
"And if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans!"
We could convert every car in the U.S.A. to run off of water with that much money
That post he made is very informative, and explains exactly why he got fired....it just isn't for the reason's he lists, you get a good feel for the d-bag just from the words he chooses and repeatedly says he is wrong without saying those exact words then backs up why he was right...except that he was wrong, but it was right.
OT, but: corporate blocker (WebSense) apparently thinks a URL with "okdork" in it is referring to a penis. Site's blocked out here.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up
Ever heard of the British comedy show, The IT Crowd ?
Go watch the first season. Then you'll at least get the GP's bit about "people skills".
"Follow me on Twitter for more"
XD
I stopped reading when I saw the picture he posted of himself on his blog wearing a fedora: http://okdork.com/about/
Getting fired from a company was the best thing to happen to me. Obviously, I didn't think so at the time, but it being 12 years later makes me realize how valuable getting fired was to my life and my career. I really was in the wrong job and it got my mind straight and I starting doing stuff I enjoyed much more and even got a massive raise from my previous job on top of that. When it happened, it was pretty much out of nowhere and I was furious. I couldn't sleep for several days just thinking about how angry I was at the company. Once I got a new job and a 50% raise from the previous one, I kind of got over it. I didn't lose $100 million dollars in the deal, but the company did get purchased by a publicly traded company, so I did lose some money in the firing. Overall, my life and career are better off because of it. It taught me some valuable lessons about job security (you can always be replaced) and my career path and, looking back, I'm glad it happened.
Well they would do, wouldn't they?
It boils down to a simple concept that is well codified into law. It’s called the “Four Corners Doctrine” i.e. if it ain’t in the 4 corners of your employment contract it ain’t. You should have known this not when you got fired but when you got “HIRED!” No such thing as friends is business pal, allies and enemies is a better model, read Sun-Tzu. You never had that $100 million because you were stupid. Better a friendship based on business than a business based upon friendship. Zuckerberg fucked you and now he is fucking his stockholders because at this point he is lost. Facebook's business model is not Google and eventually the whole world will realize it is spyware, then the stock tanks. Zuckerberg is probably selling his as fast as he can. He is not the next Bill Gates, more like Apple, a fad. Fads fade, Apple stock will be $20/share again. Facebook will go to zero sooner. Remember how awesome Novell, the VAX and Silicon Graphics were?
He's a product manager. They're a dime a dozen and I've seen plenty.