[HN Gopher] LSD, cargo shorts and the fall of a tech CEO
___________________________________________________________________
LSD, cargo shorts and the fall of a tech CEO
Author : 1cvmask
Score : 158 points
Date : 2021-05-05 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/6PZku
| GCA10 wrote:
| Figuring out how to deal with non-destructive microdosing on
| company time might be a tough call. If he's a genius and this
| helps him achieve his full genius-hood, then maybe it's
| tolerable.
|
| But microdosing -- and getting the dose wrong! -- puts him in a
| whole different category. That's just a fundamental inability to
| act sensibly in risky situations. The board doesn't need to wait
| for the second example.
| colinplamondon wrote:
| He founded a company worth billions - if he was constantly
| showing up high, sure. Getting dosing wrong, once? As long as
| he learned from the experience, who cares?
|
| This is the kind of incident that plays well in the press,
| because it generates headlines - like becoming the first word
| of a headline.
|
| Do we really think that the board was so gosh-darn offended
| that their founder did the wrong LSD dose, once? Or, that there
| were long-standing disagreements over strategy, direction, and
| tone?
|
| The latter is harder to justify in the normie press, so they're
| trying to crucify him over some minor incident.
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| He didn't exactly make a small dosing mistake, though. I can
| understand accidentally taking 50ug by accident if you're not
| careful. But he was peaking on much more than a light dose,
| here! Zhu looked at the screen and saw
| numbers and images swelling and shrinking, making them
| impossible to discern. His body felt as if it were
| melting away, he says
|
| That is _far_ from a microdose. This is showing up extremely
| drunk to the office. As an occasional LSD user, and I can
| only speak for myself, but I don 't ever get enough visuals
| that I can't read a screen without taking _way_ too much, or
| without other drugs being involved that have a synergy with
| LSD.
| colinplamondon wrote:
| If a founder as successful Zsu came in extremely drunk _one
| time_ , yeah, I think extend him some grace. He fucked up -
| once. That's ok!
|
| Did he kill someone? No. Did he lose a major customer
| account? No. Did he fire a top employee in a drunken rage?
| No.
|
| He's under a lot of pressure and fucked up in an
| embarrassing way once. That doesn't mean he has a substance
| problem. It means he had a bad day.
|
| If it happens a second time? Yeah, ok, now it's starting to
| be a track record. Third? Nuke him.
|
| It's ok for people to fuck up sometimes
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| Would the anxiety of realising you're tripping way more
| than you intended not potentially result in the effects
| feeling a lot stronger than it otherwise would feel?
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| Mentally, probably. I think would have trouble speaking
| coherently long before the visuals became a problem, but
| then again everyone is different. It's not my experience
| that visuals get much more intense with anxiety.
|
| With how long trips and the comeup take, I just have
| trouble understanding what kind of confidence it must
| take to walk in the meeting anyways and try to wing it. I
| would have found any excuse to sober up and get things in
| order before drunkely stumbling through a big pitch.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Getting visuals while looking at a computer screen can
| definitely happen at small doses. You might not see any
| visuals looking at the space around you, but black text on
| a bright white screen will bring it out.
|
| And mixing up the dosage is insanely easy with LSD,
| especially if you are using tabs since the LSD isn't evenly
| distributed throughout the paper. Also, you never really
| know how much LSD is on your sheet or in your vial, you
| just have to trust your source.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| It should not prevent you from being able to read the
| screen
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dntrkv wrote:
| Yeah, not saying it would. Even at higher doses you can
| usually read a screen, but the many other psychological
| effects will make it hard to process what you are
| reading. Especially, if you aren't experienced with it.
|
| My point was that seeing visuals on a screen doesn't
| necessarily mean it's a large dose, especially for a
| first time user. Definitely not a microdose, but getting
| the dosage right is an art.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| So if it is this risky, perhaps he shouldn't have done it
| for the first time immediately before an important
| investor meeting.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I know quite precisely how much alcohol is in commercial
| beer that I buy. I wouldn't have even a single beer
| immediately before an important investor meeting.
| mathrando wrote:
| you're doing it wrong. first you drink all the booze.
| then you hack all the things. if your investors aren't
| down with that, they're in the wrong line of work. maybe
| they should consider haberdashery.
| uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| I always (up)vote Cynic
| clpm4j wrote:
| I can't even imagine how he thought this was a good idea.
| Maybe microdosing in your private office during a 3 hour
| block of solo time when you just want to think by
| yourself... but microdosing (for the first time) before a
| board meeting where you're expected to give a
| presentation?! Horrible idea.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Not defending his actions, quite the contrary actually,
| it's really easy to get it mixed up so I wouldn't
| recommend it unless you've done it a bunch of times and
| know yourself. Even then, that really seems like the
| worst time to do it.
| newsclues wrote:
| What if a person gets their alcohol dosage wrong?
| [deleted]
| IMTDb wrote:
| If they are a CEO and they do that just before a big
| investment meeting to the point that everyone notices
| something is wrong and someone else has to take over the
| lead. All of that when you know your current investors are
| trying to reduce the risk of the company.
|
| You'd probably be in trouble.
|
| And if on top if that you would be freely talking to the
| press about various issues even after the board has asked you
| to stop it.
|
| You'd be fired. Which is exactly what happened here.
|
| If your company is big enough to think going public, "Let's
| try LSD just before a big meeting" is not exactly the kind of
| idea you want your CEO to have.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| > Zhu believes his preference to seek consensus instead of
| shutting down dissenting views or engaging in noisy debates is a
| cultural trait his investors mistook for weakness--a stereotype
| about East Asians that academics researchers have cited as a
| reason for their underrepresentation in leadership positions in
| the U.S.
|
| Can we just stop for a sec and collectively roll our eyes at VCs
| (and our own) trope of a "tech leader"? We want some kind of
| decisive, basically tech bro, alpha to come in and boss people
| around without any context. We want the startup CEO to be a
| wunderkind, and magically know the right call to make at any
| given point. There's little room for consensus based leadership,
| which has its own place. How often have you had the "hard
| charging leader" come in and make a mess because their confidence
| outstrips their know how?
|
| I'm not saying one leadership style is better than the other, I
| just hope we recognize good consensus based leadership should be
| valued as well, and it's rather undervalued in tech culture in
| favor of people that sometime make a lot of noise, but end up
| being completely full of it.
| mc32 wrote:
| >" Zhu believes his preference to seek consensus instead of
| shutting down dissenting views or engaging in noisy debates is
| a cultural trait his investors mistook for weakness--a
| stereotype about East Asians..."
|
| I could be wrong but on the surface it looks like he's looking
| for an excuse to blame something else.
|
| That stereotype was for Japanese who stereotypically seek
| consensus (but it's more an expectation that you will agree
| with the boss rather than achieving managerial nirvana). In any
| case I have not seen that as a stereotype for Chinese or
| Taiwanese or any of the Chinese diaspora enclaves in Southeast
| Asia so it almost seems like someone wanting to take advantage
| of other people's uncertainty of a stereotype where it's kinda
| plausible.
| tziki wrote:
| > We want some kind of decisive, basically tech bro, alpha to
| come in and boss people around without any context
|
| Who exactly wants this? Neither Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai nor
| Zuckerberg fit this description. The vast majority of tech
| leaders seem like consensus builders, as opposed to this "alpha
| leader" trope.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Theranos investors? Given how taken they were by Holmes's
| affected deep voice and piled money in without so much as
| asking some biology professors about the limits of small
| blood samples.
|
| The fact that even the most assertive tech leaders are more
| "chair throwing tantrum incident" at most may be part of
| their aggro. "Normal people" get irrationally pissed off at
| things not meeting their prejudices and preconceptions. In
| this case the lack of "alpha bro" at the top. They cannot
| imagine a lack of this as seen in the shibboleth of the
| clueless "techbro" perojative.
|
| You don't see vandalism for decades saying "Wall street go
| home!" in the Bronx in the face of gentrification even though
| the rough consensus is that Wall Street is a bunch of
| priveledged douchebags.
| jchrisa wrote:
| Big companies that have reached sustainability require
| consensus. Startups are basically moon-shots based on
| hopefully achieving product/market fit. For that (as a VC
| managing a portfolio) you need a CEO who's willing to stay
| the course. More: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/11/09/ceos-
| dont-steer/
| shard wrote:
| Hard to get a grip on exactly what proportion of tech leaders
| are consensus builders versus alpha tech bros, but there is a
| trope of the highly opinionated leaders who rules tyrant-
| like, for example Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve
| Ballmer.
| ObserverNeutral wrote:
| Bill Gates is undefeated when the DOJ isn't summoned up.
|
| Except for Google.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Yeah the golden combo is hard charging leader who takes their
| first 90 days to ID what to be hard charging about. High EQ and
| being more often than not the last (or at least the third)
| person to offer an opinion is the mark of a mature leader.
|
| Otherwise it's just a bull in a china shop stepping on and
| sh*ting on a lot of pre-existing work and stakeholders who did
| the work. Easy way to lose an org trust and never get it back
| unless a ton of headcount churn occurs such that no one really
| recalls how much of a moron the lead was.
| caturopath wrote:
| > I'm not saying one leadership style is better than the other,
| I just hope we recognize good consensus based leadership should
| be valued as well, and it's rather undervalued in tech culture
| in favor of people that sometime make a lot of noise, but end
| up being completely full of it.
|
| It seems likely that some leadership styles are better than
| others and plausible that techbrocracy is better than a more
| circumspect style for companies like this.
|
| Variety of styles at various similar firms might have benefits,
| but I don't think it's fair to assume that variety is worth
| while without an actual argument or evidence.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for
| companies like this.
|
| I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case.
|
| Here's an alternate hypothesis: high-capital investors & wall
| street types aren't actually that good at determining quality
| management at all, they grew up in affluent social circles
| where "professional bro"-esque (be it finance or tech) people
| were common and respected, and they project those views onto
| the companies they invest in. Getting investment capital from
| these people is as much about cultural homogeneity with the
| "old money" types as it is about having a brilliant idea or a
| good execution plan.
|
| It's worth remembering that most of this capital is being
| invested by people who just inherited the wealth from their
| parents, they're not necessarily genius market participants.
|
| e: And I'm downvoted, why?
| bluecalm wrote:
| You would also need a source for most of the capital being
| sourced from inheritance. It sounds like unsupported
| assertion especially when you look at the landscape of the
| richest tech people. Gates, Jobs, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk
| all have built the capital themselves even if they had a
| nice start in life.
|
| Seeing how much more wealth there is now than there was
| 40-60 years ago it just doesn't seem plausible that most of
| the investors just inherited it. Extraordinary claims -
| extraordinary evidence please.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > It sounds like unsupported assertion
|
| Sure, the estimates range from 50% to 65% of all private
| wealth in the US being inherited by the 5% most affluent
| households [0]. This logically implies most of the wealth
| held by affluent households is inherited.
|
| Certainly, those at the very, very top (ie. the literal
| top 10, like Gates, Bezos, Musk) of households are likely
| to have built their own capital, but I'd also point out
| that there are plenty on the top list that have inherited
| it, if you look at the top 15 wealthiest Americans, 5 of
| those arguably did not earn their wealth (the Waltons,
| MacKenzie Scott, and Charles Koch). [1]
|
| [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-
| policy/2019/02/06/people-l...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_n
| et_worth...
| caturopath wrote:
| > I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case.
|
| (Note, I called this plausible, not correct or even
| likely.)
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| > plausible that techbrocracy is better than a more
| circumspect style for companies like this.
|
| Given that the company was founded and formed under Zhu's
| leadership, it was probably exactly suited to his leadership
| style[0].
|
| The new factor appears to be the VC's. It's not so common
| now, but VC's used to have a reputation for replacing
| founders with "experienced" CEOs - y'know: their mates from
| the golf club who could be counted on to play ball nicely.
| This was especially common if the founder was unconventional
| in any way.
|
| [0] TFA doesn't mention any internal management problems, so
| I'm assuming all was well and there wasn't any
| dissatisfaction with the leadership style. That assumption
| could be wrong.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > y'know: their mates from the golf club who could be
| counted on to play ball nicely. This was especially common
| if the founder was unconventional in any way.
|
| And it's a pretty obvious conclusion from:
|
| 1. the fact that GPs have to put up $10s of millions into
| the fund to get the job
|
| 2. most (>50%) wealth held by affluent people (like the
| people who become GPs) is inherited from their parents.
|
| These are people who grew up in affluent social circles and
| want people like them managing the companies they invest
| in.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I wonder how long it'll take for psychedelic use to cease being
| stigmatized in our society.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| I don't think anyone would have cared if it hadn't affected his
| job performance so obviously.
|
| Just like no one cares (in the tech world at least) if you
| drink like a fish or get stoned every night if you show up the
| next day and get your job done.
| the_local_host wrote:
| I hope society figures out how to make startups in general less
| capital-dependent. If there weren't investors trying to protect
| themselves, we'd find out if running a company in Zhu's manner
| works or doesn't.
| anotha1 wrote:
| > I hope society figures out how to make startups in general
| less capital-dependent.
|
| My 2C/: stop forcing companies to provide health insurance.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| Does health insurance drive up the need for capital that
| much? I've never considered that. Would love to hear more.
| anotha1 wrote:
| Anyone that's ever worked part-time knows the "we have to
| send you home because if you work anymore this week you
| might be considered full-time by Uncle Sam and that's bad."
|
| Another thought is throughput. If welfare wasn't so closely
| tied to employment, working relationships could then be
| more ephemeral until one found a best fit. This may also
| look like more cautious hiring, which directly leads to
| missed opportunities for all parties.
|
| Edit:
|
| Capital buys employees, but it also buys time. For every
| extra dollar an employee costs the amount of time it takes
| to make the decision to hire that employee also increases.
| An efficient job market would compensate based on
| contribution, which is a lot more possible if a significant
| amount wasn't mandated to be spent, and then guilted into
| continue spending because, you know, you don't want to take
| away someone's welfare.
| nefitty wrote:
| I stumbled on a really good job posting this weekend,
| which I'm 100% qualified for and am sure I would have a
| really good chance of getting, but the last sentence was
| "We currently don't offer health insurance." Based on
| that alone, I had to slunk away.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act
|
| A proposal to do exactly that. Critically, it phased out
| incentives available to corporations that provide employee
| healthcare in favor of tax deductions for individuals that
| purchase their own healthcare. During the transition period,
| employers would subsidize private plans purchased by their
| employees.
| anotha1 wrote:
| Too convoluted. The only answer is medicare for all. Stop
| wasting time.
| nappy-doo wrote:
| While I support medicare for all, there needs to be a
| transition. There are probably hundreds of thousands of
| people involved in insurance that need to find new work.
| vkou wrote:
| We can take this another step further, and stop forcing
| companies to pay employees.
| the_local_host wrote:
| If there were an adequate social safety net, specifically a
| universal basic income, then employees could be paid in
| equity if the employer wanted to conserve or did not
| possess cash.
| bmicraft wrote:
| That's basically the same as paying people less.
| anotha1 wrote:
| Only if you live somewhere where healthcare is a privilege.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| > we'd find out if running a company in Zhu's manner works or
| doesn't.
|
| But we already know it does. He brought the company from 0 to
| $2b valuation, steadily growing for 8 years.
|
| I do agree though that it would be great for startup to not
| depend on VCs that much.
| davidw wrote:
| The whole "microconf"/bootstrap crowd works in a growing space
| with fewer capital needs. I think they fly below the radar in a
| lot of ways, but that's probably not a bad thing for them.
| danhak wrote:
| But this notion is incompatible with capitalism itself.
|
| The idea of capitalism is that capital accumulates in the hands
| of those who figure out how best to deploy and protect it.
| Investors, not Zhu, are the ones with the track record and
| experience.
|
| Trusting them to be stewards of capital is a better bet than
| trusting an eccentric, unproven founder who decides to
| experiment with LSD for the very first time before a big pitch.
|
| If Zhu had managed a successful exit, he would have established
| that track record, accumulated some capital of his own and
| bought himself the leeway to be as eccentric as he wishes in
| the future. See: Elon Musk.
| JI00912 wrote:
| If dosed properly, it could have made a substantial positive
| impact. Certainly there is risk involved, but then most
| things are risky when running a business. Going for safety
| leads to employment, not to running a company.
| danhak wrote:
| Do you believe taking a psychotropic drug for the very
| first time before a big pitch--before having any sense of
| what a proper dose might be--is on the the reasonable side
| of the spectrum between "risky" and "reckless"?
| the_local_host wrote:
| I'm not suggesting that startups be given free capital; I'm
| suggesting that we find a way to make capital less necessary,
| i.e. lower the stakes.
|
| At the extreme, if starting a company only requires pocket
| change, then nobody (society, investors, or anyone else) has
| much to lose in letting an unproven founder do their thing.
| danhak wrote:
| There are many, many successful bootstrapped software
| businesses out there. It's not as though founders in this
| industry don't already have a choice about whether or not
| to seek outside investment, and to consider all the
| relevant tradeoffs.
|
| In what ways could capital be made less necessary?
| the_local_host wrote:
| > In what ways could capital be made less necessary?
|
| By reducing the cost of anything and everything that
| startups spend money on.
|
| (And for the largest item in many budgets, namely
| employee costs... in the presence of an adequate social
| safety net, cash-strapped startups could pay employees in
| equity rather than cash, and they could stick around for
| as long as they thought it might be worth something in
| the end).
|
| Somewhat separately, what struck me from the article is
| that Zhu's controversial moves generally didn't involve
| bad business decisions, but rather failing to impress
| investors at a moment when the company needed the money.
| It would be better if that need for money were reduced,
| and we could all see how this type of experimental style
| turns out.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > The idea of capitalism is that capital accumulates in the
| hands of those who figure out how best to deploy and protect
| it.
|
| 1. Unlike income, there is little relationship between
| capital and most measures of intelligence.
|
| 2. Most private capital in America is inherited.
| ska wrote:
| I don't know anything about Zhu or the company, but I have had
| experience with a few startups where the job outgrew the
| founders.
|
| It's a tough issue with growth; one the one hand you'll find lots
| of examples of VC backed boards forcing "adults into the room" by
| way of hiring someone with a "business" pedigree to take over who
| in the end doesn't understand the business and it shows. On the
| other hand, you don't have to go any farther to find examples of
| founders flailing and out of their depth causing a lot of damage.
| We tend to focus on success stories but if your company is
| growing faster than your skills are, it's likely to get messy.
| drknownuffin wrote:
| Got high before an investor meeting, brought internal board
| discussions to the press, was unfamiliar with business
| performance ("Most of the board also wanted Zhu to commit to
| memorizing key company metrics as part of a performance
| improvement plan"), he "believed that he and the company were too
| focused on sales and money at the expense of altruistic goals,"
| and the guy who replaced him is also East Asian.
|
| Naturally, he presents the issue as being all about him getting
| ousted for being Asian.
| drcongo wrote:
| This guy sounds great. I'd love to work with him.
| djrogers wrote:
| Reporting like this infuriates me - it's nothing more than gossip
| when presented this way:
|
| "He wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt to a meeting with Geodesic, a
| VC firm founded by John Roos, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.
| An Iterable board member later informed him Geodesic wouldn't
| invest, implying it was partly because of his casual attire. A
| person familiar with the firm's thinking says Zhu's attire didn't
| factor into the firm's decision"
|
| So was it the shorts or was it not the shorts? If the reporter
| has a solid source saying it wasn't the shorts, then why bring it
| up at all, unless the gossip aspect of it fits your narrative...
| shard wrote:
| I think it's good that the reporter is showing multiple
| viewpoints. Rarely is there one canonical view in situations
| like this. The implications here are that the Iterable board
| member had a personal discussion with a decision maker at
| Geodesic, and got the hint that they felt Zhu was
| disrespectful, which the board member attributed to the attire.
| The person familiar with Geodesic's thinking could be echoing
| the official line at Geodesic, as they know they are speaking
| with a reporter. The reporter shows both sides and stays
| neutral, letting us make up our minds ourselves.
| gwern wrote:
| The anecdote is there to establish a pattern of sloppiness and
| carelessness and unnecessary risk-taking. Regardless of whether
| it, ex post, affected Geodesic's decision, it clearly _could_
| have affected it ex ante, and he should not have taken such a
| completely unnecessary risk, which helps establish his
| unfitness and why the LSD was the final straw /excuse.
| davidrm wrote:
| I'm sure this article only tells 10% of the story from both
| sides, but the fact remains that some people entrusted him with
| his money and that his behavior made them uncomfortable, which
| ultimately made them remove him from the position. I find all of
| this unsurprising.
| martimarkov wrote:
| On the other hand the valuation of the company was 2 billion so
| he did increase their investment. It's a two way street. They
| give you money, you deliver profit. I don't agree that just
| because you are uncomfortable with someone you get to fire them
| because you entrusted him with money. I agree that it happens a
| lot. :D
| chmod600 wrote:
| An interesting point, but there's a difference between
| "valued at $2B" and "delivered a profit in a bank account".
| It takes a lot of trust to bridge that gap.
| anotha1 wrote:
| Completely unsurprising.
|
| I prefer to smoke weed and hang at the beach, so I don't chase
| investor money, or make myself responsible for the wellbeing of
| full-time employees.
|
| Is it limiting, absolutely.
|
| Would I rather work myself to death now so I can... one day
| (maybe, dad died at 50 so...) one day maybe do the same
| thing... Lol
| bagacrap wrote:
| except microdosing lsd is more like drinking coffee than
| smoking weed in terms of effects on your ability to do your
| job. He did it in hopes of enhancing his output
| colinmhayes wrote:
| It's not the microdosing that got him fired. It's telling
| bloomberg about it.
| lozaning wrote:
| Such is the story of the Mexican fisherman and the harvard
| MBA:
|
| An American investment banker was at the pier of a small
| coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one
| fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large
| yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the
| quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
|
| The Mexican replied, "only a little while. The American then
| asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish? The
| Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate
| needs. The American then asked, "but what do you do with the
| rest of your time?"
|
| The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little,
| play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria,
| stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and
| play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life." The
| American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You
| should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a
| bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you
| could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of
| fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman
| you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening
| your own cannery. You would control the product, processing,
| and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal
| fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and
| eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding
| enterprise."
|
| The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all
| take?"
|
| To which the American replied, "15 - 20 years."
|
| "But what then?" Asked the Mexican.
|
| The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When
| the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your
| company stock to the public and become very rich, you would
| make millions!"
|
| "Millions - then what?"
|
| The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small
| coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a
| little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife,
| stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip
| wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
| Alkhwarizmi wrote:
| Never gets old!! This is probably one of the best adages
| ever. I just wish this was imprinted on every wall, on
| every city! This needs to be talked about more.
| anchpop wrote:
| It's an amusing story I've seen a few times, but I think
| it's disconnected from reality and strangely nobody ever
| discusses how
|
| At his current margins, the fisherman's business is
| basically entirely fixed-cost. He needs to pay for a house
| and food for his family and new guitar strings when one
| breaks and that's it, in terms of expenses bait or whatever
| is probably next to negligible (I know nothing about
| fishing)
|
| So he's vulnerable to someone spending twice as much time
| fishing as he does, lowering the commodity price of fish to
| 1/2 his current rate, so they'd be able to sell at 3/4ths
| his rate to undercut him while making a solid profit. Maybe
| the demand is there that it wouldn't affect our main
| character, but it's kind of an unstable equilibrium. If all
| his competitors decided that they actually wanted some of
| that profit and did full work days rather than only fishing
| for "a little while", the competition and increased supply
| would mean cheaper fish for everyone else in town but
| they'd end up stuck all working longer hours for not
| actually that much more money (since they'd have to compete
| with each other they probably couldn't all sustain 33%
| margins)
|
| What the harvard MBA should have told the fisherman is that
| his lifestyle was at risk and he needs to form a cartel
| with all the other fishermen to not work more than a few
| hours a day (normally he would also have to worry about
| imports from elsewhere, but maybe transportation costs and
| a lax regulatory environment in the fisherman's town allow
| him to undercut external competitors without having to work
| too hard)
|
| (One interpretation is that their culture is already
| forming that "cartel" as none of them want to or see a
| reason to work more. But they're still vulnerable to people
| from outside the villiage who don't share that view coming
| in and eating their lunch.)
| blackearl wrote:
| IMO this tells the whole story:
|
| "Back in San Francisco, Zhu was preparing for an important
| meeting with a prominent investor group. Believing that limited
| quantities of LSD would improve his pitch, _Zhu, who had never
| before used the drug_ , decided to try the microdosing plan. He
| took what he thought was a small amount of LSD shortly before
| the meeting."
|
| That's just plain stupid.
| breck wrote:
| I disagree. Doing this _twice_ would be stupid. Doing it once
| is hilarious. I love this story. Good for him.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| hilarious for us. dumb for him and his company. Small life
| lesson, try new risky things in ways that there is little
| downside. Want to drop some microdose of LSD? do it on a
| Saturday when you're doing your weeklies.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't know if that the's whole story necessarily, but that
| and the "didn't stop talking to a reporter about internal
| matters after being directly asked to" is enough for me to
| discard the "The most likely reason Zhu was fired was anti-
| Asian bias" claim.
| pyjug wrote:
| Heh, so many valley people microdose openly. It's not a
| fireable offence. Also, that incident happened in 2019. Why
| fire him now?
| seriousquestion wrote:
| Agree, but still, trying it for the _first_ time in that
| context is... unwise.
| cercatrova wrote:
| His mistake was not
|
| - taking LSD
|
| - arguing with board members
|
| - wearing cargo shorts
|
| Rather, his mistake was not retaining control of the company he
| founded, either by bootstrapping it entirely or not taking
| venture capital. Contrast this to the recent Basecamp debacle,
| both cofounders owned 100% of the company and could do as they
| pleased, no one could fire them.
| danielrhodes wrote:
| I see this as very misguided. Companies do not exist for the
| pleasure of the founders, they exist to serve a need that is
| greater than the founders. If a founder (or any executive for
| that matter) is threatening the well-being of the company,
| having board oversight is a benefit. Thus, retaining 100%
| control of a board is not always in your company's best
| interests, and can be a big liability. You want more
| accountability, not less. To that degree, even if the company
| does not take venture capital, you as the CEO might still want
| people on your board that can be good advisors and hold you
| accountable. The board is the CEO's boss, and just like with
| any boss, behavior has consequences.
| cercatrova wrote:
| > Companies do not exist for the pleasure of the founders
|
| I disagree with this notion, even as you might agree. If I'm
| making a company, it exists for my sole pleasure. If it
| didn't, then I wouldn't have bothered creating the company in
| the first place.
|
| > The board is the CEO's boss, and just like with any boss,
| behavior has consequences.
|
| I would make a company to get away from having a boss at all,
| not so that a board could now be my new boss.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| nerdponx wrote:
| What a weird story, and weirdly reported too. Not sure what to
| make of it.
|
| Anyone have juicy insider info?
| boringg wrote:
| Super weird - feels like a quirky story that will generate
| enough people to click through.
| romanhn wrote:
| It probably feels weird because it attempts to tell Zhu's side
| of the story, and he still manages to come out looking bad.
| Investors made the right decision, it seems.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Everyone looks bad here, to me. Zhu seems like a weirdo (who
| thinks it's a good idea to try your first LSD microdose right
| before a big meeting?), but the investors also seem like they
| were manipulative and removed him for somewhat arbitrary
| reasons.
| refurb wrote:
| "I was fired because I'm Asian"
|
| "But your replacement is Asian.."
|
| "Oh he's temporary, they'll fire him too"
| shard wrote:
| I think Zhu is saying that he was fired because of his
| Asian management style. His partner's management style was
| not described, so it could be that his partner's style
| aligns better with what the VCs are used to.
| aatharuv wrote:
| Andrew Boni doesn't sound like an East Asian name to many
| people, though it certainly could be. A quick google search
| indicates he also looks less East Asian than Justin Zhu.
|
| Edit: Since someone seemed to be irritated with my comment
| enough to downvote, people just with East Asian names have
| been known to suddenly face less discrimination once they
| started using non-East Asian names, or be characterized as
| non-East Asian after changing their names to something non-
| Asian.
|
| Some notable biracial (White/East Asian) Hollywood
| actresses with ambiguous racial characteristics have had to
| change their East Asian sounding name to a white name to
| get roles, or non-typecast roles. For example Sandrine Ho
| (of House of Cards) changed her name to Sandrine Holt and
| suddenly got more callbacks.
| sparrc wrote:
| In my experience moving the engineering-minded founder(s) to some
| other role like CTO and getting a more experienced "business
| school" type CEO is very common at some stage of a startup's
| life.
|
| If he was refusing to make this change then it probably was just
| a bog-standard power struggle.
| [deleted]
| musingsole wrote:
| If you're arrogant enough to experiment with microdosing the
| first time (or one of your first times) immediately before a
| critical moment in your life, you're asking for trouble.
|
| I've done similarly and taken similar risks - and I'm lucky
| enough that the combination of my prior experiences with the
| stuff and luck in the moment helped see me through my troubles.
|
| But if it hadn't, it would've been painfully obvious I'd shot
| myself in the foot and would need to confront the choices that
| led me to being able to make such a stupid one.
| tyingq wrote:
| That sounds right to me, but this:
|
| _" He wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt to a meeting with
| Geodesic, a VC firm founded by John Roos, a former U.S.
| ambassador to Japan. An Iterable board member later informed
| him Geodesic wouldn't invest, implying it was partly because of
| his casual attire."_
|
| Seems petty. Surely VC firms have had to look past appearances
| before. Of course, it did say "partly"...other things could
| have transpired in the meeting.
| znpy wrote:
| I don't know.
|
| If you have to pull millions of dollars out of your own
| pocket to invest into a company led by someone that doesn't
| care enough to dress at least business casual... I can
| understand thinking twice about that.
|
| Maybe the pitch wasn't even that convincing, the cargo pants
| were just the cherry on top.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Personally I think caring about how they are dressed for
| anything less than "covered in bodily fluids and/or naked"
| is stupidity normalized. It is not only a superfical
| distraction from the relevant and "bike shedding" but
| literally asking to be deceived and selecting for people
| who can deceive you best.
| shard wrote:
| Dressing appropriately is short-hand for "I speak your
| language. I understand cultural norms and can adhere to
| them. I won't embarrass you in front of your peers and
| clients." If you don't dress appropriately, they will
| have to find out all those items through discussions with
| you, and it definitely adds a hurdle to any initial
| discussions.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Zhu explained in the article how he bombed the pitch
| because he couldn't follow his slide deck. I doubt that
| instilled confidence lol.
| ska wrote:
| It's a little unclear in the article, but it sounds like
| that was a different meeting.
| runako wrote:
| > Surely VC firms have had to look past appearances before.
|
| Given the stats on VC investments in firms led by women, I'm
| not sure this is a true statement.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If the business and team were phenomenal, the attire wouldn't
| have mattered.
|
| However, dressing appropriately for a meeting is an easy way
| to demonstrate that the person is taking the situation
| seriously and being respectful of the other parties. If
| someone can't make the effort to dress appropriately for
| pivotal VC meetings that decide the future of their company,
| it's likely they won't bother taking other meetings seriously
| either: Meetings with customers, partners, recruits, and so
| on.
|
| As a VC, you don't want to fund someone who will go around
| being disrespectful, intentionally or otherwise, thought your
| network. We like to glorify the exceptions like Steve Jobs,
| but the reality is that dressing appropriately to show
| respect for your business partners is a fact of life.
|
| In 2021, it's cheap to dress in a presentable manner. You
| don't need a suit and tie (west coast, anyway) but you do
| need to make a basic effort.
| CalChris wrote:
| Yes. I saw a presentation by the CEO of Western Digital. He
| was dressed in a polo shirt and blue jeans. But he was in
| fact very well dressed and if I were in a Brooks Brothers
| suit, he would have looked more professional. His
| presentation was effortlessly on point. I don't think he
| microdosed before the meeting. Moreover, I thought after
| the presentation, yeah, I want to work for that guy.
|
| I don't think dress has anything to do with this firing.
| shard wrote:
| I think there are nuances beyond just the type of
| clothing. I would guess that the CEO of Western Digital
| was wearing clothes that were well-fitting, of a modern
| cut and style that showed he was aware of trends, and of
| a quality that indicated expensive clothing. This was
| probably paired with a nice leather belt and dress shoes,
| matching socks, and perhaps a nice analog watch. Also, he
| was probably clean-shaven and had styled his hair. Now,
| if you told me he looked like RMS on a bad day and still
| looked more professional than you in a Brooks Brothers
| suit, I would be really surprised.
| nr2x wrote:
| I once worked in a building and got to be friends with the
| CEO of a medical tech start up. He dressed like shit
| everyday, literally had his toe poking out a hole in his
| shoe. One day he's dressed impeccably, not just a suit - but
| a well tailored, very sharp one. I asked what the occasion
| was and he gave me some of the best advice ever: "I'm going
| to ask investors for money today and if you want people to
| hand you money you need to look like a guy people hand money
| to."
| yardie wrote:
| > "...if you want people to hand you money you need to look
| like a guy people hand money to."
|
| Pretty sage advice. I'm keeping this one.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| That is actually incredibly good advice. Sounds obvious on
| its face, but isn't necessarily obvious in the moment.
| nr2x wrote:
| Oh yeah, and he *really* dressed like shit normally - you
| could easily think he was homeless.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Unless you're wearing a blanket it is difficult for me to
| tell that someone is homeless from what they are wearing.
| ska wrote:
| > Of course, it did say "partly"...other things could have
| transpired in the meeting.
|
| And another source in the article claims that had nothing to
| do with it; so who knows.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > "He wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt to a meeting with
| Geodesic,
|
| people who run the core routers of the largest ISPs on the
| planet regularly show up to meetings in cargo shorts and
| t-shirts, believe it or not. They're responsible for things
| much more critical than some overly-valued
| advertising/consumer promotions marketing firm.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| I think that depends on the type of VC or the particular
| partner at the VC. Especially the ones that invest in later
| stage rounds and enterprise software companies. They don't
| appreciate flip flops and hoodies. I think it is always best
| to err on the side of "conservatism" if you want to raise
| money. Obviously there are many VCs who talk openly about
| their regrets in missing out on rocketships like Facebook
| because of Mark Zuckerbergs arrogance.
|
| He did the famous Sequoia pitch in pajamas:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-brutal-
| pran...
|
| Stuart Ellman the VC talking about Mark Zuckerbergs arrogance
| and why they skipped investing in Facebook:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/15-people-missing-out-on-
| mil...
| tyingq wrote:
| It just doesn't seem to have any benefit for the VC, to me.
| It's not really an indicator of anything useful. They
| wouldn't have scheduled the meeting if the meaningful stuff
| wasn't more important than flip-flops.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Wow talk about projection. They fail big time at their job
| after engaging in petty gatekeeping and then declare in a
| goddamn high publication count article the investment
| arrogant?
|
| The employee who rejected J. K. Rowling's Sorcerer's stone
| manuscript for being too long didn't try to say it was her
| fault for making it too long and that is why the company
| missed out on the first billion dollar author.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It's not about clothes, it's about signalling preparation and
| respect.
|
| When Bill Gates and Paul Allen were preparing for their life
| changing meeting with IBM, they knew that IBM has very strict
| dress code, so they dressed in conservative IBM style suits.
| At the same time IBM executives wanted to make these young
| unknown west coast guys comfortable and decided to wear
| relaxed and informal attire breaking their own dress code.
|
| When the two groups met, they busted into laughing. It was
| funny but also made it clear that both were serious and
| wanted the deal succeed.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| One of the big things a CEO does is meet with people to sell
| the company, make deals, connect with investors and all that.
| You need to be able to read social situations properly, and
| if you can't do that, you are at a disadvantage. One way of
| demonstrating that you can handle social situations properly
| is knowing what to wear.
|
| A really talented CEO might be good enough to overcome
| "quirkiness" on the "dress-the-part" side, but you have to
| have sufficient other advantages.
| musingsole wrote:
| > A really talented CEO might be good enough to overcome
| "quirkiness" on the "dress-the-part" side
|
| A really talented CEO isn't overcoming this. They're not
| overcoming anything; they're using it.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| What could be some the troubles?
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Doing stupid shit.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| I figured that. Just wondered on what types of concrete
| examples.
| [deleted]
| wildermuthn wrote:
| His mistake wasn't in taking the wrong amount of LSD. His mistake
| was testing it for the first time in an important meeting. But it
| seems this is a common type of mistake for him: taking
| unnecessary risks for himself rather than necessary risks for his
| company.
| ProAm wrote:
| This wasnt his first mistake, this was the one that finally
| pushed things past acceptable comfort for other decision
| makers. Founder/ceo of a startup is high risk, high reward and
| he lost on his gamble. It happens all the time. The company
| will continue without him.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Founder/ceo of a startup is high risk, high reward and he
| lost on his gamble.
|
| Hard to say he lost overall if he is walking away with 8-9
| figure equity.
| tariksbl wrote:
| His next startup: "we take the od out of microdose". Actually
| make the world a better place.
| borishn wrote:
| The board does not remove a CEO it is happy with for something
| this trivial, because it is too disruptive to the company. This
| was probably used as a pretext in a power struggle.
| mdoms wrote:
| Getting zonked on a class A drug during an important meeting
| with investors - so zonked you can't even read your own figures
| on a whiteboard - is no trivial matter.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Yeh my thought too there's a lot of shady shit that goes on in
| the VC world.
|
| I think he could have done with advice from a mentor who wasn't
| at all involved with the vc side - even on how formal meetings
| like board should be run.
|
| He is right about different cultures around how meetings are
| run though.
| GCA10 wrote:
| Board-CEO relationships come in three flavors:
|
| - We love our CEO! We'll do anything to keep this boss happy
|
| - We're stuck with a loser, and we need to make a change
|
| - We're in the middle. This CEO has real strengths, which we
| appreciate, and real weaknesses, which concern us. We're
| regularly taking stock of the situation, and we'd probably like
| an orderly transition down the road. But we're probably okay
| for now.
|
| The third situation is quite common. And in those cases, you
| don't really need a "pretext" or a "power struggle." You just
| need the board to say: "We've tolerated a lot, but maybe we've
| tolerated too much. This new incident is not what we'd be
| seeing if we had the right CEO."
| itake wrote:
| "This new incident" happened almost 2 years ago.
| dplavery92 wrote:
| True, but it's an incident he only informed the board
| (including new board members) about in late 2020, and is
| one aspect of his communication with Bloomberg Business
| that the board told him to stop for 10 months before being
| terminated.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The incident is him going to bloomberg, not the actual
| meeting.
| gopalv wrote:
| > This was probably used as a pretext in a power struggle.
|
| The article has a specific quote which would indicate there's
| some disconnect between the average board and this ceo.
|
| >> He believed that he and the company were too focused on
| sales and money at the expense of altruistic goals
|
| This is an obvious point of conflict with a board, which would
| not align itself with a CEO who said that even privately.
| Apofis wrote:
| The company is pre-IPO... this would conflict with any board.
| I'm assuming the co-Founder that replaced him as CEO had no
| such qualms.
| jeffchuber wrote:
| Additionally, I think it's pretty obvious that the journalist
| knew this and the editor picked the clickbait title.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| Matt Levine had a good bit on this yesterday. A bit long to quote
| but the gist is that as an early-stage investor you want to look
| for founders who are weird (who might also be into stuff like
| microdosing), otherwise you're probably being too conservative.
| As you get closer to going public, though, you want a stodgier,
| more respectable CEO. So there's an awkward middle phase where
| the expectations change, and Zhu might have misread it.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| ... but is taking LSD before a board meeting _securities
| fraud_?
| okareaman wrote:
| There's no shame in taking LSD or being fired from the company
| you helped found because you think different as Steve Jobs might
| say if he were still alive. It's almost the ultimate homage to
| Jobs. I'm sure Zhu will be fine. I can't talk to people on LSD.
| I'm surprised no one told him about set and setting.
| v7p1Qbt1im wrote:
| You can act quite normally when microdosing.
|
| If dosed correctly (it takes time to find it and depends on the
| person) micro-dosing (usually around 5 - 20 ug per dose) an
| obvious effect in not as apparent as you might expect.
|
| For me, 5 to 10 is enough. I don't actually want to feel the
| body high when microdosing. Precisely because it should feel
| like a normal day. Except your perception, creativity and
| emotional balance is heightened.
| okareaman wrote:
| I've never microdosed, but I imagine it's better to do when
| trying to solve problems in a creative way, not pitch to
| investors.
| Sargos wrote:
| Microdosing is actually one of the best things to help with
| speaking to large groups or presenting ideas. The increase
| in creativity and mental clarity helps you make more
| eloquent points and respond well to questions.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| At least you seem eloquent and perfectly coherent to
| yourself.
| mancerayder wrote:
| What about anxiety?
| Sargos wrote:
| I have anxiety and it's helped me. This is all anecdotal
| but my experience lines up with thousands of others in
| the microdosing community. The clarity also seems to come
| from living more in the moment and not always half
| fretting about the future.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > The increase in creativity and mental clarity helps you
| make more eloquent points and respond well to questions.
|
| Is there any science to back this up? The increase in
| confidence from alcohol makes me dance better... from my
| perspective, at least. I've read the "productivity boost"
| from ADHD drugs is similar. It _feels_ like you 're doing
| more/better but you're really doing the same.
| nanidin wrote:
| gwern has written on the topic[0].
|
| [0] https://www.gwern.net/LSD-microdosing
| Sargos wrote:
| I'm sure there is and the microdosing groups probably
| have it offhand but I'm just a busy dev sharing my
| personal experience.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I did a weak attempt at a literature search, and what
| I've found suggests that the effects of microdosing are
| more likely placebo effects instead.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I don't know how it affected Steve Jobs, but Bill Atkinson
| handled his LSD pretty well.
|
| https://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hyp...
|
| >The Psychedelic Inspiration For Hypercard, by Bill Atkinson.
|
| >In 1985 I swallowed a tiny fleck of gelatin containing a
| medium dose of LSD, and I spent most of the night sitting on a
| concrete park bench outside my home in Los Gatos, California.
|
| >I gazed up at a hundred billion galaxies each with a hundred
| billion stars, and each star a giant thermonuclear fusion
| reaction as powerful as our Sun. And for the first time in my
| life I knew deep down inside that we are not alone.
|
| >I knew that life on planet Earth is not the only pocket of
| consciousness in the universe, and likely not the most
| advanced. But we still have a role to play in the unfolding
| drama of creation.
|
| >It seemed to me the universe is in a process of coming alive.
| Consciousness is blossoming and propagating to colonize the
| universe, and life on Earth is one of many bright spots in the
| cosmic birth of consciousness.
|
| >But the stars are separated by enormous distances of darkness
| and vacuum, which may hinder communication between them. I
| lowered my gaze and saw the street lamps below glowing
| brightly, each casting a pool of light but surrounded by
| darkness before the next lamp. As above, so below.
|
| >The street lamps reminded me of bodies of knowledge, gems of
| discovery and understanding, but separated from each other by
| distance and different languages. Poets, artists, musicians,
| physicists, chemists, biologists, mathmeticians, and economists
| all have separate pools of knowledge, but are hindered from
| sharing and finding the deeper connections.
|
| >My vision distorted by thick eyeglasses, I witnessed the
| curvature of the Earth's horizon, and I felt the pull of
| gravity toward its center, such that every one of us is
| standing at the very apex. Each of us stands at the top of
| planet Earth, and each of us is a leader or captain of the
| "Blue Marble" team.
|
| >How could I help? By focusing on the weak link. If I were
| captain of a soccer team, I would look for the weak link and
| work on it. If the goalie was letting too many through, I would
| spend extra practice time with him, and the whole team would
| prosper.
|
| >It occurred to me the weak link for the Blue Marble team is
| wisdom. Humanity has achieved sufficient technological power to
| change the course of life and the entire global ecosystem, but
| we seem to lack the perspective to choose wisely between
| alternative futures. But I was young, without much life
| experience or wisdom myself.
|
| >Knowledge, it seemed to me, consists of the "How" connections
| between pieces of information, the cause and effect
| relationships. How does this action bring about that result.
| Science is a systematic attempt to discover the "How"
| connections.
|
| >Wisdom, it seemed to me, was a step further removed, the
| bigger perspective of the "Why" connections between pieces of
| knowledge. Why, for reasons ethical and aesthetic, should we
| choose one future over another?
|
| >I thought if we could encourage sharing of ideas between
| different areas of knowledge, perhaps more of the bigger
| picture would emerge, and eventually more wisdom might develop.
| Sort of a trickle-up theory of information leading to knowledge
| leading to wisdom.
|
| >This was the underlying inspiration for HyperCard, a
| multimedia authoring environment that empowered non-programmers
| to share ideas using new interactive media called HyperCard
| stacks.
|
| >Each card in a HyperCard stack included graphics, text,
| interactive buttons, and links that took you to another card or
| stack. Built-in painting tools, drag-and-drop authoring with a
| library of pre-fab buttons and fields, and simple event based
| scripting made HyperCard flexible and easy to use.
|
| >It took a lot of hard work and a dedicated team to complete
| this mission. Apple shipped HyperCard in August 1987, and
| included it free with every Mac so any user could create and
| share HyperCard stacks. Many creative people expressed their
| ideas and passions, and several million interactive HyperCard
| stacks were created.
|
| >HyperCard was a precurser to the first web browser, except
| chained to a hard drive before the worldwide web. Six years
| later Mosaic was introduced, influenced by some of the ideas in
| HyperCard, and indirectly by an inspiring LSD experience.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > you think different as Steve Jobs might say
|
| That is exactly the problem. They cargo cult Steve Jobs'
| personality, fashion or some other aspect, but they don't
| deliver Steve Jobs kind of results. It ends up being cringey at
| best and disastrous for their company at worst.
|
| I have seen this before with CxOs and owners who decided their
| company would be "just like Apple" and they would be "just like
| Steve Jobs". They read how Steve Jobs was an asshole, so they
| just started acting like assholes towards everyone waiting for
| the fame and fortune to follow.
| eplanit wrote:
| Yes, and those companies become living spinoffs of HBO's
| Silicon Valley.
| okareaman wrote:
| That was true of Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos for sure
| quacked wrote:
| I don't admire Steve Jobs's personality, but I find myself
| talking about him all the time, for two reasons:
|
| 1) Steve Jobs had a vision for the appearance, function, and
| marketability of his products, and enforced his tyrannical
| will on his team until that vision was met, or at least it
| was impossible to enforce any more. The fact that his vision
| changed along the way or that he was inconsistent at times
| isn't as important as the fact that he was a central
| authority that was allowed to keep the resultant products
| consistent and stable. People who try to behave like Steve
| Jobs rarely have the level of vision that he did, and mimic
| his behavior rather than his principles.
|
| 2) Everything the teams under Steve Jobs produced has been
| cargo-cult mimicked ad nauseam by people today, to the point
| where every modern software looks like someone tried to
| redesign Apple software from memory. Unfortunately, it all
| sucks (compare Jira to Windows 95 Email in terms of form and
| its relation to function).
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| I think (1) works best when your vision is coherent and
| consistent. People familiar with it should be able to
| explain it well themselves, and predict with some
| reliability whether a given product or experience will meet
| expectations.
|
| In this case, the vision is unifying and improves your
| ability to execute.
|
| If the vision is not coherent or consistent then you lose
| the ability to execute without micro-management. Staff will
| be unhappy because they feel subject to the whims of an
| unpredictable dictator.
|
| You can have both experiences in the same company if there
| are some people who "get it" and other people who don't.
| drummojg wrote:
| I was thinking "cargo cult" reading your first point, and
| was quite happy to see it mentioned in the second.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I hadn't realized this, but one of the reasons I don't have
| much respect for Elon Musk is he sells himself like he's
| Steve Jobs, and he has the asshole thing going, but he
| doesn't have the focus, obsession with detail, and micro-
| executes, not micro-manages.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Classic example of Steve Jobs Emulation Syndrome: Bill Nguyen
| and Color Labs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs
|
| https://collapsed.co/startups/color-labs
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-the-boy-
| in-t...
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/1742613/how-colors-bill-
| nguyen-w...
| smsm42 wrote:
| That's not only with Jobs. There are some brilliant people
| who are assholes - and many brilliant people that aren't. But
| the assholes get the headlines. So people decide "I want to
| be brilliant, why don't I start with being an asshole? Seems
| like the easiest way..."
| spurgu wrote:
| Microdosing is some orders of magnitude different than "being
| on LSD".
| boringg wrote:
| Apparently Zhu messed up his dosage and was in fact tripping
| per article. "numbers and images swelling and shrinking on
| the screen"
| 1-6 wrote:
| Is this meeting archived anywhere? I'd like to watch the
| presentation.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >Believing that limited quantities of LSD would improve his
| pitch, Zhu, who had never before used the drug, decided to
| try the microdosing plan. He took what he thought was a
| small amount of LSD shortly before the meeting.
|
| Taking a "small amount" LSD for the first time in your
| life, right before an important meeting, in the vain hope
| that it will improve your pitch, when you don't even have
| any idea how it will feel, or what it will do to you, or
| how long it will last, or even how to medically define and
| accurately measure a "small amount" of LSD, is astoundingly
| idiotic and irresponsible.
|
| Is that how he runs his whole company? Why bother with
| development and staging servers? Just log in as root and
| hack away on the production server!
| boringg wrote:
| Yeah doesn't really strike you with confidence in his
| leadership abilities.
| nefitty wrote:
| I wouldn't want a friend who is tripping on acid to watch
| my dog, let alone helm a company where billions of
| dollars are at stake.
|
| I understand that he made a dosing mistake, but to pile
| on this whole thread, what he did was a forehead-
| smackingly bad decision.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Trying a new drug for the first time right before a high-stakes
| meeting sounds incredibly stupid. Couldn't he just allocate a
| week-end to test it out beforehand? But I don't think he was
| fired just for that...
| nwsm wrote:
| Not to mention that LSD does not make you better at
| communication while on it.. Isn't the trope that leaders go
| on a hiatus and do LSD for ideation, not for performance?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I believe the idea of micro dosing is that you don't get
| high, you end up being more focused and perceptive.
|
| Seems like he picked a bad time to try it out.
| nicklecompte wrote:
| The most damaging legacy of Steve Jobs is convincing millions
| of people that if you're a genius you have a right to be a huge
| asshole; and conversely, if you're being a huge asshole it must
| be because you're a genius.
| coldcode wrote:
| I am sure he still has his shares, so he can do new things his
| own way. SV VC is a nasty business.
|
| I would love to work for someone like this, but since I just
| retired, not really a thing any more.
| smsm42 wrote:
| > His co-founder, Andrew Boni, and the company's entire board
| told him he was losing his job, primarily because he had taken
| LSD before a meeting in 2019.
|
| From the article, looks like that wasn't the actual reason. The
| actual reason is that Zhu preferred his own personal brand PR
| (with heavy social justice activism overtones, accusing anybody
| who challenges him of racism because he happens to be of Asian
| descent) to the good of the company, and was unwilling to
| reconcile the two.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| What percentage of founders get replaced as CEO? It is very
| common for VC's to want what is often called, "adult supervision"
| once a company reaches a certain size. Even Google (home of the
| archetypal tech bro founder Sergey Brinn) ended up hiring Eric
| Schmidt once they got to a certain size.
|
| I'm sure there is anti-asian sentiment (or at least discomfort)
| out there, but replacing a CEO once a company gets big enough to
| need it is absolutely routine.
|
| Founders get pushed out by VCs all the time.
| ObserverNeutral wrote:
| Sergey and Larry aren't techbros.
|
| You can see it even today. People who know who they are...are
| in the thousands whereas people like Bezos and Musk seek to be
| known by the whole world.
|
| If we know something about the promotional industry is that you
| only become famous if you want to.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| They were then.
| geocrasher wrote:
| The guy trips on LSD before investors, refuses to cooperate with
| people who work with him, and then blames getting fired on his
| race? No matter what real biases may be involved, those are
| things that would get a lot of people fired, no matter their race
| or anything else.
| NotPavlovsDog wrote:
| The real lesson is,and been for a while, if you do a start-up, do
| like Zuckerberg and The Google boys. If you want your company to
| stay your company, watch that vital stock and keep the majority
| votes.
|
| Zuckerberg:
|
| "So one of the things that I've been lucky about in building this
| company is ... I kind of have voting control of the company, and
| that's something I focused on early on. And it was important
| because, without that, there were several points where I would've
| been fired. For sure, for sure,"
|
| Source: The Verge
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| In the vast majority of cases this will preclude you from
| getting investment money. Sure - some companies can get away
| with that, but not a lot of them.
| gringoDan wrote:
| This story reminds me of the Basecamp saga.
|
| Here, the narrative is that the CEO is ousted because of anti-
| Asian bias/racism from his investors. Similarly, with Basecamp,
| employees quit due to a change in workplace policy that they
| viewed as intolerant.
|
| You can take those suppositions at face value. Or you can look at
| our supercharged political culture and view these prevailing
| narratives as convenient scapegoats.
|
| I don't think that 1/3 of Basecamp's employees decided to quit
| based on one meeting or an isolated policy decision. I presume
| many were thinking about leaving (due to workplace culture or
| otherwise), and a 6 month severance package made the decision
| easy for them.
|
| I have no idea what is going on internally at Iterable or the
| company's financial situation. But stellar performance gives you
| a lot of breathing room. Adam Neumann's drug use was tolerated
| and even encouraged when WeWork was doubling in value every
| year...right up until WeWork tried to go public and imploded.
|
| Being unconventional is embraced in the business world as long as
| you're delivering returns to your investors. Once you're not, it
| is used against you. We've seen this fall from grace play out
| over and over again (Travis Kalanick, Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey,
| etc).
| xibalba wrote:
| In this case, even the author seems to begrudgingly be
| admitting that this clearly was not a case of racial/ethnic
| bias. Rather, the company was maturing and professionalizing
| and the CEO refused to get on board, and even went so far as to
| start airing out his own dirty laundry to reports. It would
| seem much of board support reduces down to confidence and
| trust. Zhu nuked both.
| vgel wrote:
| Matt Levine had a good bit about this in his most recent
| newsletter:
|
| > For instance, when you fund a company in its early stages,
|
| > you might want a founder who will microdose LSD at work,
|
| > because that's just the sort of imaginative, aggressive,
|
| > independent thinking that might change the world or whatever.
|
| > ("Narrative violation: This CEO drops acid," etc.)
|
| > But when you are looking to take that company public,
|
| > you want a CEO who would never microdose LSD at work,
|
| > because that's the sort of thing that stodgy
|
| > institutional investors and regulators will find unsettling.
|
| > If the founder-CEO has been microdosing acid all along,
|
| > and you have been encouraging him to do so,
|
| > there will be an awkward transition when you tell him to
| stop.
|
| (The whole section is good, but this is a good summary
| paragraph)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Externally the basecamp saga seems dramatic. I think the
| explanation is a lot simpler.
|
| At the core though, they have a highly talented group of people
| that probably won't have trouble finding a job in 6 months. If
| I was in that situation, and I agreed with the changes they
| made (I read Jason Fried's post, and mostly agree), I would
| still take the buyout!
|
| 6 months salary for me, or most engineers (or anyone, really)
| is A LOT of money. I like my job, and I've had lifestyle jobs
| that I absolutely LOVED. I can't say that I have ever loved a
| job so much that I would turn down that much money to leave.
|
| If I was staying I would be pretty annoyed, the people that
| leave get a bag of cash, and the people that stay get to pick
| up the slack while their former colleagues get on twitter to
| dump on the company?
| ipaddr wrote:
| It would be hard staying because the workload just increased.
| They should give everyone who stayed 3/6 months pay.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Recover and redeem yourself, Justin.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| East Asian American CEO drops acid and takes an apparently
| extremely casual approach to meetings with investors. Perhaps as
| an effort to stand out?
|
| Fails to recognize the repeated failure in such behavior. Gets
| fired.
|
| Plays race card.
|
| <sarcasm>
|
| No, it couldn't be about anything else but his race...
|
| No need to take personal accountability for one's actions
| (despite warnings)--
|
| it's everyone else's fault for being racist!
|
| </sarcasm>
|
| This is why I refuse to live in West Coast cities. Too much SJW
| kool aid.
|
| _edit_
|
| ouch, those downvotes hurt so badly!
|
| why can't I just be a brainless sycophant like the big
| corporations & global governance organizations want me to be?!
|
| :( dastardly critical analysis! You've stung me again!
|
| Why can't I just take the force fed propaganda that I encounter
| at every turn across entertainment & "news" media!
|
| Oh brain, why do you fail me?!
| criticalhn wrote:
| This is the high quality, thoughtful commentary I come here
| for.
|
| Good luck with your job search btw ;)
| aeoleonn wrote:
| Thanks! Glad to share my perspective and happy to receive
| yours.
|
| What's your take on the article & story btw?
| criticalhn wrote:
| My take is that you're hilarious and awesome.
| kvathupo wrote:
| While people are entitled to their view of the CEO, I find many
| of the comments doing nothing more than insulting the CEO.
|
| As a South Asian, I think there's more meaningful discussion to
| be had on the "bamboo ceiling" and, in particular, how Chinese
| collectivist views interact in increasingly global economies.
| This core tension between the two views isn't going to go away.
| Perhaps the Eternal September is upon us?
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "bamboo ceiling" I hadn't heard of that one before. Could you
| expound on it more?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling
|
| Someone actually did it for you already!
| imwillofficial wrote:
| What a useless answer. I wanted his personal experience and
| understanding of the term. Wikipedia can't tell me what it
| means to him and the experiences that informed His
| understanding.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Don't ask stupid questions if you don't want stupid
| answers?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This wasn't at all clear from your question, where you
| said you hadn't heard the term before.
|
| Needlessly aggressive response.
| the-dude wrote:
| I don't get your second sentence either.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I worked as a CEO in SE Asia, and experienced the culture
| differences first hand. It's very real. It doesn't surprise me
| that there would be a "bamboo ceiling" in US companies because
| of the difference in styles.
|
| The major one: in the West, the expectation is that everyone
| will express their opinion and be respected for it, even if
| their opinion is a minority. If you disagree with the boss,
| you're expected to say so, even to the point of having an
| actual argument. In the collectivist view, disagreeing (even
| privately) with those in authority is a huge no-no. Having an
| argument with your boss is roughly on a behavioural par with
| taking a dump on their desk.
|
| It's easy to see how a collectivist boss would be criticised by
| Western colleagues for not allowing free debate or gathering
| enough opinions on a subject.
| jng wrote:
| From the article, it seems the problem was that the CEO
| wasn't authoritarian enough, rather than the other way
| around. Looking to build consensus, rather than strongly
| setting direction. But I guess that's also just one piece of
| the puzzle too.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I believe the complexity is that because no-one can express
| disagreement, management there have to be very subtle about
| creating consensus first, because once a decision is public
| it can't be changed or disagreed with. I'm not sure, though
| - I struggled with this and didn't find a solution before I
| left.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| I dont think its a good idea to publicly argue with your
| boss, even if its a western boss. I dont think they're made
| of different kind of flesh and psychology works roughly the
| same way everywhere.
| sudosteph wrote:
| It really depends on the boss, the context and what you
| mean by "public". Voicing a strong disagreement with your
| direct manager, while in a meeting with your company peers
| is usually great and builds credibility. So long as you're
| not concern trolling, a good boss will usually take what
| you're saying into account and open up the conversation to
| others to ensure everyone is on the same page. If the boss
| changes their mind based on the conversation, then you've
| proven your value and the boss has proven their ability to
| put the needs of the company over their ego. It's a win-
| win. If nothing changed, that's fine too, you said your
| piece, you learned the reasoning behind the decision that
| was made, and now you have to commit to follow through on
| the decision your team made. At Amazon, there was a value
| called "Disagree and Commit", which is pretty much exactly
| this. I was not used to thinking like that before I worked
| at AWS (which was many years back now), but I used value
| all the time to justify voicing concerns that I hadn't been
| confident enough to voice at previous jobs, and it ended up
| being really helpful to me professionally - and to the
| company as well.
|
| The thing that really causes issues, is "airing dirty
| laundry". Ie, don't ever disagree around people outside of
| the company, don't complain to people above your manager or
| outside your org and don't gripe on company slack channels
| if it undermines your superiors.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I used to think the same. Then I went there and experienced
| it. Culture makes a _massive_ difference.
| xibalba wrote:
| The allegations of racial bias and the "bamboo ceiling" are
| entirely unsupported by this article.
|
| The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born and
| raised in South Asia and Turkey, respectively.
|
| Zhu was replaced by his co-founder (who supported Zhu's firing)
| who is of East Asian descent.
|
| Zhu believed "the company were too focused on sales and money at
| the expense of altruistic goals". Excuse me? You're running a
| company with other peoples' money at stake with the express
| understanding that you will seek to maximize their returns.
|
| Zhu was the one who publicized the LSD incident (which was NOT a
| microdose, as he admits) via his contact with a reporter. The
| board actually tried to intervene. Imagine finding this out as an
| investor. Now all your company's current and potential customers,
| partners, and investors know that you've got an Adam Neuman type
| at the helm. That's got major potential to harm investors.
|
| Ultimately, this reads as an egoist who can't sufficiently
| control his impulses. It's a wonder he wasn't fired sooner.
|
| Separately, much of the reporting on this has been emblematic of
| the sorry state of journalism. This article, for example, bends
| over backwards to draw tenuous connections between racial
| bias/identity politics and Zhu's firing. Truly shameful.
| wiz21c wrote:
| > Zhu believed "the company were too focused on sales and money
| at the expense of altruistic goals". Excuse me? You're running
| a company with other peoples' money at stake with the express
| understanding that you will seek to maximize their returns.
|
| A guy has a cool idea, then he needs money to make it big. Some
| people give the money in the _hope_ that they will maximize
| their return. The fact they give money doesn 't give them total
| power.
|
| I've been in that situation of having a cool idea with investor
| interested. Believe me, those with the money quickly think your
| idea is theirs and all of a sudden you're reduced to that : an
| initial idea, a starting point. As soon as money is put in, you
| basically don't exist anymore. I don't consider that a fair
| deal; it's a deal with vultures.
|
| So, yep, Zhu got my sympathy.
| _jjkk wrote:
| An investment is not a donation to your idea or cause.
|
| If you "need money to make it big" you can bootstrap, take
| donations, or look for investors.
|
| It's easier to raise investment than donations, because an
| investor expects a return in an economic/probabalistic
| sense(not _hopes for a return_ )
|
| You can't have your cake and eat it too though; once you
| accept investment you can't cry foul when they don't sit back
| and act like a donor.
| GCA10 wrote:
| If it's a business with a clear social mission (fighting
| poverty; helping the environment, etc.) I'm super-sympathetic
| to the challenges of being an altruistic founder in a money-
| obsessed world.
|
| But Iterable's mission (quoting from its career page) is: "We
| empower growth marketers." Its products help your
| organization get more juice out of emails, texts, etc.
|
| That's a busine$$ -- and it's very much an area where money
| can be made. I'm struggling to see how this could be an
| altruism play, too.
| silexia wrote:
| If you don't want to be beholden to other people, don't take
| their money with the promise that you are going to dedicate
| yourself to increasing their investment.
| whymauri wrote:
| >The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born
| and raised in South Asia and Turkey, respectively.
|
| You can't simply abstract all of Asia, from Turkey to China, as
| a singular monolith. Now's a good chance to point out that the
| MIT 'Bamboo Ceiling' paper from 2020 makes this distinction _in
| the title:_
|
| "Why East Asians but not South Asians are underrepresented in
| leadership positions in the United States"
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/117/9/4590.short
| dplavery92 wrote:
| I don't think he did abstract it that way; it's one point in
| a more holistic picture of Zhu's firing, which largely speaks
| against Zhu's own assertion that [investors such as Shah and
| Bicer] would be more comfortable with a white CEO:
|
| "You're just pattern matching," Zhu recalls telling them.
| "Your last 20 CEOs who went public, they were probably all
| Caucasian guys."
|
| Note again that the same board replaced Zhu with his east-
| Asian partner, who also supported Zhu's ouster, and that each
| of the investors in question had funded other major start-ups
| with east-Asian CEOs.
| yardie wrote:
| > Zhu was the one who publicized the LSD incident
|
| I wonder why in this case it's different, yet another tech
| CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD and peyote, brag
| to everyone they were out of their mind at Burning Man, and
| face no consequences.
|
| I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't manage
| the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and used any
| pretext to cast him out.
| xibalba wrote:
| > another tech CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD
| and peyote, brag to everyone they were out of their mind at
| Burning Man, and face no consequences
|
| To which CEO are you referring? Also, the comparative context
| is very different. One (Zhu) is in a fundraising meeting with
| a potential investor (i.e. in professional capacity) whereas
| the other (your hypothetical) is at a festival (i.e. a
| personal capacity).
|
| > I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't
| manage the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and
| used any pretext to cast him out.
|
| I agree. The article seems to suggest that the LSD incident
| was merely emblematic of a trend of behavior with which the
| board was unsatisfied. In fact, reading between the lines, it
| actually seems like the board was more troubled that Zhu
| chose to publicize the LSD incidence via a reporter.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| It is a very narrow view to conclude racial bias did not exist
| by naming specific minority ethnicities.
|
| I have struggled with this question a lot and taking a bigger
| picture view helped me understand the systemic problem.
|
| The exact same reasoning was used by some social media users to
| argue that there was no racial motivation in the case of George
| Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police in May 2020. One of the
| officer was East Asian and another was not white but the man
| who had the knee on the neck of George Floyd was white and was
| the superior officer.
|
| I can't conclude that all the power over Mr.Zhu in this case
| was in the hands of the two VCs you mentioned.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Trying to conclude systemic patterns from single high profile
| cases will always fail.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| The same reasoning applies to the parent comment which is
| why I did not make any conclusions.
|
| I am saying racial bias should be viewed with the lens of
| the larger system or world in which we all operate.
| fragmede wrote:
| Absolutely. Which is why. GP's comment about there being
| (or not being) a bamboo ceiling is wrong, or more
| charitably, has faults due to the underlying dataset used.
| xibalba wrote:
| Perhaps my phrasing was not sufficiently clear. I make no
| a claim that this case falsifies the "bamboo ceiling
| hypothesis". Rather, it seems like there is quite a bit
| of evidence in _this case_ that the reasons for Zhu 's
| firing were unrelated to race/ethnicity/culture. To my
| knowledge, for instance, highly informal professional
| attire/attitude and use of hallucinogens are not staples
| of Chinese culture or tradition.
| alecfreud wrote:
| It sounds more like he was fired for being a douche rather than
| the LSD specifically.
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