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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Having just left a large corporation who's addiction to acronyms and praise-gasims were insufferable, I found Dan Lyon's misadventures at HubSpot a laugh-out-loud, almost pee in my paints ride down memory lane of my own misadventure.
From the stories of the 'bozo explosion' to the meetings to have meetings to discuss meetings to the mindless employees who bleed the company kool-aid to the role playing to figure out how to deal with people with different personalities to the lies the company tells itself regarding diversity when in fact all you see around you are white men --- it took me back to the nightmarish 18 months I endured at a large financial institution back east.
Every chapter had me in stitches remembering the incredible stupidity of management. They claimed that we were to provide outstanding customer service but all they cared about was AHT (average handling time), BDG (business development), and getting the client to use the web so they'd no longer call in....but I digress. This is a fantastic read about how a company can be managed so badly yet be seen as a leader from the outside. I've worked for some really great companies and it sounds like Mr. Lyons has as well. I guess that what makes it so hard when you feel like you need to put up with a bad one because you need a paycheck.
Thank you Dan....this was a fabulous read about someone else who had the misfortune to experience the same pain. Misery does enjoy company!
From the stories of the 'bozo explosion' to the meetings to have meetings to discuss meetings to the mindless employees who bleed the company kool-aid to the role playing to figure out how to deal with people with different personalities to the lies the company tells itself regarding diversity when in fact all you see around you are white men --- it took me back to the nightmarish 18 months I endured at a large financial institution back east.
Every chapter had me in stitches remembering the incredible stupidity of management. They claimed that we were to provide outstanding customer service but all they cared about was AHT (average handling time), BDG (business development), and getting the client to use the web so they'd no longer call in....but I digress. This is a fantastic read about how a company can be managed so badly yet be seen as a leader from the outside. I've worked for some really great companies and it sounds like Mr. Lyons has as well. I guess that what makes it so hard when you feel like you need to put up with a bad one because you need a paycheck.
Thank you Dan....this was a fabulous read about someone else who had the misfortune to experience the same pain. Misery does enjoy company!
Compelling is the main word that comes to mind. It's not hard to see how Lyons' time at Hubspot inspired many of the aspects of the Silicon Valley show. While there's definitely an "old man yells at cloud" aspect to the book, there's also definite sympathy for the author. At times it reads like a horror story, others I was laughing out loud. Hubspot has survived the test of time since the novel came out, but the book makes you wonder just what has caused that ship to float. A great read.
I struggled with how many stars to give this. The author does come off like a completely pretentious bass who thinks he's better than everyone, which made me want to give it like 3 stars. But I still think that it's such an important read for anyone that works in, or is at least thinking of working in tech.
Like many of the other reviewers have stated, it's kind of hard to not hate the author. He comes off as fairly pretentious and like he thinks he's above everyone else because he used to be a "respected journalist." And of course, while many of the anecdotes are hilarious, they're also completely unverifiable. They're all designed to paint the author as the ONLY sane person in this sea of people who have totally drank the Kool-Aid. Since he's writing it, it's hard not to think that he may be changing events, or at least over-exaggerating some things, in order to paint himself in a better light.
Despite that, I am still giving this 5 stars as I think it's an important read for anyone who works in, or wants to work in tech or for a startup. While I've never seen anything quite as extreme as what he's claiming went on at HubSpot, I have seen enough startups in my time to believe that it does happen.
Despite that, I am still giving this 5 stars as I think it's an important read for anyone who works in, or wants to work in tech or for a startup. While I've never seen anything quite as extreme as what he's claiming went on at HubSpot, I have seen enough startups in my time to believe that it does happen.
At its best this book is a painfully accurate, if cruel, rendition of the tech industry as a whole (Lyons was a writer for Silicon Valley -- picture a slightly more highbrow version of its satire). Here's his takedown of DISC and other personality assessment tools used by many corporations, it'll give you a sense of what he does throughout the book.
At his worst, Lyons comes across as a curmudgeon who's unable to adapt to a new environment. He complains that tech focuses on culture fit to the extent that it has no diversity, but also laments the loss of a newsdesk culture where he could tell dirty jokes and call his boss an asshole.
Anyhow, my rating aside, the book was fun; and I swallowed it up quickly. It's worth a read if you're in the industry.
Managers, people like Zack, get the same training that I’m getting, but then they go to an extra class where they learn how to use DISC when they are managing people. Try to imagine the calamity of that: Zack, age twenty-eight, with no management experience, gets training from Dave, a weekend rock guitarist, on how to apply a set of fundamentally unsound psychological principles as a way to manipulate the people who report to him.
At his worst, Lyons comes across as a curmudgeon who's unable to adapt to a new environment. He complains that tech focuses on culture fit to the extent that it has no diversity, but also laments the loss of a newsdesk culture where he could tell dirty jokes and call his boss an asshole.
Anyhow, my rating aside, the book was fun; and I swallowed it up quickly. It's worth a read if you're in the industry.
I really enjoyed this. The author is extremely cynical about his journey into a den of underpaid, underqualified, overenthusiastic millenials and it's a fun read. At times he goes a bit overboard with the hate, but he does a good job conveying just how frustrating it is to work with incompetent peers (who in many cases are his junior and above him in the hierarchy). His own story is used to set off a more overarching discussion about Silicon Valley and venture capital.
Other than his personal journey, we get a good number of chapters about various themes related to Silicon Valley start-up and VC culture. Topics covered include:
- are we in a bubble?
- why are all the investors and founders young, white males?
- who stands to benefit (and how) from investing in companies that haven't ever earned a profit?
- tech guru zealotry (blech)
- a new era (post-industrial) of labor exploitation and a "new normal" in tech in which any given job is a short "tour of duty" instead of a long-term commitment to a company (or to the workers)
It's definitely biased since he had such a bad personal experience, but I think there's plenty of good meat here to make this well worth the read.
Other than his personal journey, we get a good number of chapters about various themes related to Silicon Valley start-up and VC culture. Topics covered include:
- are we in a bubble?
- why are all the investors and founders young, white males?
- who stands to benefit (and how) from investing in companies that haven't ever earned a profit?
- tech guru zealotry (blech)
- a new era (post-industrial) of labor exploitation and a "new normal" in tech in which any given job is a short "tour of duty" instead of a long-term commitment to a company (or to the workers)
It's definitely biased since he had such a bad personal experience, but I think there's plenty of good meat here to make this well worth the read.
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
This book made me really appreciate my current job and convinced me that the startup world is not for me.
Very interesting about how not to engage your whole workforce, very funny and sad and written in a style that was so easy to read. It seems incredible that people and industries can get away with acting in this way and treating other people in such a way as to give them no value. I would highly recommend reading this book to give yourself a different perspective on how life can be.
I thought that the tech industry as a whole came across as very juvenile and it really made me think about work and life values and how to interact with people who are in the 'in' group and those who do not fit the stereotypical mould.
I really enjoyed the 'story' and the way it made me think
I thought that the tech industry as a whole came across as very juvenile and it really made me think about work and life values and how to interact with people who are in the 'in' group and those who do not fit the stereotypical mould.
I really enjoyed the 'story' and the way it made me think