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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
An interesting and at times hilarious insight into how (not to) startup
Whizzed through this in an afternoon. It’s depressingly familiar. On the one hand he’s a bitter and disgruntled former employee, but in the other he’s no more scathing than the average office gossip conversation. Weirdly I seem to be LinkedIn connected to one of the key characters in the book. I don’t remember if we communicated directly, but I remember becoming aware of HubSpot around 8-10 years ago, even before the events of the book. I didn’t get their business model then and this book didn’t exactly help.
Silicon Valley from HBO but real
If you like the TV show then you will love this. It's in depth, funny and disturbing. It makes me want to watch the show from the beginning.
If you like the TV show then you will love this. It's in depth, funny and disturbing. It makes me want to watch the show from the beginning.
It is with some regret that I give this book 5 stars, because I have met some of the people in this book, and there is a lot here that is undoubtedly a hatchet job (more about that in a moment). But it's so damn entertaining, and bears so many truths about the world of Internet startups, that I have to acknowledge that this is a "must read."
Dan Lyons shows realistically and with great humor that some Internet startups have built a culture that engages in trivialities, is ageist, sexist, and not very diverse. If you're in college or in your 20s and think that you want to get involved with a startup, read this. Meanwhile, his subject is a marketing company (his is HubSpot) -- some of which are the bottom feeders of the Internet. These are companies that provide the tools to send spam and cultivate attention through devious link-baiting and other technological tricks. Ironically, the marketing company in question centers its lead generations not on the "inbound marketing" techniques they champion, but via a call center boiler room where they exploit (according to Lyons) cheap "bros" as employees. Lyons also pays witness and is a victim to some very crude management and power moves that I have seen in my own time in startups.
And why are these startups so badly managed? Not very well articulated here, the answer is growth. These companies must grow or die, and the "hockey stick" of growth provides berths for a lot of people who should have been shed by such companies earlier. Indeed, Lyons's own hiring is probably evidence of the desperation of a company that is growing very fast and doesn't really understand its own business. They think they have a place for an ex-writer for Newsweek, but really, they don't. They're acting on a fantasy. But is that surprising? Not when the company can't yet figure out their business model and how to make money.
I'm a 20-year veteran of startups, and am older that Lyons, so much of his testimony rings quite true. I have been very lucky myself and so far have not seen much age discrimination, though everywhere I see the lack of diversity he describes. As an industry, we're trying to fix that, but it's going to take a long time.
Having said all that, Lyons is incredibly naive in his own narrative. He gets his job via the CEO and the CTO, but then finds himself neglected by the chief marketing officer. Welcome to the working world! Lyons should have picked up much earlier that there is really no place for him at the company. He sticks around, and sticks around, and his protests that he needs his paycheck strike a false note because he very swiftly gets an opportunity to write for the "Silicon Valley" series, and eventually snags a writing gig at ValleyWag. Why not sooner? Hard to say. He seems to think there is some dignity in his old job -- journalism -- where he prides himself in being able to trade dirty jokes. Really? That's the good old place?
There is a constant drumroll of negativity regarding the CMO, but the reality is that he presents very little evidence that the CMO cares at all. The insinuation is that the CMO is irresponsible, but the presentation of the facts on that score is pretty weak. Eventually the CMO is fired for events that seem to be about capturing the manuscript of this very book - but so far the records are sealed and so it's all a hypothesis.
Finally, a huge gap is the story around HubSpot's engineering and product teams. Lyons notes frequently that the software is mediocre, but yet customers stick with it. Maybe we should infer that the product is not so bad. Knowing some of these people, again I'll suggest that the perceived gaps in the software have a lot to do with growth and the stress around shifting product requirements and the competitive landscape.
Once again, to the college or 20-something reader: There are great technology startups out there that have a real mission. Seek them out. And let's hope that someone writes a book as entertaining as this one that is about a company that does right by its customers, shareholders, and the public.
Dan Lyons shows realistically and with great humor that some Internet startups have built a culture that engages in trivialities, is ageist, sexist, and not very diverse. If you're in college or in your 20s and think that you want to get involved with a startup, read this. Meanwhile, his subject is a marketing company (his is HubSpot) -- some of which are the bottom feeders of the Internet. These are companies that provide the tools to send spam and cultivate attention through devious link-baiting and other technological tricks. Ironically, the marketing company in question centers its lead generations not on the "inbound marketing" techniques they champion, but via a call center boiler room where they exploit (according to Lyons) cheap "bros" as employees. Lyons also pays witness and is a victim to some very crude management and power moves that I have seen in my own time in startups.
And why are these startups so badly managed? Not very well articulated here, the answer is growth. These companies must grow or die, and the "hockey stick" of growth provides berths for a lot of people who should have been shed by such companies earlier. Indeed, Lyons's own hiring is probably evidence of the desperation of a company that is growing very fast and doesn't really understand its own business. They think they have a place for an ex-writer for Newsweek, but really, they don't. They're acting on a fantasy. But is that surprising? Not when the company can't yet figure out their business model and how to make money.
I'm a 20-year veteran of startups, and am older that Lyons, so much of his testimony rings quite true. I have been very lucky myself and so far have not seen much age discrimination, though everywhere I see the lack of diversity he describes. As an industry, we're trying to fix that, but it's going to take a long time.
Having said all that, Lyons is incredibly naive in his own narrative. He gets his job via the CEO and the CTO, but then finds himself neglected by the chief marketing officer. Welcome to the working world! Lyons should have picked up much earlier that there is really no place for him at the company. He sticks around, and sticks around, and his protests that he needs his paycheck strike a false note because he very swiftly gets an opportunity to write for the "Silicon Valley" series, and eventually snags a writing gig at ValleyWag. Why not sooner? Hard to say. He seems to think there is some dignity in his old job -- journalism -- where he prides himself in being able to trade dirty jokes. Really? That's the good old place?
There is a constant drumroll of negativity regarding the CMO, but the reality is that he presents very little evidence that the CMO cares at all. The insinuation is that the CMO is irresponsible, but the presentation of the facts on that score is pretty weak. Eventually the CMO is fired for events that seem to be about capturing the manuscript of this very book - but so far the records are sealed and so it's all a hypothesis.
Finally, a huge gap is the story around HubSpot's engineering and product teams. Lyons notes frequently that the software is mediocre, but yet customers stick with it. Maybe we should infer that the product is not so bad. Knowing some of these people, again I'll suggest that the perceived gaps in the software have a lot to do with growth and the stress around shifting product requirements and the competitive landscape.
Once again, to the college or 20-something reader: There are great technology startups out there that have a real mission. Seek them out. And let's hope that someone writes a book as entertaining as this one that is about a company that does right by its customers, shareholders, and the public.
A humorous but disconcerting snapshot of the startup world, the Fourth and Fifth Estates, and employer/workplace attitudes about aging
Trials and tribulations of a technology writer who joins Hubspot, a Boston-based marketing automation software vendor. You get to hear about the sausage being made
A bitter, nasty, very entertaining and actually important book.
The most fun part is Lyons dishing on the idiocy of Hubspot and the people around him. Anyone who has ever worked anywhere--startup or not--where employees are required to "drink the Kool Aid" will recognize both the ridiculous excesses of the Hubspot culture and Lyons' "Am I crazy, or is this complete bullshit?" reaction. Everyone who has ever had a job anywhere will recognize the poisonous office politics, the little fiefdoms that take root in an organization, and the way competence is a secondary, tertiary, or lower concern in determining who moves up.
I also enjoyed the demystifying of not just Hubspot, but startup culture in general. While these companies and their founders are lionized in American culture, Lyons does a great job of showing that these people fundamentally have no idea what they're doing, and that they hype is the real product. (Having worked very briefly in a startup with wildly incompetent management, I can vouch for this.) The book also shows exactly how the bad behavior that we've become accustomed to seeing from tech bros is facilitated by throwing a lot of money at people whose only experience at working with other people was that one charity event they did with their fraternity.
About two thirds of the way through, Lyons gets to what I believed to be the really important part of the book: he breaks down, in a clear, understandable way the fact that startups are essentially a long con. The venture capitalists throw money at founders who don't know what they're doing, and they cover their incompetence with buzzwords and never really figure out how to make money. If the company and the venture capitalists can create a wave that takes them to an IPO, they get rich selling stock in a company that doesn't make money. It's a good scam, but Lyons shows that the marks are not just the investors who buy stock once the company goes public, but also the workers who are conned into believing they've been a part of something revolutionary and disruptive, when really they've just churned through a couple years of 70-hour weeks just to make a handful of people really wealthy.
An essential corrective to the tidal wave of bullshit that covers most coverage of the startup economy.
The most fun part is Lyons dishing on the idiocy of Hubspot and the people around him. Anyone who has ever worked anywhere--startup or not--where employees are required to "drink the Kool Aid" will recognize both the ridiculous excesses of the Hubspot culture and Lyons' "Am I crazy, or is this complete bullshit?" reaction. Everyone who has ever had a job anywhere will recognize the poisonous office politics, the little fiefdoms that take root in an organization, and the way competence is a secondary, tertiary, or lower concern in determining who moves up.
I also enjoyed the demystifying of not just Hubspot, but startup culture in general. While these companies and their founders are lionized in American culture, Lyons does a great job of showing that these people fundamentally have no idea what they're doing, and that they hype is the real product. (Having worked very briefly in a startup with wildly incompetent management, I can vouch for this.) The book also shows exactly how the bad behavior that we've become accustomed to seeing from tech bros is facilitated by throwing a lot of money at people whose only experience at working with other people was that one charity event they did with their fraternity.
About two thirds of the way through, Lyons gets to what I believed to be the really important part of the book: he breaks down, in a clear, understandable way the fact that startups are essentially a long con. The venture capitalists throw money at founders who don't know what they're doing, and they cover their incompetence with buzzwords and never really figure out how to make money. If the company and the venture capitalists can create a wave that takes them to an IPO, they get rich selling stock in a company that doesn't make money. It's a good scam, but Lyons shows that the marks are not just the investors who buy stock once the company goes public, but also the workers who are conned into believing they've been a part of something revolutionary and disruptive, when really they've just churned through a couple years of 70-hour weeks just to make a handful of people really wealthy.
An essential corrective to the tidal wave of bullshit that covers most coverage of the startup economy.
It's interesting, but the incredulity the author sports becomes questionable at some point. I get it, journalism is a different world and hyped-up startup is, too. But surely he'd read a Dilbert or two in his pre-Hubspot career?
An obvious hit piece that adds very little to the overall startup narrative.
Describes the start-up culture as brutal, led by immature egomaniacs, with employees who are childish with clown-like behavior.