Here's an update to my last post. It's official:
"Already, both houses of the Legislature have agreed on $80 million in additional cuts to UC, and there are Republican proposals to cut several hundred million dollars more from the University. We are continuing to make an aggressive case in Sacramento for the University's needs, but it is increasingly apparent that the next few years could be very difficult ones and that much more significant budget cutting may lie ahead."
Super duper. They have payroll for July 1st (which I already got) and August 1st, but September could be dicey if no budget is passed. And it'll probably get even worse in the next few years! Neat! It's like S4R all over again (except a devious salesmen and an incompetent CEO aren't at fault). I never thought working for the government would be like working for a start-up.
No that's not exactly fair. (Warning: nerve touched!)
I would not say that Sam or Bob were "criminally negligent". Apart from opening yourself up to slander charges, both of them managed a company that was ill-funded by commercial interests, changed market focus and product shifts several times, and had the bad misfortune(bad decision) to partner with companies that went under. That is part of business, that you take gambles and hope they pay off. So, yes S4R was a foundering ship that had it's share of problems, but blaming the captain because of faulty design, faulty passengers, faulty partners, bad weather is specious.
Scott
PS>Yes, I am still a little sore about this, some days.
PPS> EFront, EHomes, Colo.Com, Citadel Capital, LoanGenie, IBM's equipment, etc... all looked good at first and not until the end result did the real problems show up.
PPS> The rest of your comments... No comment.
PPPS> Sorry to hear about the Merde hitting the Fan. Maybe the Terminator will fix this? [I'll be back!]
Ok, ok, ok. I fixed it so that Bob wasn't actually a criminal. I'm sorry I touched a nerve with you. Bob's nerves I don't care too much about.
S4R's problems were primarily the fault of its management and members of its sales team. Ask anyone that was there and they will relate that very same statement as a perceived fact. The concept behind it was sound, and it could have been a very successful company (even in this economy). I think it could have been successful mostly because of the high quality of its engineering staff and their experienced execution of its mission. That's why I wanted to work there so much. I like working with smart people. You and the rest of the engineers are very smart people, and have the experience to know how things *shouldn't* be done. In fact, at my interview, you'll recall that I asked if the company was engineering-driven or not. I wanted to work for a company whose purpose and direction (and ultimate success) were influenced by the skill of its technical team, not by the various acts of upper management titling at windmills.
Is that better?
As for the criminal part of Bob's leadership, let's just say that I never before associated the words "due diligence" with the phrase "make shit up, quick". There were some things that went down which I'd not have an easy time talking about at a deposition, for instance. I felt very uncomfortable about what was going on more than a couple times (I nearly left the company because those feelings were so strong). Many others felt the same way. That's about as non-circumspect as I'm willing to be, and my memory about those events is fading fast. As for Bob the CEO, well, throwing his cousin the CFO to the wolves in order to make some financing deal was just the most awe-inspiring act I've ever seen from upper management. Others would voice similarly sarcastic (or downright nasty) comments. The only reason Bob wasn't officially labeled a criminal is because he was never charged with a crime. I speed all the time, yet I've never received a speeding ticket. Is it libelous if you call me a speeder? Does that make it any less true?
I've never bothered to post about S4R mostly because I didn't think anyone who hadn't lived through it would care enough to read about it. But all that above is enough about what I think of the 16 months I spent there. If I could work in the beanbag room again, I probably would. If you came up with an idea for a company, Scott, I'd give it very serious consideration -- as long as the same people weren't in the front office. I would never work for Bob again, nor would I work for any company which employed Phil or Warren. You'd have a very hard time finding a former S4R engineer who feels differently.
Posted by wee at July 3, 2003 10:21 AMincidentally, since it's semi on-topic, courts have recently ruled that people cannot be sued for slander/libel based on statements they make on web journals. Just FYI.
Posted by Tess at July 3, 2003 11:40 AMEspecially if it's true. :-)
Posted by wee at July 3, 2003 11:42 AMWell, yeah, especially in those cases. =) I meant to send you the link to the article I read about it yesterday - it was a recent ruling, although I don't know at what judiciary level.
Posted by Tess at July 3, 2003 12:03 PMI have nothing but fond memories of my time at S4R.
Haha! I'm so full of shit my eyes and hair are brown. Come on Sck, you know as well as I do that the problems that were there were both caused and expanded upon by upper mis-management. Not that I really feel like flogging the already dead, buried, and rotting in the .com ground horse, but outside of yourself, I can't think of a single good decision made by a single one of the many C*'s that called S4R home. Firing the CFO(the cousin of the CEO) because some guy said she didn't know what she was doing? The same guy who had his assets seized by the SEC 3 months later? I could go into the topic of the 'sales' team...or the 'project management' manager that was and is the poster child for both prozac and zoloft, or the 'COO' who brought in a $150 an hour consultant that told us that we shouldn't work as a team, but take all of his advice as gold. How about the VP of Engineering who ran a side business out of the beanbag room selling bikes? Or the guy who got his job on his ability to play foosball? Or the 'SE' who borrowed significant amounts of money from the company that more than likely never got paid back? You know, the guy who would work out consulting deals with customers for himself, and then use company equipment to get them done? A cable or 2 I could give a shit about, tape drives cost money. Yes, the same guy who still owes me $3k.
Sure, some of those deals sounded sweet at the beginning. Does NOONE listen to their parents? 'if it looks too good to be true, it probably is'. Guess what, Mom and Dad were right, it was too good to be true. Here's a tip for the future: work is hard, running a company is hard, building business for a company is hard. If you don't have the right people doing those jobs, all the 'engineering' in the world won't help you, especially in a service industry. No sales == no money coming in. Sure, some of them 'worked'. How many times did a certain EVP say 'I was on the gold course when my cell phone rang...'? I'm sure part of it was in fun to fir the part, but part of it wasn't.
Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot. I also learned that I will not work for or with certain people again. Nor do I expect to hear from said people again. The flip side of that being I, and others, made some good friends out of the deal. My technical skills grew to some degree, my people skills grew ever more due to doing said PM's job for her.
I could go on, I won't. SCK: you know of course that none of the above is directed at you. You worked with what you could, and had certain people poisoning the water around you.
t