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Comment by ssmoot | Hacker News Reader

I thought his posts on the subject were a mix of pragmatism and satire? A "this is how the world works, you've got this, here's what you'll face".

Was it not meant to be satirical? Was he genuinely advocating squeezing what you can out of people until they burn out and then tossing them aside?

I guess from the tone I thought he was trying to poke fun at the POV he was espousing? But the only thing I know about him was that he went around evangelizing DirectX at Microsoft Developer conference a long time ago so I could've completely misread.

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Definitely not satirical! His own daughter is criticizing him after all.

> Was he genuinely advocating squeezing what you can out of people until they burn out and then tossing them aside?

I don't see this in the presentation at all. Do you mean where he says to churn through employees until you find the ones which fit? Seems like what all companies do, they just don't word it like that. Why else do we have trial periods? He's saying that you get in some employees, give them too much work, get rid of the ones that don't cope and reward the ones that do. Sounds like standard practice in every company I've ever been at.

> Definitely not satirical! His own daughter is criticizing him after all.

I guess that should be obvious at this point. I thought there might still be a discussion until you pointed it out. That does pretty much settle it. Thanks.

As far as the rest, maybe I didn't read closely enough; it's just one of the impressions I walked away with with the "wage slave" language.

It was apparently not meant to be satirical.

Was he being satirical when he threw a Toga Party / Roman Orgy / Slave Auction whose in-your-face theme was that Microsoft was the Empire and game developers were slaves to be sold at auction and fed to the lions?

Does this[0] look like satire?

[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgP-xKKUkAIxXph.jpg:large

It actually does look like satire because it's so over the top. Are we sure it's not some kind of inside joke?

If this is how he actually does treat employees in a serious fashion then I take back everything nice I said about him. You can create a high performance culture while not being inhuman. I still stand by harsh tactics being important in business, but harsh tactics end where someone's health and well-being begin.

His website [0] seems to be having database connectivity issues at the moment, but Google's cache caught it[1].

[0] http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2016/04/17/wage-slaves/#comment... [1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rCVIzSi...

That's obviously a joke.

Obvious? To who?

People with functioning senses of humor and an outragometer that isn't dialed up to 11?

I mean, come on. Mr. Burns couldn't send that email seriously.

Some of us have actually know Alex St John for decades, and are well aware that he really is that way, has always been that way, he is not joking when he says he's that way, and he makes it quite clear that he is not joking if you call him on it. So what's so obvious to you simply isn't true. You should believe his daughter, she's telling the truth. Go over to reddit and ask her.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rCVIzSi...

tarage> This is the type of person you are. Just so everyone is aware.

TheSaint> Yes it is, and Selle is an amazing guy. That’s EXACTLY who I am.

Yes, Alex thinks that way, but he also satirizes himself by exaggerating "must always work" culture a little bit.

In reality Alex does not really work all the time (for example he spent quite some time on his blog) and he does not require his employees to work all the time too.

Yes, yes it does.

It looks like satire to me.

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