Seems like a great time to start poaching flexport talent. Now that leadership has shown its true colors, I can't imagine anyone working there is feeling very confident about their future.
This shouldn’t just reflect poorly on Flexport leadership but on their investors. Especially because the more time you spend in Silicon Valley you learn that your “scrappy startup” is really a product division of the VCs who really call the shots.
Pay close attention to what you hear from pg, Garry Tan, Michael Seibel, etc on this issue. Very very easy to talk ethics in the abstract. Real ethics and integrity are defined in exactly tough times like this. And if you see the cowardice that I expect like we saw with DoorDash, keep that in mind before you “Work at a Startup”
I’m looking in from the outside, so who knows, but it seems like level of ambition early YC was filtering on brought this dark triad shit into the bloodstream and that in turn shifted pg’s worldview.
pg is obviously ambitious, but inherently “get to the top at any cost” people don’t spend a bunch of time writing books about Common Lisp and learning some painting and hanging out in art galleries a bunch. Part of what drew me to HN and the essays and the whole thing was a wholesome attitude that kind of said “work hard don’t try to game the system”, at least in the beginning.
That’s not how the VC mind is wired. A bad investment loses money, a good one makes money. That’s all.
On another note, I think other companies will have more class handling this. The way the CEO has worded this came out as quite dismissive and douche-baggy. I can understand a company messing up (of any size, who doesn't?).