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> Because of his management style, just about every rails dev in Toronto has been through the company. They seem to go through waves of employees (40+ down to 15 and back again) every six months to a year.

I don't know and I wasn't there, but this sounds like the Steve Jobs wanna-be style of leadership. There is this myth of Steve Jobs leadership prowess and dictator style rule which probably has some element of truth, but everyone of these founders that try to emulate this myth thinking it will lead them to success.

You should nice to your employees, you should treat them with respect. You should give them reasonable working hours, reward them for their work, not fuck them and their families over for your vision of a how a silly picture site ought to be. Startup employees make dog shit for pay, and they get a good dog shit's worth of equity. A fraction of a percent is nothing unless the company sells for north of $50mil, maybe a nice bonus after that and not life changing until you're up in the hundreds of millions, a height few start ups ever reach. So just be nice. Startup employees are there for the experience, not for the money, unless they don't understand how startup equity works.

I've worked with Oleg before he founded 500px. He's one of the most outgoing and enthusiastic people I've ever met. Definitely not a Steve Jobs imitator (I've worked for a couple of those too). Whatever the story was within 500px, I'm pretty sure it did not involve him being an asshole.

> unless they don't understand how startup equity works.

Which is, in my experience, most of them.

Really? This is definitely not true in my experience. Most startup employees I've talked to absolutely know that 1%, 10% 30%, whatever, of nothing (or practically nothing) is still nothing. They're not in it for the rare chance that their 0.5% or less earns them upwards of $1M.

I work in a startup, and I know that my equity is peanuts, but I have really no idea about how to use it. Someone should make a talk about it.

There's a lot of material you can find and read about online. Please do it.

Your "equity" is most likely "options" which means as you vest them (usually on a vesting schedule, look at your contract) you have the option to purchase (or exercise, because some types of equity can be rewarded without buying them) shares at a specified strike price.

In finance, an option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date.

I've been a founder, of multiple companies. You're most likely being screwed but the founders are most likely going to be screwed too; dilution sucks unless you've got low burn and high revenue (which gives you an upper-hand in dealing with investors). Generally as a founder too, the number one killer is running out of money, so when the funding ball starts to roll we (the founders) typically ride it hard as we can, which unless you're an established 10x-making-founder, means the founders get diluted hard.

One of these days I want to make enough from a venture to build one with an upper-hand on the investors, I definitely want to create an environment where people are having fun, working hard, and also are rewarded handsomely with ownership in the company. Igalia is an inspiring example I think.

Fred Wilson from USV had a few posts about it:

* http://avc.com/2010/10/employee-equity-options/ * http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-how-much/ * http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-vesting/ * http://avc.com/2010/09/employee-equity-2/ * http://www.atguy.com/2012/04/employee-equity-by-fred-wilson....

0.5% is way more than most employees get. 0.5% is like employee #1 or #2.

Just incase anyone in the TO tech scene thinks I (Zach Aysan) wrote this, since it was posted at the exact same time as my comment below, I feel like I should say explicitly that this comment does not come from me and I do not know who wrote it.

Why, bad blood?

Because I left the company after a short amount of vesting and everyone will assume bad blood.

He's trying to make sure it is known he is professional, which is worthwhile particularly when there isn't any bad blood. He noted elsewhere he is under NDA, and would be strongly implicated due to his leaving before he was done vesting. Bad blood comes from talking smack about the people who acquire your company.

This comment reminds me of a great piece from Steve Blank, who created Customer Development, a major piece of the Lean Startup movement: http://steveblank.com/2009/05/18/founders-and-dysfunctional-...

His basic point is that a lot of founders come from dysfunctional families. This gives them the skills and attitudes necessary to survive the incredible chaos of an early-stage startup. But the problem comes when the company needs to become more orderly: used to chaos, some founders just keep recreating the situation they are used to.

I of course have no idea what Oleg's story is. But I've definitely seen founders blow themselves up like this. And I've seen entire companies hooked on heroism: insane hours, last-minute hail-mary fixes, demanding ultimate commitment from everyone.

Win-at-all-costs heroism and insane dedication are great when, say, there's an actual fire. But when you're building a website to make some small aspect of the economy modestly more efficient it a) is loony, and b) often blows up like this.

From the article:

> Over the last 5 years I’ve asked over 500 of my students how many of them grew up in a dysfunctional family (participation was voluntary.) I’ve been surprised at the data. In this admittedly very unscientific survey I’ve found that between a quarter and half of the students I consider “hard-core” entrepreneurs/founders (working passionately to found a company,) self-identified as coming from a less than benign upbringing.

So... between half to three quarters of the students he considers hardcore entrepreneurs come from non-dysfunctional families. If he had asked students for their favorite ice cream flavor, chocolate would probably have gotten similar numbers- so chocolate lovers make better entrepreneurs!

It's hard to face the data when you're in love with your narrative.

(Considering that there's a 50% divorce rate in the US, it seems likely that the percentage of "dysfunctional families"- whatever that means - is also between 25 and 50%)

And what percentage of the general population self-identifies as "growing up in a dysfunctional family"? I would not be surprised if that number fell in the wide range "between a quarter and half".

Good catch. Of course, we'd have to know the base rate of dysfucntional families to know if it's significant. We'd also need better data, as his sample is small and non-random.

Is this relevant to my point, which is that there is a known pattern of behavior that may apply in this case? I'm not seeing why the relative proportion of people is relevant.

Also, he gave a pretty clear description of what qualified as a dysfunctional family, so I think your "whatever that means" is unnecessarily snotty. Start with the bit about, "an environment where fighting, abusive or drug/alcohol related behavior is the norm" and go on from there.

Such a straw poll is pointless, because plenty of people are in dysfunctional families without knowing that they are. It's not something that people are able to self-identify well, unlike favourite icecream flavours.

Any attempt of oleg spinning this into a 'big guy screwing over the hard working honest founder' type of story should be ignored.

Doesn't do the people justice who worked hard every day to make that business work while also dealing with a prima donna such as him.

This is a case where the original founder should have been wise enough to step down from a situation that was too big for him.

I do think he had big ideas and good intentions, and he deserves lots of credit for making 500px what it is. But attempting to spin this story in his favour by using the press and putting other 500px people in a bad light leaves a sour taste.

I had the misfortune of knowing one of the people that fired him. Without airing too much dirty laundry, I'll just say that greed, backstabbing, breaking trust, social norms, as well as actual laws was on par for the course.