Yo! I need cash too!

Ethics are a funny thing, especially in a startup. Its not unusual for a founder to take money out during a round of funding. The basic theory is that they have been paying themselves almost nothing to get the company going and have been putting their hearts and souls into it, company first themselves second. They get funding for the company, they get some cash in their pockets. Not a big problem.

So lets say hypothetically that you get a round of funding. You take out a nice phat pile of cash. Who knows what you spend it on, but that tan sure suits you and that's one sweet ride you have now.

Then lets say 6 month later you have to let a whole bunch of people go because you have over extended yourself. Not a problem, these things happen right. Economic meltdown-blah-blah-blah.

Then lest say your cash position gets tight again, its only been 9 months but you spent too much. So you get another round of funding. During that negotiation you manage to take some more money out again. Its just over a year since you last took money out, but you have such an elegant and extravagant lifestyle that you really need that sort of cash. Oh, you have to cut staff in this round as well. No problem.

You run the numbers just before you fire your CFO and then find that there is not enough headroom for you to take more cash out. So what do you do? Give up on your cash? No, what you do is give your managers a cash figure that they need to cut in addition, covering the cash you want to take out. How do they do that? Well cut the thing that eats the cash... staff.

The moral dilemma. You have to raise funding twice in 18 months. You have two rounds of rifts. You cut extra deep on the second. You take cash out twice.

Is that great leadership? Probably not. Can you claim the morale high ground? Probably not. Have you been managing your cash position well? Probably not. Do you put your staff first? Probably not.

Henry would never do that sort of thing, if he did there would be a riot and everybody would start leaving. His new Aston Martin is rather nice though, kind of a baby blue.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 9 (We just drink at our desk now, who cares, we still don't even have a VP)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 193 lbs

Calculator company shutdown!

Its not clear what Henry is doing, at least to me. I hope that he and the board have a plan.

So we buy this online calculator company after another round of funding last year. The idea was to embed this in all our applications. It basically would become a service so every application would calculate correctly. It was marginal at best, but I'm sure there were other reasons.

However, the technology was a total mismatch but their team were awesome entrepreneurs, real salt of the earth types. They were in some part of the country that most of America flies over, but they are just a few states over from my hometown. They were my brothers.

So Constantine and Iron-Mike fly out there this week and basically shoot them all. They had to have a security guard because those guys pack full on assault weapons in their trucks, just in case the Soviets invade or they see a sweet buck.

So they killed them all, apart from a couple of "keep the lights" on. Its totally bogus. What do we do with their customers? Not clear, but certainly getting features is not going to happen fast if you don't have the staff. Apparently Stacy and his team are going to re-build it at HQ and hire a new team. That's bogus, that dude has totally not delivered iPhone since I have been here. There are companies that have made a fortune and then sold themselves to Apple in a shorter period of time. I hear from one of the architects that they are going to rebuild in Rails and MySQL, that's a totally High School project tech stack. I mean that is already so last century dude! I know Stacy reads Techcrunch, always forwarding links to the "this is so cool, we have to buy/integrated with this" headline. The dude is so last year.

My heart goes out to the Calculator dudes. Great idea which they were executing on. Got screwed twice, first by getting bought and second by thinking the purchase would allow them to expand and hire. Its a shame, but another example of a poorly thought out strategy, executed by the incontinent.

I'm starting to see why we burn through cash. Sure you have to throw some spaghetti against the wall to see if its sticks. You don't need to throw the whole pasta aisle at Safeway to see if two strands stick. Some people say "scatter gun approach", I say "squirrel".

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 14 (We just drink at our desk now, who cares)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 191 lbs

That guy was packing!

So its was a super shocking day. They did it a little differently this time. All those being rifted was rounded up by there manager and marched into a room. Sort of Nazi gas chamber moment.

Then Henry, Javier and Iron-Mike (aka Old-Dude-In-HR-That's-Cool) stood up at the front of the room and went over the details. Basically you are all crap and we don't have the cash so you have to go. Not really, they did not say that. They said that their contribution was enormous but the organization needed to move on and without them. I'm sure that everybody though the former. I heard this all from a buddy who was let go. I trust him, so it must have gone down like that.

This time they had a security guard, just in case we had any of the bad shit happen again. I don't know where they found this geezer, but I'm sure he could have been out run by a dead turtle. Yes, he was that old. And even more shocking he was packing! The Ops guys must have been in hog heaven seeing that side-arm.

So, lets say some bad shit went down. First this guy had to pull himself up and get his walker into position. Then move over to where the ruckus was. Then pull his gun and shoot. I saw his shaking in his hands, so probably would shoot the wrong person first so would have to try again.

Its some bad shit when you have to packing heat just to fire people. I'm sure every week, Donald Trump does not need a guy packing "just in case".

There was some rumoor going around that Loney-James and his band of Merchandising gurus were all let go. Somehow, and boy this must have been a deal with the devil, they all got to stay. Not a single person let go. Its funny to see them wash Henry's Aston each morning, but I guess that's what you have to do to stay working here, kiss lots of ass and suck the occasional dick.

Life sucks here, I just drink to make it through each day. Nobody seems to give a shit.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 17 (We just drink at our desk now, who cares)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 190 lbs

Oh shit we are dead - part deux!

I'm not sure I believe Henry any more. I came on board and genuinely thought we were going to change the world. And to some extent I think we did. Just after I join we landed a bunch of cash. Sweet, that should see us past the finishing post. In the interview it was all about IPO and killing the market. More money, carefully managed made sense to reach that goal.

Turns out that Henry has been acting all Bernie Madoff. I'm not sure quite how he did it, but he convinced our investors to give him more cash, its some round of funding that nobody has ever heard off, "H", "J" who the f**k knows. Its at the end of the alphabet that only Sesame Street knows about.

Apparently Henry had to give up stock to make the deal happen. Means that we burnt, literally, though all that cash in less than a year. Betcha our income did not balance this out.

Henry's pitch at the company meeting (he was on the phone from New York) was that this is all we need to make the company cash flow positive and make a pile of cash. He's brought Henry on-board, his brother from another father (really, his mother liked the name so much she used it twice) to become Chief something, Cash Operations I think. It confusing with so many Henry's but this one is from American City Bank. Perhaps he has the balls to keep Henry's expense account under control.

So why don't I believe in Henry? I don't know. Its the same old story, the next feature, the next customer is suddenly going to turn the corner for us. That customer or feature, the one we don't have, is going to make the difference. I have heard this all for 18 months and its wearing thin. You know, you read these stories or watch interviews with people who have been abused. Its the same story, you love them so much that you think they will change and tomorrow will be better. In reality each day is ever so slightly worse than the next. Its also tough to make friends and build relationships with people when they are gone in a few months, either because we have another round of lay-offs or they leave for a better place. You start to loose interest in building relationships or product for that matter.

And our investors did not give all the cash we needed, so we had to fire a bunch more people. I survived, at least this round. Another cut in pay and some more worthless options. Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir was all gung-ho after. He got the team together to "motivate" them, in his normal fashion he missed the point and instead of listening to our concerns he just talked about himself and Henry and spent no time to understand us. He makes me puke.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!)
Shots : 23 (We just drink at our desk now, who cares)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 189 lbs

Another CFO is fired!

Well that is the big rumor, I don't know for sure. Its kind of weird that Henry would fire his Brother-From-Another-Father after such a short time as CFO, that has to be the shortest time at that position in Hank Commerce's short history!

I spoke to one of Lonely-James' lieutenants and he was told that it was to bust up the coup plotters. Wow! I mean Henry is a bit of a tyrant but you only have coups and mercenaries when you try to overthrow a despot, not Henry. Everybody loves Henry! I love him as well, but only in a fatherly way, not in that Castro way.

It blew my mind that some of the backchat appears to be true, a coup? Wow. Who has the vision of Henry and the ability to execute and grow the company like he has been doing? Who has his Track record? None of H-Staff comes to mind, apart from perhaps Franks-Mom. She could kick some ass in an ass kicking contest. Super fierce!

I'm not so sure its true. I mean, I walk past his office most days and he's never there so an empty office means nothing. And what does Henry have to gain by an empty CFO slot, how can we go IPO like that? The markets would never dig it.

Looks like Stacy, Lonely-James and Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir have been meeting to work out the new office plan, more of that next week. I know that's a tough job, but meeting five hour a day for the last week seems overkill. I'm sure the Three-Amigos will get it right.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more official drinking!))
Shots : 9 (I can remember why I drink, but I do)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 187 lbs

Henry's office is empty!

Super crazy, Henry's office has been cleared. OMG, this crazy shit has gone down. The plotters have somehow got Henry removed from his position. That is just astonishing and so quick! What are the board thinking about, clearly not our success.

I personally don't believe the rumors that we will have a new management team here next week. I think things are going too well for us. Henry did send a note last week telling all the deals that are well into contract discussions with all the big banks. He also talked about a strategy to take over the back end for a number of the Fortune 50. It makes no sense to make this sort of change so close to the finish line! Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir was in tears (again).

This is out most desperate hour. Help us Henry, you are our only hope!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more drinking!)
Shots : 7 (we downed a few after finding Henry's office empty)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 180 lbs

We hiring!

Super cool, news came down that we can hire back the spots vacated by those rats who jumped ship. Thank god for Henry, that's such a smart move. We just can't make our commitments with a bunch less people.

So the hiring machine starts up again, they let most of the recruiting team go in the Rift so its going to be a bunch of hard work for them, but they seem to be hyped up to do it.

I'm having trouble with coming up with a reasonable way to talk about the fact that we rift'ed a bunch of people then a few months later we are hiring again. Its sounds pretty weird. The drop in cash is tough to talk about since they seem to be making offers at the old rate. Sure, we did get extra stock to make up for the pay cut, but like that's not going to pay for the rent dude.

Here's what I have so far

• Henry is awesome, he's like the cool Pop you never had
• We have customers and are making some money
• If the economy turns around, we are going to make a pile of cash fast!
• The pay sucks, but the mission is so worthwhile
  
• You get to work with cool people, even the managers are pretty smart
  

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 0 (no more drinking!)
Shots : 0 (no more drinking!)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 177 lbs

QA has vanished!

Well, saying that all of QA were marched away Nazi style, taken to a field, shot and then their bodies placed in a deep hole and then covered up would not be a real reflection of what went down. That would not have captured the whole Tony Soprano "whacking" thing, in that Italian mobster "Iz far da family".

The reality is that the layoffs are brutal. QA lost 70% of their staff. And that's not just my team that across the whole company. The VP was taken out (it took some days to find him) and all the teams folded back under Engineering. The justification seems to be that they had completed all their automation and so were excess baggage, given the economic downturn were a drag on our cash position Henry said.

Now a bunch, if not all of them, were on Visas so they are totally f**ked. Sun, Cisco and every other man and his dog on Techcrunch are slimming down right now. A few old timers said it would be great, the commute times of the 101 would come down and life will be easier.

I'm not sure that computes. If we don't have QA and we are still adding features how on earth will be maintain our exemplary customer satisfaction record? We are going to be that moth heading towards the bug zapper without QA!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 10 (same as last week)
Shots : 10 (down 6 from last week)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 187 lbs

Oh shit! We are dead!

OMG we are dead! It was a total Tarantino movie here. Men in suits, blood all over the walls and floors, Uma Thurman kicking butt. I was head down working my own butt off. I've seen all the Directors, VPs and assorted "gods" locked in meetings all week. Sure, they must be planning the next years roadmap for the platform and applications was my thought.

Morning started off great, Geek Babe was looking hot in a short black skirt and pumps. The build was not broken. Three lattes later I was feeling fine, I'd been drinking with friends in the city and had one to many Cosmo's the night before.

Bam! I start seeing people being pulled off their desks and marched one by one towards the stairs. They would come back 20 minutes later with a green Hank folder, like the one I got when I came for interview. Sweet I thought, more options!

Then I saw them take a box and start to pack. A guy over in the site operations team was shouting and swearing and causing a huge ruckus. Then I see Berkeley-kind-of-dude-who's-done-it-all come back. He is throwing things around, Lucy from HR looks kind of scared so I step in. Wow that guy packs a punch, this black eye will take weeks to go.

So what the hell happened? We had a team meeting afterward, Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir said that the "coast is clear" and that "this is it". Phew.

Henry explained it all in the company meeting on Friday. Basically its part two of "Nuclear Winter". I did not get the reference, but something to do with when the "dot com bubble burst". I was not even in college then, so like its some sort of ancient history lesson or something. Whatever.

Bottom line is that Henry is here. He's staying. He thinks the future is so bright it scares him. But to make that future happen we need to let go of the weakest to make us stronger. He wanted it to happen before thanksgiving, basically anybody who has left now has the opportunity to change the world in the same way that Henry is doing right now, they just need to do it elsewhere. I had not thought of it like that, but its pretty cool. Never figured Henry for such a humanitarian.

So we lost some people, you know, many had been taking it easy, taking lunch breaks, not working through the night or reading blogs like Tech Crunch thinking they all of a sudden become Web 2.0 savvy by just reading a blog! Everybody knows that you have to live it to really know it.

As Henry said many times, we need to "mourn our fallen comrades" (I thought we was a Republican), but we need to re-focus on the American City Bank launch coming up at the start of the year.

The "mourn of fallen comrades" was really helped by the stock option letter that I got. Sweet, I can share more in Hank's future success and dominance! We will be the next big internet story, despite the rift.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 10 (up 4 from last week)
Shots : 16 (up 12 from last week)
Dinner : 0 nights (no more dinners!)
Weight : 186 lbs