Eroding 'Silicon Valley Social Contract' Demands New HR and Union Models

Origin Reddit Post

r/technology

'This breaks the Silicon Valley social contract:' The whipsawing of Windsurf employees has left a bitter taste in tech

Posted by u/lurker_bee•07/21/2025

Top Comments

u/aZealousZebra

My startup equity agreement is once the founders are no longer the majority shareholder, it counts as a liquidation event.

u/Krysiz

Not a lawyer but fairly certain there are no fiduciary responsibilities to non-shareholders -- eg someone who hasn't exercised options or hasn't even vested any. The startup option game is a

u/nordic-nomad

Yep, a wave of lawsuits almost certainly are in coming.

u/Pandaro81

YUP! Finally treated myself to a souse vide cooker. It has wireless and Bluetooth, but to do things like automatically set the time and temp for say, a chuck steak, you have to pay a subscr

u/badgersruse

Could? It’s ages old.

u/flaagan

Lol, if all you think what's going on in Silicon Valley is a few sites for hosting your latest memes and tech bros, maybe look into the old guard who gave the valley its name.

u/squintamongdablind

This was a doozy to read. > What happened at Windsurf follows other unusually structured deals for Character AI, Inflection, and Scale AI, where Big Tech companies avoided outright acqui

u/PaleontologistHot73

The future of America is a feudal system national company town. Everything will be rental/subscription

u/mkw5053

Venture Deals by Feld and Mendelson is a great book that covers all of that and more if you’re interested in learning more

u/__OneLove__

https://archive.is/DeLho ✌🏽

u/omg_cats

Well, optimizing for the cash out has always been the game. What’s changed is who gets the payout. It used to be everyone got a slice, usually the execs and top product/eng/marketing got th

u/RefrigeratorWrong390

This breaks Silicon Valley. Why would anyone in their right mind join a startup at this point? It used to be the golden ring was the equity and exit down the road. Removing those incentives h

u/FanceyPantalones

Because he won. The people who Revere him didn't get hurt, so they don't imagine themselves as the ones who got hurt. They imagine themselves as him.

u/squintamongdablind

This was a doozy to read. > What happened at Windsurf follows other unusually structured deals for Character AI, Inflection, and Scale AI, where Big Tech companies avoided outright acqui

u/ParkingCool6336

Paywalled, no thanks

u/harry_pee_sachs

Yeah I don't think very highly of Steve Jobs as a human, but I will admit that what he helped to create at Apple Computers did change the world. But I would not look up to the guy as someone

u/EpsilonSigma

The products of Silicon Valley fucking rewrote the social contract, and did it with crayons, scented permanent markers and human excrement.

u/jupfold

So much this. For years, innovation just meant “what other aspect of human life can we migrate to a computer or the internet next?” Well, there is nothing left to migrate. Everyone’s kitch

u/HurryOk5256

even in smaller businesses, there are owners who choose to manage their employees like this. The philosophy is, it creates competition between employees who will then, work harder. And no o

u/wysiwywg

Wot?

u/Euphoric-Usual-5169

Wozniak is a nice guy which disqualifies him from business leadership. Psychopaths win

u/ithinkitslupis

Should really just be considered fraud, paying employees in company ownership and then jettisoning company IP and top employees for paydays to just a select few...seems like a fiduciary duty

u/paul_h

Can you ask your Steve if the other Steve uttered “A players hire A players, B players hire C players” in hiring circles?

u/omg_cats

Well, optimizing for the cash out has always been the game. What’s changed is who gets the payout. It used to be everyone got a slice, usually the execs and top product/eng/marketing got th

u/SirBinks

It's gotten so egregious, too. Everything is a subscription and every subscription is at minimum $5 a month. I found a cooking app with features I like and I thought I wanted to buy the ful

u/b_tight

It really is looking like the new ultra billionaires actually want to create techno fiefdoms and they have the means and capability to dk so

u/Reddit-for-all

This. And, we need to continue to erode.the Silicon Valley dominance of tech investment. It certainly happens in other places, but that centralization of funding leads to defacto oligopolies

u/Krysiz

Ah interesting, thanks for the additional info.

u/stuffeh

Wtf... That's illegal. One of the few instances of legitimate bait and switch.

u/zggystardust71

Good perspective. Same approach I had. I worked for a high growth company in the 90's. My options were nice to have money, but not life changing money. Pay was good, benefits were great, CEO

u/gzafiris

Don't think people have ever claimed he was a *good* person lol

u/Euphoric-Usual-5169

Wozniak then gave them some shares out of his own pocket.

u/billyblobsabillion

Yeah yeah that leopard thing-y /s

u/Deshes011

I saw an Instagram reel a few days ago where the guy was like "I moved to NYC and signed a lease on a super expensive apartment that's close to the office, only to get laid off by Scale AI 4

u/The_Krambambulist

The imperial boomerang, but then a silicon valley version

u/vortexmak

Sis this before and saying it again: Google and other big tech needs to be broken up

u/Krysiz

Ah interesting, thanks for the additional info.

u/rmullig2

Reminds me of when Apple went public and Steve Jobs didn't want to give any options to the engineers who built the products that would make him a billionaire. Never understood why that guy wa

u/M_Mich

Seems like employees negotiating their deals w startups will need new language that includes somehow this “purchase through perpetual licensing “ which avoids actual buyouts

u/The_Krambambulist

The imperial boomerang, but then a silicon valley version

u/aZealousZebra

Even if they only acquired 49%, there is very little chance that the owners were still the majority shareholders.

u/NanditoPapa

"Reverse Acquihire" model could become standard, where startups are gutted for talent and data, not sustained as cohesive businesses. A cautionary tale wrapped in billion-dollar deals. Is t

u/b_tight

It really is looking like the new ultra billionaires actually want to create techno fiefdoms and they have the means and capability to dk so

u/veggie151

Nepotism is really important, like becoming a doctor there is a "match" stage where you go around and have an interview with a small group of professionals in the field to show that you fit t

u/haltingpoint

Unfortunately this weakens the perceived value of that equity even further. There's a reason a lot of compensation advice in this industry is "value equity as zero" unless you are dealing wit

u/jupfold

I remember when Uber first became a thing back in the 2010s (at least in my area, maybe earlier elsewhere). We knew that the cab drivers were being driven out of business and we knew it wou

u/skettyvan

I also worked for someone who worked with Steve. It’s been years since I heard the story but IIRC: He said once they were hiring a new c-level or similar position. This person has gone throug

u/gunnbr

Even worse is that I bought my WiFi & Bluetooth sous vide cooker many years ago. Worked fine until they decided that I needed to pay a monthly fee and can no longer access it wirelessly--

u/Worth-Guest-5370

H1B visas.... hmmmm...

u/Cyberhaggis

"lol" said the scorpion "lmao"

u/ExceptionEX

"the whipsawing of windsurf employees" is probably one of the least informative and long winded ways of saying this, unnecessarily pompous. The action of trying to split a company of valuab

u/dantevsninjas

Oh, didn't realize we were pretending that Silicon Valley tech bros have any kind of social contract or respect for any other human being on Earth that can't profit them in some way.

u/jetpack_operation

After seeing what Silicon Valley has gleefully been doing to DC, good -- they can go absolutely fuck themselves. Let these fucking half-baked idiots learn exactly what protections they've fu

u/hammilithome

And the ability for people to sue is paygated, and even then, you’re going up against teams of lawyers backed by billion dollar orgs. I’ve been working in startups since 2006, back when boot

u/debauchasaurus

Avoiding that huge tax bill is why a lot of startup employees exercise their options as soon as they vest. It's less likely to trigger AMT (but much riskier). I bet a bunch of employees had a

u/Deshes011

I saw an Instagram reel a few days ago where the guy was like "I moved to NYC and signed a lease on a super expensive apartment that's close to the office, only to get laid off by Scale AI 4

u/markth_wi

Elon has been there for years - I don't know why the slaves don't like slaving - so I fired the really unhappy ones and I'm hiring new ones tomorrow. To do that pretty much is the province of

u/zggystardust71

Good perspective. Same approach I had. I worked for a high growth company in the 90's. My options were nice to have money, but not life changing money. Pay was good, benefits were great, CEO

u/dantevsninjas

Oh, didn't realize we were pretending that Silicon Valley tech bros have any kind of social contract or respect for any other human being on Earth that can't profit them in some way.

u/kettal

he did use traditional means very, very traditional

u/stuffeh

Wtf... That's illegal. One of the few instances of legitimate bait and switch.

u/Harold_v3

A subscription model works when there is on going work. New organizations are the perfect example. Services where it is ongoing work and development that is continually released. Software

u/Otheus

Step 2: work ridiculous hours until maybe you can make partner

u/gzafiris

Don't think people have ever claimed he was a *good* person lol

u/Sunday_Schoolz

I’m unfortunately unhappy to report I did step 1 already 😭

u/Deshes011

I saw an Instagram reel a few days ago where the guy was like "I moved to NYC and signed a lease on a super expensive apartment that's close to the office, only to get laid off by Scale AI 4

u/dnullify

The whole world switching to subscription based productization is a big item on the list of anti consumer bullshit corporations have done to manipulate their valuation. Everything ultimatel

u/CotyledonTomen

Step 2, luck, nepotism, or ambulance chasing. Tech may progress, but the old ways never truly change.

u/RefrigeratorWrong390

This breaks Silicon Valley. Why would anyone in their right mind join a startup at this point? It used to be the golden ring was the equity and exit down the road. Removing those incentives h

u/Euphoric-Usual-5169

Wozniak then gave them some shares out of his own pocket.

u/Mundellian

> Non-founders have been getting screwed forever in startups Only when they sign a bad options agreement. Startups, moreso than big business, require you to carefully scrutinize everythin

u/MakarovIsMyName

Never worked for any startups. They always wanted to pay me in chickens and stock options.

u/FanceyPantalones

Because he won. The people who Revere him didn't get hurt, so they don't imagine themselves as the ones who got hurt. They imagine themselves as him.

u/PaleontologistHot73

The future of America is a feudal system national company town. Everything will be rental/subscription

u/Milskidasith

That's probably why Windsurf got acquired at 49%.

u/Agrippanux

I’m hearing reports from my early stage VC friends that they are starting to include baseball-style contract clauses in deals where if the founder(s) exit to another company, that counts as a

u/MakarovIsMyName

Never worked for any startups. They always wanted to pay me in chickens and stock options.

u/HurryOk5256

even in smaller businesses, there are owners who choose to manage their employees like this. The philosophy is, it creates competition between employees who will then, work harder. And no o

u/Krysiz

Not a lawyer but fairly certain there are no fiduciary responsibilities to non-shareholders -- eg someone who hasn't exercised options or hasn't even vested any. The startup option game is a

u/vortexmak

I've this before and saying it again: Google and other big tech needs to be broken up

u/dnullify

The whole world switching to subscription based productization is a big item on the list of anti consumer bullshit corporations have done to manipulate their valuation. Everything ultimatel

u/lordtema

He signed a childcare agreement weeks before announcing the company would ho public..

u/FauxReal

It always had a dark side, just look up one of its founders, William Shockley and his beliefs. He wasn't the only one.

u/Desperate_Damage4632

Have rich parents, go to Ivy League school, make friends with other rich people, become their lawyer.

u/LogMeln

Wow scale AI was trying to poach me for so long as head of growth. Their only growth tactic seems to be appearing larger than they r and getting a big payout from Meta. Dodged a bullet there.

u/Sunday_Schoolz

…where can I be one of these lawyers coming out as a winner…?

u/SplendidPunkinButter

Yeah, Silicon Valley was a hub of innovation back when computers were doubling in speed every year and a half and we hadn’t computerized everything yet. Now neither of those things is true. S

u/bobartig

Essentially the startup equivalent of a rug pull. Also, it takes two to tango. Without Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants being willing to acquihire the cream of the crop, leaving the d

u/lordtema

He signed a childcare agreement weeks before announcing the company would ho public..

u/happyscrappy

The issue is you don't get to see other people's agreements. A company can have a robust set of legal language and still someone else gets an anti-dilution clause that causes you to be screwe

u/paul_h

Can you ask your Steve if the other Steve uttered “A players hire A players, B players hire C players” in hiring circles?

u/slightly_drifting

Looks like Mr. Wang won though.

u/SkaldCrypto

Except this is a legacy article. Vintage news. Cognition bought out windsurf, securing all their customers, employees, and infra. Meanwhile Google got the founders and a license to use wi

u/badgersruse

Could? It’s ages old.

u/Pandaro81

And this person accurately guessed the brand with no other context clues.

u/haltingpoint

Unfortunately this weakens the perceived value of that equity even further. There's a reason a lot of compensation advice in this industry is "value equity as zero" unless you are dealing wit

u/ghoonrhed

I would've thought to get into a startup with hopes to make bank, you'd have to join a company that makes a product that's unique and complicated enough that somebody can't just remake it.

u/vegetaman

Yeah you fire all the people then coast while raking in money. Until your brand turns to shit then you panic.

u/jupfold

So much this. For years, innovation just meant “what other aspect of human life can we migrate to a computer or the internet next?” Well, there is nothing left to migrate. Everyone’s kitch

u/Mundellian

> Non-founders have been getting screwed forever in startups Only when they sign a bad options agreement. Startups, moreso than big business, require you to carefully scrutinize everythin

u/WaltChamberlin

Startups pay less, expect way more grind and hours, and offer equity that is just monopoly money until there is a liquidity event. People really shouldn't be joining startups in most cases, t

u/Battystearsinrain

There will have to be a giant pendulum swing in bribery, corruption, and accountability first.

u/vortexmak

I've this before and saying it again: Google and other big tech needs to be broken up

u/nordic-nomad

Yep, a wave of lawsuits almost certainly are in coming.

u/primus202

I don't know how you'd bring this up in the hiring process as a candidate though. I already find myself having to BS so hard in startup interviews cause the culture and expectations are so sk

u/AwardImmediate720

That's been normal in the SV and startup space for ages. Anyone who is still joining a startup and immediately upping their lifestyle to match the "totally real and guaranteed" promised inco

u/dollabillkirill

“Rough” is true for the employees. “Fucking evil” is how we should describe these POS founders who fuck over the people that helped them get to this point.

u/gzafiris

Don't think people have ever claimed he was a *good* person lol

u/shane112902

Silicon Valley and the big tech companies are up against a wall. They’ve run out of innovation and have pushed enshitificafion into everything. They know the public’s turning on them. So they

u/HanzJWermhat

We really need to ditch these techno-feudalists in silcone valley and find another industry to run the shows this shit stinks.

u/WaltChamberlin

Startups pay less, expect way more grind and hours, and offer equity that is just monopoly money until there is a liquidity event. People really shouldn't be joining startups in most cases, t

u/pucspifo

Holy shit. I haven't used the Anova app in years, and I don't have a Wi-Fi or BT sous vide, I had no idea they'd gone subscription service! I just logged into the app and I see that they've

u/WrongdoerIll5187

Break them up, they’re acting like monopolies because they are.

u/LogMeln

Wow scale AI was trying to poach me for so long as head of growth. Their only growth tactic seems to be appearing larger than they r and getting a big payout from Meta. Dodged a bullet there.

u/ithinkitslupis

Should really just be considered fraud, paying employees in company ownership and then jettisoning company IP and top employees for paydays to just a select few...seems like a fiduciary duty

u/Instinctive_Banana

To add, as someone who's worked at a handful of start-ups over the past 25 years in engineering, a couple successful and few not; the best indicator of potential is not the specific product o

u/SplendidPunkinButter

Yeah, Silicon Valley was a hub of innovation back when computers were doubling in speed every year and a half and we hadn’t computerized everything yet. Now neither of those things is true. S

u/DrBreakenspein

Silicon valley is breaking the social contract everywhere, it was only a matter of time before it started cannibalizing itself

u/go_outside

Paprika 3 recipe manager. On all platforms with synching. One time purchase.

u/Euphoric-Usual-5169

Wozniak then gave them some shares out of his own pocket.

u/SirBinks

It's gotten so egregious, too. Everything is a subscription and every subscription is at minimum $5 a month. I found a cooking app with features I like and I thought I wanted to buy the ful

u/CotyledonTomen

Step 2, luck, nepotism, or ambulance chasing. Tech may progress, but the old ways never truly change.

u/_DCtheTall_

Wozniak is the Steve who deserves to be the legendary figure of Apple, the reasons he's not are reflective of problems with American business culture imho

u/No_Safety_6803

The social contract goes two ways. Employees have been giving their lives to startups in hopes of big paydays. Soon all these founder types are going to be posting on LinkedIn moaning that pe

u/harry_pee_sachs

Yeah I don't think very highly of Steve Jobs as a human, but I will admit that what he helped to create at Apple Computers did change the world. But I would not look up to the guy as someone

u/FauxReal

It always had a dark side, just look up one of its founders, William Shockley and his beliefs. He wasn't the only one.

u/FanceyPantalones

Because he won. The people who Revere him didn't get hurt, so they don't imagine themselves as the ones who got hurt. They imagine themselves as him.

u/NanditoPapa

"Reverse Acquihire" model could become standard, where startups are gutted for talent and data, not sustained as cohesive businesses. A cautionary tale wrapped in billion-dollar deals. Is t

u/InTheMorning_Nightss

You can go find another industry, but if it becomes as funded and powerful as tech, then it’ll have the same issues. Obviously there are huge concerns, but I’ll take this over finance being

u/Battystearsinrain

There will have to be a giant pendulum swing in bribery, corruption, and accountability first.

u/dnullify

Yup. It's *often* the correct monetization model. Subscriptions mean Annual Recurring Revenue, which is *always* the easiest way to present forecast + earnings. The effect of *everything* be

u/jetpack_operation

After seeing what Silicon Valley has gleefully been doing to DC, good -- they can go absolutely fuck themselves. Let these fucking half-baked idiots learn exactly what protections they've fu

u/warmthandhappiness

Par for the course in tech unfortunately, you’re bandwidth and no one plays the long term game That’s the problem when things are vc funded- most people look for and fund unicorns that will

u/Cyberhaggis

"lol" said the scorpion "lmao"

u/dnullify

Yup. It's *often* the correct monetization model. Subscriptions mean Annual Recurring Revenue, which is *always* the easiest way to present forecast + earnings. The effect of *everything* be

u/m_Pony

Power is what you can get away with.

u/chortle-guffaw2

"This is bad for startup employees. They're going to be less likely to join startups. What's the point of joining a startup and working your ass off if you might get screwed?" Are you

u/DrBreakenspein

Silicon valley is breaking the social contract everywhere, it was only a matter of time before it started cannibalizing itself

u/Arizona_Pete

More like the scorpion on the back thingy - Shocking that a company that does unethical shit to the population would do unethical shit to its employees

u/Fullertons

I studied under a Steve that worked for Steve. Steve said Steve was an asshole and would purposely start shit between other employees.

u/think_up

Employees with equity need to sue these founders who are destroying that equity value by fleeing with all the intellectual property and people talent.

u/debauchasaurus

Avoiding that huge tax bill is why a lot of startup employees exercise their options as soon as they vest. It's less likely to trigger AMT (but much riskier). I bet a bunch of employees had a

u/dnullify

The whole world switching to subscription based productization is a big item on the list of anti consumer bullshit corporations have done to manipulate their valuation. Everything ultimatel

u/explodeder

Capitalism doesn’t want workers. They want fully autonomous robots doing their bidding.

u/warmthandhappiness

Par for the course in tech unfortunately, you’re bandwidth and no one plays the long term game That’s the problem when things are vc funded- most people look for and fund unicorns that will

u/think_up

Employees with equity need to sue these founders who are destroying that equity value by fleeing with all the intellectual property and people talent.

u/ConditionHorror9188

I think there’s a difference between ‘value the equity at zero’ because the company may fail, and because even if the company is ‘bought out’, it will just be to asset strip its IP and C-suit

u/happyscrappy

This isn't even close to new. Microsoft was buying companies this way back in the 1990s. They bought Connectix this way for example. The companies have worked so very hard to screw sweat equ

u/Sunday_Schoolz

…where can I be one of these lawyers coming out as a winner…?

u/MakarovIsMyName

A fucking insane and stupid valuation. The CEO got his, he doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.

u/TheZapster

You skipped Step 1 and went right to Step 2, didn't you

u/InTheMorning_Nightss

You can go find another industry, but if it becomes as funded and powerful as tech, then it’ll have the same issues. Obviously there are huge concerns, but I’ll take this over finance being

u/jupfold

I remember when Uber first became a thing back in the 2010s (at least in my area, maybe earlier elsewhere). We knew that the cab drivers were being driven out of business and we knew it wou

u/NanditoPapa

"Acquihire" model could become standard, where startups are gutted for talent and data, not sustained as cohesive businesses. A cautionary tale wrapped in billion-dollar deals. Is this how

u/winkingchef

And dicked over a bunch of the employees who got him there.

u/m_Pony

Power is what you can get away with.

u/username_redacted

What’s frustrating about that situation is that it *was* an industry badly in need of an overhaul, and Uber & Lyft *did* seem to fix a lot of what was broken—the functionality of the apps

u/MR_Se7en

Nothings stopping you from being a winner - go be a lawyer!

u/Agrippanux

I’m hearing reports from my early stage VC friends that they are starting to include baseball-style contract clauses in deals where if the founder(s) exit to another company, that counts as a

u/The_Krambambulist

The imperial boomerang, but then a silicon valley version

u/Channel250

YOLO said the scorpion. *drops beat* YEET! SCURR YEET! My mother never loved me!

u/rmullig2

Reminds me of when Apple went public and Steve Jobs didn't want to give any options to the engineers who built the products that would make him a billionaire. Never understood why that guy wa

u/SplendidPunkinButter

Yeah, Silicon Valley was a hub of innovation back when computers were doubling in speed every year and a half and we hadn’t computerized everything yet. Now neither of those things is true. S

u/Milskidasith

That's probably why Windsurf got acquired at 49%.

u/Upset-Government-856

Finally silicon valley is moving fast and breaking itself.

u/billyblobsabillion

Yeah yeah that leopard thing-y /s

u/mkw5053

Venture Deals by Feld and Mendelson is a great book that covers all of that and more if you’re interested in learning more

u/paul_h

Can you ask your Steve if the other Steve uttered “A players hire A players, B players hire C players” in hiring circles?

u/bobartig

Essentially the startup equivalent of a rug pull. Also, it takes two to tango. Without Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants being willing to acquihire the cream of the crop, leaving the d

u/Otheus

Step 2: work ridiculous hours until maybe you can make partner

u/Desperate_Damage4632

Have rich parents, go to Ivy League school, make friends with other rich people, become their lawyer.

u/dantevsninjas

Oh, didn't realize we were pretending that Silicon Valley tech bros have any kind of social contract or respect for any other human being on Earth that can't profit them in some way.

u/EpsilonSigma

The products of Silicon Valley fucking rewrote the social contract, and did it with crayons, scented permanent markers and human excrement.

u/hammilithome

And the ability for people to sue is paygated, and even then, you’re going up against teams of lawyers backed by billion dollar orgs. I’ve been working in startups since 2006, back when boot

u/MerryMisandrist

Jobs always reminded me of one of those smarmy assholes who was good at fucking over people to get where he is. Read his book and it basically confirmed it. The irony on him being such a

u/gunnbr

Even worse is that I bought my WiFi & Bluetooth sous vide cooker many years ago. Worked fine until they decided that I needed to pay a monthly fee and can no longer access it wirelessly--

u/FauxReal

It always had a dark side, just look up one of its founders, William Shockley and his beliefs. He wasn't the only one.

u/explodeder

Capitalism doesn’t want workers. They want fully autonomous robots doing their bidding.

u/happyscrappy

The issue is you don't get to see other people's agreements. A company can have a robust set of legal language and still someone else gets an anti-dilution clause that causes you to be screwe

u/putac_kashur

Fuck you Anova!

u/CotyledonTomen

Step 2, luck, nepotism, or ambulance chasing. Tech may progress, but the old ways never truly change.

u/chortle-guffaw2

"This is bad for startup employees. They're going to be less likely to join startups. What's the point of joining a startup and working your ass off if you might get screwed?" Are you

u/warmthandhappiness

Par for the course in tech unfortunately, you’re bandwidth and no one plays the long term game That’s the problem when things are vc funded- most people look for and fund unicorns that will

u/InTheMorning_Nightss

You can go find another industry, but if it becomes as funded and powerful as tech, then it’ll have the same issues. Obviously there are huge concerns, but I’ll take this over finance being

u/x0avier

Agree with you. Only caveat is that startups are potentially great springboards for new grads/early career folks looking to gain highly practical skills in a short amount of time.

u/lordtema

He signed a childcare agreement weeks before announcing the company would ho public..

u/w_t_f_justhappened

Step 1: Become lawyer. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit!

u/flaagan

Lol, if all you think what's going on in Silicon Valley is a few sites for hosting your latest memes and tech bros, maybe look into the old guard who gave the valley its name.

u/fumar

Turns out you can just have a $5mil dinner, make your company "unwoke" and you can do anything

u/Fullertons

No, but he told me he go to Frank and say, “George thinks you’re an asshole” and then do the same to George, despite there being no beef between them.

u/WrongdoerIll5187

Break them up, they’re acting like monopolies because they are.

u/ConditionHorror9188

u/Red_Spork

Has been happening for years unfortunately. Some years ago a startup I worked for got acquired by another startup very early(so early we had barely had any equity vest). New startup bought ou

u/nordic-nomad

Yep, a wave of lawsuits almost certainly are in coming.

u/WaltChamberlin

Startups pay less, expect way more grind and hours, and offer equity that is just monopoly money until there is a liquidity event. People really shouldn't be joining startups in most cases, t

u/ParkingCool6336

Paywalled, no thanks

u/dark_frog

The real money is getting people to pay $240/year for something they used to buy once for$100.

u/kettal

he did use traditional means very, very traditional

u/putac_kashur

Fuck you Anova!

u/billyblobsabillion

Yeah yeah that leopard thing-y /s

u/mkw5053

Founders who sit on “common” share seats do carry fiduciary duties to early employees, because those employees will eventually hold common stock and Delaware law makes directors answerable to

u/Chaseism

I've worked in tech startups for over a decade as an entry level employee all the way up to the executive level and I cannot stress how important it is to fully know and understand the leader

u/ocelot08

Move fast, break things. It's what they do.

u/lordtema

Steve Jobs refused to pay for his kid essentially, and after a long struggle he finally agreed to sign an agreement for child support money, but did so knowing full and well that his kid woul

u/happyscrappy

This isn't even close to new. Microsoft was buying companies this way back in the 1990s. They bought Connectix this way for example. The companies have worked so very hard to screw sweat equ

u/Sunday_Schoolz

Excellent! A third of the way there

u/No_Safety_6803

The social contract goes two ways. Employees have been giving their lives to startups in hopes of big paydays. Soon all these founder types are going to be posting on LinkedIn moaning that pe

u/Arizona_Pete

More like the scorpion on the back thingy - Shocking that a company that does unethical shit to the population would do unethical shit to its employees

u/pucspifo

Holy shit. I haven't used the Anova app in years, and I don't have a Wi-Fi or BT sous vide, I had no idea they'd gone subscription service! I just logged into the app and I see that they've

u/_DCtheTall_

Wozniak is the Steve who deserves to be the legendary figure of Apple, the reasons he's not are reflective of problems with American business culture imho

u/timpdx

Business insider has a hard paywall now?

u/w_t_f_justhappened

Step 1: Become lawyer. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit!

u/HurryOk5256

even in smaller businesses, there are owners who choose to manage their employees like this. The philosophy is, it creates competition between employees who will then, work harder. And no o

u/go_outside

Paprika 3 recipe manager. On all platforms with synching. One time purchase.

u/Reddit-for-all

This. And, we need to continue to erode.the Silicon Valley dominance of tech investment. It certainly happens in other places, but that centralization of funding leads to defacto oligopolies

u/chortle-guffaw2

"This is bad for startup employees. They're going to be less likely to join startups. What's the point of joining a startup and working your ass off if you might get screwed?" Are you

u/Mundellian

> Non-founders have been getting screwed forever in startups Only when they sign a bad options agreement. Startups, moreso than big business, require you to carefully scrutinize everythin

u/dark_frog

The real money is getting people to pay $240/year for something they used to buy once for$100.

u/Pandaro81

YUP! Finally treated myself to a souse vide cooker. It has wireless and Bluetooth, but to do things like automatically set the time and temp for say, a chuck steak, you have to pay a subscr

u/markth_wi

Elon has been there for years - "I don't know why the slaves don't like slaving - so I fired the really unhappy ones and I'm hiring new ones tomorrow". To do that pretty much is the province

u/Instinctive_Banana

To add, as someone who's worked at a handful of start-ups over the past 25 years in engineering, a couple successful and few not; the best indicator of potential is not the specific product o

u/aZealousZebra

Even if they only acquired 49%, there is very little chance that the owners were still the majority shareholders.

u/username_redacted

I think society as a whole was complicit in accepting “Disruption” as a valid business model. We allowed these companies to get absurdly rich by ignoring laws, stealing our personal informa

u/__OneLove__

https://archive.is/DeLho ✌🏽

u/username_redacted

What’s frustrating about that situation is that it *was* an industry badly in need of an overhaul, and Uber & Lyft *did* seem to fix a lot of what was broken—the functionality of the apps

u/m_Pony

Power is what you can get away with.

u/Euphoric-Usual-5169

Wozniak is a nice guy which disqualifies him from business leadership. Psychopaths win

u/MerryMisandrist

Jobs always reminded me of one of those smarmy assholes who was good at fucking over people to get where he is. Read his book and it basically confirmed it. The irony on him being such a

u/Chaseism

I've worked in tech startups for over a decade as an entry level employee all the way up to the executive level and I cannot stress how important it is to fully know and understand the leader

u/squintamongdablind

This was a doozy to read. > What happened at Windsurf follows other unusually structured deals for Character AI, Inflection, and Scale AI, where Big Tech companies avoided outright acqui

u/mkw5053

Founders who sit on “common” share seats do carry fiduciary duties to early employees, because those employees will eventually hold common stock and Delaware law makes directors answerable to

u/jetpack_operation

After seeing what Silicon Valley has gleefully been doing to DC, good -- they can go absolutely fuck themselves. Let these fucking half-baked idiots learn exactly what protections they've fu

u/HanzJWermhat

We really need to ditch these techno-feudalists in silcone valley and find another industry to run the shows this shit stinks.

u/Sunday_Schoolz

…where can I be one of these lawyers coming out as a winner…?

u/EatTacosGetMoney

Yearly subscription for Microsoft office is such a joke.

u/Harold_v3

A subscription model works when there is on going work. New organizations are the perfect example. Services where it is ongoing work and development that is continually released. Software

u/primus202

I don't know how you'd bring this up in the hiring process as a candidate though. I already find myself having to BS so hard in startup interviews cause the culture and expectations are so sk

u/ExceptionEX

"the whipsawing of windsurf employees" is probably one of the least informative and long winded ways of saying this, unnecessarily pompous. The action of trying to split a company of valuab

u/ShitBeCray

Sounds like you dodged a massive payout.

u/MakarovIsMyName

A fucking insane and stupid valuation. The CEO got his, he doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.

u/markth_wi

Elon has been there for years - "I don't know why the slaves don't like slaving - so I fired the really unhappy ones and I'm hiring new ones tomorrow". To do that pretty much is the province

u/Fullertons

I studied under a Steve that worked for Steve. Steve said Steve was an asshole and would purposely start shit between other employees.

u/Fullertons

I studied under a Steve that worked for Steve. Steve said Steve was an asshole and would purposely start shit between other employees.

u/aZealousZebra

My startup equity agreement is once the founders are no longer the majority shareholder, it counts as a liquidation event.

u/dollabillkirill

“Rough” is true for the employees. “Fucking evil” is how we should describe these POS founders who fuck over the people that helped them get to this point.

u/No_Safety_6803

The social contract goes two ways. Employees have been giving their lives to startups in hopes of big paydays. Soon all these founder types are going to be posting on LinkedIn moaning that pe

u/LogMeln

Wow scale AI was trying to poach me for so long as head of growth. Their only growth tactic seems to be appearing larger than they r and getting a big payout from Meta. Dodged a bullet there.

u/HanzJWermhat

We really need to ditch these techno-feudalists in silcone valley and find another industry to run the shows this shit stinks.

u/dathrowaway1239

Genuinely, I’m curious: an acquisition like this is usually done so that a product, IP, brand good will, or patent can get folded into a larger company. But it sounds like OpenAI wasn’t reall

u/Otheus

Step 2: work ridiculous hours until maybe you can make partner

u/MakarovIsMyName

Never worked for any startups. They always wanted to pay me in chickens and stock options.

u/JockAussie

Seems like someone is just parroting Ben Thompson, at least the headline. Not reading article because paywall, but I assume they don't give him any credit.

u/username_redacted

I think society as a whole was complicit in accepting “Disruption” as a valid business model. We allowed these companies to get absurdly rich by ignoring laws, stealing our personal informa

u/WrongdoerIll5187

Break them up, they’re acting like monopolies because they are.

u/DrBreakenspein

Silicon valley is breaking the social contract everywhere, it was only a matter of time before it started cannibalizing itself

u/Chaseism

I've worked in tech startups for over a decade as an entry level employee all the way up to the executive level and I cannot stress how important it is to fully know and understand the leader

u/MakarovIsMyName

A fucking insane and stupid valuation. The CEO got his, he doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.

u/zggystardust71

Good perspective. Same approach I had. I worked for a high growth company in the 90's. My options were nice to have money, but not life changing money. Pay was good, benefits were great, CEO

u/w_t_f_justhappened

Step 1: Become lawyer. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit!

u/SirBinks

It's gotten so egregious, too. Everything is a subscription and every subscription is at minimum $5 a month. I found a cooking app with features I like and I thought I wanted to buy the ful

u/rmullig2

Reminds me of when Apple went public and Steve Jobs didn't want to give any options to the engineers who built the products that would make him a billionaire. Never understood why that guy wa

u/Battystearsinrain

There will have to be a giant pendulum swing in bribery, corruption, and accountability first.

u/Fullertons

No, but he told me he go to Frank and say, “George thinks you’re an asshole” and then do the same to George, despite there being no beef between them.

u/dark_frog

The real money is getting people to pay $240/year for something they used to buy once for$100.

u/ithinkitslupis

Should really just be considered fraud, paying employees in company ownership and then jettisoning company IP and top employees for paydays to just a select few...seems like a fiduciary duty

u/Fullertons

No, but he told me he go to Frank and say, “George thinks you’re an asshole” and then do the same to George, despite there being no beef between them.

u/EatTacosGetMoney

Yearly subscription for Microsoft office is such a joke.

u/fumar

Turns out you can just have a $5mil dinner, make your company "unwoke" and you can do anything

u/fumar

Turns out you can just have a $5mil dinner, make your company "unwoke" and you can do anything

Origin Reddit Post

r/technology

'This breaks the Silicon Valley social contract:' The whipsawing of Windsurf employees has left a bitter taste in tech

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