Joel Gascoigne, CEO of social media tool startup Buffer, shared a 3500-word post in which he explains why he’s laying off 10 of his 94 employees. In contrast to bloodless posts from the likes of Intel and Microsoft, it indulges a different sin: oversharing. A lot of my correspondents forwarded Gascoigne’s post to me, hoping…
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner emailed his staff when Microsoft bought the company. His email is discursive, full of platitudes, and fails to answer the employee’s most important question: what’s going to happen to me? LinkedIn has 10,000 employees, 433 million members, and no profits. And now it’s got a new owner. If you work there,…
Hillary Clinton has enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, but Bernie Sanders won’t go away. Does he think he can win? Nah. But the spotlight — and the negotiating leverage that comes with it — are too much fun to give up. As Hillary Clinton and Democratic leaders see it, it’s time for Sanders to go away…
Yesterday, Tribune Publishing, purveyor of news since 1847, changed its name to “tronc” (short for “Tribune Online Content.”) It’s now a “content curation and monetization company” — a company that makes money from content, what we used to call a media company. Today, I deconstruct the rest of its attempt to use techno-drivel to misdirect our attention from its…
I’ve written about law firm Mossack Fonseca’s wimpy response to the Panama Papers leaks. But what about the anonymous whistleblower who leaked them, “John Doe”? His followup contains direct, clear, definitive statements, which are convincing, and vague, murky generalizations, which aren’t. There are lessons here for everyone who writes in business. Below are excerpts and commentary. (While I…
Dan Lyons’ book Disrupted tars the whole startup business with the brush of his experience at HubSpot. One key element is to show that the rest of Silicon Valley is also corrupt with a recitation of all the recent sins of tech companies. Whenever you see a list like this, you should be skeptical. Here’s a paragraph…
In December of 1994, economist Hal Varian, who is currently Google’s chief economist, wrote a paper called “How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time.” Ignore the subject matter. It should have been called “How to think clearly.” His advice hasn’t lost relevance in the 21-plus years since he wrote it. (Thanks to Cory Doctorow at…
Intel just announced a “restructuring.” The email to employees from CEO Brian Krzanich is very clear, but something’s missing: humanity and responsibility. Here’s the email with the weaselly parts highlighted (and yes, there are fewer of them than in many emails of this type). E-mail to Employees by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich Subject: Today’s Announcement Date: April 19, 2016…
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just released a very clear shareholder letter. He’s very clear and direct about Amazon’s successful products. But when it comes to culture, he’s opaque and oblique. That speaks volumes. I’m a fan of shareholder letters (like Warren Buffet’s) where the CEO lays out what happening in clear simple language. Bezos’ 9-page letter lives…