Disrupted

Few months ago, I read Chaos Monkeys, a scathing but a hilarious insider account on Facebook. It was written by a product manager, Antonio García Martínez. As a fellow product manager and as a snacker on content everything related to Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg, I thoroughly loved the witty at same time an optimistic critique on ad-tech companies and social media companies by Antonio.

I chanced upon, Disrupted by Dan Lyons, in a Kara Swisher's podcast. I loved this book. It is rip-roaringly hilarious, acerbic and brings down all the holy cows of the SaaS startup world. Yes, the tone of the writer is pessimistic and sometimes it borders lament. But it so very well written and an awesome experience to listen to the book in author's voice.

The book is about Dan's experience in working for HubSpot. It is a company that is revered in my work circle. I laughed out so loud during my commute on many instances on his snarky sarcastic comments. No one is spared. Dan makes fun of HubSpot's CEO and its CTO. He takes huge dig at Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and my hero, Marc Andreessen. His take on HubSpot's CMO (Cranium - Mike Volpe), Mike's report (Wingman) and Dan's boss (Trotsky) are extremely funny and very enjoyable.

The chapter were he describes on how he gets fired from Newsweek was so moving and so scary. The travails he endured in dealing with Trotsky, his boss was also very gut-wrenching in many aspects. It was very, very well written and I could really empathise with him.

Sure, he really criticizes the Silicon Valley's ethos and ways of building things. I get a feeling that sometimes its a world view problem of people coming from a different (media, journalism) world and not getting the basic understand (insistence of make profit as a key and sound parameter for a business and many other such quirks). He dresses down and harshly criticizes Marc Andreessen and a16z's media content. I am not here to judge and pass comments on his opinions. But its damn interesting and funny to read his views. It is really good.

Highly recommend it for people interested in hearing an outsider's view into the startup world.

I've never worked for a startup, but I do work in IT. The reason for which I gave this book a five is because it open my eyes to the possibility that startups work the way the author describes. Any book that increases my world view deserves five stars

My favorite books are imperfect, but challenge me to reconsider my perceptions and beliefs. Disrupted did that for me.

The Good:
There hasn’t been a major book documenting the dark side of the SaaS tech industry There certainly have been a few books ripping apart Wall Street culture, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, as well as corporation like McDonalds and Wal-Mart, maybe there have been critiques on Apple or Microsoft, but this is the first new tech takedown. Hubspot is the prime candidate because its SaaS marketing automation and this can be seen as the epitome of the industry right now.

I thank the author for pointing out the lack of diversity in these types companies. It’s not just race. It is age and socioeconomic background. It’s also valuable to point out the poor management and personal issues that many founders have had. It’s a service to warn people about the short-termism and the ageism. Everyone in the technology industry should read this book.

I also give the author a lot credit for his storytelling and writing. I was a bit predisposed to rip this book apart. Sometimes takedown or expose books get too passionate about their argument. It’s a fun read of dysfunctional work place. You can simply take the book as that and move on, but I didn’t.

Contrasting the two founders and their metrics HEART v. VORP was well done. It’s a service to remind us that under the huggy-feely, teddy-bear carrying HEART there is a cut-throat, make your number or you’re fired mentality – free beer and candy be damned.
There’s a lot of good here. There are genuinely laugh out loud moments and vivid conflict. The author is somewhat able to tie the woes of Hubspot to the larger issues in the tech industry or Silicon Valley today. The “Glassholes” chapter attempted to drive that home. However, even here, the author is mostly drawing from personal experience because he ran the Valleywag blog – which is a now defunct Silicon Valley Gawker site, which supplied him with dirt on the key players in Silicon Valley venture capital scene.

Which brings us to the bad.

The Bad

First and foremost – the nonstop complaining that Hubspot doesn’t make a profit. Stop it.
The rules of the game that Hubspot is playing do not require it to make a profit. Who says they need to? It’s the authors “Business 10”1 perception that all companies should be profitable despite that intellectually he knows that companies like Hubspot do not have to be profitable – and that’s been the case for the last 20 years.

That leads to the second bad – his depiction that Hubspot is a house of cards. They need to IPO or go broke, he writes. That may have been the feeling 3 months before IP; however, Hubspot consistently raised money. They didn’t raise $100 Million over night and then blow it in 6 years. Here’s the data: pitchbook.com/news/articles/disrupted-a-look-at-hubspots-funding-and-financial-history

The third bad – once Hubspot IPO’s it will tank. After going public 18 months ago, HUBS is up 40% compared to the S&P 500 up 7% and its closest competitor Marketo is down 10%. So much for profitability.

Moving away from the bad business critiques – the author repeats himself. Same rants about ageism and lack of diversity. Same jabs at the stupidity of co-workers – the lax bros and New England college girls going on a date, middle-America Mary. Over and over.
Further he doesn’t go deep on research. The information above about the funding numbers reveals that. He’s basically just writing from his own experience, which is good; however, when tries to tie that experience to the bigger industry wide issues, it lacks some creditably. The business issues further limit his creditability to just his ability to write entertainingly about his own experience.

His own experience was brutal, but he didn’t help things.

The Ugly
The author self-sabotages.

Three social media mistakes:
1) Don’t post negative comments about the CEO on Facebook, especially when you have a public following and the CEO just wrapped up his first major news interview.

2) Don’t Unfriend or Unfollow your boss, especially when your boss may be crazy and sadistic.

3) Don’t make inside jokes about your co-workers where those coworkers can also see those jokes. He made a veiled little dig at coworker, the coworker saw it, understood it, and then flipped out.

Generally, the author is condescending towards everyone he works with. The whole industry is beneath him. That came through in his personal interactions. His colleagues didn’t like him; not just because he wasn’t like them, but because of his acerbic humor and air of superiority.

His final self-sabotage: he put in his 6 weeks’ notice of resignation the day after a truly brutal and psychologically abusive annual review. This was revenge. Hubspot, themselves vindictive, responded by firing him, immediately. He managed to get a better deal, but he should have just waited a month and given the standard 2 weeks. He put his family at risk of being uninsured and lost salary.

I don’t mean to be too harsh. I probably would have done the same. It’s a testament to self-control that he stayed at Hubspot for 20 months without doing anything worse than petty passive aggressive outbursts,

My Advice:
Read this book today! It’s is an eye-opener. Take his business insights with a grain of salt. Then read the response from Hubspot. It has 1000s of likes on LinkedIn – not surprising if you’ve read his book. That response is exactly the type of thing the author does a great job of fleshing out – part Orwellian, part corporate gobbledygook, part well-intentioned but aloof.

If you are looking for a salacious or raunchy read, you won’t get much here. There’s nothing in the book itself that would kill the company or put people in jail. While damaged, Hubspot has responded and recovered. There was an incident last summer where three major characters in the book tried illegally to obtain a copy of the manuscript. It was investigated by the FBI. This only adds to the drama of the public real-life playout of the book.

It’s a quick read and almost required if you work in the industry.