Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Best book I read on the startup culture. Hilarious.

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that Dan Lyons is a complete douchebag. The Hubspot blog is a good resource and I don't even use Hubspot. Total smear job. The company should send Lyons a stock price update on a daily basis. This book is not aging well with HUBS trading north of $400.

Tragically hilarious for anyone that's worked in a tech startup.

Ok so this was a bit frightening because more than half of this book follows exactly what I experienced working in big corporation... so for those bashing start up with this unfortunately it is not anymore limited to this world (for years). This essay was nevertheless enlightening and really interesting while also sometimes making me laugh a bit (but in a bitterly way). A must read for everyone but hard to realize.

Honestly, I enjoyed this at a 5-star level, but I'm trying to avoid hyperbole here.

A scathing memoir by an old school journalist trying to make it in the brave new world of young tech startups, this book was a hoot. The book is divided into three sections: first, after Lyons is laid off from his old boys Newsweek job, he joins a broey Boston tech startup, HubSpot, and is variously amused and horrified by the Millennial antics there. Second, Lyons explores the economics of what he believes is the second tech bubble (this was my favorite section by far). Third, Lyons describes the Kafkaesque corporate bullying that can happen when one is, ahem, “managed out”.

I picked this up after hearing a talk by Lyons which variously impressed and amused me - even if we could argue about whether tech is in a speculatory bubble right now, I think we can all agree that the CULTURE of the tech industry deserves to be popped. I would shelve this book right next to Brotopia, in that both offer painfully astute insights into how tech - dominated, for the last ~15 years, by 20something white dudes and fashioning itself a “brave new world” that “disrupts the future” - is actually just replicating a lot of old social hierarchies, coupled with fierce agism. Lyons is scorching in this regard: he calls HubSpot's “kooky office culture” an “adult kindergarten”, and ceaselessly (and hilariously) mocks the coddling perks for 20somethings. He also notes, horrifyingly, how alienated he is made to feel because he, for example, would rather go home to the wife and kids than do beer bongs with the bros on Friday night. He constantly notes how “lily white”, “pure as driven snow” white the whole company is, and the incredible chasms between the values it preaches (radical transparency, e.g.) and what it actually practices (dystopian “disappearing” of people - e.g. employees who are suddenly fired are rebranded as having “graduated for their next awesome adventure”).

That the tech industry has - on average - huge problems with age, sex/gender, and race is well-known. That many companies's cultures are frozen-in-time replications of an extended adolescence - frat houses with a paycheck - is also well-known. For the most part, I enjoyed Lyons's seemingly accurate take-down of what seems to be an extreme case of a general trend. I've worked at tech startups that had some of these Millennial-minded perks (free beer on tap, e.g.) but also were a little more enlightened (our meeting rooms were all named after prominent women in computer science, aww). I do think this book is worthwhile reading for people that work in these industries, if only to show what NOT to do. Indeed - in a way - the speculation and money washing around the tech industry means that a big spotlight is on their culture; I would LOVE to see similarly scathing satires written about, e.g., academia and the development industry (The Idealist is the only one I can think of). No industry is immune from madness of one type or another; we are all in our little cultural tribes in that regard, and Lyons - coming from (what I imagine and what he sorta describes) as the cigar-chomping, dick-measuring, self-congratulatory bombastic cynicism of old school journalism - is a big fish out of water in the “omg that's awesome!!!” culture of Millennial corporatism.

The second section of the book - when Lyons jokes about trying to awaken some of these young people, via a Norma Rae-style inspiring pro-labor speech, to the way many of these “perks” are just repackaged ways for the company to skimp on its workers (e.g. unlimited PTO being one) - is, in my mind, the best. I LOOOVE labor economics, and I think the tech industry is particularly fascinating in this regard. As I said in my Brotopia review, and as Harvard economist Claudia Goldin says in that one paper, tech has the potential to dismantle a lot of artificial, arbitrarily-imposed constraints to work - it could be really liberating, from a labor perspective. This opportunity and potential is coupled with huge market forces (which Lyons argues are largely speculative and based on hot air) that, instead, perpetuate old power dynamics and exacerbate inequality. Lyons notes that the second tech bubble's motto is all about “exit strategies” - grow a company very fast, never turn a profit, do an IPO and cash out. This only benefits founders and VC funders. Young workers are cheaper and easier to exploit: free beer takes the place of pensions; “tours of duty” take the place of mutual loyalty. “Passion” and “hackathons” gain prestige; meaning people see glory in working, essentially, unpaid overtime.

The third section is Lyons recounting, well, adult bullying - as HubSpot decides it needs to get rid of him, and engages in the frankly cowardly act of “managing him out”; making his life so miserable that he quits, or hunting for small errors and blowing them out of proportion. This is the least interesting part of the book. I mean, it sucks for Lyons - and toxic workplaces definitely suck - but I don't believe they're special to the tech industry. And so this section just feels like a long personal beef, a rant by Lyons. I felt sorry for him, but was also less interested. There IS, however, an unexpected “payoff” to this since - once Lyons quits and announces he's planning to write a book about his experiences - HubSpot apparently went from being “bozos” to being “monsters” by attempting to hack, extort, and break into (!) Lyon's house (!!). I found this INSANE. It seemed like an insanely disproportionate response to what is essentially just a catty, snarky book painting them as annoying at best, incompetent at worst. But not EEEEVIL. So that was a surprising turnaround. But maybe, in the age where fake news isn't just Facebook's problem - it's its solution, this shouldn't be so surprising.

Anyway, a lot of fun, some horror, many amaze. Recommended.

Dear me, this brought back many memories. Unpleasant ones. Dan Lyons and I have many similar experiences - we were both journalists who were disillusioned with the way the industry ended up, and we were looking over to the start-up guys and thought that they were so cool and wanted a piece of the action. Dan ended up in Hubspot and it was, to be honest, an absolutely insane place to work in. At first, as I began reading the memoir, I was turned off by his “I'm an old fart and I don't get these millennials” tone, but fortunately the book became an expose on the start-ups is a giant bubble in the making. Why do companies that do not produce any profits or revenue continue to attract giant investments? Lyons also shows that after a start up gets an IPO, very few people profit from it, and those who do are usually the founders.

It was absolutely terrible to read the last few chapters because Lyons went through a vicious case of work bullying by a former colleague he thought of as a close friend. Though, personally, I found Lyons was a little naive to confide in the guy despite knowing about his bullying tendencies online. That's a red flag, IMHO.

I think this is a much-needed book to demystify the ‘awesomeness' of start-up culture. There's nothing awesome about companies run by frat boy narcissists or inexperienced fresh-out-of college kids with little management training. It's what I call a disaster waiting to happen - no matter how many bean bags you have in reception or kitchens with beer taps on the working floor. A company needs to be run with people in mind, not the bottom line. And Start-ups, may be the latest sweat shop in the market.

Silicon Valley from HBO but real

If you like the TV show then you will love this. It's in depth, funny and disturbing. It makes me want to watch the show from the beginning.

I get it. I'm an old guy working in high tech, but I've always been here and in Canada we're at a slight remove from the unicorn madness infecting some other tech centres. I can understand Dan's snark and I've seen evidence of ruthless backstabbing, hi-tech mean-girling, hare-brained revelations from egotistical narcissists, Kool-aid slurping wage slaves, frat boy brogrammers and more - his just goes to eleven.

But calling out the bro-coders out for their frat boy antics then gleefully recounting the dick, fart and shit jokes you live on in the writers room seems disingenuous. I understand you calling out the 20-somethings for their lack of experience, but can you please not mention you were kind of a big deal at Newsweek again?

I'm not sure what I wanted from this story. Maybe more snark or some sort of narrative so that it didn't just feel like a book-length bitch session. Dan manages to be at a complete remove from everyone involved in the story so that it feels like he's just lobbing spitballs at the tech industry now that he's safely hidden behind the protective apron of Hollywood.

Maybe if you work in hi-tech and still can't explain what it is you do to your folks you can send them this so they get a feel for how far removed from reality the crazy farm can get.

Dan Lyons is a Journalist. I can't emphasize that last word enough. Nor, it seems, can Dan Lyons.

Lyons, a former Time writer and internet content raconteur, found himself in his early 50s without a decent job. After decades of covering the latest 20-something billionaires, he (sensibly) decided he wanted to jump into a startup to try to make his own big hit. Disrupted is his tale of woe, bemoaning the millennials and their shoddy union sensibilities and their loud music (no, seriously).

I don't want to dismiss Lyons' takedown of his former employer, Hubspot, as a simple case of “Old guy doesn't get how things work now.” There's absolutely no doubt that the management, owners and coworkers at his new employer are insane. The problem is, the things he brings up as issues on which to prosecute an entire industry/generation aren't exclusive to either the industry or that generation: As someone who's worked for a marketing agency, the headquarters of a multilevel marketing company and yes, even newspapers, all of the traits and peculiarities he mentions are things I've encountered. The trait of “being a shitty manager/coworker” is not endemic to a certain age group; it's more just an indicator of shitty people.

Don't get me wrong, the book is fun! See him learn that manager does not equal friend when his crazy direct supervisor's power-tripping petty bullshit constantly tears into Lyons after acting like they're best pals. Watch through some veiled sexism (paraphrase: “I'm not saying all women are shitty, but the three or four whom I interact with the most and are the only ones I talk about in depth in the book are terrible workers AND people”) as he grovels to the PR manager for offending her (paraphrase: “I don't understand why she's all upset just because I said an interview she arranged for the CEO went terribly.”). Revel as he reveals just how freaking out of touch he is when he tells us about his “hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers” then acts shocked and violated when it turns out his employer is watching what he writes and doesn't particularly enjoy his raining criticism down upon them.

As a former journalist, I particularly disliked the part where he complained about how much better journalists are as people. DID YOU KNOW that journalists: a) don't like meetings; b) would “[slam] doors and [turn] the air blue with profanity” if their boss made them a promise and then someone up the line changed their mind; c) if made to go to training, make fun of each other and the instructors and intentionally waste time. Oh, and also joke about killing someone in front an HR person; d) are lousy when asked to write someone beneath their level, like lead-generating blog posts (because of all their JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE).

Some of those are true, about some of the journalists I've worked with. Most are not. (Though, in fairness, journalists - especially older journalists - do tend to complain a lot that they're not allowed to say literally whatever they want in the newsroom, regardless of sexism/racism/profanity/just terrible ideas. As someone who's listened to a lot of them, this censorship is decidedly in everyone's best interest.) In fact, I'd bet you could replace the word “journalist” with “white guys who worked a white-collar job in the 80s/early 90s” and a lot of Lyons' complaints would have exactly the same meaning. Please note that I'm not calling him racist; I'm saying he's a overprivileged twit.

I'm not so much upset with the book or the writing as I am the idea of the book. Michael Lewis rose to fame with his (then-)shocking expose of the financial industry in Liar's Poker precisely because we didn't already know about. Lyons tended to follow trend stories (he did write for Time, after all) back when he wrote regularly, so his explosive reveal that “most web-based startups have terrible products and even worse business plans” isn't shocking, it's late and, most importantly, lazy. There's lots of good journalism out there about the bad and the good of our current economic/business/cultural climate. And it doesn't require taking a single company as evidence/harbinger of the doom of all things.

In a way, it's a tale of two mistakes. His, for his choice of employer, and me, for choice of reading material. I doubt either of us will make the same mistakes again. Oh, well. Unlike most of the readers of this book, at least I learned something.