Open Letter to Noam Bardin (ex-CEO of Waze)
This is a response to Noam Bardin's rant on why he left Waze (which was acquired by Google in 2013).
To understand Noam Bardin we first need to understand Israeli culture. It is a culture rife with confrontation and conflict - be it a poetic reflection of the state of political affairs or just a symptom of a cultural melting pot full of ill-mannered people that have yet to be fully civilized. Renowned for its straightforwardness, honesty and no-bs attitude, the Israeli culture values brutal honesty and warm openness. Passionate and heated debates are frequent, and the implicit belief is that the louder you are the more right you are. I formed these opinions based on personal experiences, having lived in Tel Aviv for a period of time while working for an Israeli tech company. These are, of course, exaggerations that amount to a caricature - but lacking the erudition in Social Sciences or the desire to further elaborate on the intricate social dynamics of Israeli society, layman's observations will suffice.
With the above in mind, it is easy to see why Mr. Bardin would even publish such a poorly written piece of vitriol, lashing out against Google, China (hilariously comparing CCP's business practices to Google's acquihires), and supposedly over-pampered tech workers. By his own admission, he's a "passionate" guy - a euphemism for someone who lacks any form of self-restraint, but, like, in a good way. Coming from a country where you can say whatever the fuck you want (in a sense, much freer than the USA when it comes to freedom of expression, if only because no one really cares what you say anyways), Mr. Bardin was under the impression that his old didactic techniques of verbal Shock & Awe would impress the good-natured Americans - and much to his dismay he discovered that the loudest person in the room is not only not admired, but is actively encouraged to quiet down. Mr. Bardin calls such disagreeable presentation practices "transparency and directness" and demurs that he had to adjust his speech to placate the more delicate palates of the Americans, making off-hand remarks about PC-culture, not realizing that he's complaining about merely adjusting himself to a different culture, one he sold out to voluntarily. It's not like the HR department censored any important ideas or opinions he had, like they did with James Damore.
Besides lambasting Winnie the Pooh, Mr. Bardin is also shockingly honest about his own incompetence as CEO and business acumen in general - freely admitting he lost control over Waze's original board of directors, and thus was forced to sell the company to Google, as a way for him to regain control. This doesn't even parse for me, how do you regain control by selling out to a mega-corporation like Google, which already has a product (Google Maps) that competes with your own (Waze)? Apparently Google promised him "autonomy". I quote (emphasis mine):
I saw independence as a critical aspect of our decision to sell ...
Being able to take more, not less, risk and experiment with new things ...
We assumed we would get jacked up distribution for our app through Google, ...
So selling out == independence. And Google would provide him with the capital to do as he pleased and would also advertise and promote his product. All of this supported by a heavy dose of wishful thinking and a shitload of assumptions never put on paper (and signed by lawyers with big heavy pens). I can relate, I made similar mistakes in my career as a software engineer and relied on promises made by corporations about all kinds of things - but then again I wasn't responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of technology and personnel.
Speaking of personnel, Mr. Bardin's takes on management are quite abhorrent. His first and foremost complaint is that employees no longer blindly follow him to battle, as it were, and instead make calculated decisions based on what best suits them and their careers. In his words:
The product is a tool to advance the employees career, not a passion, mission or economic game changer.
Take note of the words passion, and mission - these are buzzwords sleazy CEOs use to sell their products to investors and consumers - and to prospective employees. No one wants to work on a piece of shit product that will be irrelevant in two years time; everyone wants to build the Next Great Thing. Mr. Bardin believes that he can provide this cause, this mission, for you and that by joining him you're signing a covenant of total and utter dedication to the cause. He continues on to lament the fact that he cannot fire people at will, the would-be sinners:
It is practically impossible to fire someone for the basic reason that you don't need this role any more or there is a better person out there or just plain old "you are not doing a great job". This neuter managers and...
So you're expected to show dedication and passion, to not see this as a transaction in terms of career advancement, but when you're no longer needed you'll be unceremoniously fired. Sure thing, Noam - where do I sign up. Even the idea that an employee can perhaps find a better fit somewhere else in the organization (and Google is a big place) is rejected outright as some plot by opportunistic managers:
I learned the hard way that if another manager is recommending a great employee to hire, that they are probably trying to get rid of the employee since they cannot fire them.
Or maybe you should be a big boy and filter your candidates more adequately, Noam, and not assume everyone is out to get you.
No longer able to threaten his employees with unemployment (i.e. "neutered managers"), Mr. Bardin came up with some medieval system of incentives he dubbed "an innovative compensation model" (innovative - another buzzword found in the Sleazy CEO Dictionary), planning to press people where they really hurt - the financials, but was promptly thwarted. Nice try, though. Too bad Google doesn't hire dummies, eh?
Rendered completely impotent by sane compensation models that do not allow him to bully employees, working for a corporation with a management ethos that does not view people as slave labor, and with no outlet for his egomaniacal urges for control over people - all the while his product (Waze) flails behind the flagship one (Google Maps) - Mr. Bardin has no recourse but to start complaining about the various amenities and complementary services Google employees enjoy. With particular distaste for Sushi, Mr. Bardin mocks employees behind their backs for being spoiled children, and thinks that anyone who takes a yoga class at 11am is a complete nincompoop. How dare they cause scheduling troubles with their recreational activities, and how dare they not work on the weekends - this is important god damn it!
we have to do whatever it takes to win, even if its on a weekend
The blatant egomania culminates with the proclamation that Mr. Badin has spent the last three years building a "new team and leadership that can carry on the mission without me", in effect rendering himself a hero in face of corporate degeneracy and positioning himself perfectly to take any and all credit for any future success of the team. It's like, we should thank him, or something.
Doubtless, Mr. Bardin will carry on to form new companies that he will in turn sell to corporations, all the while mistreating his employees and selling them pipe dreams and visions of doing Great Work. Investors absolutely love people like him, the man is a walking, talking ROI machine, after all. There are a bunch of them running around, making bank on the backs of talented engineers that put their hearts and souls into projects only to make a fraction of what the executives make, working weekends and forgoing 11am yoga classes for no reason but to satisfy the egomania of whoever's in charge. As engineers, it falls to us to ask the question "Why should I?"
... employees keep creating imaginary problems to complain about, instead of appreciating the hand they have been dealt.
Would you want to work for Noam Bardin? Personally, I'm disappointed to be sharing the planet with him.