The End of Safe Harbor and a Scary Path Forward - <AUTHOR> http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2015/10/6/end-of-safe-harbor/ <comment><USER2> We are dealing with the consequences of not taking this very seriously for the last decade. It's not good enough to just hope that the Internet will remain free in the face of legitimate concerns.

Yes, it's a concern that the Internet won't be global anymore, but it never really was. Up until thing like Firesheep and Snowden, and still to some extent, a lot of Internet traffic was only safe based on not passing any bad actors.

<comment><USER3> > Yes, it's a concern that the Internet won't be global anymore, but it never > really was.

So we're willing to throw all this interconnection away, the one thing that made the internet the place it is? The interconnected nature of the internet is what made me the person I am today. I have more friends from other countries than I have friends from my own and from my friendship circles I know I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER2> Not taking legitimate concerns seriously and securing the Internet we want is what is going to throw away the positive things about the Internet. Something that isn't technically secure nor robust in the face of arguments is bound to change

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The end result may become a Balkanized internet - you can't share anything outside your country's borders or access them from outside. Each country winds up as a China, a government's dream situation. In the end though we all lose.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily Balkanized if we concentrate our efforts in developing better protocols and not larger centralized platforms. Decentralization is key to internet freedom.

<comment><USER3> Not sure what you are proposing. This is not really something we can improve as nature works against us. Unless someone finds a wormhole for data, we will be bound by latency and thus the only solution is user segregation.

<comment><USER6> Or one can use distributed protocols like XMPP.

I can send messages just fine from @jabber.de to someone on a US server.

<comment><USER3> Message delivery is not a problem that needs solving. You don't even need XMPP for that, good old sockets do the trick. The problem is that you need to fetch data over high latency network links and you are not even allowed to cache it due to legal reasons.

<comment><USER6> Eh, what? The EU data privacy laws have a specific paragraph directly and specifically declaring that caching is exempt.

You can even use worldwide cloudflare caching for your site, and store userdata in the EU, and still comply.

<comment><USER3> > Eh, what? The EU data privacy laws have a specific paragraph directly and > specifically declaring that caching is exempt.

That works for actual short lived caching, but not for database replication which is what you would actually need for services like facebook.

//EDIT: also the directive does not actually mention caching directly, it just mentions various exceptions of the rule. Can I have a reference to what you mean exactly?

<comment><USER7> Global latency is not that bad for a website. Sending light from one side of the globe to the other is 133 milliseconds and it's not like your sitting in the same room as Facebooks severs anyway.

<comment><USER8> 133ms latency (in the best case) is insanely bad for a database connection!

Even just adding 100ms latency to Google's page load time had a clear measurably effect on # of searches, and having 100+ms latency for each database request during a pageview would absolutely kill performance of most sites...

<comment><USER9> No it isn't, average page load is much higher. It's a _huge_ struggle to get below 300ms. Adding 100ms on its own is not insanely bad, but the head of line blocking would probably be terrible and that's what would annoy you most.

EDIT: to those downvoting try cold loading google.com, I get > 200ms within San Francisco. 100ms is not "insanely" bad, and maybe a good price to pay for regulated data privacy

<comment><USER8> But it's 100ms each way for every database request while rendering the page! There's not a lot of apps out there that can do with 1 request to their database during an average page load.

<comment><USER7> If you actually had that limitation you could redesign the overwhelming majority of apps to only need 1 DB request/response. EX: Stored procedure or map reduce

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're a US company and some of your users happen to be European, and you just ignore this and store all users' data in the US, what kinds of sanctions can be imposed by the European Court of Justice or national authorities in individual European countries? Do they have some way to block your site at the national / continental level or go after your users? Can they fine you, send you a bill and ask US authorities to seize your company's assets if you fail to comply, even though you're breaking no US laws?

If they can't take any enforcement action against non-compliant companies outside European borders, how does this decision even matter for non-European startups?

<comment><USER11> I'm no expert, but -- am I missing something? Why can't they just (after all other due process is exhausted) just send the police to seize your servers from your data center in their territory?

<comment><USER12> What if you have no servers in their territory?

<comment><USER13> Then you probably are so small that you aren't in nobodies radar, not for an EU court and, hopefully, not for the NSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Call me a hipster, but I really miss back when no-one cared about the Internet.

<comment><USER15> Me too. In many ways, money basically ruined it. It happens everywhere where builders get replaced by businessmen.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate what money did here. But I also hate that most of the Internet is now flooded with ads, SEO, "entrepreneurs" seeking ways to make a quick buck and startups monetizing the most basic aspects of human interaction.

<comment><USER6> It's funny that you say this on a website aimed at people who do exactly that. Make a quick bucks by monetizing the most simple things.

You know, I've been thinking about it for a long time. In a lot of ways, the internet was an anarchist society for some time. Then some people took advantage of it, used anarcho-capitalism to get insane profits and violate any normal laws, and nowadays, it's a bit regulated, but still anarcho-capitalist.

The anti-spam measure re-captcha is effectively everyone giving Google training data for their neural networks.

Maybe it would have been better if everything on the web was GPL. Maybe it wouldn't. Who knows.

But obviously, this should be a sign for entrepreneurs that maybe, just maybe, your users might be more important than profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Snowden's tweet, to the point: [https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/651383168650604544](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/651383168650604544)

<comment><USER16> I don't necessarily agree with him. People who live in countries with strict data protection laws are safer, but those who live in more lax surveillance might actually wind up less safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I must admit, after the NSA stuff, I feel safer without "Safe Harbor".

But I guess a bunch of US companies are pretty scared about the financial implications right now. Kicking out EU citizens or moving their data to the EU.

<comment><USER18> I think Armin makes a good point that European intelligence services have as little, or even less, regards for EU citizens' privacy as the NSA. Getting spied upon by GCHQ, the EU branch of the NSA, or by the mothership itself, makes little difference in practice.

<comment><USER19> Point is intelligence based in Europe is still under legal control, NSA is not.

If there is big issue in future, you can summon European intelligence at court.

<comment><USER3> GCHQ's operation legality has been put under question more than once.

<comment><USER19> That hasn't happened in past does not mean it won't happen in future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good article, but he almost lost me when he started with the passport thing: European privacy laws apply to European _residents_ (regardless of citizenship) and _not_ to European citizens living outside of the European Union.

The latter would be unenforceable anyways. In fact, the United States is the only major country exporting laws on their citizens living abroad (e.g. taxes).

EDIT: And, in fact, detecting the location of an Internet user (while not perfect) unfortunately works very well for "regular" users not well versed in VPNs and proxying - think YouTube country restrictions or also Google Maps' approach to display different maps depending on the user's location.

</comment><comment><USER21> As a eurpean I can't help but feel like this is a step to move the internet away from only "adhereing" to US "law" which would be nice change.

</comment><comment><USER22> My take away: What a massive pain in the ass it is to build/run a business, especially in the EU.

<comment><USER23> The flip side is it's a better place to be a free citizen for the most part. You can ask companies for all the data they have on you and they are legally compelled to comply.

<comment><USER22> Respectfully, do you think that is perhaps a false sense of security? Government surveillance is ubiquitous and American companies are going to track you regardless.

<comment><USER23> In some sense I absolutely agree. There's a difference to be seen in requests for existing data and the realtime feeds we now know exist.

But I guess something could be considered better than nothing. Europeans definitely do have better legal access to correcting incorrect data for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So does that rule out a good chunk of US providers for european companies (stripe/braintree/slack etc)? I could only find mention of Safe Harbor in their privacy policy and not where the data is hosted.

<comment><USER3> Pretty much. From what I have heard so far the general assumption is that you can still set up a contract to achieve what Save Harbor did, you users need to explicitly agree with the provisions.

<comment><USER25> This is our concern, as a small business using a very small but non-zero set of US services, all of which were previously covered by Safe Harbor provisions.

This ruling is something we have always been concerned about from a business point of view, because ever since it became untenable to claim US companies could actually protect any personal data at all the basic legal premise on which Safe Harbor was built has been shaky. We don't know now whether it will still be sufficient to merely disclose our commercial partners in our privacy policy (which we do, by name and with an indication of what we use them for) or whether we need some sort of more active consent.

I haven't had chance to speak to our lawyer yet, but I'm expecting him to tell us something along the lines of: the law now requires us to add yet another prominent notice at the conclusion of a sale. On top of all the consumer protection rubbish from the recent EU changes there -- which again were well- intentioned but actually impose silly things that help neither us nor our customers -- the number of such notices we need by law is making our sales pages almost comical now. I can't believe all these notices really help to protect anyone from much of anything in practice, and anyone reading this on HN probably knows what effect compliance has on conversions.

The second to worst possible outcome is probably that we are now required to seek active consent from our _existing_ customers before continuing to use things like US-based payment services. The worst is that it actually becomes illegal to use those services at all, though I don't think that is going to happen.

It's sad, because from a personal point of view this mess is long overdue for being cleaned up. But the authorities are so clumsy about handling these issues that a lot of the time they just hurt small businesses and legitimate international trade.

<comment><USER21> Is the "required to seek active consent" actualy a bad outcome? From a customer point of view it seems better than "I assumend you wanted me to do x" regardless of what x is

<comment><USER25> Think about this from a non-IT point of view. If you went to a store and paid for your groceries with a card, would you expect to go to the checkout, hand over the card, and then have the cashier stop you for thirty seconds while reading a form disclaimer that by paying by card you were consenting to information about the location and amount of your purchase together with your own identity and the details of your card being sent to the operators of the card scheme, who may be based outside Europe, for the purposes of completing the transaction, and only then (assuming you haven't given up in frustration) ask you to put in your PIN to confirm the purchase?

<comment><USER21> I kind of get your point however I believe that the inconvenience of having to make decisions based on actual information is preferable to implicitly trusting any country or company that the store chooses to use, especially in the IT case where most of the time (if you live in EU) you also have to agree that your information should be handled and protected by a foreign power (which have showned itself to be hostile on several occasions, it's bascily the same as US citizens trusting there personal data to russia) with no legal obligations towards you.

The big issue is the fact that we have become accustomed to being relived of both the choice and the information about which choices thats been made for us. Which of course makes us a bit lazy since it's hard to make informed choices which probably is going to make a system like the one you described a hassle to implement but id say it's worth it to bring back at least a small resemblance of choice and control of your own information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As bad as it can be, it is still damage minimization compared to allowing the NSA dragnet.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great! It gives users lots more privacy rights, rights that come with teeth. See page 105 of [1]. It's going to force many US companies to register with a European data privacy controller.

Here are the basic rights of a "data subject":

Everyone shall have the right under national law to request from any controller information as to whether the controller is processing his or her data.

• Data subjects shall have the right under national law to:

• access their own data from any controller who processes such data;

• have their data rectified (or blocked, as appropriate) by the controller processing their data, if the data are inaccurate;

• have their data deleted or blocked, as appropriate, by the controller if the controller is processing their data illegally.

• Additionally, data subjects shall have the right to object to controllers about:

• automated decisions (made using personal data processed solely by automatic means);

• the processing of their data if it leads to disproportionate results;

• the use of their data for direct marketing purposes.

What this means is that data collected by a company about an individual belongs to the individual, not the company. The individual can look at it, correct it, and take it back.

This isn't a problem if you're not a scumbag. If you're selling your customer list for marketing purposes, or using data you collect about users for marketing purposes, you have a problem.

The EU requires explicit consent for such things. A contract of adhesion EULA is _not_ enough. Exceptions to data privacy must be opt-in, not opt-out.

Passing data about persons on to another party can cause serious liability. You have to know where the data went, exactly who has it, and be able to delete it even if it's now in the hands of another party.

This is EU-wide, and registration with one national data controller (a Government agency which checks for privacy violations) in the EU is usually sufficient. Here's a set of guidelines from the European trade association for online marketing.[2]

The biggest practical implication here is that any data you collect and share about individuals must remain within your reach, because you're responsible for correcting it, blocking it, or deleting it. Mailing lists must now contain info as to where the info was originally collected.

It's not really that bad. Europe has operated under these rules for decades. Deal with it.

[1] [http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Handbook_data_protection_E...](http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Handbook_data_protection_ENG.pdf) [2] [http://www.fedma.org/fileadmin/documents/SelfReg_Codex/FEDMA...](http://www.fedma.org/fileadmin/documents/SelfReg_Codex/FEDMACodeEN.pdf)

<comment><USER25> _It 's not really that bad. Europe has operated under these rules for decades. _

It's really not that simple either. Many businesses, particularly very small ones, depend on external services to be viable in the first place. It's right that those businesses should pay attention to data protection and privacy issues -- I'm a strong believer in such things personally -- but there also has to be some reasonable framework for what can and can't be done by default, without requiring explicit consent for every last detail.

The trouble with opt-ins for everything is that it instantly scales beyond the point of being practical. Just as hardly anyone actually reads the 9,753 page terms and conditions document before checking the box or pays any attention to the "we use cookies" notices, so hardly anyone will pay attention to formulaic "we might export your data outside the EU and foreign governments might spy on you" warnings. Creating a system that no basically reasonable and ethical business can actually comply with in practice will just result in no-one taking the rules seriously and consequently no-one actually enforcing them, again much like the cookie notices and so on.

Ironically, a good solution in this case is easy to see: the US government could make it absolutely clear that interception of or interference with personal data held by US companies can only be done following proper, legal processes, and then the EU governments would need to update the rules about Safe Harbor provisions to allow a reasonable exception for government access to personal data following due process. Throw in mandatory encryption at a level where the shortest path to getting data needed for legitimate government purposes is to just get the appropriate warrant or equivalent and formally request that the business in question hand over the relevant data, and probably most people are happy.

No-one serious about the privacy debate seems to be suggesting that businesses should never have to turn over personal data they have access to in order to comply with something like a proper court order to provide evidence for a case being heard by that court. It's the dubious access to the data _outside_ of proper legal processes and oversight that causes the conflict here, and at least parts of the EU government system take that sort of thing a lot more seriously than most of the US government right now.

<comment><USER27> _" The trouble with opt-ins for everything is that it instantly scales beyond the point of being practical."_

That's a feature, not a bug. It means you don't get to use personal information for marketing purposes unless the customer really wants to to and says so. It's the customer's information, not the retailers.

US businesses might think of it as the customer having a property right, like copyright, in their own personal info.

<comment><USER25> _That 's a feature, not a bug._

I consider not being able to run an otherwise reasonable business at all a bug.

 _It means you don 't get to use personal information for marketing purposes unless the customer really wants to to and says so._

It also means, for example, that you can't charge them using a US-based payment service, provide whatever product or service they are requesting if it involves interacting with a US supplier and providing their personal details for delivery or authorising access, or use US-based administrative services to help run your business more efficiently, without your customers' explicit consent, _even if this is only to provide exactly what they 've just asked you to provide_.

<comment><USER28> > not being able to run an otherwise reasonable business at all a bug.

This is question begging. If your business model depends on openly breaking the law, it's not a reasonable business model.

If the end of slavery causes your cotton business to become unprofitable, it's not an attack on the cotton industry, it's still an attack on slavery.

<comment><USER25> _If your business model depends on openly breaking the law, it 's not a reasonable business model._

Alternative possibility: The law is broken.

What if your business model is otherwise perfectly reasonable and acceptable to all of your customers, and it doesn't rely on breaking the law at all, until the very governments who are entrusted with producing reasonable, consistent laws to support their populations are the ones who screw it up? Should we just close down all European companies doing business with US online services right now, today?

As far as I can see, that is technically what this ruling will lead to. Somehow, I don't think most people in either Europe or the US would consider the resulting collapse of both regions' economies to be desirable, and I doubt that was the desired outcome when the European lawmakers established the basic data protection principles at the heart of this. Those same lawmakers, after all, are the ones who saw fit to provide a Safe Harbor mechanism to facilitate reasonable international trade in the first place.

 _If the end of slavery causes your cotton business to become unprofitable, it 's not an attack on the cotton industry, it's still an attack on slavery._

And what about providing exactly the service your customers were asking for, but using say a US-based payment service that is openly disclosed in your privacy policy? Maybe that is now illegal on a technicality, because you didn't get _active_ consent for using that US service to charge their card. What if your Europe-based bank didn't have explicit permission from your customer to communicate with a US-based card scheme to authorise your customer's card, for that matter?

Will it really help to confront customers with yet more mandatory legalese at the online checkout that just describes what everyone expects to be happening anyway? Who is really going to benefit from that? I'm all for reasonable protection of personal data and proper safeguards for privacy, but when you go so far that you stop people transferring personal data in ways that are necessary to provide the exact product or service that a customer is deliberately requesting and would be reasonably expected by that customer, you've lost the plot and your system needs fixing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So I can't use AWS to store stuff if I'm in EU? Whst happens if I just ignore this?

<comment><USER30> Can't you just chose the Irish or Frankfurt region foot your deployments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I hear your words and all I can conclude is: What a _great_ ruling. Seriously.

Decentralization is a major thing we need right now. Also: the EU gov. agencies are very unlike the US ones in that we have a political power over them.

</comment><comment><USER32> What are the business implications for this? Does this only matter for businesses registered in Europe operating off US servers? Or does it prevent any US business from storing European customers' data?

</comment><comment><USER33> So what happens if an EU country sees a BGP routing error that sends traffic to the US?</comment>


210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/zappos-employees-take-buyouts-new-self-management-structure-2015-5 <comment><USER2> I work at a company that was in bad shape during the financial crisis. A temporary CEO was put in charge. Ultimately, a number of companies were merged to create one company that could survive. In the end, one of the CEO's of the merged companies became the CEO of the final company. His first act as CEO was to offer everyone in the company a tenure-based package to leave the company. I don't know the full numbers, but nearly everyone in the IT department took the deal. And I am aware of many people in other departments who took the deal as well. Rumors were that between 30 and 40 percent of staff took the deal. Once this happened, the company got rid of that CEO and had to then offer alternative packages to people to stay. Basically the same amount you would have received if you left, but paid out to you over a few years to guarantee you'd stay.

It was unclear what his intentions were. To determine loyalty to the company, possibly. But what actually happened was that people who were good at their job, and could find work elsewhere, left. So they would have had all of the top talent leave the company and the remaining employees would be the people who did just enough to get by. The company is still trying to make amends with the employees.

<comment><USER3> I think the idea with Zappos is that they're supposed to be such a great place to work that you wouldn't want to leave.

And in Zappos' case, I get why they offered severance deals. They were embarking on a radical experiment in organizational structure, and not everyone is going to be on board with it. Rather than having a bunch of people at the water cooler talking shit about the changes, you offer them money to leave so that people who aren't on board with the changes get out of the way.

I would guess that many of the people at Zappos who took the deal were managers themselves. If you're a middle manager, you have skills around managing people but maybe not so much with doing the actual work. If your skill set doesn't align with the new job you're being asked to do (which is effectively a demotion), and the company offers you a buyout to leave, what would you do?

<comment><USER4> I'm surprised the number of people taking the deal isn't higher. If I need religious zeal, I'll go join a religion.

<comment><USER5> well another way to look at it is that there is already a fundamentalist organizational religion that most people adhere to, they're just unaware of being part of one already

<comment><USER6> Please identify this "fundamentalist organizational religion" a bit clearer. Did you mean capitalism, b-school, emergent hierarchical organizations.. tribes?

<comment><USER5> its pretty simple, there is obviously a very ingrained faith in the standard organizational structure w/ management, staff. its so obvious that is how things should be (its "fundamental"), that its difficult to consider that belief is possibly also a matter of faith, even if that standard structure was itself emergent in some respects.

its possible the commenter i was responding to was referring more to the "rah rah" aspect of zappos as a whole, rather than religious zeal re: this new organizational concept. those are different things in my mind, also both are exhibited by the directive "to all employees: read this book and indicate you have done so".

anyway it isnt a comment on whether or not the zappos idea itself is useful and/or just another fad coated with new terminology (i have no idea). just that when you can identify someone else as engaging in religious zealotry, its fun to consider what that zealotry is being compared to, which probably turns out to be something like "everybody knows its supposed to be this way", aka. some sorta implicit religion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure how to gauge this. I think Holacracy may be one of the dumber pseudo-science management theories that's ever come out. If it works for Zappos I'll eat my hat I guess, but I have a feeling that all we'll hear about it is that "it's working great!" as the ship goes down in flames.

Holacracy and other ultra-flat org structures always share two features:

\- It consolidates power in the people at the top (the people who do not participate in the flatness of the new structure)

\- as social animal, humans will _always_ naturally self-organize into de- facto hierarchies that may or may not be aligned with the needs of the organization

Prediction, the 14% that took the buyout are probably the ones that couldn't fit into the new clique driven de-facto structure and were kissing years of promotable work goodbye. These folks will likely be successful wherever they go. Meaning that the people left behind have either cemented a position in the new structure through force of personality (not competency) or are not otherwise employable elsewhere and will suffer as the assholes fight it out on the bridge.

Here's an employee review

[http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-The- Zappos-...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-The-Zappos- Family-RVW6462350.htm)

<comment><USER8> Seems to work for Valve, with a few obvious problems: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Organizationa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Organizational_structure)

<comment><USER7> Here's Valve's reviews

[http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Valve-Corporation- Reviews-E...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Valve-Corporation- Reviews-E24849.htm)

Here's some choice quotes:

"While it's true that Valve has no official job titles or promotions, compensation varies greatly among employees and many teams have an obvious pecking order. There is no formal management structure, but it's clear that some people have substantially more control over project direction and the work of others."

"Because teams are intended to be self-forming, it's rare that enough people will want to assume risk to all collectively embark on a new project. It's too safe and too profitable to just contribute to something that's already successful. Even though failure is supposed to be tolerated and even encouraged so that employees will try new ideas and experiments, there is little evidence of this. After a few rounds of bonuses, folks learn quickly what is rewarded, and what is not."

"The idealistic paradise is ultimately undone by a flawed review system. The lack of managers means that a peer review system is necessary, and Valve is very proud of theirs. But their review model is best described as a "popularity contest masquerading as data""

"Those who get stock options do extremely well, and the others do not. It's an unacknowledged two-class system."

"The rational response to this uncertainty is to find a patron – somebody who can guarantee you a good review if you do their bidding. These patrons (the knights) guarantee themselves good reviews by doing the bidding of a higher- level patron (a baron), and the barons pledge fealty to the board members. This unofficial structure necessarily evolved and you opt out of it at your peril. The irony of a hierarchical structure spontaneously forming in Gabe Newell's company after he has spoken so strongly about the problems of "command-and-control type hierarchical systems" is delicious. As was noted in "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", "structurelessness becomes a way of masking power", and this masked power is more insidious than formal power."

"So, I quit in order to get better compensation, an acknowledged hierarchy, and appreciation for my work."

"This organization has a purposely opaque, hierarchical, secretive, and very rigid management structure."

"Some projects can go on literally for 5+ years wandering around pointlessly without shipping, with little to no direction, and no accountability. This company is terrible at writing and shipping large scale software"

"The random mass firings of 2013 tanked moral, and the stream of talent leaving the company during 2014 didn't help."

"The yearly review process lacks feedback, transparency, and coverage. This company has no formal HR, so good luck if you need to give genuine feedback about troublesome coworkers."

"The lack of solid structure in management reduces the company to schoolyard politics where bullies and loudmouths reign." (Title: "It's like being in high school again")

"The culture at Valve is a bit like a cult. There's a party line and if you veer from that, it is discouraged with one-liners rather than discussion."

"The incentives are setup so the people who place themselves around upper management the most and are the loudest about what they're doing (that jives with what upper management likes) will be compensated several times more than those who don't."

<comment><USER9> It's interesting to note that these come from various ex but also current employees. Talks a lot about the culture over there.

> "The random mass firings of 2013 tanked moral, and the stream of talent > leaving the company during 2014 didn't help."

I think this one is talking about the departure of Michael Abrash (and several others) to Occulus.

<comment><USER7> And pretty much all of the kinds of obvious things that you'd expect to see in a "self-organizing" environment are called out.

\- de-facto hierarchy takes its place (at valve it seems that there are several overlapping hierarchies, all of which are toxic)

\- highly centralized power at the top results in the de-facto highest people jockying for favor and acting as gatekeepers

\- innovation stops

\- complex projects take forever

\- risk taking gets turned into position jostling

\- unclear structure leads to unclear reviews

\- nobody to resolve disputes

\- secrets and rumors dominate information flows

\- these problems remain unacknowledged

Look at reviews for other large flat organizations and you'll see the same issues echoed over and over again. Anybody who's worked for a reasonably sized "flat" org will recognize all of these problems as persistent and near universal.

Zappos will be no different. It's just a terrible way to organize labor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thought experiment: ignore the holacracy angle and offer everyone in _any_ company 3-months severance if they quit by a certain date. What percentage would quit?

I wouldn't be surprised if the average was 10-20% and a vast majority of these people are taking advantage of what they see as a good deal irregardless of their feelings on holacracy as a management style.

<comment><USER11> _What percentage would quit?_ The ones that could land another job by the quit date. They would essentially get a 3-month "bonus" for doing nothing. I would say this is only possible if the these people were looking to jump ship anyway.

<comment><USER12> What percentage of any competent IT team _can 't_ have a competitive offer in writing by the end of the day?

Even if your anticipated time between jobs is 1-2 months, you can still confidently quit by the deadline and end up with six weeks paid vacation and a six weeks bonus.

<comment><USER13> In the US I would guess around 95%.

Extend things to 1-2 months and that probably drops to 20% or so which is very good odds.

However, the difference between a 'competitive' offer and a 'good' one at a company you want to work for is huge. If your spending between 1/3 and 2/3 of your waking hours at work you need to make them count.

<comment><USER14> Furthermore, Zappos is in Las Vegas. It wouldn't be my idea of a place to live but some people like it and it's certainly hugely cheaper than most of California. So someone leaving Zappos in IT/software development probably has the option of going to work for one of the casino groups or moving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sounds a lot like the flat structure they have at Valve, except at Valve they have had that since Day 1 and everyone is used to it. I can't imagine the headaches and the absolute confusion that would result from trying to take a traditional management tree and flatten it. It seems like by its very nature the kinds of people you hired when you had tiered management might not be able to easily transition to a flat management, nor would they want to. Having worked in both environments, I can see that there's advantages and disadvantages to each, but I personally prefer having a manager to bounce things off of and to (for lack of a better term) shield me from any unpleasant office politics.

I suppose I've just had good managers when I've had them, which is of course going to make things work out well for me.

<comment><USER16> There are articles on how Valve has "hidden management" cliques though [1]. I'm not sure if this was ever addressed by Valve itself.

[1] [http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring- hi...](http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hierarchy- has-hidden-management-clique-like-high-school/0115316)

<comment><USER17> It's very similar in holocracy: the people who are natural leaders will fill the management needs of the organization; it's just more chaotic, less predictable, and not as good. The lack of structure brings out the worst in human behavior.

In my experience, it is a horrible system in which to exist. It's highly ignorant of psychology and behavior theory almost intentionally, and it creates far more drama and politics than any organizational system I've ever seen. It's not a good thing.

<comment><USER18> Are you speaking from experience? It seems that if you completely do away with job titles, the politics would go away right?

<comment><USER19> Politics isn't tied to job titles. There still are people with different amounts of influence that try to influence others for their own goals. FWIW, Jeri Ellsworth (who was hired to do hardware stuff, didn't do well there and was fired in the end) described office politics at Valve "like back in high school". Not saying that it can't work, but it also is not without its flaws.

<comment><USER20> I wasn't aware of who Jeri Ellsworth was, but a cursory look says that she was fired by Valve.

Were her comments before or after she was fired? I'm not sure that if it was after, we can necessarily count on it being objective. I've heard plenty of people make comments that aren't exactly the most accurate after they've been fired.

<comment><USER21> [http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring- hi...](http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hierarchy- has-hidden-management-clique-like-high-school/0115316) , which is one of the parent posts, gives some of the timing details.

Even if it were before, would you "necessarily count on it being objective"? It seems like an impossibly high standard, given how many people make comments that aren't exactly accurate before they've been fired.

<comment><USER20> > given how many people make comments that aren't exactly accurate before > they've been fired

That's certainly fair. I'm not making a comment one way or the other - I don't know her, I don't know the story, and I have no knowledge that leads me to believe one way or the other.

I just naturally am a bit more skeptical of comments made about companies from employees who were fired. People at a company can certainly make untrue comments, and people who were fired can certainly make true ones.

It's just that, in my experience, there's a higher chance of negative bias in someone who was let go from a company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My experience working for one of "the big 3" automakers is that the very best employees take the buyout offer, confident that they can find a better job for better pay elsewhere. Years after the employee buyout programs began in the auto industry, they were requesting buyout packages of their own to save the company as a whole.

I believe this is the beginning of the "death spiral" described by PG in his "What happened to YAHOO" essay.

<comment><USER23> Not that bad. Best employees not always are the best "flat structure" employees.

And a lot of the great ones may want to hang on just for the fun of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Every time this comes up, I have one simple question that I have yet to have answered to any degree of satisfaction.

(Someone who endorses this structure) explain to me in one sentence with fewer than 20 words how a 'lead link' is not the same role as a 'manager'.

<comment><USER25> A lead link can appoint people to roles, but the people have autonomy in that role. A manager has the authority to both appoint roles and micromanage execution.

Also, there is a parallel to lead link called rep link who is appointed by the lead link's circle to check against bad decisions/behavior by the lead link.

<comment><USER26> Another way to look at 'micromanage execution' is as 'support and mentoring in the role' based on honest feedback on perceived performance. How do people get support for challenges?

<comment><USER25> Providing support and feedback is a role responsibility. There can be as many responsibilities and roles to fulfill them as the team needs. If a circle member has a need for support and they are not getting it, it gets brought up at a tension meeting and quickly resolved (new responsibility assigned, role assigned, person's role changed, whatever's needed.)

Edit: I forgot to add that anyone who perceives a person is not receiving support for their responsibility can raise a tension. It's not just the manager's and the employee's job.

<comment><USER26> _" If a circle member has a need for support and they are not getting it..."_

How does circle member recognise that they need support? What indicators/who provides feedback?

My (limited) experience as a manager was mainly about nurture/support/challenge of colleagues. We could not allow them to fail/fail to 'ask' for support because of implications for clients (we did not sell people shoes).

<comment><USER25> The tension meeting makes it hard to avoid asking for support because it's so easy for people to bring up small problems as they're noticed and get quick resolution. Also, responsibilities are worded as objectively and measurably as possible (like good KPIs) to increase transparency into how people are doing in their roles. If a circle in an org like yours needs to avoid showing weaknesses to clients and to suss out problems before they're noticeable, they would be able to define those as responsibilities and assign them to the right people.

That said, I think one of the bets holocracy makes is that a group of people with a better understanding of their responsibilities and who receive quicker, clearer feedback will naturally be more proactive about problems. A circle is pretty unlikely to assign themselves the kinds of restrictive processing and reporting that are traditionally used to control interaction with clients in organizations that don't have perfectly reliable people. But in the short term, the control method would probably have more consistent results and that is not acceptable to every organization.

<comment><USER26> _" I think one of the bets holocracy makes is that a group of people with a better understanding of their responsibilities and who receive quicker, clearer feedback will naturally be more proactive about problems."_

Who provides the feedback? Based on what credentials? Explain why that person not a manager.

<comment><USER25> Tensions, which are problems or issues or defects, are provided by anyone who notices.

In addition to that, some roles may have responsibilities to provide particular support and feedback. For example, in a team of developers, a developer who has a code reviewer role may have the responsibility of providing feedback on others' code.

Other kinds of feedback-providing responsibilities could be proofreading, listening to sales calls, QA on manufactured items, feedback on negotiations, etc. Anyone could be assigned these roles/responsibilities.

Traditional managers usually see these responsibilities as their job and other employees don't easily get involved in the manager-employee feedback relationship.

<comment><USER26> _" Tensions, which are problems or issues or defects, are provided by anyone who notices."_

Interesting but 'deficit model' approach. No mentoring available for performance that does not cause what you define to be a 'tension' but that could be improved with little effort. I'm thinking of double-loop learning (Argyris) as opposed to single-loop learning which I interpret as covering proof reading/QA/Sales call monitoring.

<comment><USER25> Yes, I haven't seen anything requiring scrutinizing assumptions as a core role/responsibility, so it would have to be something the organization wants to do. I do think the model empowers employees to question assumptions very nicely once it is their responsibility, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just finished Tony's book "Delivering Happiness". I admire how positive and optimistic he is. And I even agree with forcing self improvement on the employees.

But he also stresses running the company like a family aka cult. One of the advantages of moving to Vegas from SF was the employees were forced to spend more time together. He even said Zappos is his tribe. I wonder how these experiments would fare at a larger company.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I read this article and for whatever reason had a sense of this being very cult-like. The terminology being used is similar to how cults load the language to make everyone feel like they are part the in-crowd. And, his offer to pay severance to anyone who wanted to quit just felt like how a cult leader will say "the door is always open if you want to leave."

Of course, he isn't actually building a cult, but I find the similarities of indoctrination very interesting.

<comment><USER29> They are provenly-effective techniques to make a disparate group of people work towards a common goal...

Whether the techniques and the end-goal are good or bad is left as an exercise to history :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Strange it isn't former CEO as you wouldn't have a CEO in a flat company. Seems hypocritical to me, but maybe it isn't and I don't get the distinction.

<comment><USER31> Just because you don't need management doesn't mean you don't need leadership.

<comment><USER32> Good managers lead.

<comment><USER33> Not every leader is a good manager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Offering money for employees to leave is an interesting strategy. I worry about unintended consequences, though. One consequence is that the very best people (who have easy times finding jobs or striking out on their own) will be much more likely to leave than less competent people who may feel they would have a harder time on the open job market.

<comment><USER35> This sentiment is echoed a lot in relation to Zappos' policies, and I think it holds water. But it crossed my mind that the existence Dunning-Kruger effect might actually result in the inverse.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Hsieh sent a nearly 5,000-word company-wide memo...

> To get their severance, employees had to be in good standing with the > company. They were also asked to indicate by email that they had read the > management book "Reinventing Organizations" and disagreed with its manager- > free vision or else state that they were not reading it.

Crazy.

I wonder how many more employees would have left if Zappos was based in a region where workers have greater mobility.

<comment><USER37> Wow, I wish my company would do something like this - middle management is clearly slowing us down and adding very little value right now.

I can't wait to read that book.

<comment><USER36> You're making a flawed assumption many people make: because many managers are poor managers, management is bad.

Be careful what you wish for. A company without management is like a boat without a captain. You might appear to be fine for some time, but eventually you'll be hopelessly adrift at sea.

<comment><USER38> The _Costa Concordia_ had a captain....

A company without management may drift around aimlessly in Brownian motion, but at least it does not order "ahead flank" onto the rocks.

      There once was a manager,
      Who had a little curl,
      Right in the middle of her forehead.

      And when she was good,
      She was very, very good,
      But when she was bad, there were layoffs.

<comment><USER39> ha! perfect. It's so interesting that I assume over all that was a negative comment from you, but so positive to me. My favorite leaders place bets like that! I'd rather believe in a leader and be a part of a team that all believe in the same idea so much that they accept that themselves or their comrades(Some with families!) jobs are on the line. But this means you have to be in a pretty transparent company.

If everyone doesn't work together, with a hard time constraint, to achieve the shared vision they believe in it seems really hard to do amazing things at any sort of market dominating speed.

I accept those bets happily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Previous discussion about their move to Holacracy [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431090)

[1] [http://holacracy.org/how-it-works](http://holacracy.org/how-it-works)

Has anybody operated under Holacracy and speak to it?

<comment><USER41> We tried it, disliked it as a whole, and dropped it while retaining those ideas we found useful.

But then, we're a small company, with an already (nearly) flat structure, and already built around largely self-determining teams. So what Holacracy offered above what we already had was rigid structure, and cumbersome terminology.

It also has a weird religious vibe in that the Holacracy franchise holders who we turned to for input on our implementation of it refused to work with us unless we adhered to the defined process 100%. No modifying it to suit our company.

The formal governance meeting process caused a severe backlash when rigidly adhered to because it only allowed one "reaction round"[1], so if someone else's reaction caused a new viewpoint to arise in your mind, but you had already spoken, too bad. Our facilitator who had attended the training rigidly enforced this process, and several people, myself included, felt silenced.

So yeah, as we weren't a traditionally pyramid structured company to begin with, we had very little to gain from it - we tried it because we had started with 5 employees and no governance beyond "let's ask the boss", and we had grown to a point where we needed to get _some_ governance in place, because while intra-team decisions were fine and dandy, how we made decisions affecting everyone was really unclear.

So in the end, we dropped it. We have kept some of the ideas we found useful, for example the separation between governance and tactical meetings, and the idea of the 'lead link' or their equivalent being opposed by the 'rep link' equivalent, in our case, it's our proxy product owners (PPO) and their eternal opponents are our scrum masters. It's a healthy tension between what the business wants and what the team wants.

The other valuable thing we've kept was the objection and objection testing process - if someone has an idea, objecting just because you don't like it is not considered valid. You need to be able to present a coherent argument as to how the proposal, if adopted, would harm the company. It means that the "Bah humbug" curmudgeons can't stall innovation. Basically it boils down to "Would it hurt us to try this?" as a test for a new idea.

So now our governance consists of a small group of 'executives' for want of a better word, and what we call "The General Circle". The "executives" is our boss and two 2ICs (to increase our bus factor to keep our business team happy) one with an HR and finance focus, the other with a businss analysis / product development focus. This group's primary focus is the relationship with our business team, but it also handles the aspects of running a company that require handling an employee's confidential information, like pay reviews and HR issues.

But every other cross-company decision is made by the General Circle, a group consisting of the PPO and scrum master from each team, plus our finance and HR specialists. These discussions are totally open to anyone else who wants to attend, and our financial performance is tabled as a matter of course, with more detailed numbers and budgets available for the curious. PPOs are theoretically appointed by the General Circle (our existing PPOs were in their roles before this governance guff, so no new ones have needed to be appointed yet), while Scrum Masters are selected by the team however they like. I think all our teams rotate it every six months or so.

Oh, and we also like the election process from Holacracy - write down a person's name on a piece of paper, with your name on it, and then in the discussion, you say why. After everyone has explained their reasoning, people can then change their votes if they heard a good point that persuaded them.

[1]: [http://wiki.holacracy.org/index.php?title=Governance_Meeting...](http://wiki.holacracy.org/index.php?title=Governance_Meetings#Reactions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If it is something like on GE airplane engine plant in Durham I can understand this. But they do have managers, only less than usual.

If Zappos won't have managers at all then: Who will decide how much employees will be payed, and based on what data? Who will decide exactly what customers need and exactly what will be actually done and what won't be done or deferred? Who will decide who will be hired who will be fired? Who will decide in situations when one project requires something or someone from another? The list goes on...

If someone (or multiple people) does this then he is not very different from managers in my company and I bet they never even heard about Holacracy or Valve, Zappos and GE experiments in management.

</comment><comment><USER43> Are warehouse workers considered to be 'Zappos employees'? Will they also be managing themselves?

<comment><USER44> Those are the kind of things I wonder about when I hear about zappos or valve or other companies that claim to be without managers. Is the person who cleans the restrooms getting to be part of this (although in the modern world the companies probably pay another company to do their janitorial work)

<comment><USER45> That's exactly how it supposedly works at Ricardo Semler's companies. Everyone participates in self-organization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Original source: [http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/may/05/200-accept- buyouts-z...](http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/may/05/200-accept-buyouts- zappos-after-companys-managemen/)

The _Sun_ also has an article about Hsieh's Downtown Project: [http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/may/05/hsieh-outs- downtown-...](http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/may/05/hsieh-outs-downtown- projects-successes-talks-about/)

</comment><comment><USER47> I thought that 'holacracy' was a made up word from Silicon Valley (the TV show) where they have a fictional company called Hooli, but apparently it's a real thing.

</comment><comment><USER48> Lot of people seems to be thinking that these 14% are leaving because they miss having a manager. Employees who take buyout in this situation are usually the ones in people manager roles. Many of them might also believe that they probably would not do as great in "individual contributor" roles as they did in management role. Some of these may be good managers and some may be just great politics player. However rarely would be the individual contributor who would want to take ultimate step of leaving because of the fear of not having a manager. If Zappos had 1:5 managers to people ratio then 14% makes sense using this theory.

Beside, in any large enough company, I think offer of fat severance is likely to be taken up by 5% or more of its employees at any point in time who were thinking about leaving anyway.

Management-less company needs to hire employees with specific cultural and social mindset. So this needs to happen at the birth time. Trying to do this at later date can feel like circumcision at 18.

</comment><comment><USER16> Buffer's recently switched to self-management as well. Their early reflections[1] on switching is a good read.

[1] [https://open.bufferapp.com/early-reflections-buffers- switch-...](https://open.bufferapp.com/early-reflections-buffers-switch- working-without-managers/)

</comment><comment><USER49> So 14% read Lord of the Flies instead and decided to get the hell of the island.

</comment><comment><USER50> So just the managers and supervisors left then?

<comment><USER51> I can't even tell if this is being spun as a positive or a negative. That is a radical change and if anything it seems like a low number of people to take the severance.

Whether the new policy will work out in the long term remains to be seen. I believe I read that Google tried a flat hierarchy for a few months and found that it did not work quite how they wanted.

Also, what will Tony Hsieh be doing in the new managerless structure?

<comment><USER52> Google did indeed try it[0].

"In 2002 they experimented with a completely flat organization, eliminating engineering managers in an effort to break down barriers to rapid idea development and to replicate the collegial environment they'd enjoyed in graduate school. That experiment lasted only a few months: They relented when too many people went directly to Page with questions about expense reports, interpersonal conflicts, and other nitty-gritty issues."

[0] [https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on- man...](https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on-management)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Seems a bit low - I'm thinking more people would have taken the buyout but aren't very confident in the job market right now.

</comment><comment><USER54> Does anyone know how this relates to Ricardo Semler's efforts with Semco?

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler))

<comment><USER55> From what I've read, Semco employees help set their own compensation and hours, something that will not be happening at Zappos (at least not in such a direct fashion). Semco is a workplace democracy, not a holacracy. It isn't a worker cooperative (like certain MONDRAGON group members), so there isn't shared ownership, so it has that in common with Zappos.

In a nutshell, the holacracy system will have "circles" of individuals which act as semi-autonomous groups to achieve results. Each circle might function democratically. Semco is a more traditional company with a workplace democracy overlay on top. This piece goes into more detail: [http://jonathangifford.com/maverick-ricardo-semler-10-key- de...](http://jonathangifford.com/maverick-ricardo-semler-10-key-democratic- changes-semco/)

EDIT: And oh yeah, both Zappos and Semco are privately held. The linked article discusses this in the comments, but in recent years we've had more illustrative examples of how profit incentive sucks character and morals from a company, e.g. Cook shouting down an investor questioning the need for green initiatives, or Schultz telling investors they could sell if they don't like his support for same-sex relationships. These two held on, but countless others surely sacrificed their values at the altar of shareholder value. In short, I'm not holding my breath that we'll see workplace democracy or holacracy at a public company anytime soon.

<comment><USER56> Wikipedia has Zappos down as being acquired by Amazon in 2009

<comment><USER27> Yes, Amazon owns Zappos. In Tony's book, he explains that legally Zappos still gets to what Zappos wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I applaud him for experimenting and trying unconventional ways of doing business.

</comment><comment><USER58> I look forward to seeing what happens. It's perfectly natural for people to feel apprehension about a major change like this, and offering 3 months salary as an incentive is quite generous.

My primary concern would be about the scale of the company: self-organizing over a thousand people is going to have some rough patches.

</comment><comment><USER59> Absolutely the nicest way to say "join my cult or get out" that I've ever heard of.

</comment><comment><USER60> Given 3-5 year tenure of a typical employee at a typical tech company, this is less than expected attrition at a company.

It is not inconceivable that anyone who wanted to leave the company between now and the end of the year took this.

</comment><comment><USER61> Say what you want about the particular policy, but I'm glad Tony has the opportunity and authority to implement it. "Management by committee" is the best way of reverting to a non-spectacular mean. It's much better to have companies that have variance, i.e. larger organizations actually define a direction and do it, thereby taking risk.

Plus as an employee I'd be more inspired working with an actual leader, rather than a faceless bureaucracy. We got big co's for that.

</comment><comment><USER62> Exactly the same things happen in very traditional companies but they give it an other name. People are becoming "redundant" because of organizational changes. It can be operational changes like outsourcing a department or strategically like changing the span of control.

It is weird that Zappos create a hype by suggesting that they are "radically inventing" something. That's really bullshit.

I don't understand people that are really enthusiastic about Zappos.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm curious as to why? It sounds like an exciting experiment!

Incidentally, when the startup I work for reached a size where most companies would have started hiring managers, we reached a consensus as a company to give the holocracy thing a try. It's been working very well for us, but we're still < 100 people, so we'll see if it sticks as we grow. Me, I might bail if we turn into a big boring manager having company.

</comment><comment><USER64> "I don't clean toilets anymore, I'm in charge of strategic marketing now. I'll be taking this office"

On the one hand, I can see this being the ultimate meritocracy. Perhaps the person cleaning toilets is actually a marketing genius? On the other hand, it could be like an episode of Hell's Kitchen where nobody is in charge and the whole operation goes to shit.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't have the tiniest hair of a dog in this race. But, I like the idea of a company trying radical things. It's very easy to declare radical change. A 14% voluntary acceptance of a severance package (I would be more impressed if it was 6 months) is a sign of actually going for radical, I think.

A company of that size is an interesting proving ground and if this succeeds, good.

</comment><comment><USER66> Has anyone read the book they reference, and do you want to give us a synopsis? I'm hoping it answers some of the practical questions surrounding how this Holacracy would actually work.

[http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/](http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/)

</comment><comment><USER67> well, Zappos had just been on the list of places I was considering applying to

glad this happened first

</comment><comment><USER68> I wonder how many of these 210 people were managers that were still there. "Getting rid of managerial roles" would certainly imply that any that were around might be expected to leave the company.

</comment><comment><USER69> >John Bunch, technical adviser at Zappos and leader of the Holacracy transition

...right

<comment><USER70> A.K.A. "Designated fall guy when the whole thing goes kablooey and the CEO needs someone to pin the blame on."

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I just hope there's a budding writer at Zappo's who can fill in the details on day to day life in a holacracy. I keep trying to wrap my head around it and coming up blank.

<comment><USER72> I woder if it will all end up like "Lord of the Flies"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I wonder what percentage of the 14% are existing managers that perhaps can't or don't want to move on to different roles?

</comment><comment><USER74> I love the idea, but can a company that big really survive without management? Didn't Google backtrack on a similar idea?

<comment><USER75> Yes. Google tried not having managers and A/B tested against a team that had managers. Manager teams outperformed. Some of that is in this video [http://youtu.be/l6ISTjupi5g](http://youtu.be/l6ISTjupi5g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Isn't this just what companies like to call "a voluntary layoff?"

</comment><comment><USER77> so was the ladder to power and ownership at zappos just knocked down?

is this just a bigger gap between the real power holders and "the rest"?

</comment><comment><USER78> Called it.

</comment><comment><USER79> I stopped buying shoes from Zappos because I don't like their selection of shoes any longer. Not because I thought their management structure needed a drastic, messy public overhaul. I dunno, it just seems silly and fanciful to me but then again I'm not Tony Hsieh.

<comment><USER80> Their management structure could be the very reason that their selection doesn't fit your needs anymore.</comment></comment>


Startup Idea : Clean my Download folder  - <AUTHOR>

I guess it's quite strange that in 2013 wh have all this evolved and super "fancy" technology but yet our download folders are a mess.
It burns me from the inside, each time I must jump into my Download/ folder and I realize how much chaos lies in this tiny but infinitely deep folder ...
Please tidy our Download folders, I need it, you need it, we all need it :) <comment><USER2> I have a file called ''cleanup.sh'' which I run whenever my Desktop folder gets too crowded (my browser saves stuff to the desktop).

        #!/bin/bash
        MYHOME=$HOME
        MYDESKTOP=$HOME/Desktop

        echo "         _                              "
        echo "        | |                             "
        echo "    ___ | | ___  __ _ _ __  _   _ _ __  "
        echo "   / __|| |/ _ \/ _  | '_ \| | | | '_ \ "
        echo "  | (__ | |  __/ (_| | | | | |_| | |_) |"
        echo "   \___||_|\___|\__,_|_| |_|\__,_| .__/ "
        echo "                                | |    "
        echo "                                |_|    v0.1 "
        echo "  "

        cd $MYDESKTOP
        DIRS="Papers Code Images Music Videos Links Archives Webpages Progs"
        for dir in $DIRS; do
            mkdir $dir
        done

        # make the final dest dir...
        mkdir "desktop `date "+%Y-%m-%d"` "

        for file in $MYDESKTOP/*; do
            #echo "found file $file ... "
            case $file in
            *.pdf | *.PDF | *.doc | *.ps | *.ppt | *.textClipping)
                echo "Moving $file to Papers/"
                mv "$file" Papers/
            ;;
            *.py | *.pyc | *.php | *.php4 | *.php5 | *.pl | *.java | *.c | *.js | *.m | *.csv | *.tex | *.log | *.cpp )
                echo "Moving $file to Code/"
                mv "$file" Code/
            ;;
            *.gif | *.png | *.PNG | *.jpg | *.JPG | *.jpeg | *.tiff | *.bmp | *.gcx | *.svg )
                echo "moving $file to to Images/"
                mv "$file" Images/
            ;;
            *.aiff | *.sd2 | *.wav | *.mp3 | *.ogg | *.pls )
                echo "moving $file to to Music/"
                mv "$file" Music/
            ;;
            *.wmv | *.mov | *.WMV | *.flv | *.avi | *.mp4 | *.mpg | *.m4v )
                echo "moving $file to to Videos/"
                mv "$file" Videos/
            ;;
            *.exe | *.EXE)
                echo "moving $file to to Progs/"
                mv "$file" Progs/
            ;;
            *.webloc | *.lnk | *.desktop)
                echo "Moving $file to Links..."
                mv "$file" Links/
            ;;
            *.zip | *.gz | *.tgz | *.tar | *.dmg | *.iso | *.iso.md5sum | *.deb | *.pkg | *.bz2 | *.rar | *.mpkg | *.torrent )
                echo "Moving $file to Archives... "
                mv "$file" Archives/
            ;;
            *.html | *.htm | *.webarchive)
                echo "Moving $file to Webpages..."
                mv "$file" Webpages/
                mv "${file%.*} Files" "Webpages/${file%.*} Files"
                mv "${file%.*}_files" "Webpages/${file%.*}_files"
            ;;
            *) echo "Sorry, I don't know what kind of file $file is!"
            esac
        done

        #delete empty dirs
        for dir in $DIRS; do
            rmdir $dir      # will fail if files were put into it
        done

I then put all these subfolders into a folder titled `desktop YYYY-MM-DD (something descriptive)` and my life gets better (for a couple of days).

It doesn't clean things up, but at least it gets the files out of the way. I often use the labels to find stuff. Eg.

       desktop 2012-11-20 (Berlin)
       desktop 2012-12-07 (cleanup after book launch rush)
       desktop 2012-12-26 (ka-lite, web dev stuff, pre-NoBS launch)
       desktop 2013-03-01 (day at the Spundge offices)

Hope it helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just sort your downloads by type or whatever suits your needs and remove the unnecessary files that you no longer need... How difficult can that be?

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't worry, I'm not stupid. I know that's a possibility, but that itself is actually an issue (you have to do it manually).

I certainly don't think a big startup could come out of this, but there's definitely an issue with our Download folders.

One of the issue with the Download folder is that most of us use it as a temporary folder, by that I meen, we download a file, open it once and then leave it to rot their for eternity.

The app could simply do things like detecting duplicates (a lot of non tech savy people download the same file multiple times) (just fingerprinting each file and then removing all versions except one), removing files which haven't be accessed for a certain amount of time (unused files), and also moving files to different folders depending on their type or source ...

I think it's just a very simple issue but something that is universally painful for every computer user tech savy or not.

<comment><USER3> This can be a little annoying in the scenario you described, but I personally think organizing files is an easy task and relying on an application to do just that makes this a bigger issue than it really is.

I periodically reorganize my files, mainly my desktop and downloads folder. This helps me take this habit to the real world and keep my life organized as well.

I'd welcome an app that automates the process just for the sake of choice but I think I'll keep doing this particular task manually.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that this is really a major issue, I just find it silly that in 2013 we're still dealing with the burden of a messy download folder when at the same time we're building brilliant technology such as self driving cars, etc ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In OS X, I use Hazel to do just this.

<http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. Hazel definitely seems cool.

But I do think that there is a room for improvement. For example : instead of making you setup custom rules, it could have an "automagic" mode where it analyzes the behavior of it's current users and learns which rules suit which kind of people.

I imagine it would ask you a few questions upon install (age, etc ...) to get a grasp of which kind of user you are. And then thanks to the data from it's users it could apply some machine learning to work which rules would suit you best.

But Hazel is still a lot better than the defacto solution (which is just leaving your Download folder in a mess).

<comment><USER4> Learning would be great, but really, we are pretty static creatures. I spent 10 minutes setting up rules.... I don't know, 4 years ago? I've imported those new rules into every new machine I've had since.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep I agree, it's definitely not the most interesting/useful problem to solve (I hope everyone got that my post was mostly ironic).

But I do find it interesting that we've "over engineered" many things on other futile topics, and yet our download folders are still stuck in the messe 1990's (but even then, users where pushed to tidy their Downloads for space reasons).

Anyway, I suggest we let this topic rest.

I've still got some work to do on the new version of my startup's product (and in case you ask, no it isn't anything related to the above)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much would you pay for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, I don't think it's something that could be sold for a recurring fee but more a one time purchase.

I personally would pay 10$ for an app which would do the job for me in a smart and evolved manner.

I'm not sure I'm really the target user, since I really use my computer as a dumb terminal to access web/cloud services, but I know a lot of friends and family who struggle managing their downloads effectively.

They forget that they can actually access what they've already downloaded, so instead they co and download again (and waist 15mn searching for the link online).

So I do believe that such a tool would improve the entire computer user experience for elderly and non savy users.

(To gain mass adoption I think such a solution should be bundled with the OS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> mkdir legacy; find ~/Downloads -mtime +3 -exec mv {} legacy \;

<comment><USER7> or just "rm -rf *" to save yourself the hard drive space.</comment></comment>


Where Should Machines Go to Learn? - <AUTHOR> https://shift.newco.co/where-should-machines-go-to-learn-c2461f7e45fc#.lgk0oqxw2 <comment><AUTHOR> Really interesting concept: offload the aspects of your AI or ML flow that aren't your focus, and rent access to data. (Or on the flip side, sell access to your own data.) It's fun/exciting to think about the boost in efficiency if data scientists didn't need to spend so much time munging, but the potential for a marketplace of accessible (but appropriately privacy-protected) data is even more compelling.</comment>