Latest / Roast the Post Podcast / Firing Adequate Performers: Inside Bending Spoons | Grounds for Discussion

Transcript

Firing Adequate Performers: Inside Bending Spoons | Grounds for Discussion · Roast the Post Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Paul.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I came across a fortune article that sent me down an absolute rabbit hole.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: and I want to talk to you about it.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying this is
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's just something that I think that it it requires further discussion, grounds
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: for discussion, if you will.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned, if you will, I mentioned that this is from Fortune.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the headline is, and I'm going to say the name of the company because
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: you... this might sound amazing for some people,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: and I think that what they're doing is quite innovative.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's worth shouting them out for.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So getting a job at Bending Spoons comes with no bonus, no fancy title, and a
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: warning.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: 800,000 people applied anyway.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the headline for Fortune from Fortune.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: For a bit of background, I'm gonna ramble a little bit to you, but I really want
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: you to have the context here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is an Italian tech company that owns businesses including Vimeo, AOL, and
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Evernote.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Its CEO has described the business as what would happen if private equity and
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Google had a baby.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I had to take a sip of water.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have thoughts about that, but carry on.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Images, imagery.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: essentially they acquire established tech companies, they restructure them and they
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: operate them with relatively small teams of highly selected employees, which we'll
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: get to. They're doing exceptionally well financially.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: They went public earlier this year at a valuation of $18.4 billion.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: according to their IPO filing, revenue per full-time employee more than doubled
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: between 2023 and
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And 2025 reaching 2.57 million.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what's interesting to me.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's their approach to managing people that stood out for me.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when I first saw the headline, I was like, this would be a great topic for
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Grounds for Discussion.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: but then I did a little bit of digging, and so here's the... here's the tea:
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: They don't pay performance bonuses, they don't believe in elaborate job titles,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: hierarchy is minimal.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: They give people huge responsibility.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: and these people are often very early in their career.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: they say it's not unusual for someone in their twenties to be running a business
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: they openly acknowledge that they will part ways with someone who's performing
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: adequately if they believe they can find someone better.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: They are openly transparent about that, Paul.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not someone who's underperforming, someone who's doing an adequate job.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing to talk about there.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: When
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: it comes to well-being, their philosophy is largely that employees should manage it
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: themselves. If you're bothered by Slack notifications at night, turn them off.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you're exhausted, adjust your schedule or take a vacation.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: They have a flexible vacation policy that doesn't require manager approval.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And now depending on how you look at it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: This either sounds like an incredibly progressive workplace where adults are
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: treated like
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: adults, which we love, or a high-pressure environment where the company has found a
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: very elegant way to make everything the employees' responsibility.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Before I let you speak, because I know you've got thoughts, I have a little bit
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: more to tell you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm... I know I'm overloading you, but I want you to have the context here.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what's interesting to me:
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: last year, as the headline said, they
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: received 800,000 job applications and hired
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: just 286 people.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: They self-report extraordinarily low voluntary turnover among their core
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: employees.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: they've appeared on great places, great place to work lists and things like that.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, there's something appealing about this model to people.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, you're not getting bonuses or anything like that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did dig into it a little bit, and I just... there's some, there's some
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Glassdoor information as well, which I'm going to share, but I want to let you speak.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So initial thoughts, reactions, keeping in mind I have more information to share
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: along the way, but initial thoughts on this.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, "Holocracy 2.0" is the first thing that comes to mind.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Holocracy
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: was that thing in the mid-to-late aughts where it was like no deep
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: organizational structure, no hierarchy.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the CEO of the business is on the same like level playing field as someone
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: working in the warehouse.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: at the time it was penned as absolutely crazy.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it is a little bit nuts, that philosophy.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are elements of it that are absolutely great, but it's just taken to
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: the extreme a little bit too much.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: This really smells like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: saying that there's not a lot of organizational hierarchy, that you basically run
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: your
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: own professional life, like you make your own decisions, you do this and that and
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: the other thing... that's fine in theory.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It works if everybody has the
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: The presence of mind to be very communicative and to be very collaborative and to
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: be very
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: cognizant of the impact of your actions on other people that you're working with,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: like the vacation thing, for instance.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Burned out, take a vacation, no manager approval needed. Okay.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if, you know, Billy just gets up and says, I'm gonna take a vacation today, see
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: you in three weeks, and then peaces out without really.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: talking to anybody about that and without understanding the implications of that on
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: the coworkers in the business...
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: that's a big problem.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big, big problem.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: so there are certain expectations baked into that organizational philosophy.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully they would screen for them during the interviewing and onboarding
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: processes so that all this stuff works.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope that that's what they do.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise it's not going to turn out so well.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there's stuff like that swirling around.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Google and private equity, having a baby, that terrifies me to my very core.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, neither private equity nor Google have been, recently, forces for good in
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: the world. So kind of modelling yourself after that makes me ask some questions.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some thoughts about that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not super keen on it, that's for sure.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But tell me, so there's more. Tell me more.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you had more you wanted to pass along.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: On the holocracy of it all.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly. And for anyone listening, that's like an organization that self manages.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: named exactly where that failure point is, is that in order to work in an
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: organization like that, a certain disposition
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: is required.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so as you mentioned, the interview process has to be bang on.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when they mention their numbers of
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: voluntary turnover, that doesn't talk about involuntary turnover either.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, right.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's another thing entirely, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I would want to know what their turnover, what their churn rate for
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: employees is, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because they say, I forget exactly how it was that they phrased it when you read it
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: out, but it's essentially like you can be doing an okay job, you can be doing fine,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: everything can be working well, it can be completely... adequate.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: and then we can cut you off at the legs and bring in somebody else because we think
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: that they're going to do a better job.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: That has the potential to create a terrifyingly toxic culture where everybody is
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: like, you
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: know, climbing the hill and stabbing each other in the back and really fighting to
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: get
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: face with the people who make these decisions and prove their worth constantly, day
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: after day after day after day after day.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's going to be emotionally exhausting unless the culture is really about the
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: mission and the group versus individual gain. But let's face it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Humans don't work that way.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming majority of people are all about what's in it for them.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about this loud working concept where people are kind of being very vocal
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: about their contributions.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: and so I do have a turnover rate for them, interestingly.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: and so
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, so I had mentioned that their turnover rate, I'm just gonna find it here.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: They said that they had a really low voluntary turnover rate.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: they reported a 0.6% voluntary turnover.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: among their core team.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That is very low.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: However, their overall employee turnover rate for 2025 was 16.2%.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's telling us that their involuntary turnover rate, They have
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: involuntary.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that means that they're letting... maybe the, it's the they're letting people go.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's the hire fast, fire fast kind of situation. I don't know.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we do have some numbers for that.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: but again, it boils down to having that certain disposition to be able to
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: work in an environment like that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd be curious to know what you know, what are their rubrics and
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: how
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: are they weighting their interviews, how are they doing their interviews in general.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: But okay, so let's talk a little bit about them being a good place to work.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: they do mention on their website that... go ahead.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into that, another thing for us to consider is that if they're
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: churning
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: 16% of their overall staff, like their complement, workforce complement, every
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: single
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: year, for that to work, they'd better have really, really good hiring and pipeline
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: management practices in place.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that this is kind of one thing where I'll say that it probably does
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: contribute to significant investment.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: in that capability for their business.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because if your goal as a business is to retain people and you're not doing a lot
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: of hiring, yeah, why do you have the impetus to really invest in hiring pipeline
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: management and training systems if you want to keep people around?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of some of the wisdom that's, you know, long
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: running and I kind of ascribe to it a little bit.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Retain people, It's cheaper in the long run.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Plus you have better competitiveness, you have happier people, et cetera, et cetera,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: et cetera. But
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: With the inverse, they're gonna have to have a system, a machine, and the talent
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: in-house to be able to bring people in all the time.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that works for them.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of their turnover comes from the fact that they acquire
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: companies and then they restructure.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they're gonna, I don't know if that's figured in there.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: but they do say if you're not performing, if
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: you're just performing adequately, then they will let you go.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wonder what they do to ensure that people are excelling and going
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: beyond, if
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: that's what they're asking for, if it's a holocracy, if they're saying that
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: everyone's kind of self-managing.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: then I think it's safe to assume that maybe they're not doing a whole lot and
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: that's up to you, the individual, to make sure.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I went on... yeah.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And who's doing it if everyone's kind of self-managing? Who's making that call?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: If it's like a
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: flat hierarchy, who's making... like this is why like in theory, yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: In theory it sounds amazing.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it requires...
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: it goes back to requiring a certain disposition where people aren't going to be
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: backstabbing and they're not going to be making
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: moves behind behind the scenes.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, Glassdoor ratings are pretty high.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: it's what I think I saw like a 4.6 rating out of five based on 268 reviews, which
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: sounds really good.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's a high CEO approval rate.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But what I noticed in those reviews, even though they're generally, you know, high.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's the words.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: People are talking a lot about workload.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: The things that I saw a lot of was... "very demanding, very stressful."
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So people were still praising it, but they were saying that the environment makes it
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: difficult to balance work and personal life. Another five-star
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: reviewer talked about professional development opportunities, which is interesting
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: because we just touched on that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: But acknowledge that the hours can get long and employees have to be diligent about
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: preventing themselves from being drained.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Another one mentioned questionable work-life balance, insufficient support at times.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: and what they described as an epidemic of imposter syndrome.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so while the rating itself is high, there's some signs there showing
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: that's a very challenging environment.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanna know what your thoughts are on the patterns in the Glassdoor reviews,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: even though it's a high rating.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can see where... you can definitely see where that environment, that kind
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: of cultural shape of the organization would connect to imposter syndrome.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the back of your brain, you've always... you've got to be constantly
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: aware of
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: the fact that even if you're doing a good job, you can be let go if somebody better
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: comes along.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like in this environment, if you're a superstar, you could still be
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: turfed if someone
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: comes across that is like a superstar 2X or someone who's just that much better.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: You could be canned, which I think is kind of dumb.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would hope that in practice
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: they actually offer that superstar person a role in a different organization or a
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: role in the same organization that still keeps the institutional knowledge there and
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: transfers the skills and experience somewhere else in the group of companies that's
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: going to make sense.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cause like churning out 15% of your... 16% of your workforce when they're all
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: presumably high performers compared to the rest of the labour market... is kind of wild.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's a waste.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I get the imposter syndrome thing.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I get why that would be a thing for a lot of folks there.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely managing your own time.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: People are saying like you need to stay on top of managing your own time.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Work-life balance...
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that suggests that there aren't a lot of supports in place.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: in these companies to kind of make sure that you're supported.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that kind of makes sense too.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really curious about the lack of bonuses thing.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: That suggests to me that they have to be paying significantly above market salaries.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or else why would you stay?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly for people who are younger, starting out their career, the
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: promise of experience and education and opportunities... that has some value.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who will go into a really, really crazy overwork situation.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: if they can, you know, realistically say to themselves, hey, after five years, I can
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: leave and have a leg up on somebody else and have connections and whatever.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's totally a thing.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: But in the absence of that, like you would need above market salaries.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or you would need to
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: be paying people well enough that they can live and not worry about stuff and then
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: find people who Don't really give a damn about money. I get that.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care about money all that much myself.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that is simply because I have enough to live on.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: If your salaries are poor, you care about money.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Curious about that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I have a a bit to say too, about the idea of of terminating someone
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: for basically doing their job because there's a contract, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a reciprocal contract.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's that we will pay you this salary and you will do this job.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like there is an ethical issue when it comes to terminate someone
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: for adequately doing their job.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a that's a big concern for me.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean for psychological safety? And when we say
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: a certain disposition is required to work in an organization like a holocracy,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: some of the things that they are talking about here are the opposite of
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: what would be required for something like this to work, right?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: so systemically they're
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: kind of encouraging a certain type of behaviour that conflicts with the idea of
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: a holocracy. So I find that to be really interesting as well.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of compensation,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: they do... their approach has three elements to it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: They have published a compensation philosophy that could be seen as
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: unconventional.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Higher base salaries instead of bonuses, as we know.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: They argue that performance bonuses encourage short term thinking and transactional
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: relationships, which is what I just said.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: An employment arrangement is a transactional relationship.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, unless you're a founder and this is like your baby,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: or your life where you have skin the game, it is a transactional relationship.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I find that interesting.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: could the knowledge that you could get turfed at any time for someone marginally
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: better than you also encourages short-term thinking.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be clear about that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: A really good point.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to the philosophy, the... so that was one element.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: The second is that annual performance-linked pay reviews.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: so it says that several colleagues assess each employee's contribution and
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: compensation is reviewed accordingly.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like a peer review, which is interesting because
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: that could breed behaviours where people might want to lowball you or rate you down
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: so that if you're... if we work together and you're outperforming me and I know
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: that I
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: could get fired because I'm just doing my job, then what incentive do I
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: have to fairly rate you in your review if it means that my job is at risk?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we're questioning things.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: They could have all of this figured out.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is just a really interesting conversation that we're having about how they do
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: things. And so I'm not trying to diss them and how they're running things.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think a lot of this is highly interesting.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: But curious to
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: hear your thoughts on that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they... maybe they have this all figured out.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't give a damn because the people who work here need to have a certain
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: disposition, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you have... so we go back to that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of brings me back to that stat that you called out in the opening.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: they hired two hundred and eighty-five, eighty-six, some odd people,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: and eight hundred thousand people applied.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that means that you have
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: pretty much an infinite supply of motivated, interested talent when you've been
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: honest about all this stuff.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, yeah, maybe you don't have to care about this.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can just churn people and let it be Lord of the Flies and it's all good
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: because there's still seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand seven hundred and
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: fifty people or whatever to churn through.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: That could be a thing.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: They could have it all figured out. You're right.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: They could have it all figured out.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: They could also just not care.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not necessarily their job to care about all this.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a corporation, it's a company, their job is to generate profit.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You and I both think that it should be more than that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that people who have any sense of empathy and, eye for the longevity and
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: long term in an organization feels that there's more to it than that.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: That companies should have more responsibility than that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, that's an interesting thing for me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned also that there is kind of an ethical conundrum in this concept
• 20:43
  of
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: hey, we're going to, you know, churn you out for somebody who's marginally better.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: definitely there's an ethical conundrum.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there's also in a lot of jurisdictions going to be a legal conundrum.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're going to kind of embark upon this and churn people out for no reason.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: That means they're not terminating with cause, which in Canada very, very hard to
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: do. In other countries like the US, very, very easy to do.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: but you're going to have to make financial allowances to pay people out if you're
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: terminating without cause.
• 21:20
  Right.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna have to make allowances to have like the four months or six
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: months or
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: eight months or twelve months worth of severance banked away to terminate people
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: who are just marginally underperforming relative to somebody else.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: That could add up to some serious coin.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very curious about how they manage the financial aspects of that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're turning 15% or 16% of your workforce every year, and say you need
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: to account for six months worth of severance for each of those, you know, 16% of the
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: workforce, each of those people, that's probably some coin.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you're saying you want to pay generous though.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's like
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm assuming that it's long-tenured employees. Maybe it's not.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's people who haven't really accrued you know, that
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: long, they say they'd have their core employees, but I don't know what that means.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I get what you're saying.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: there's a cost and they have money.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: They have money. So maybe that's not an issue for them. The other thing
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to mention in terms of their comp is that they have discounted employee
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: stock purchase options.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so they...
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, so 84% of eligible employees participated in 2025.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the third thing... they be, if we want to boil it down they
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: say their principles for pay is that they pay according to individual impact and the
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: relevant market rate.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: They target the high end of their reference market, they avoid
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: short-term financial incentives, they offer
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: participation in company ownership, and then it does say they provide generous
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: separation packages when employees are asked to leave so you're right there.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: They maintain comp equity for people in the same role with equal assessed impact,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: and they
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: keep individual salaries private while sharing general criteria for comp decisions.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: so that tells us a little bit about how they pay.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you were... you were right about the generousity there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna share with you after this the... and they have a
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: full on comp philosophy, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and it's public.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's 20 pages and it's public, which like kudos to them for sharing all of it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: What you've kind of outlined, I do like that.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, maybe this is more on the side of they have it figured out versus
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: they don't care. I'm just a little bit jaded when it comes to some of this stuff.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, maybe they've got it all figured out.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is good.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm still trying to wrap my brain around... the whole financial aspect of
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: this, because it's very counterintuitive.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: To churn 16% of your workforce because you can, because you're looking for somebody
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: who's marginally better, you know, and presumably subjectively marginally better,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: because we all know that measurement of performance
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: is... measurement of performance is, like, that's a subjective exercise, right?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can say that you have metrics and KPIs and objective measurements, but at
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: the end
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: of the day, it's highly, highly subjective, even in the most rigourous, disciplined
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: environments.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the financial planning, the cash flow planning and everything for all of this to
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: work, to turn 16% of your workforce, I'm still stuck on that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: That bugs me.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're in that space right now.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thing that bugs me about it is, like, you you mentioned it, the ethical obligation.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a social contract between employers and employees.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's largely, or the spirit of these contracts, is largely unwritten.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's... you do a good job, we'll take care of you, sort of thing.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this really kind of lights that on fire.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: and another thing that I'm feeling from this is that they eliminated
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: performance bonuses because of the short term incentive thing, but they didn't
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: eliminate performance based pay because they do say that annual performance linked
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: pay reviews take place.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So and... yeah.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: My philosophy is very different about that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: I, putting on my my management consulting capitalist assh*le hat.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would kind of lean towards paying lower but still market appropriate
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: salaries and then making up all of the upside for an employee through profit sharing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that supports the stability of the business.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Locking yourself into salary increases based on performance outside of the context
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: of
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: how the business or businesses are doing, that creates structural weakness and risk.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I just have a fundamentally different philosophy about that.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's switch directions here and let's talk about the next question that I have,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: which
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: is one of the things that I like is that they don't seem particularly interested in
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: the traditional career progression.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: They explicitly say that,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: you know, long-term potential matters more than current expertise.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: They encourage people to apply, even if you don't have the qualifications, love
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: that.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: and then it says, and this is according to the Fortune article, nearly all their
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: businesses and functions are led by people in their 20s or 30s, many of whom had
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: little or no previous professional experience.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So again, on the one hand, cool, like let's just because someone else had to trudge
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: through like 30 years to get to where they are now doesn't mean everyone else has
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: to, because we have created a lot of artificial barriers around experience.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, on the other hand, experience isn't just a collection of like
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: technical skills.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's judgment, it's pattern recognition, it's having lived through things that
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: didn't go according to plan.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not knowing what to do when there isn't an answer or who to involve,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: consequences, consequences.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so traditionally
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of that learning happens through mentorship and something very important here,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: which is apprenticeship.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to give a shout out to
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: the Pressure Point Substack account written by Mark Aiden Gray.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: He has a recent article that I read, like, in bed this morning when I woke up.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's basically AI's impending cost, mastery without apprenticeship.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not dissing people who are in their 20s, who are managing things and maybe
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: they're doing just fine, but it's about
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: The experience that only gets acquired over time and that really cool term of
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: apprenticeship.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Yeah. This is something I worry about a lot with the AI transition.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: because we are creating the conditions where entry level jobs are being squished and
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: squeezed and reduced and kind of pushed out of workplaces, corporations that are
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: knowledge based, different than the skilled trades, of course, because
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: AI can't build your house or do your plumbing, that ain't a thing yet.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: but how do we get
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: mid-level talent and mid-senior level talent and experience into the
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: workforce in 20
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: years if there are far fewer junior positions, entry-level positions where you come
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: in and you learn?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Kinesthetic learning is incredibly important over the course of someone's life and
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: core over the course of their entire career.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't get the same calibre of seasoned professionals who are
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: mid-career, who can step
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: into bigger roles with more responsibility and higher expectations.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: if you don't have people going through, as that person said, apprenticeship, which I
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: think is a great term for it, you've got to have people going through the stuff to
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: get there. So that is something I worry about quite a bit.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: and ultimately it is going to be on organizations to create that apprenticeship
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: through this transition, unless we want to hand it all over to government. Right?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's definitely an argument you can make for this shouldn't be
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: the job of corporations.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: This shouldn't be the job of organizations.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: This should be the job of the state or the public sector.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fair.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then there are also a lot of people who are like, bigger government, more money
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: for government. Like, that's crazy.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not do that.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So pick your poison.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: People have to have apprenticeship and they have to have experience and kinesthetic
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: learning, or else the labour market's gonna be
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: really bad on the supply side in 10, 15, 20, 25 years.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Will we be able to actually do these jobs that we need these people for?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the question that I have is that, there is no evidence that
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: there's anything discriminatory happening here against older workers.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that this was a piece highlighted in the Fortune article.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: But my question
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: is, you know, because they're talking about that, and they're kind of there's
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: something boastful about saying that people are in their 20s and 30s working there,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: My question's kind of like, why?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And is it because
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: those are the people maybe more willing to put in the hours.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And like we said on Glassdoor, it's very clear, it's demanding work, right?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so it doesn't look like they're paying them lower.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes companies will do that because they feel like they can underpay employees.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: The salaries look pretty, pretty decent, but it's that demand that they're asking of
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: people who maybe have that stamina in their 20s and 30s, maybe they have less spent
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: familial commitments and things like that.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're not caregivers, not just for children, but for aging parents, like my
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: generation or your generation is entering into.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is something there about... then that begs the question of diversity
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: and whether or not there is enough requisite diversity in their organization.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like they're moving ahead and they're successful, but there are certain
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: things that are lost in that.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like we talked about the apprenticeship as well.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tech companies... and it's so funny when you say, you know, we're of different
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: generations, because there's four years between us, but we are technically in
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: different generations.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're kind of the youngest of Gen X, I'm the oldest of Gen Y, or
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: "millennials," if you will. That's hilarious to me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Four years between the two of us in age.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: yeah, like the reason that the reason that tech companies historically have
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: have embarked on ageist practices and bias towards younger hires, is that
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: people who are starting their career out, people who are in their 20s, like into
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: their 30s, they're typically willing to put up with the demands.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, more seasoned, older workers who have gone through the ringer before are
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: like, "I don't think so."
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the experience.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be paid for my experience.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not willing to tolerate your bullsh*t.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that historical bias towards younger workers.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that anybody who, and you know, people who are listening at home, if you work
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: in HR at a big tech company and you can definitively tell me and show the
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: receipts that there is no bias towards hiring younger workers, great.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Message us, I will happily be put in my place.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: But my feeling based on my own experience working in tech is that there is a bias
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: towards younger workers.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: for that reason amongst others.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the other thing I wanted to touch on with you about this is, they say
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: they're gonna treat you like an adult adult and you're gonna manage yourself and
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: you're responsible for that.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you're exhausted, adjust your schedule. If you don't like the Slack
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: notifications, turn them off, which is saying that, you know, they're
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: naming this because you will get those slack notifications and you will get
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want organizations to treat people to treat anyone like children.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: but at the same time, will you get punished for not answering a Slack message at
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: night? For taking vacation?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because they want the people who are going above and beyond.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so it... to me, it feels like the environment demands that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they say you can, which sounds great, but can you?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And are you gonna get fired because of that?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that...
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how they reconcile with that.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: It feels very contradictory.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this only...
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: it's great to say, manage your state of well-being yourself.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I, legitimately, I love that.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big, big fan of that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Treating people like, as you said before, treating people like adults.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we should be treating people like adults.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: However, the rub is... that only works, you can only say to people...
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: you can only say to people, manage your own well-being yourself if the environment
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: and the
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: coworkers around you will respect the decisions that you make in order to do that.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in high-pressure, cooker environments, that doesn't really happen.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't really happen.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the system and the structure is going to create conditions where even though
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: you're told to manage your own well-being yourself and do whatever you need
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: to do to stay, you know, healthy and balanced.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: The system's gonna create conditions that make that impossible.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is it. This is it.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: and so I have... a final thought and would love to hear your final thought.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I think at the end of the day, what's really fascinating to me about this
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: company, about Bending Spoons, is what they're doing is that, they are willing to
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: question assumptions.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they've questioned bonuses and titles and a hierarchy and career progression.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: and a lot of companies aren't willing to do that.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, I love that and I have a lot of respect for it.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they've also replaced those assumptions with another one that is equally as
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: worthy of examination.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, that maximizing individual performance should be the
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: organizing principle of work.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're willing to question almost anything, everything about how we
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: work, except whether work should demand so much of us.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I think the gap is.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. That's my final thought is that you're questioning all of these assumptions.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Great, good job, except for the core one, which is that why are we demanding so
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: much of people at work?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I mean, I likewise, there's a lot about what we've talked about that I like.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I do really like innovation when it comes to organizational design and
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: organizations that
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: are willing to experiment and come up with different ways of doing things and
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: really like challenge and question legacy thinking.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Got lots of love for them, you know, hearts and kisses and hugs all day long.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Although
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't sound like this type of environment would appreciate hugs and kisses from
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: me or anybody else. So scratch that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: the beast and engine of capitalism, it's got to keep on going... right?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, demanding a lot of people, that's how you make more profit at the end of
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: the day. Those two things are fundamentally connected.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not gonna change, you know?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Higher demands, higher performance, more effort from people equals more money.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole point.