OT: "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubbleâ

[Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>]

DISCUSS:

Excerpted from âDisrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble,â by Dan
Lyons, which is being published by Hachette Books on April 5. Copyright Â
2016.

http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/

Starting last June, and running through the summer, I made a concerted
effort to join a local SaaS startup that's on the move. It's evident that
its culture is *all* important. Every guy (all millennials) must sport a
two-day growth, ridiculous as some appear (I've checked LinkedIn), because
that's how the CEO adorns himself. There are catered daily lunches, standup
desks, Foosball tournaments and, after work, it's essential to hit a local
craft brewery for "team building."

I passed the culture test, which revealed I'm a "captain." (Like many of
us, I have lots of real-world business experience to share.) I was
interviewed on the phone by one of their chief engineers. I passed that,
and after several months of this to-and-fro was set to finally come on in
for a face-to-face appearance. That's when I received an email the
afternoon before informing me that they had "promoted from within."

I felt like the HR dood, er bro, had scrambled to find any and every reason
to not bring me in as the Robert DeNiro-style intern. (Who needs an old
fart?) Through this entire process his emails were very poorly written and
often bordered on plain old rudeness.

When I ran into him shortly afterward at a startup event (held at said
local craft brewery), he was noticeably squirmish about finally meeting me
face-to-face. Yet within the past two weeks I read in the local business
review rag that he's being honored as some HR person of the year. Pathetic,
this.

I think there is some correlation between all of this and a front-running
presidential candidate who is all about bluster and self-promotion, with no
real substanceâa la Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and their
ilk.

Your take?

Chris
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