Why am I so comfortable blogging here right alongside the right hand column on this blog which has feed after feed of public comments and criticisms? Answer: transparency. Embrace it. Don’t run from it.
– Jason Goldberg, “Questions and Answers,” December 29, 2006
You never quite know where a blog post is going to go. Usually nowhere. Then along comes “Is Jason Goldberg Killing Jobster?”
What I Know
Thursday, March 29, 2007
- Spurred by an article in Wired, presenting yet another negative tidbit on Jobster’s Jason Goldberg, I decide to ask Cheezheads the question, “Is Jason Goldberg killing Jobster?”
Friday, March 30, 2007
- Post goes live. Goldberg ironically calls me that morning, not seeing it, to tell me about some new Jobster features. After telling me the Wired article doesn’t bother him, I figure my post won’t raise any eyebrows either. I choose to finish my coffee in peace and not get into it with him over the phone. Or so I thought.
- A call from Goldberg comes in shortly thereafter asking “WTF.” Despite his displeasure, the post stays up. Votes begin to trickle in on the poll.
- Team Jobster asks me to submit a block of text to the post, giving their point of view. I decline, but welcome them to add it to my comments. They do.
- Dam breaks. Negative comments about Goldberg and Jobster, anonymous in nature, start coming in.
- At dinner that evening, I receive a message from Goldberg saying, “Dude, please just take the comments down. No need for your blog to become a disgruntled former Jobster employee bitch forum.” I oblige, believing the comments referenced cross a line of decency.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
- A pair of thoughtful comments are left that evening, albeit anonymously. Goldberg requests they be deleted, but I fail to see his note until Sunday morning.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
- Early morning, four pro-Goldberg / Jobster comments are posted, three of them within 5 minutes of each other. Comments also seem to hopefully discredit me. Seeded? You decide. IP addresses fail to reveal much commonality.
- I choose to keep the comments up, opting to try to find some answers as to their legitimacy. Goldberg asks for a balanced story. I promise to be as fair as possible.
Monday, April 2, 2007
- A number of former Jobster employees, choosing to remain anonymous, reach out to me after I post my email address asking for insight. A greater number of former employees I attempt to contact decline speaking to me for reasons ranging from protection of stock options to severance pay to non-disclosure agreements to burning bridges. I think to myself, “This company should be called ‘Mobster’ instead of ‘Jobster.’”
Those willing to talk confirm the following:
- Goldberg did apparently threaten a female employee, saying he’d put a bullet in her head if he found out she had been part of or leaked a rumor about an executive leaving the company. This employee breaks down crying afterward and shortly thereafter submits her resignation. She is no longer with Jobster. After some prodding, Goldberg apologizes in a company-wide manner, emphasizing that he wouldn’t really put a bullet through someone’s head. This incident happened less than a month ago.
- In the midst of big Jobster layoffs, the company suffers a loss of at least 20 percent of its executives, all apparently leaving by their own free will. These include, but are not limited to, VP of client services, VP of alliances, VP of sales, and VP of business development. An informant told me many of them “didn’t have jobs waiting for [them], [they] were just fed up.”
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
- In the spirit of fairness, I contact Christian Anderson, Jobster’s media contact. After leaving a message, Anderson calls me back in the evening. Hoping to get Jobster’s official take on the issues brought to light, I’m basically told No comment, and that the company is focused on moving forward.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
- I post a Jobster update. A mini damage control campaign ensues. The comment “Gee Cheez- I’m starting to wonder about your motive here…” is “anonymously” posted, leading back to a Jobster IP address.
- I’m contacted by a Jobster employee who wishes to remain nameless, but gives words of support via e-mail and a telephone conversation. The pro e-mail message is described by one informant as this employee “jump[ing] on the grenade.” Anderson later contacts me amicably, but wants to confirm I’m aware that what’s going on isn’t good for their business. I reply something along the lines of “I’m not stupid.”
What I Don’t Know
I think it was Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko in Wall Street who said, “If you’re not inside, you’re outside.” Well, I’m on the outside. Big time. Although trustworthy by my own judgment, no one would go on the record for what’s going on inside Jobster. Team Jobster was no comment. As a result, you, the reader, are forced to use only my words, investigation and level of trust to help peek through your own looking glass to find this story’s Red Queen.
What I Think
In my investigation, the silence was deafening. Where were the cheerleaders? Where were the thoughtful comments of support from current employees, customers and board members? Pretty much zero. The level of what I personally read as fear (not respect) from those declining to comment spoke volumes. Wasn’t this a company and leader who worshiped at the alter of transparency?
Jason Goldberg would like the world to believe this uprising is the result of business-as-usual layoffs and disgruntled ex-employees. That may be the case for some, but clearly not all. I had no reason to believe those I spoke with had any kind of vendetta or hard feelings about the layoffs. In fact, quite the opposite. One informant told me the day of the layoffs, those who still had a job were the unhappy ones, not being able to parachute out with a severance package.
In closing, I’d like to be clear that I have no ill will toward Jason Goldberg. I generally like him. I have no special interest in or desire to see Jobster fail. In fact, they’re (currently, at least for now) an advertiser on this blog via Recruiting.com.
So why do this? My interest lies with my readers. The comments made to recent posts, though abrasive, were just too thoughtful to be taken lightly. Letting them stand as-is without some investigation into the truth would have been a discredit to you, my reader.
Do I have all the answers? No. Have I put some pieces of the puzzle in their rightful place? I certainly think so. My personal belief is that this rabbit hole is extremely complex. Completely discovering what’s on the other side would take more resources than I can dedicate, but I hope I’ve brought some clarity to the conversation.
Popularity: 4% [?]
April 5th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Joel,
I enjoy your blog and I like the fact that you are on top of things in the recruiting world, however, it’s this kind of stuff that make our jobs as CEO’s more complicated then they need to be. We all have ego’s, we all make mistakes and we live, learn and move on. I’m sure Jason is well aware of what he is doing and is probably working 24/7 to build Jobster into something great. CEO’s don’t start companies with the intentions of messing things up, but running, building and operating a business is not an easy task now a days. He seems to have done some unique things with the company. Truthfully, inside employees will never give you the true scoop as perceptions vary. Running a company with 100 + people is not that easy and these things around bound to happen. It’s called growing pains!
April 5th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Queen Brie,
You are the recruit-o-sack’s deep-throat.
I love you,
WorkFarce
April 5th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
“Goldberg did apparently threaten a female employee, saying he’d put a bullet in her head”. Sounds like a terroristic threat to me. This goes beyond stupid to illegal. Successful leaders don’t make this sort of mistake.
April 5th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
OK, as a regular reader of your content for the past 6 months, I’ll share my comments: Nothing posted on your site since March 29th impacts my business in any way, shape, or form. Ex-employees of Jobster, Jason, confessional ex-CEO’s of start-ups, anonymous commentary, whatever…it is absolutely NOT the reason I receive Cheezhead content.
I receive Cheezhead content to add value to my business. I try to gain your insight and perspective (and seek others input as well) on certain tools, techniques, and trends that affect my business. I simply can’t find ANY of that useful content since March 29th. I can’t even find any humor, which is always my personal fallback to useful content.
Catbert’s conclusion: If it’s not relevant, and not funny, change the channel.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Relevant to your business? What’s more relevant to a business than learning from someone ELSE’s mistakes? College students should be studying this as an example of how not to act in a crisis situation.
Layoffs are never easy and building a company never is either. How you act in the face of adversity and how you rally your team towards new goals is what defines you as a leader.
By these measures, Joel, this may be the most instructive and relevant post you’ve ever written. Keep up the great work.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:20 am
If you think it is a good story as an outsider, imagine how much fun we are having with it internally. I have to admit we are really enjoying the drama, but seriously, this is starting to get bad for business.
Whether you like Jason, agree with his management style, clothing choice, think he should be fired, or not, there would be no Jobster without JGO. He baked the idea, raised the funds and birthed this bastard child with his own blood sweat and tears. That being said Jobster still employs over 70 OTHER people whom are all trying to build real value with our customers and real change in this industry. How about giving the rest of us a break?
We have very mixed feelings on this. This publicity is making it difficult to have serious discussions with employees, partners, clients, and prospects. Truth be told, If employees were polled without fear of consequence or retribution you would find at least 80% would prefer to see him replaced. He has chosen to be a public figure. In fact many people at Jobster feel his sole purpose is to get famous. Well this seems to have done it, can we all get back to work now?
We are not the first or last company to get a little caught up in our own hype and grow too fast. We made some tough choices and lost some of the most brilliant and passionate people I have ever worked with. Not just in the layoff but since then as well. Dave Lefkow, Kirk Johnson, James Gallagher, Neil Crist, Marty Unger and about a half-dozen of the most highly skilled developers in Seattle have left by their own choice since the restructure. These people will be sorely missed. People are giving notice almost daily because of the fear, uncertainty and doubt being caused by this blog and others. Does that really help?
I have to admit I am getting a little annoyed with all of the references to Jobster in the past tense. Jobster is a very successful business with hundreds of satisfied customers. Not to mention we still have TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN THE BANK and we are not going anywhere. We have the funds, the products and the people to survive with or without Jason Goldberg.
We had a company-wide meeting today with full disclosure of budget, goals, client success etc. We are hitting all of our goals despite all of these distractions, but it gets tougher every day. I hate that the marketplace is being led to believe that Jobster may not be around in 6-12 months or that we are not a safe vendor or partner to do business with. That is just not true. We have several years of operating funds and solid products and services that are in high demand.
Is Jason Goldberg killing Jobster? No, Jobster has become much bigger than Jason Goldberg.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Some additional comments:
NA – “I’m sure Jason is well aware of what he is doing and is probably working 24/7 to build Jobster into something great.” Plainly not true, he has spent sometime recreating in lake Washington as he tested to see if his Prada clothing was wash and wear.
Catbert – everyone is free to read or not read, comment or not comment. Because of JGo/Jobster’s ownership of Recruiting.com, it puts him as a newsworthy story. I’m sure that Joel will be offering great content that is relevant to your business in posts in the near future.
Current Jobster Employee – “We have the funds, the products and the people to survive with or without Jason Goldberg.
” you may have the funds to survive without him, but the point of the post and Wired’s article is that Jobster may not survive WITH him. Threatening to kill an employee is serious, and not just a small error in judgment.
If this were a public company, there would be a vacancy announced in the CEO position. My guess is that the VCs will be demanding adult leadership in the very near future. Jason should be applauded for his attempt to create an innovative solution for the job search market. It is apparent to me (and suspect most people that are following his antics) that the company now needs a skill set that he does not possess.
If one were to look at simple economics, your customer base of “hundreds” isn’t going to be creating a positive cash flow anytime soon – and that, after all is what will be demanded by the VCs. Unless there is a significant pattern of real growth in revenues (not just a decrease in expenses driven by lower labor costs from layoffs and separations) then pressure will mount to such a degree that the company may well not survive. The numerous changes in business model/revenue generation models that are being experimented with are telltale signs that pressure has been mounting for some time… as are the layoffs and Jason’s “profitability promise.” It is an interesting time there, I’m sure… but I wouldn’t want to be there… I lived through that in 2000/2001.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
> Not to mention we still have TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN THE BANK and we are not going anywhere.
Yeah but how many TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS have you burned through already without a whole lot to show for it?
April 6th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Hey Joel,
Interesting piece, but there is no real mystery here. It seems to me that Jobster does not have a message because they aren’t sure who they are or what the message should be … other than that Jobster comes up with and launches lots of ideas, hoping all the while that one might stick.
However, I think (hope) they know this … and like many companies, just aren’t sure how to get started. They are not alone, but they certainly have more visibility than most of companies with similar problems.
Rich
April 6th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Seems you’re not the only person applying an Alice-in-Wonderland allusion to Jobster—although I gave it a slightly different feel. To your question—"Where were the thoughtful comments of support from current employees, customers and board members?"—I can only say what’s in my own mind:
The more phlegmatic personalities probably don’t see much reason to break silence, and may only pay lip-service to the "alter [sic] of transparency". I, in fact, prefer to be opaque and never alter my transparency. The people whose opinions you have tapped ostensibly feel a sincere need to either denigrate or exculpate Jobster, but I’m quite sure that (even after the layoffs) that set of people is a only a small portion of Jobster employees. The rest of us, I’m sure, span the spectrum of attitudes towards the company and what is going on—but we don’t really feel the need to talk to you about it. I suppose I’m making that untrue for myself by responding, but it’s the answer to your question. I guess my transparency has been altered.
From where I sit, there are still lots of neat things going on at Jobster. We’re designing and building cool and useful software, the engineering team is a tight-knit group of friends, and we’ve survived some hard lessons. I’m not going to defend the indefensible, nor am I mystified by the exodus of many of our talented people, but I’m certainly not packing my bags in the near future.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Congratulations Cheez, you’re now the proud owner of the US Weekly of the recruiting blogosphere. Do we get a picture of Jason eating ice cream next week to see that “he’s just like us?”
And this is from the guy, when given the opportunity, who will take a shit on any established site in his never ending quest to prove his “iconoclasty.”
Along comes a site that is different – different idea, different value prop, different interface. Instead of providing some insightful commentary on their product offerings (good or bad), you choose to air the CEO’s dirty laundry in public. As it’s already been stated by their employees, this has already had a negative effect on their business.
So, next time you want to get on your soapbox and cry about how awful the big boards are, think about your actions in the past week and how you’ve PERSONALLY affected a team who can provide the big sites competition.
You get an F.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I’m bored. Can we please discuss something else other than this personal diary of blah blah. Oh, my IP: 70.153.234.55 since you’re so obsessed with knowing who your comments come from. Guess you’d never want to become a radio talk show kinda guy. Then again, you could have a call screener that traces every call. I miss my daily Cheeze :(
April 7th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Having been in the startup world before, my question on the money thing would be how much *uncommitted* money is in the bank?
In any case, I agree that Jobster is bigger than Jason Goldberg. It has, as companies do, outgrown him.
99% of startups eventually outgrow their founder. The founder works well to get things started, get people motivated, get buzz, get money, and basically get a new idea running. But eventually, the company has to shift gears into a growing mid-size company and most guys good at startup are not good at the next stage.
It is rare to have a Dell, where the founder still is at the helm. Even Bill Gates brought in Ballmer (who had good big-company management experience) when it got too big for him (this is in the early days, not when he became CEO).
The future survival of Jobster is dependent on getting “the next stage” guy in place. And I don’t know who their VCs are, but I guarantee that if this isn’t their first rodeo, they’ve known who they were going to put in that slot for a long time.
Dan
April 10th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I still can’t get over this comment and Did this really happen – “Goldberg did apparently threaten a female employee, saying he’d put a bullet in her head….” If so, this is Much more than an error in judgement.. Does this not describe the leader, and the atmosphere of the company? One of harassment and was mentioned earlier, terrorism. It only makes one wonder, what else did we not hear about?
It would take a lot more than a public apology for me to forget that one.. Geez, they are lucky they still have that 10 Million, that young lady bless her heart, has a great opportunity to capitalize..
Cheeze, thanks for this information. What is kinda shocking, no disturbing, is that there are many who are Justifying this type of managment? wow! and I thought we were in the employment business..
Would I want to consider placing for a company like this.. heck no! Would I want to work for a company like this? Emphatic No, and would I want to Know about this before I get a chance to work there? YES!
There was a comment made in the previous post which makes total sense. Recruiters have no problem digging into the dirt of candidates, find out as much as you can about them, with the excuse would I want them to work for us.. but, don’t candidates have the same rights, should they not be aware?
Maybe Jobster will get their act togethor, and it will be one of the best places to work, but today, IMHO it appears not to be a very healthy environment.
Karen M
June 7th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Interesting read indeed. I find it outrageous that the board and investors would allow a CEO to make death threats to an employee — and turn the other cheek. Sounds to me like a ticking time bomb of sorts. It also sounds like the employee whose life was threatened with “a bullet in the head” should have just cause for a larger severance package that should come out of the CEO’s compensation IMHO.