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Zusammenfassung von Disrupted

Name: Disrupted
Rating: 4.4 (32 reviews)
Author: Dan Lyons

Dan Lyons

My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

4.4 (32 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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'Disrupted' by Dan Lyons is a memoir about his experience working at a tech start-up in his 50s. He describes the quirky culture, the struggles of older workers, and how the start-up bubble may be doing more harm than good to the tech industry.

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What’s in it for me? Peel away the gloss of the glittering tech start-up industry.

Silicon Valley is the sacred site of the high-tech start-up scene, where internet giants like Google, Apple and Facebook forge the future and new ideas and innovations pop up like mushrooms. But this fantastic public facade masks some sobering private practices.

In these blinks, you’ll follow the story of author Dan Lyons who, jobless and in his fifties, entered the start-up world at HubSpot, a company specializing in inbound marketing and sales. While working there, the author witnessed weird business practices and poor working conditions – and discovered the truth behind the hype.

You’ll also learn

what it takes to be truly “HubSpotty”;
that some people think talking to a stuffed animal is innovative; and
what a “bozo explosion” is.

Traditional journalists like the author have been forced to reinvent themselves in the modern media industry.

In 2012, journalist Dan Lyons, who’d previously been employed as the technology editor at Newsweek magazine, was in his 50s and desperately looking for work. He’d just been fired and was now facing a radically different job market.

He wasn’t alone. The internet-technology boom of the 2000s was causing many older professionals to reevaluate their positions in the media industry.

During the early 2000s, new internet-based tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, were on the rise. Meanwhile, traditional media industries, such as newspapers and magazines, were struggling to survive and adapt.

These newly ascendant companies were offering products and services that were changing central human activities – how we shop and socialize, how we get our news and information.

Instead of relying on newspapers and magazines, readers could now get all the information they needed with a simple click. Print magazines like Newsweek were in free-fall as advertisers began moving to online platforms and people began canceling their subscriptions.

All of this led to Lyons being let go, just after Newsweek – the very company he was working for – published an article entitled “The Beached White Male.” Ironically, it was about a generation of experienced, older professionals who were suddenly finding themselves bereft of work due to company cutbacks.

To find a new job, Lyons needed to reinvent himself – and his attempt at transformation led him to the new world of start-ups.

Lyons was married, had two young kids and was the sole breadwinner, all of which made a steady job and good health insurance imperative.

His first new job took him to San Francisco, where he worked for a tech-news website called ReadWrite.

It was okay, but not ideal, since his family was rooted on the other side of the country, in Boston. However, while in San Francisco, he also got a first-hand look at the booming start-up businesses of Silicon Valley.

This got him thinking: Maybe he could reinvent himself as a writer in the marketing department of a start-up?

Entering the world of a start-up as a 50-year-old was a strange new experience for Lyons, but he was willing to adapt.

As a tech writer for Newsweek, Lyons was familiar with companies like Twitter and Facebook. He had interviewed many of these businesses’ CEOs and knew that the people who were on the ground floor when these companies took off reaped huge financial rewards.

But, despite his familiarity with their products, Lyons was surprised by the strange business practices of start-ups.

The culture at HubSpot was filled with strange lingo and odd, cult-like practices.

Lyons became an official HubSpot employee in April, 2013, and it was then that he was introduced to the company’s odd, cult-like practices, and a new world of missions, culture codes and spiritual leaders.

He quickly learned that HubSpot wasn’t just out to make money; it was on a “mission” to change the world through unique marketing software. He also learned that HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, was being referred to as a “spiritual leader” by some employees and clients.

The working environment at HubSpot was quite a culture shock for an older employee like Lyons.

While they might be odd, the practices at HubSpot were meant to inspire teamwork and unity. It wasn’t long, however, before Lyons began feeling like a misfit.

As an older man, Lyons wasn’t used to open-plan offices that afforded employees zero privacy.

Lyons started running into conflict after he proposed changes for improvement.

Three months into his new job, Lyons was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to do in his role as marketing fellow.

And when he tried to bring some new ideas to the table, he was disappointed to find that the company wasn’t really interested.

Start-ups can reinforce mediocrity and poor working conditions in the race to expand quickly.

It eventually became clear to Lyons that good management was nowhere to be found at HubSpot. After being kicked down to the telemarketing room, he saw how bad the working conditions could really get.

Lyons realized that management issues at start-ups are often the result of a phenomenon called “the bozo explosion.”

HubSpot employees ignored the lack of benefits and job security, because the company made them feel special.

The people toiling away in the spider-monkey room, desperately trying to meet a monthly quota or else lose their jobs, weren’t the only people that Lyons felt the company was mistreating. And Lyons was surprised by how many people put up with these conditions.

But ever since Google rewrote the book on how tech companies treat their employees, places like HubSpot have followed their lead by removing any sense of job security and treating employees as temporary workers. This means many start-ups offer no long-term contracts, pension plans or employee union, not to mention showing little loyalty to employees.

Even with a poor product and a bad forecast, tech companies like HubSpot can be successful by creating buzz.

You might be wondering how a company like HubSpot can become successful. It’s all about the buzz, which can be so powerful that both employees and investors may fall under its spell.

Even companies that make a poor product and fail to turn a profit can succeed; if they have positive buzz on their side, they can have a successful IPO.

Lyons’s success at creating buzz helped him to cope with HubSpot's ageist culture and get a new job.

Lyons actually played a significant role in helping HubSpot create its buzz leading up to the company’s IPO.

As the former tech editor for Newsweek, many tech blogs took note and helped generate buzz by reporting on his move to work for HubSpot.

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Worum geht es in Disrupted?

Disrupted (2016) demystifies the culture and practices of tech start-ups by taking a revealing, behind-the-scenes look at Boston’s HubSpot software company. After 25 years as a technology journalist, Dan Lyons was fired from Newsweek and accepted a new job at a start-up. These blinks follow Lyons’s bumpy and humorous journey as he tries to navigate a weird new world filled with candy walls and other bizarre instances of HubSpottiness.

Bestes Zitat aus Disrupted

I want to tell Zack that they all need to STFU because WTF does any of this have to do with how ordinary human beings actually speak...

—Dan Lyons

Wer Disrupted lesen sollte

Anyone curious about how technology start-ups operate
Potential investors in any start-up
People who work for a small business or start-up

Über den Autor

Dan Lyons is a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He was a technology editor at Newsweek for many years and is currently on staff at the HBO series Silicon Valley. His blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, was a tremendous success.

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