The Culture of Silent Departures
I fucking hate the silent departures here. The turnover is absolutely insane. I have no idea who left because they quit and who left because they were part of a layoff and who left because they were silently let go. It's absolutely insane and absolutely erodes what culture we have left.
Whether people are fired, laid off, or just move on to something new doesn't matter. They just disappear. Maybe you hear about it from a coworker, but more likely you realize you haven't seen them around in a while and go to DM them, only to see their account is deactivated. The turnover is astounding when a company is not doing well. The poor communication about the turnover only compounds the issue by eroding what little company culture there is left.
Especially at a fully remote startup, company culture matters. People can believe in the product and understand the mission, but if there is little cohesion and maximum confusion you are train headed for a cliff. And that's if things are going well. When things aren't going well, when leadership makes divisive decisions that don't seem to make sense, then that sense of duty and mission is thrown into disarray. My personal experience with this is a total loss of faith in what we are doing. Of course, that is compounded by the previously explored disagreement with the direction we are going (as well as the execution of that direction).
So, here I am. Lost. Purposeless. I clock in and clock out at a job that used to inspire me, that was once a pole vaulting moment for my career. I am not lost because I don't know what to do, I am lost because I am sad. I am disappointed that this failed, but even more disappointed that it feels like it could have been avoided. Probably.
Maybe I just had the wrong understanding of what this company was when I joined, the mission that our product suite supported and the purpose of my hard work and the long hours. Maybe I just didn't change with the times. Maybe I got tired of all the change and realized, it's not me, it's you. I know what I want and what I want this company to be yet, like clockwork, here comes our annual pivot. Our next big thing. The game changer. Except we aren't changing the game, we are changing the game we are playing. Entering a new league, learning new rules, reconstructing the roster time and time again because we are in a slow death spiral.
We raised a massive Series A at the height of the last bull market for funding. At the time, that was exciting and validating that what we were building was correct. The market signaled to us that we were winners and deserved such a high valuation. I am almost embarrassed to admit that I should have known this is where we would end up, but I had the wrong kind of experience. I learned about how this story plays out from HBO's Silicon Valley, but I didn't experience it for myself. Not yet, anyway. But, now I have. And the market is certainly sending us another signal with a paltry, some might even say pathetic, Series B.
All the while, we sit and we churn and we spin and we pivot and we abandon progress towards product market fit to the next thing under the guise of forward progress and consistency with mission. I don't know who I work with anymore. I have so few friends left here that I could go a week without logging onto Slack and not miss a thing.
Layoffs and firings and voluntary departures are part of business, that's not my concern. And I do think that if turnover was lower, leadership might have been better about announcing and celebrating when a teammate moves on in their journey. Or might explain why someone was not a fit for the role and that they were let go. Or maybe they wouldn't pretend that we've only done two layoff events when the reality is that they are almost regularly in layoff mode.
It's damage control, it's trying to control the narrative, it's spinning a story that none of us believe once we hear it one too many times. It erodes trust that was lost long ago.
The silent departures certainly won't stop anytime soon. I will probably be one of them, at least to the broader organization. I won't make a fuss when I leave, but I won't abandon my team without explanation either.
I am excited for whatever comes next because I have learned so much of what not to do in scale up. How not to treat your employees. How cutting corners always catches up to you in the long run, and why to lead with confidence and clarity rather than desperation and impulse.