And you can tell all of this because of your superior insight and the feel you've gained from participating in places like HN for how engineering teams really work.

This is a forum for discussion, and as such, speculation happens.

You appear to be more personally offended by whatever I said in a speculative comment than maybe you should be?

Whatever.

If you don't like being called out, consider starting future comments with the words "I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, but just for shits, here's a theory:".

Do you know anyone who works at Simple?

Do you have any other sources for what's going on at Simple?

Alex is a real person. He is not an Xbox game. Internet or not: he is not up for your review. If you're going to "speculate" about his "performance" or "relationships", you should be ready to go to bat for what you said.

If he hadn't written a blog post, HN would be all abuzz about his name vanishing from their web pages.

There's no way to win this.

You're attacking me for not necessarily taking it for face value. Your language is belittling and confrontational and I'll just take it to mean you're probably an asshole, which, honestly is the only personality judgement I have made in this whole thread.

You've acted like I made some sort of character attack on Alex...

I've seen you do this before on HN, as I stated.

I concluded a few months ago that writing like yours (not yours in particular; it's an annoying HN trope) is actually more rude than a similar comment that outright called the author a liar. You not only did that, but in such a way as to imply that he lies so often it's a casual affair. "Of course", the sentiment you're expressing goes, "there's more to the story than he's telling us. Why would he tell us anything but what makes him look good?" That's what you've communicated.

Alex, I am 1000% sure, does not give a shit about what you (or I) think about his most recent career move. But comments like yours, as you can see, drive me up a fucking wall.

Again - I think you're a little emotionally touchy. And thats totally ok, but let me address a point you are making:

you are equating my belief that there could be more to the story than what i am reading in a blog post with accusing the poster of lying and that you find this really annoying.

Further you are using quotations around phrases that I never typed to imply that these quotes were my true meaning. This is a pretty low debate tactic. Why not mention that I also implied he was gay, or racist, or stomped on kittens for sexual pleasure.

I meant nothing of the things that you "quoted" -- I simply said, and I'll quote:

"Sure, It might not have been a good role, but sounds like there were relationship issues as well. I wouldn't imagine his cut and run solely on "I cant program enough" -- He had to be either under performing or frustrated with the others' lack of leadership/performance/flexibility/ability to listen/you-name-it

There are too many reasons to leave a company, but who knows the truth...."

Read that a few time, whilst leaving your emotional attachements behind and tell me where I am calling him a liar.

When i say "who knows the truth" I mean the empirical truth - as in the truth that takes into accounts absolutely all factors.

Not "this guy is lying and so I don't have the truth"

Anyway, I'm done with this thread, hopefully you'll cool off on the things that drive you up the wall and I'll be more specific in my language :)

I am happy to be wrong, but given that I do not, as you pointed out, know Alex - or anyone at Simple, I have no option but to speculate on motives and things going on in the spaces I follow.

What I was upset about is the level at which you attempted to censor me, call me indignant and berate me discussing this online.

If we were in a room face to face and i disagreed with you in person would you have conducted yourself in the same manner? I doubt it, you probably would have been more polite in telling me how you disagreed with me.

You're welcome to come over for dinner any time, BTW.

Also - I'll teach you how to throw knives.

Have a good night. (the dinner offer is still open)

We would not have gone this many rounds on this in person. I'm pretty sure (as everyone who works with me will tell you) that I'd have used the same words as my first response, but regardless of how you took that, it would have blown over. Conversations don't hover on a screen in front of you after they're concluding, begging you to push them forward.

That's personal, and you have no basis for it.

I think it's completely plausible that he doesn't get enough time programming and he's leaving because of it. Simple is growing. At this stage, he's a manager, not a programmer. Sounds like he isn't too interested in managing.

Most people seem to leave their respective companies and hang on as advisors. Maybe it's just too awkward?

I don't have to speculate about that or wonder if there's "awkwardness" behind it. Alex said so. Just read the post.

You wonder whether people write posts like this because they anticipate speculation about why they're leaving or how the company is doing. Of course, there's no win to be had in being honest and direct, because people are just going to invent their own stories. The narrative that eventually sticks is the one that is most fun to bounce around, or has the most resonance to people, or is most congenial to people's ideology.

I left a well paying job where I was expected to be the exciting bright young thing who will change everything, for a job I greatly prefer, earning half as much, where I can learn from two or three really bright people, where I am the bottom peg, and have the time to mess around with things, sometimes highly speculatively, and get a few wins under my belt.

I would analogise this as being a bit like the difference between becoming a pop singer via a TV talent show and becoming a pop singer via years of gigs from pub to pub in a van with your band.

Also, '....' is not the dramatic rhetorical flourish that you seem to think it is. It just looks silly....

A startup generally is an experimental dev company. Startups execute their roadmap. If they don't have focus, especially when they're tackling something as big as banking, they die.

> There are lots of opps he could have taken.

Sure. But it's hard/impossible to move down the food chain once you've been at the top.

> Sure, It might not have been a good role, but sounds like there were relationship issues as well.

I didn't get that from Alex's post. I got "not doing enough programming, wife and I miss San Francisco"

> I wouldn't imagine his cut and run solely on "I cant program enough" -- He had to be either under performing or frustrated with the others' lack of leadership/performance/flexibility/ability to listen/you-name-it

You got all that from "personal reasons"? :)

This happens all the time with very senior security roles at startups. People take them because they fit a career arc, but then realize that the day-to-day of those very senior roles just isn't as fun as research work. Since security research work pays like f'ing crazy right now, people bounce out of demanding corp roles pretty quickly: even in a very strong outcome at a startup, you might not give up too much money opting for "funemployment".

(Alex and Stephen are also good friends, from long before Simple).