Editor’s note: Derek Andersen is the founder of Startup Grind, a 40-city community bringing the global startup world together while educating, inspiring, and connecting entrepreneurs. I remember when the press first hit about Nest Labs, the guys behind the iPod/iPhone were taking on thermostats everywhere! A collective “huh?” went through the tech industry. It felt like the tech version of the Avengers got together to build an office park, not save the world. After sitting down with Nest co-founder Matt Rogers at Google For Entrepreneurs‘ office a few weeks ago, I learned the backstory and vision of a company on a mission to build one of the world’s only great hardware/software companies in the world. There are hard workers, there are really hard workers, and then there are the Matt Rogers of the world. If you think you work hard, please read/watch our entire interview then reevaluate. He had a quick start with his first Mac product interactions being at age three. As a child growing up in Gainesville Florida, when asked what he wanted to be someday, Matt would respond “I want to work at Apple.” At 16 he was building robots and entering them into competitions with his classmates. As a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon, he agreed to basically do anything (anything was help draw bones in CAD for a robotics hand project) to get a chance to work with with the robotics lab. His Junior year he applied via Monster.com, and pestered employees until he got accepted for an internship at Apple. That summer he took on the worst grunt work project imaginable (he rewrote all the software for manufacturing for iPod), and had three months for what he described as a “one year project.” 7-days a week, 20-hour days, and “basically not sleeping.” How did it pay off? As an intern Apple awarded him a cash bonus, what VP of iPod at the time and eventual Nest co-founder Tony Fadell said was something, “He had never done before.” Apple After school he returned to Apple and spent the next few years working on the firmware for iPod nano and iPod classic. After his first weekend back at Apple, and spending Saturday and Sunday getting moved in and buying furniture, his manager approached him saying, “Where have you been?” Matt responded, “I went to buy furniture.” He replied, “You should have been here.” He responded, “Oh. I didn’t even know!” Matt said that this, ”Set the pace for how iPod would be for the
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Tag Archives: employees
From The Garage To 200 Employees In 3-Years; How Nest Thermostats Were Born.
Monaeo Tracks Company Employees For Location Based Tax Information To Prevent Needless Auditing
According to Anupam Singhal, cofounder of Monaeo, two out of three Fortune 500 companies get audited every year. And although there are surely several companies that get audited simply because they were unable to pay their taxes, most of the time it’s simply due an unfortunate case of miscalculation.
LucasArts Employees Hold Wake & Eulogy; Vader Still Roams
Dawn Kawamoto writes “LucasArts employees held a wake Friday night, days after Darth Vader Disney slayed their studio. Taking the high road, two LucasArts employees put together a eulogy that offers a retrospective on the culture, memories and accomplishments of the team. Most of us who’ve witnessed a blood bath at the workplace aren’t as charitable. Darth Vader Disney is expected to strike again in the next two weeks at its studio and consumer product divisions.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Founded By Early oDesk Employees, Freelancer Marketplace Rev.com Raises $4.5 Million Series A
Rev.com, a freelancer marketplace founded by early oDesk employees, is today announcing $ 4.5 million in Series A funding led by Venky Ganesan of Globespan Capital Partners. Also participating in the round were Craig Sherman (former COO of Ancestry.com) and Austin Ligon (founder of CarMax). All three are now members of Rev.com’s board of directors, following the round which closed back in August 2012.
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T-Mobile to layoff employees before MetroPCS merger, sources say
First news of the T-Mobile acquisition of MetroPCS surfaced back in October 2012. Thus began the long process of passing through government red tape before the deal could actually go through. Earlier today, we reported that the carrier has received a thumbs up from the Department of Justice to move forward with the merger. Now,
Yahoo! tells employees to stop working from home
No more working from home for Yahoo employees, says report
“We need to be one Yahoo,” reads a memo reportedly sent to staff, so come June any existing work-from-home arrangements will be rendered null and void. [Read more]
CNET News
Facebook Employees’ Laptops Compromised; User Data Believed Safe
Trailrunner7 writes “Laptops belonging to several Facebook employees were compromised recently and infected with malware that the company said was installed through the use of a Java zero-day exploit that bypassed the software’s sandbox. Facebook claims that no user data was affected by the attack and says that it has been working with law enforcement to investigate the attack, which also affected other unnamed companies. Facebook officials did not identify the specific kind of malware that the attackers installed on the compromised laptops, but said that the employee’s machines were infected when they visited a mobile developer Web site that was hosting the Java exploit. When the employees visited the site, the exploit attacked a zero-day vulnerability in Java that was able to bypass the software’s sandbox and enable the attackers to install malware. The company said it reported the vulnerability to Oracle, which then patched the Java bug on Feb. 1.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft Has Built An Interactive Video Production Studio In LA, With More Than 150 Employees
Today at the D: Dive Into Media conference, representatives from Microsoft provided more details on its new video production studio, which will provide a whole new level of interactivity for viewers. Nancy Tellem said that the company has already hired 150 employees in its Santa Monica studio in LA. That’s a huge commitment to creating a whole new type of content for its Xbox game console.
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How Much Equity Do Your Employees Deserve? The Dynamic-Split Model Breaks It Down
Editor’s note: Mike Moyer is the author of Slicing Pie, a book about implementing dynamic equity splits.
Few topics cause more rifts in startup teams than equity splits. Today, the vast majority of equity splits are fixed. For instance, two founders split the equity “50/50” and one does all the work. Then what? Unanticipated changes in the contributions of individual members or the addition and subtraction of employees put team members at odds, each one vying for the largest share they can get of the pie.
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Nokia to outsource IT functions, over 1,000 employees affected
Nokia is planning to transfer up to 820 employees to HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services and lay off up to 300 people as the company reorganizes its IT organization.
Computerworld News
AMD Files Suit Against Former Employees For Alleged Document Theft
New submitter massivepanic writes “AMD has filed (and been granted) a request for immediate injunctive relief against multiple former employees that it alleges stole thousands of confidential documents. Named in the complaint (PDF) are Robert Feldstein, Manoo Desai, Nicholas Kociuk, and Richard Hagen. All four left AMD to work at Nvidia in the past year. The loss of Feldstein was particularly noteworthy, as he’d been the head of AMD’s console initiatives for years. Feldstein was behind the work that landed AMD the Wii U, PS4, and Xbox Durango. He also worked closely with Microsoft during the Xbox 360s development cycle and brought that contract to ATI prior to AMD’s acquisition.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Samsung CEO Lee Kun Hee Warns Employees About Increased Competition
Samsung Electronics may currently be the world’s leader in sales of mobile phones and TVs, but chairman Lee Kun Hee has told employees that the Korean company must watch its back as new competitors surface and the global economy continues to drag.
How Google turned employees into philanthropists in 2012
A new effort that used technology to boost giving resulted in big donations to hunger-related charities this holiday season. [Read more]
CNET News
Michigan Makes It Illegal To Ask For Employees’ Facebook Logins
An anonymous reader writes “Michigan joins Maryland as a state where employers may not ask employees or job applicants to divulge login information for Facebook and other social media sites. From the article: ‘Under the law, employers cannot discipline employees or decline to hire job applicants because they do not give them access information, including user names, passwords, login information, or “other security information that protects access to a personal internet account,” according to the bill. Universities and schools cannot discipline or fail to admit students if they do not give similar information.’ There is one exception, however: ‘However, accounts owned by a company or educational institution, such as e-mail, can be requested.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Employees are ‘beaming’ into work using telepresence robots
Verizon’s limited edition Droid DNA puts the company colors in employees’ hands
There are more perks to being a Verizon employee than just discounted phone plans — like limited edition versions of the carrier’s hottest handsets. Much like it did for the Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx, Verizon’s gearing up to offer its staffers a special, red-backed version of the Droid DNA that adheres strictly to the company’s signature colors. Apart from the obvious red and black cosmetic change, each phone is set to ship with a serial number denoting its exclusivity and type on the back marking it as a “Verizon Employee Limited Edition.” According to DroidLife, these one-offs have already begun to enter into circulation. So, don’t be surprised if you see any related listings surfacing on eBay in the near future.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Verizon
Source: DroidLife
It’s Official, EMC’s Paul Maritz To Lead Cloud and Big Data Platform Play With 1,400 Employees Under His Command
It’s official, after weeks of a rumored change, EMC and VMware have announced this morning the “Pivotal Initiative,” a cloud and big data play that will be led by Chief Strategy Officer Paul Maritz.
VMwre’s Cloud Foundry, SpringSource and Gemstone will join EMC’s Greenplum and Pivotal Labs groups to form one “virtual organization,” with 1,400 employees.
TechCrunch
Facebook uses posters to push employees to switch to Android
The apparent aim of the campaign is to improve the Facebook experience on smartphone platform with the largest marketshare. [Read more]
CNET News
Droidfooding: After Years Of Giving Employees iPhones, Posters At Facebook HQ Beg Them To Test Android
“In the early days we gave employees iPhones primarily”, a Facebook spokesperson tells me. That decision and the rise of Android has left Facebook scrambling to get employees dogfooding its apps for Google’s OS. Now the company’s headquarters is plastered with these eye-popping posters asking Facebookers to “switch today”, and fix Android flaws with its secret bug reporting tool “Rage Shake”.
TechCrunch
IT and Employees See BYOD Security (Much) Differently
IT organizations continue to struggle with the details when it comes to enabling BYOD for applications beyond email, and a new study finds that while employees are eager to access corporate resources from their mobile devices, they have little tolerance for controls IT wants to impose.
Computerworld News
JPL Employee’s Firing Wasn’t Due To Intelligent Design Advocacy, Says Judge
SternisheFan writes with an update to a story from earlier this year about a lawsuit in which David Coppedge alleged he was fired from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for his advocacy of Intelligent Design. Now, a judge has ruled that Coppedge was legitimately dismissed for performance reasons. From the article:
“n 2009, he apparently got a bit aggressive about promoting these ideas at work, leading one employee to complain. The resulting investigation found that he had also aggressively promoted his opinion on California’s gay marriage ban, and had attempted to get JPL’s holiday party renamed to ‘Christmas party.’ … Coppedge was warned about his behavior at work, but he felt it was an infringement of his religious freedom, so he sued. Shortly after, as part of a set of cutbacks on the Cassini staff, he was fired. In court, Coppedge and his lawyer portrayed him as being targeted for promoting an idea that is, to put it mildly, not popular with scientists. But JPL’s legal team introduced evidence that his aggressive promotion of it at work was part of a pattern of bad interactions with his fellow employees that dated back at least five years earlier.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GM to hire 3,000 HP employees as it insources IT work
HP has agreed to transfer 3,000 of its employees to the General Motors payroll, as the automaker moves IT operations in-house, the two companies announced Thursday.
Computerworld News
Microsoft employees ‘sign off’ on Windows Phone 8 RTM
Windows Phone 8 may not have a firm release date, but reports are flooding in that it’s just been released to manufacturers (RTM) so they can work on their side of the equation: hardware production. According to LiveSino, pictures posted to Chinese social network Sina Weibo show members of the Windows Phone team signing a banner marking the milestone. In particular, Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Phone Division, was caught penning his name alongside others. ZDNet’s own sources corroborate that Ballmer and Co. have deemed the operating system fit to ship. With manufacturers seemingly taken care of, developers will be able to get their mitts on the WP8 software development kit in roughly two weeks.
Filed under: Cellphones
Microsoft employees ‘sign off’ on Windows Phone 8 RTM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget
Facebook employees forced to use Android app until it’s better
Motorola to cut 4,000 employees as it focuses on high-end devices
Motorola Mobility is cutting 4,000 employees as the company shifts its emphasis from feature phones to focus on high-end devices, the company said late Sunday.
Computerworld News
What Happens To Google Employees When They Die?
Hugh Pickens writes “Forbes Magazine reports that employee benefits of Google are among the best in the land—free haircuts, gourmet food, on-site doctors and high-tech “cleansing” toilets are among the most talked-about but the latest perk for Googlers extends into the afterlife. ‘This might sound ridiculous,’ says Google’s Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock, ‘But we’ve announced death benefits at Google.’ Should a U.S. Googler pass away while under the employ of the 14-year old search giant, their surviving spouse or domestic partner will receive a check for 50% of their salary every year for the next decade. Even more surprising, a Google spokesperson confirms that there’s ‘no tenure requirement’ for this benefit, meaning most of their 34 thousand Google employees qualify.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Zynga uses stock options to keep employees put, report says
The company’s declining stock price and financial troubles is making Zynga offer up stock options to all employees.
[Read more]
CNET News
Samsung to investigate claims of supplier’s underage employees
Samsung personnel with be heading off to Huizhou, China tomorrow to investigate claims that one of its suppliers is employing underage workers. This investigation comes after the China Labor Watch said it found that seven workers under 16 years of age were working at HEG Electronics. Now Samsung is going to conduct an investigation of
Google Slaps $100M Golden Handcuffs On Wildfire To Retain Employees After $350M Acquisition
After buying social marketer Wildfire for $ 350 million, Google wants to ensure it keeps earning money and the employees don’t bail. That’s why Google set up $ 100 million in earn-outs and retention bonuses, multiple sources confirm. One, an investor I spoke to directly, verified the $ 350 million price tag we published last week and that the golden handcuffs amount to $ 100 million, twice the $ 50 million we and others expected.
That could be enough to keep Wildfirers from straying to competitors or seeking new adventures in startup-land.
TechCrunch
IT’s Olympic challenge: Live streaming employees
IT managers in businesses and governments are taking steps to ensure that the Summer Olympics do not bust networks or budgets. The opportunity for problems is there.
Computerworld News
Cisco to lay off another 1,300 employees
Networking-equipment maker’s new job cuts come a year after the company announced plans to shed 14 percent of its global workforce.
[Read more]
CNET News
Employees work extra hours on mobile email, calls
A survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found an average of seven extra hours a week — almost another full day of work — are spent answering calls and email on a mobile device outside of the regular work week.
Computerworld News
Apple Store Employees Soak Up the Atmosphere, But Not Much Cash
raque writes “The NYTimes is reporting on just
how badly Apple Retail employees are being paid. Apple is exploiting its fan base for cheap labor. This is one reason I don’t go to Apple Stores if I can avoid it. Stores like NY’s Tekserve offer a great shopping experience without so exploiting their workers.” Would you rather start at an Apple store for $ 11.91 an hour (average starting base pay, according to the linked article) and an employee discount, or at Tiffany for $ 15.60?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple offers employees big discounts on Macs and iPads
If you have acquaintances who happen to work at your local Apple Store, it’s time to become better friends with them. Apple has announced a new employee discount program that knocks a significant amount of money off the purchase price of popular Apple gadgets. The new discount program is valid for Macs and iPads. The
Infosys employees had concerns about visa use, documents show
An Infosys employee, whose lawsuit against the company triggered a federal investigation into visa fraud, has released some of the evidence in defense of his case.
Computerworld News
Employees Admit They’d Walk Out With Stolen Data If Fired
Gunkerty Jeb writes “In a recent survey of IT managers and executives, nearly half of respondents admitted that if they were fired tomorrow they would walk out with proprietary data such as privileged password lists, company databases, R&D plans and financial reports — even though they know they are not entitled to it. So, it’s no surprise that 71 percent believe the insider threat is the priority security concern and poses the most significant business risk. Despite growing awareness of the need to better monitor privileged accounts, only 57 percent say they actively do so. The other 43 percent weren’t sure or knew they didn’t. And of those that monitored, more than half said they could get around the current controls.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Information of U.S. federal employees exposed
A hack in July last year of a computer used by third-party services provider Serco to support the Thrift Savings Plan run by the U.S. Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board resulted in unauthorized access to the personal information of about 123,201 TSP participants and payees, FRTIB said Friday.
Computerworld News
Cyber attack exposes personal data of federal employees
Facebook Granted About $796 Million In Restricted Stock To Employees This Month
More Facebook riches all around! The company granted about $ 796 million in restricted stock units to employees less than a week ago, according to an amended IPO filing.
These are ”employee refresher grants,” or new grants for employees. They don’t replace existing ones. These restricted stock units, or RSUs, could be worth anywhere from $ 707 million to $ 884 million based on Facebook’s expected $ 28 to 35 price range per share. Of course, if people hold on for longer and the stock pops by the time their lock-up period finishes, these shares could be worth a great deal more.
TechCrunch
Whoops: Firm’s e-mail slipup fires 1,300 employees
British insurance company Aviva sends out an e-mail to 1,300 employees telling them the show is over. Sadly, this e-mail was meant for only one. Wait, they fire people by e-mail?
[Read more]
CNET News
Survey Says Bosses Fear Being Filmed By Employees
New submitter Cazekiel writes “If you think your boss is a fearless, miserable beast whose only worries lie in how well his company or business competes, think again. The ‘Business Video Behavior Project’ survey conducted by Qumu reveals that those in-charge are growing more and more paranoid about something the Average Joe fears just walking down the street nowadays: employees who will ‘secretly film him with his metaphorical pants down and then post the footage for public delectation.’ It would seem that it doesn’t matter if you’re powerful, wealthy and lording over hundreds of cubicles; they know the internet exists, everyone has a cell phone camera and thick wallets don’t make discarded banana peels magically move out of their path.” The company that paid for the study, note, promises to “securely distribute business video simultaneously over multiple Edge routes,” so they probably don’t mind some workplace paranoia.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Bosses’ big fear? That employees will film them
A survey suggests that bosses are paranoid that employees will upload inappropriate videos to company networks or film them in slightly less than perfect situations and then post the videos to the network.
[Read more]
CNET News
HP lays off 275 WebOS employees
Meg Whitman may have big plans for WebOS, the little mobile operating system that couldn’t, but it looks like whatever she’s planning doesn’t require a large portion of the current WebOS development team. The company has laid off 275 employees in its mobile section. Most of the affected employees are engineers, which makes a lot [...]
SlashGear
Ask Slashdot: Companies That Force Employees To Join Social Networks?
First time accepted submitter rubeon writes “Companies can get a lot of mileage out of social networking services from the likes of Google or Facebook. Chat, document collaboration, and video conferencing using services like Google+ Hangouts or Facebook’s Skype are seductive additions to an IT arsenal. But a lot of people have privacy concerns about these services, and there’s no shortage of horror stories how these sites track and exploit their users’ habits. Would you work for a company that forced its employees to join a social network?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Spanish bank to move 100,000+ employees to Google Apps
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is adopting Google Apps for email and collaboration and expects to have its about 110,000 employees worldwide using the suite by the end of this year.
Computerworld News
4 Facebook Employees Built A Working Demo Of Timeline In One Night
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Timeline was. What now allows hundreds of millions to tell the story of their lives started as an all-night Hackathon project in 2010. 2 brave Facebook engineers, an intern, and a designer cobbled together a working prototype that a year later would become Facebook’s flashiest redesign. A Note published today by Facebook’s engineering team details how the project came to fruition.
TechCrunch
Aol Employees Make Zombie Video About Talent Exodus
In case you haven’t noticed ;), it’s an especially slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow time for the tech industry. So slow that some Aol employees — the only one I recognize is Sol Lipman — made a video about the recent Aol talent exodus, using ZOMBIES as a metaphor for all the people who’ve decided to leave Aol.
Ticket Search Engine FanSnap Acquired By Shopping Site NexTag, But Employees May Get $0
Comparison shopping site NexTag has made its fifth acquisition in 15 months, buying event ticket search engine FanSnap. Unfortunately, FanSnap employees and any other common stockholders won’t get anything out of the deal, according to a source close to the transaction. Apparently the purchase price was low, and FanSnap had taken over $ 15 million in funding primarily from General Catalyst Partners. That means even if the investors were paid back, there’d be nothing left for common stockholders.
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