Fun related tidbit: Fuhu beat PortableApps.com out on a software deal to distribute a package of portable Windows software on millions of flash drives despite having no apparent experience in that area. The software package that wound up bundled on the drives included software I wrote for PortableApps.com distributed in violation of the GPL with my name and copyright stripped off the binaries, documentation, and (reluctantly-provided) code.
Mitchell said he decided to go ahead with a lawsuit in part because of what his two young daughters said after they found out about the Tabeo launch.
"They said, 'Dad, they're copying you. Isn't that wrong?' And I said, 'Yes, I do think they are copying me,'" he said. "We just felt we had to take a stand on this."
Law doesn't really work for the little guy, sadly. It's next to impossible to get a lawyer to take on a case like that when you don't have a ton of money to pay them up front (like if you were bootstrapping a big open source project yourself and trying to make a commercial go of it). I know, I asked a bunch of them. There's a reason the vast majority of GPL violations go unpunished.
As a thought, since it sounds like you had fairly solid evidence of their shenanigans... maybe a blog posting on PortableApps detailing the problem + evidence might have been enough to get them to change their ways.
The PortableApps website + Community has decent reach after all. :)
Timeline-wise, was their legal dispute with Toys "R" Us over by then? If not, it may have been useful to let Toys "R" Us counsel know... ;)
At the time, I was under an NDA regarding negotiations of a possible deal with the very large memory vendor that ultimately picked Fuhu so they could have used that as a venue to sue me. Even now that the NDA has expired, I only shared a small portion of the situation. Sadly, if you can't afford to defend yourself in a lawsuit, you can't afford to speak truth to power.
The FSF only goes after folks that violate software they own the copyright on. The EFF and SFLC only help non-profits and only in very specific circumstances.
I believe the FSF only sues over code the FSF itself owns the copyright to, rather than acting as a general GPL-enforcement agency, since their lawyers feel themselves on more solid footing in that situation.
I'm sorry to hear about this. How do lawyer's think about this situation (up front vs potential earnings) for something that seems like it could be a sure thing?
Are there any legal financing options available to manage the fact that cash is needed up front?
> His [Rob Fujioka's] micromanagement — closely monitoring, for instance, details as small as packaging labels and the waist size of animated characters — represented an asset as Fuhu tried to find its footing.
Wonder if he imagines himself to be Steve Jobs. "Well he woke people up at 4am asking them to change font kerning. Clearly that is the sign of a good leader. I should do that too".
> Technologists at the company didn't get solid answers to why tablets began requiring proprietary cables. Thorough vetting occurred, and Apple’s strategy of proprietary accessories inspired its own, Fuhu said.
Ah yes. Apple did it, so we should do it too. We are just like Apple.
There is another thread on the front page about signs of failed startups -- wanting to be like Steve Jobs and like Apple and just copying superficial behaviors from them is a sign of a failed startup.
I suspect that a lot of founders forget that, at Apple, employees were part of a technological revolution that they could see around them every day, a revolution whose success was borne out by the company itself being incredibly successful in terms of both cashflow and market share.
People can be motivated by being part of something greater than themselves, but making a tablet for kids is far too small to fit that billing.
Even if you squint and look at it sideways, you know in you heart of hearts that you are doing something evolutionary, not revolutionary.
You can only act like Steve Jobs if you are actually changing the world, and even then, it's not really a great idea.
Being kind to people, and delivering at a sustainable pace, are a much stronger guarantees of success than randomly waking up underlings at 4am because you wanted a font adjusted.
One of my former employers dealt a lot with Apple. The CEO saw the secretive nature of Apple and decided he also wanted to build our products in a secretive manner. Our company was only 300 people so they were very small teams that worked on new products and couldn't tell anyone within the company. Anyway both products became a flop because of fundamental flaws in not meeting customer requirements even though they were innovative in a sense. When they first opened up to the nature of the products, I raised serious questions to which no one had answers. Ultimately those products never went into production. Meanwhile other existing products we were market leaders in were 2 years behind competitors at that point and the company end up being acquired for IP alone.
Yes, the company initially had a lead. Some major customer would evaluate and buy our product. However while these secretive projects were going on, most of the engineering resources were put into those projects. Meanwhile the competitors continued to improve their products. When the secretive project flopped, we quickly jumped back to the original products but we were quite behind and never caught up. We were forced to pursue niche markets.
You need a lot of market power to do proprietary things, wherein standards are common, unless that proprietary thing is a significant value add.
For common peripherals .... almost everyone but Apple has to play ball with standards. Even Microsoft, with enough market power, would probably screw it up.
2.2 stars overall. 41% CEO approval. Only 23% would recommend to a friend.
Even reptiles should recognize that an unhappy staff adds drastically to turnover, recruiting costs, and organizational turmoil. While reducing the quality, effectiveness, and creativity of the output. And human beings might consider treating staff well just because they're fellow human beings.
>Even reptiles should recognize that an unhappy staff adds drastically to turnover, recruiting costs, and organizational turmoil. While reducing the quality, effectiveness, and creativity of the output. And human beings might consider treating staff well just because they're fellow human beings.
I think it's because human beings en masse are extremely reluctant to admit being wrong. Very few are able to say "Oh shit, I am being an asshole and hurting my own company! Gotta change my ways before it's too late!". Almost everyone can say "It's so hard to find good help nowadays, all my employees are whinny entitled douches who demand too much for the little work they do! Gotta toughen up our interview process to get better employees before it's too late!".
At least in my experience, the toughest interviews I had were invariably at the shittiest firms.
The first giant warning sign is family running the business. The only time I've ever seen that work out well is Mattermark (nb: I don't work there, but heard it's a good place). I have seen it work terribly at multiple places.
The next trick is to just write all the glassdoor reviews yourself. See, eg, healthtap.
Having consulted to hundreds of businesses over the past 30 years, including several family businesses, I agree with you to a certain point. However a couple of the most successful businesses I have worked with have had family members in upper management too.
The key takeaway for me is like any business partnership - if the direct stakeholders are all aware of their roles and responsibilities, and have a good grasp of their relative strengths and weaknesses, then it all work well.
However, if there are family members in there who are just along for the free ride or are only interesting in padding their nests or building a mini empire, then it all goes pear shaped and toxic very quickly.
Biggest problem I've seen with family run businesses is the generational change over. The next generation of new blood rarely want to run with the 'old way' and tend to make changes for the sake of change, and do it with little experience of how to recognise/prevent things going off the rails.
Wish there was something more that could be done than just saying "I'll never work for or do business with this company and their executives" when I see these clearly fake reviews.
There's a tendency I've seen with family run businesses to also have issues with executives treating the company like a piggy bank, where suddenly there is no payroll. From my experience you're more likely to be treated as a member of their dysfunctional family than a professional in some of the places I've dealt with in the past.
Yep. Happened to me. They bought the sales guy (owner's daughter's boyfriend) a Porsche while cutting hours for the engineers. I bounced outta there before the next pay period. Last I heard they took away the 401k but are still having the company summer picnic at the owner's Polo Club. Screw that place.
Seems to be the age old story of: Some quirky personality traits are beneficial to building a business, and some can be downright detrimental.
I am surprised that the board or other stakeholders didn't see it coming a lot earlier. Nothing more bemusing than a maker of children's devices that doesn't allow 'play' within the company culture. It's like a brewery that expects all its employees to be teetotallers...
Yet the bankruptcy report [1] indicates that retailers wanted the product and customers were buying it. The problem was on the manufacturing and fulfillment side. Fuhu had problems with Foxconn, problems so bad that Foxconn dumped them as a customer. Fuhu owes Foxconn $61 million.
That's not an in-house culture problem. That's more of a cash management problem. Were they selling at a loss to build market share?
Their 2014 Christmas stock apparently arrived late due to a Foxconn screw-up, meaning that Christmas shoppers couldn't buy it and they were left with a bunch of excess stock and a shortage of cash. I can easily see that alone being enough to mortally wound them; they probably do a large chunk of their business over Christmas. The deep sales seem to be a last-ditch desperation measure in response to that.
Came across the linked article about Fuhu from 2014 [1]:
> Think 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. workdays. Very little vacation. Missed birthday parties and weddings.
This is such a bad idea. I hope this startup idea of unhealthy work-life goes away soon. If you're a founder or have a crushing deadline for a big contract then yes, go ahead and do this. But this should never be the day-to-day pressure of any company.
They are fooling themselves that they are accomplishing more this way. A good way to lose your best talent or the abilities of the talented who stay.
It's not wise to do drive-by analyses yet this guy sounds like a classic psychopath building a cult. I bet he never accepts any responsibility for what happened.
I have an anecdote to add about Fuhu that may shed some light on the management style prevalent there. It should be noted that this is second hand info as it comes from one of my closest friends who worked there for a few months helping to run customer service/tech support. Obviously take this with the appropriately sized grain of salt. A couple of things:
1. I’ve worked in customer service jobs before and I’ve generally found that they can be an extremely tiring job as well as one that is difficult to hire for. The pay tends to suck, especially if you’re trying to survive on those wages in LA, and you get many employees who don’t take the job particularly seriously leading to lots of turnover. My friend was extremely excited to join Fuhu and I was happy to learn that many of her coworkers in support were equally excited to be there, initially at least. They all seemed very eager to be a part of a growing tech company and in the case of my friend, spent countless hours on Facebook during her off hours answering customer inquires. Her initial enthusiasm turned to dread in a matter of weeks due to what she described as a hostile work environment where those who weren’t a part of the inner circle of managers were treated with disdain. Now again, I’ve worked in low level customer service before, and while the pay was indeed low, the owner of the small business I worked at always treated me with respect. I feel you can judge an organization fairly accurately by how it treats its lowest paid employees.
2. She told me on multiple occasions that she felt uncomfortable because of what she perceived were different standards that were applied to non-Asian employees by the predominantly Asian managers. Normally, I like to tread carefully on such topics unless I have first hand knowledge, but being that I’ve always valued her opinion, plus the fact that she herself is Asian, I took her word for it.
3. Some of you may remember that on Sept 21, 2012, the Space Shuttle Endeavour, riding atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, made its last landing at LAX on way to its permanent display at the California Science Center. Fuhu was at the time headquartered in the top floors of a low-mid rise building directly across from LAX. They had just completed a new top floor office with gorgeous views to the north including LAX and up to the Santa Monica mountains, but most employees were still in an older office one or two floors below facing away from the airport. A few hours after Endeavour’s arrival I text my friend to see how she enjoyed the landing. Apparently, no one had bothered to tell her and her lowly coworkers in the lower office of the landing despite the fact that the managers and higher level staff all gathered around the large windows to watch. Now I realize that I’m a space buff so my view on this is obviously biased, but I found that to be a fairly petty. On it's own it might not seem like a big deal but from her retelling, it seemed to be a part of a broader culture that really wasn't inclusive or respectful of the lower level employees.
While I feel bad that she missed the landing, it did lead to me developing a simple basis for evaluating upper management. We can call it Inconel’s Rule of Management Excellence. There’s only one rule:
If there happens to be a once in a lifetime Shuttle Carrier Aircraft landing happening in your city, garnering mainstream press and causing people from all over the city, even those without any connection to the aerospace industry, to line up by the thousands alongside roadways, on freeway overpasses and gather on top of roofs, for the chance at a quick glimpse as the Shuttle goes by, and you happen to work in a building that offers probably the single best view of the LAX runways and the Shuttle landing, and management, despite taking in this once in a lifetime sight themselves, doesn’t bother informing their underlings to take a quick 5-10 minute break to also enjoy this sight, well, I think it's fair to assume that management is made up of assholes.
I found it especially ironic when Fuhu later sued Toys R Us for launching a competing tablet in 2012: http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-fuhu-maker-of-the-kids-tabl...
Relevant ironic section:
Mitchell said he decided to go ahead with a lawsuit in part because of what his two young daughters said after they found out about the Tabeo launch.
"They said, 'Dad, they're copying you. Isn't that wrong?' And I said, 'Yes, I do think they are copying me,'" he said. "We just felt we had to take a stand on this."