Blog - David Helkowski

Codesphere Weenies

Preface

I've worked for a large number of companies over my career. I've been treated badly at many of them. I've had to get entangled in legal action with a number of them. I do share some of those stories to people I know, but for the most part I don't tend to share those stories publicly, because it's bad for my career.

The reason is because there is a general expectation in the IT industry that even if you work for abusive shitheads, that you'll work things out privately if issues occur, and still keep quiet about how crappy they are.

I believe the main reason that expectation exists is because most companies in the world, regardless of size, are engaged in some sort of bad shit one way or another. If you make a habit of pointing out the bad stuff in companies publicly, it will make you unemployable.

Further, depending on how much you talk shit about people you have worked with, it can lead to further self-harm by causing no one to even want to do business with you as an independent. It can effectively end your IT career.

I'm saying all that because I'm going to throw Codesphere under the bus in this post. I hesitated to do this before now for more reasons than these already significant reasons I've just listed.

The Further Reasons

The main further reason is because the CEO/Owner of Codesphere is a litigous dickhead in my view. The position I was hired to at Codesphere was Software Architect. The previous Software Architect before me? He talked shit about Codesphere and then Elias ( CEO dickhead ) sued him for defamation.

I'll get into why I know that a bunch further down.

Another reason is because I shared a lot of personal shit about myself with Elias. He knows things I would rather him not go around telling people. Things I find embarassing. So, if this dickhead wants to lash out at me for saying this and cause damage to my reputation, he could potentially try.

I don't hide much about my life publicly as you may have noticed, but I still have stuff I consider private and prefer people don't blather on about.

So keep that in mind. As agressive as my description of what happened between me and Codesphere may appear, this is the version where I am holding back, in the very slim chance that Elias will realize what a total shit he is and choose to make this right somehow.

Doubtful. Very fucking doubtful. But I can still hope and give him a tiny little shred of a chance at being 0.01% not completely asshole.

How I know Elias

I knew Elias years before I accepted a position to work at Codesphere because he posted about Codesphere on LinkedIn at the very start when it was first usable. I clicked the post and tried it out.

I immediately found it to be a pile of flaky crap, and preceded to write a long repost or comment ( I forget which ) detailing out all the problems with it I noticed. I tend to do this sort of thing as you may have noticed. I enjoy pointing out flaws with things.

Instead of getting butthurt ( at least publicly ) Elias responded constructively and took my feedback and responded asking questions of what to do to improve the product.

I was happy about that and connected with him and we got to talking. I told him all the things I think he should do to make the product good. And... he actually listened and went and did many of them.

I continued talking to him for years in this fashion. After the first bunch of months he wanted to hire me to work at Codesphere, with strong implications to bring me on as CTO.

I declined because I have my own company, and was busily developing my own product. I didn't have the bandwidth at the time to work fulltime for him despite that it would have been good to start with him then and get into the company at the very start of it.

But we continued talking for years. Elias often reccomended I get investors like he was, and that he believed my software was great and I could easily get them etc. I did not act on that advice because I prefer to stay 100% in control of my own company and creations. I don't like investors dictating what I do or even having influence if I am able to avoid that. So I avoided it.

What changed

After years developing my own company product, despite the product working well and having many different clients over the years ( and current clients still ), I have not met with financial success from it. I've had to shift gears and have myself and my company do a variety of other things in order to pay my bills.

As a result, about a year ago I expressed that to Elias and said that I need a full time job to pay bills and would be willing to join him.

At that time a year ago, Codesphere had already grown quite a bit and had multiple investement rounds. I don't remember the numbers despite being told them by Elias. Suffice it to say he had 2 digit millions that I recall. That's not actually a lot for a company with many employees. He already had something like 35 employees. Software development is expensive. $10m or even $20m is actually not a lot of runway to keep a complex software product going when you have that many people working on it.

But it is a wonderful start, and so I joined him. He could no longer make me CTO, and besides it wouldn't make sense at that point any more imo because he already had an established team working for years together.

The Offer

Instead, knowing my interest in Software Architecture, Elias offered to officially make me one. He said that I would do Software Architecture and guidance over a branch of the company. I would be able to work with him to hire 3 team managers, and to work with them then to hire teams under them. All of which would be acting on my architecture plans to forward the company product.

This was a great offer and I was very happy with it.

There was one issue. The company is primarily in Germany and I live in Japan. Me and Elias discussed this at length.

He believed ( and I believe it could work also ) that once I was established with the team I could do this position remotely from Japan.

I offered to come out to Germany for up to a couple of months to get to know the team and ensure I can work well with them, and then once that was sure, to return to Japan and continue remotely.

Part of this was because I wasn't actually sure I could get along with his team. I knew Elias for years but I did not know his team, and I wanted to be there in person in Germany to be more personable and reduce potential conflict from misunderstandings of emotions due to more emails, texts, etc.

I did not expect there would actually be any issues. I just thought it would all be smoother in person.

Elias agreed that all made sense.

Fuck Node

Before he could give me the position and come out to work there I still had to interview with people on the team.

I did so.

Mostly the interview went well. But I was actually failed and rejected.

I was considered too agressive for them. They didn't like some stuff about my sample coding. I had outright told them I think NodeJS is idiotic shit, and... their whole project is written in Node.

I complained to Elias this was all unfair. I wasn't being hired to code but to do architecture, so it was irrelevant if they liked my code or not. Also, despite that I hate Node I told him I was willing to work with it where reasonable, and also that it wouldn't matter because my work would be architecture not writing Node code. As long as I don't have to write Node code I explained I'm fine if they continue using Node.

I clearly said all this just as I am saying it here a year later.

Elias overrode the team and gave me the position.

The offer was also higher than I was expecting, considering it was somewhat tenuous on me being able to get along with the team.

Elias told me that 25% ( I'm actually forgetting the exact percentage he said, but it's irrelevant for this post imo; it was a large chunk... ) of my salary would be given in stock not direct pay, hence he was able to give me the extra amount he felt I deserve that way.

The amount I had quoted him that I generally should be fairly paid was $165k USD per year, because I had made that every year for the previous 5 years of my career before then.

The total compensation with the stock he said I would get was higher than that. I believe it was $175k/yr total, but this is based on my current memory at this moment of it which is hazy.

I am autistic

Another thing that was discussed at length was my experiences with other companies over my career. Remember me saying I told Elias personal shit I'd rather not be shared to everyone?

A big chunk of that is that I am autistic and that tends to cause recurring issues at places I have worked. I am neurodiverse and I do react differently to things than neurotypical individuals.

I tend to tear ideas apart logically and miss the human effect on the people involved, leading to people getting offended and upset with me. It has happened at many jobs such that I tend to talk about it a little even when I interview so that people are aware.

I don't hide this, but I also don't go around saying it is a huge issue.

But with Elias, I had told him the whole mess over the years I knew him. He knew I get overwhelmed. He knew that I have recurring issues with anxiety and simply can't handle certain situations well and that people need to know this.

He said that he would tell people and make sure that if I do blow up and yell at people from anxiety over the situation that it would be handled appropriately by talking throw it. That I would not be fired over that and instead it would be defused and we would carry on.

Turns out that was all bullshit and not what happened at all. But he knew it was likely and claimed that it would be handled professionally with respect to my autism. It was not. At all. And fuck you Elias.

Stepping Back

On that note of anger, I am brought to another reason not write this up at all. The reason is because I really doubt that anyone will change their behavior or do anything about Codesphere based on having read this writeup of what happened to me with them.

You might suppose then that I am writing this in order to vent, but I don't feel particularly angry at them anymore. It's been a full year. I certainly think they are horrible, but I don't have any great need to dredge up the feeling of being pissed at them.

As you can see, writing this does return that angry feeling to me for a bit, but it doesn't last. I am taking multiple days to write this up, because I feel very much "what is the point for me to do this."

The only real point of doing it is that I feel it should be written up and be public. If people want to know some small amount of truth about these bastards, they deserve to know it.

I don't believe any of the following will occur due to anyone reading this:

I believe fully I'll post this long and painful story about Codesphere online, a handful of people will read it, then that's it. The end. I'll have tossed my two cents in the ether.

To further demonstrate that the point of this is not to damage Codesphere somehow, I offer you to:

No really. Go for it. I'll laugh at you as you do.

Which brings me to my next major point.

Codesphere is a flaming mound of oozing donkey shit

I don't mean the company in this context, or the people. I mean the product specifically. I'm not basing this on having worked for them briefly. Or at least not from any insider knowledge besides one specific point, which is that they insisted I write a Kubernetes Operator in NodeJS and I refused.

I'm basing my judgement on the following:

And that one major point, which is what they fired me for on the spot. I told them it is fucking stupid to write a Kubernetes Operator to create Postgres instances in NodeJS from scratch because there is already a perfectly good, vetted, and reliable Postgres operator for doing exactly that in Go that I could integrate into their NodeJS system.

I also said to the person "You are a fucking idiot" when they doubled down and demanded I do it anyway. That's what I was fired for.

The thing is, the guy that fired me? Didn't have the authority to. Elias did not do what he said and let it be diffused.

I apologized to the guy 15 minutes later, and I talked at length to their only very inexperienced HR person and I was relatively calm after sitting and thinking about it.

They refused to listen to my professional judgement. My architecture decision.

My "Don't fucking do that you God damned idiots becuase it's fucking stupid and that is not the correct way to do it ever."

Note I didn't start with that. I told them it is a bad idea and why technically and carefully before it escalated. These people really are fucking stupid.

I exerted my authority as Software Architect, and it was rejected. When it was rejected and I was demanded to write NodeJS code to do it ( which remember I had never agreed to do in this role ) I exploded.

Sure exploding was suboptimal, but let's face it: I told them this would happen and need to be handled carefully. They recognized it in the interview and failed me and Elias overrode them. Then Elias backed out and refused to handle it professionally.

I apologized fully for my outburst immediately after it, and I was still summarily fired without any chance at all to make things right in any way.

Now... it was clear I still thought they are fucking idiots. And I still do. So I can understand why they would want me gone, but it is my professional opinion that they did not have the right to fire me over the incidident. Request to part ways sure, and pay me out fairly for my time so far, fine.

That's not what they did.

AI is making the complaint about this section that I haven't explained why they couldn't fire me.

The reason is because I was hired as an external consultant. I was not given benefits. I was not a direct hire. I officially had the title "Software Architect", and my JD was that I would make the architectural decisions for what I was working on. That included this decision.

They could not say the outburst was unacceptable, because I already told them it would happen and I was already assured they would handle is carefully and not immediately terminate me. I brought up that it was going to happen, and I was assured before I flew to Germany that they would not do exactly what they did.

They had every right to ask for an amicable end to the employment. To lay me off. I have zero objections to them saying "we should part ways". I have every objection to "You're fired."

Those two things may seem the same to you, but they are not the same to me.

You see, I and Elias would both agree that the point of me going to Germany and working with the team in person was to see whether we could get along and the position would be appropriate.

Given their shitacular response to me giving them sound architectural advice, I wouldn't myself have wanted to continue working with them if their response is "write a k8s operator in NodeJS yourself."

That's fucking stupid and ignores my 30 years of expertise. It doesn't match my title or JD nor anything I was told about what I would be doing.

I'd want out anyway.

I'm very carefully explaining something important: I don't care that I am not working there any more and I didn't want to continue working with them. That's not my issue with them, despite them handling the ending spectacularly badly.

There are two major problems, and I will explain them separately.

Employee Misclassification

I was hired as an external consultant that would be doing Software Architecture remotely.

I was not hired as a direct employee where they had any right to insist I come to the office at a specific time daily and to do my work at their office.

They insisted on me doing that when I was there anyway.

I was hired to give architectural advice. It's right there in my contract that I'm a Software Architect.

Software Architects do not write NodeJS code that serves as a k8s operator. Period.

For them to believe they have the ability to order me around in these ways, insisting I show up at a precise time and work in the office, was not in my contract whatsoever.

I was being treated as a direct employee. This is illegal under California law, which presided because they hired me through the CA entity of the company as a consultant, paying my LLC ( NOT ME directly )

My legal advisor believes this is Misclassification. ( or potentially a different sort of improper behavior related to Borello... ) I have informed them of this and that it is illegal. They ignored me.

I considered the ABC test and they fail it. So it looks like Misclassification to me.

Despite that they paid my LLC, they demanded my own personal SSN afterwards and I refused to give it. So they further tried to treat me like a direct employee.

Work Trip Compensation Dickery

I flew out to Germany under what we all know was a work trip. I've had trips with various companies I've done work for before. I was always paid out fairly for work related expenses.

Codesphere did not.

They paid for economy fair to and from Germany. They paid for the hotel I stayed at ( shitty as it was... )

They did not pay for the following:

The things they didn't pay for easily added up to $1500 that I recall. Food in Germany is damned expensive compared to Japan...

Now... they can argue that "we didn't say we would pay for that stuff in a contract, so tough shit", but because they required me to be there as part of the arrangement, I'm not entirely sure that is legally sufficient. Also I don't care if it's legal or not.

It's super shitty of them not to pay those expenses.

No respectable company would not pay for that part. They are dicks for not doing it even if "it's legal."

So yeah, fuck them regardless.

I kept all the receipts. I send the details. They refused to pay up.

You'd think this would be it. But oh no. There is more.

Hiding and Lying

Remember how a bunch of my pay was in stock?

They refused to put that in my contract. I asked Elias ( before flying to Germany ) what gives with that. He said he had to get approval or some such bullshit.

And... he never did that.

And worse. When it all ended he lied and said he never said I would get it.

It was part of my offer. Both verbally from him, AND from someone else at the company who I talked to when they called me and verbally gave me the offer.

So two people at the company are now lying and saying it wasn't part of the offer.

They deny it ever happened. It's not really that much money because I was only there for 2 weeks, but it's still batshit insane they wouldn't payout what they promised me.

Verbal contracts are valid.

And it's worse than the reality. Suppose Elias was being honest and was trying to get approval and didn't get it. Okay. Then show all the records of that.

That's not what he did. He is actually lying saying no such offer ever existed. He is saying he never said that stuff. AND it wasn't just him. I was told the offer with a number IN the fucking offer call from another employee not just him!

And this all ties into the next point.

Repeated Mistreatment of Architects

Remember how I said I replaced the previous Software Architect of the company? Guess who I went and talked to after all that shit went down?

Yep. I talked to the guy. He was/is ( I think it is done now?? ) being sued by Elias for trashing Elias for what Elias did in regard to him.

Guess why he was so pissed? He was promised stock compensation from Elias and didn't get it.

Boom.

Yes there is more to it. Yes it is way more complicated than this. I heard details from the guy. He asked me to testify in his defense for the suit against him.

I refused, because, well, I don't really like the guy either.

In the end dude got pissed at me too, so yeah this isn't a slam dunk. But DAMN, the previous architect ALSO got treated like shit, ALSO bitched about Elias, and is now being fucking sued by Elias for defamation.

Wow.

AI is bitching about the status of the lawsuit. Once again I'm not sure if the suit is finished yet or what the outcome was. So perhaps the guy has been found guilty of defamation. Maybe the guy was in the wrong and Elias was in the right with his situation. I don't know.

I'm simply saying it is not a great look for Elias.

Is that is? Am I done now?

Lulz. I wish.

Hand over your SSN

Before I went to Germany, I provided the accountants at Codesphere with the EIN of my US DE LLC S-Corp.

When I was in Germany they complained that they needed it and didn't have it. I provided it again.

Some 4 months ago they contacted me and asked for it again.

I told them to fuck off.

They threatened me and said not providing it was illegal. I looked it up. Nope. Because I already fucking did. Twice. I'm not obligated to be their record keepers. That's their problem.

Yes I'm being a dick here to them, and well, of course I am.

They kept threatening and said they would report me.

So I got legal consultation and investigated the misclassification and everything illegal they did, and requested a settlement, and said I would report them to the authorities if they don't.

I was ignored completely. No response.

I should probably report them. I think I have a legit case against them.

But, well, I'm lazy in regard to such stuff. I don't really feel like exerting more effort on this even if they deserve to get in trouble because what they did really was wrong.

So I wrote this article. Yay?

AI is complaining that "pay me or I'll report you" is a threat and improper. Yeah yeah I know blah blah. The actual communication to them was written carefully to make it clear I want to report them regardless.

But it remains how it is and you all know how this goes.

Company X does shitty stuff. You call them on it. They pay you to keep quiet.

Anyone pretending that isn't the reality is delusional.

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ArsTechnica has become my latest favorite punching bag recently. They published this slop with the title "LLMs believe false statements even after ...

Malicious AI injection isn't cute

Tags: ai

Recently ArsTechnica reported on devs adding malicious injection crap into their code

Today I noticed a LinkedIn post from James Gosling. Here ...

Bill Gates big reveal

 Or... not. You've likely seen and heard that Bill Gates is a giant scumbag who was buddies with Epstein and that's why his wife divorced them. Between the lines people seem to be implying Gates is a child abuser.

Only... where's the smoking gun? Everyone keeps saying there is all t...

Say no to Microsoft Office

 The time has come to say no to Microsoft Office. If someone sends you an Office document, tell them no and demand they send an open format.

Why? Because Microsoft wasn't happy with being medium sized dicks. They decided to expand their dickishness to massive size. By effective...

Addressing AI Psychosis Constructively

Tags: ai

I spent the last post tearing down a worthless article claiming to be about AI Psychosis. ( which I'll refer to as AIP in this post ) Tearing down what someone says is relatively easy to do. It takes more effort to build a useful article that isn't worthless shit.

So I'm not g...

Misunderstanding AI Psychosis

Tags: ai

I recently stumbled upon the following TechCrunch article: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

I think this article is shit quality. And I'll explain why...

Bad Bambu. No.

 Bambu Labs is a manufactorer of 3d printers. Those printers are popular.

They offer software to assist in turning 3d models into a format that can be printed. All 3d printers need such software and such software is called a "slicer".

The bambu labs slicer? It is based on AGP...

Email is nonsensical for decades

 I've thought email is a horrible system for a very long time.

I'd like to point out some of the ways it is so and talk a little about why for some of them.

Predates widely available always online servers

Email was created before always online servers were widely a...

Reasons not to reject LLMs

Tags: ai

I just stumbled on this blog article: Why I object to and reject generative AI

To some degree I also object to LLMs, but I don't think all of the reasoning in this b...

Crypto Bros

 I've been using computers since before the graphical internet existed. 2400 baud modems with green screens? Yep I was using those. Token ring networks? Also and they were painful. So I can tell you I've seen many cycles of technology and bullshit.

As a result I have a strong b...

Firmament game is slop

Tags: game

I've played through and completed all of the Myst series by Cyan Worlds except for URU. I've also played many similar games over the years. I enjoyed many of those games greatly. I have fond memories of playing them over the years. I can remember many details within the games even no...

Your diary is evidence

 Some eons ago I remember thinking that my diary is my private information and I could rightly complain if it was made public against my will.

Well, my notion of that has now been shattered.

How? I noticed in the latest lawsuit against OpenAI that they are forcing diary entri...

Tsukuba Center Bicycle Parking

 Before I begin fair warning. I'm angry about this and I'm venting, so if cursing and venting about stuff bothers you, you should bail now.

That said, fuck Tsukuba Center and their automated bicycle parking lots.

Why do I hate them so much? Well it's complicated and I will ex...

Attention is hard for everyone

 I recently watched a YouTube video by Asa Park about MrBeast. The video is focused on being very critical of him. I'm not a fan of MrBeast and do think he is strange, but I don't particularly think he is any ultimate evil. So ...

Is the villain the enemy?

 What if the villain is not the enemy but is just the label we hoist upon anyone who does not fit the standard roles society defines as acceptable?

People are not so trivial as to fit within the notions we scope them to. While many will choose to cooperate with ...

Personal Japan travel guide

Tags: japan

In light of the potential destruction of the IT industry by AI, or at least the reduction of it to the point that competition for jobs will drop salary of it, I have been been considering alternative ways to make a living recently.

A few weeks ago I came up wit...

Love Without Hypocrisy

 I was sharing a story from when I was a teenager with a friend of mine and I thought perhaps I shall share it with all of you as well. To my memory I was 15 at the time this all happened.

I was attending a bible camp called Worldview Academy. They still exist today, and...

0player? Oh no

Tags: game

Recently I have been working on building a puzzle game. Well another one. I have actually been working on building a game called TentFires for some 5 years now. Well more to the point I have been playing TentFires and iterating on it for 4 years after I created a fully wo...

Is Japan Paradise?

Tags: japan

I recently watched a YouTube video titled I'm leaving Germany | Brutally Honest Review.

I found the detail of the video good and it made a lot of sense to me. What I found striking initially was tha...

GuliKit King Kong 3 Max

Tags: gaming

Some time ago I bought the GuliKit King Kong 3 Max controller. It looked awesome. The price is much more reasonable than Xbox Elite Series 2 controllers, and it has better tech according to the specs.

I got it; it feels awesome and I was able to use it well for a number...

Let's Reinvent the SD Card

 About a month ago some a random LinkedFluencer posted some bullshit about how her SD card failed. She was raging that she should have been notified by her computer that it was reaching end of life and that if it just exposed wear leveling through to the system she would h...

Memovich: The Plot Dissolves

Tags: ai

Two days ago Milla Jovovich posted an extensive account of her side of the MemPalace story. It was pretty absurd in my view, to put it mildly. I began writing a new blog article titled: "Memovich: The Plot Thickens".

I started writing something sharp enough to ...

Memovich Continued

Tags: ai

My last blog article was about MemPalace, the supposedly incredible AI memory project vibe coded in part by Milla Jovovich.

In the last article I focused primarily on what I view as lack of qualifications of who I believe the real author of the project was/is, ...

Milla Jovovich and the Fine Art of Selling Cognitive Swill

Tags: ai

This just in. Milla Jovovich is slapping her name on the ugly bare bottom of a crypto bro trainwreck ai disasterpiece called MemPalace.

Beneath the choking snake oil you'll find... nothing of value.

Ok ok let's get into this practically, as I can only write s...

Regarding Garry Tan, YCombinator, and Corruption

 A few weeks ago I saw an article on Hacker News new with an entire 2 upvotes that piqued my interest. It was a link to this website. It's a detailed article about how Naive ( usenaive ) is j...

Medial Axis Extraction in O(n)

 Around three months ago, I solved a long-standing problem in computational geometry and computer vision:

Extracting the true medial axis from a binary image in linear time per pixel.

No thinning.
No iterative label propagation.
No graph recon...

On AI and the Death of Humanity

Tags: ai

I've been using "AI", as it is currently referred to, for several years now. Mostly I've been using ChatGPT, although at times I've run a variety of different local models, mainly to test what is possible and ascertain for myself whether these things are "dangerous" or not. For the m...

USA: Destination Hell

 I am a US citizen. I don't, though, live in the US. I reside in Japan, and I intend to do so permanently. There are a few major reasons why:

The third poin...

Decoersion

 Something I have believed strongly for many years is that all forms of coercion are unacceptable. Recently I have been thinking about it more, and realizing how pervasive coercion is throughout society.

So, without further ado, I present to you, decoersion ( intentionally spelled w...

Social Media Decline

Social Media: From Fertile Farms to Wastelands

Social media is in rapid decline. What was once a thriving space for innovation, meaningful discussion, and genuine human connection has become a hollow shell of its former self, plagued by corporate greed, algorithmic manipulation, ...

Toddler Investors

Introduction

The investment landscape is moving at an ever-increasing pace, with investors often making funding decisions in mere minutes. The rise of trend-driven investments, such as artificial intelligence, has led to a system that prioritizes popularity over true innovation. ...

Rethinking PCs: A practical approach

Tags: tech

The current trajectory of computer hardware development has increasingly diverged from the practical needs of everyday users. Manufacturers continue to push advancements in speed, power efficiency, and display resolutions—yet for most people, these improvements offer diminishing real-world ben...

Peak Mall Theory

Tags: japan

US mall death, Japan mall life

The decline of shopping malls in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon, while in Japan, malls remain thriving, bustling centers of commerce, entertainment, and community life. This contrast raises an interesting question: why have Japane...

Email is Outdated

 Email seems ubiquitous and irreplaceable. Is it though? It was created for a useful purpose, and worked effectively for a number of years, but I would argue that it is outdated and needs to be replaced by something better as soon as possible.

I explore here why I believe email...

Identity System

 Over my career in software I've repeatedly had to deal with issues of identity. Another way to refer to identity is usernames. The most pervasive identity system in use is email, although it is quickly being supplanted by cell phone number.

Almost every user of the internet ha...

LinkedIn is Buggy

 The main social platform I use is LinkedIn. I've been using it for many years. Over my years of using it I've found it to be very buggy. I began posting the bugs I found as LinkedIn posts. That didn't seem to get much attention or have any meaningful affect, so I created a Github pro...

Hubspot Culture Code

 What follows is a critical critique of the Hubspot Culture Code. This will be an analysis focused on logic. If you are looking for a warm fuzzy perspective on company culture, this isn't it.

A compa...

Pursuing relationships is inherently puerile

Intro

I've seen a disturbing trend online where expressing interest in others for the purpose of being in a relationship with them is thought to be inherently puerile. This view is relayed more simply as "men pursuing women is always sexual and disgusting".

The t...

My time is worth $x per hour

 In the all too recent history I was feeling proud of my day job, and I thought to myself "I can made $x per hour." A bit more thinking I came to the conclusion "I shouldn't do anything that takes me an hour that I could pay someone else to do for less than $x per hour." I believed th...

Should gaming be a gradeschool subject/sport?

 I recently read a post on LinkedIn broadly proclaiming "esports will overtake basketball". My immediate reaction to this was that that is entirely rubbish, and I responded jokingly making fun of the idea. As you might expect, there was a mixed reaction to that.

Some few people...

Job Descriptions

 I am connected to quite a few recruiters and managers on LinkedIn. As a result of this, I often see posts about what candidate's resumes should look like, what information they should contain, how they should approach applying to jobs etc.

Changing the way you apply for roles ...

UMD Data Breach

 A bit over 5 years ago I was involved in the events following a serious data breach at the University of Maryland. I was pulled into the FBI / Secret Service investigation due to my involvement. It may not be clear, but I did not start the data breach. Criminal elements of unknown so...

Blog

 Welcome to my public blog. I haven't blogged publicly in quite a number of years. This is in part due to the overwhelming amount of random information available about me already, and I am unsure about adding to the pile.

I have decided that adding information of higher quality...