Many -- probably most -- ultimately very successful companies had near-death experiences. They aren't usually written about. Apple's near-death in 1997 is well documented. Tesla's is described in Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk. http://foundersatwork.com/ has firsthand stories about some others.
They would have become full-death experiences if the CEO had said, "Hey everybody, we're near death, just FYI". So in the alternative world where company deaths are always announced well in advance, far more companies would die. Probably not a better world.
I don't know the story here, but in most cases there was some deal on the table that would have saved the company but fell through in the couple of days before the announcement.
Regardless, the right thing is to have enough payroll in reserve for an orderly shutdown and transition plan for customers. It's not clear whether that's happening here -- I hope so.
Maybe you have been seeing things through SV pink colored glasses for too long.
Companies everywhere are shutting down daily with proper warnings to customers, employees and users. It's not uncommon for companies to give several months (or even a year) of warning that they are winding down operations, won't be accepting new users, will honor contracts, etc. And they are doing the right thing.
Every time there's a post here about how people should keep at least 3 months of salary in case things go south, the general feeling is that whoever is living paycheck to paycheck must be stupid. However, when it's a CEO that couldn't do proper planning and screwed the lives of employees and users alike.. oh, sure, let's give the guy a break.
EDIT: Let me anticipate the argument here that if anyone's "lives" were screwed then it's their problem that they didn't understand the risks properly.
Please don't be uncivil when commenting here. The middle parts are fine (though weakened by a straw man you call "the general feeling"), but the personal swipe at the beginning is not.
tlb's argument is an interesting one, and so would yours be had you focused on its substance and dropped the snark and the elbowing—which was even worse in your original comment upthread. Indignation gets upvotes, but it also reduces signal/noise ratio and primes others for fight mode. Those things are bad for HN threads.
It would make no sense for every CEO whopse company is a month away from shutdown to be announcing "listen just to let you know, we are a month away from shutdown, but we are trying to find the money to keep going".
For many companies this is the default state of operation and undoubtedly many companies have gone from that state to great success.
What would employees and customers do in the face of such an announcement?
If you have ever been CEO of an ordinary company trying ot build a business then you'd understand.
Indeed. There is also the fact that internal and external messaging is likely much different. I'd not be too surprised if there hadn't been some attrition within their ranks (especially devs) leading up to this point.
I know how you feel as a customer. I felt similarly surprised when I read this post because I'd done an interview with The Newstack at KubeCon with the VP at Cluster. They were talking about their future plans as if there was indeed a long future. I remember thinking at the time how a company like Cluster will survive in the peak chaos of the container landscape at the moment but definitely did not expect to hear of such a sudden demise.
Regardless, I think giving customers a large amount of time to migrate over, etc. should be a priority. I personally really like the way Runscope handled their change in fortunes. Screw VC trajectory and build a strong personal business.
> Same question I had for Nebula: you had no idea that a month ago you'd have to shutdown, right?
Often they've got ideas that they might shut down because cash is running out but they generally have leads/prospects they're trying to pursue (or they fool themselves into thinking that anyway), until the cash actually runs out there's always a chance for a hail mary.
And revealing that the company is in pretty dire straight publicly would make any chance of breakthrough, investment or buyout nil, so why I dislike this kind of sudden shutdowns immensely the incentives really are against softly landing customers (and employees).
For the record, I totally agree with you here, and with your further comments below. The HN attitude that running a startup is some moral virtue is obnoxious. This company simply screwed over its users. They aren't owed anything.
This is a ridiculous comment. Have you ever tried running a company? I'm certain the founders of these companies put their blood sweat and tears into their work, but unfortunately things didn't go as planned. They are probably deeply saddened and crushed about having to fire employees and made very hard decisions. Life doesn't revolve around you and your technology inconveniences.
Please don't post uncivil comments to Hacker News. There's a good point in the middle of your post, but it's ruined by the name-calling of the first bit and the personal nastiness of the final bit, which break the site guidelines.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Same question I had for Nebula: you had no idea that a month ago you'd have to shutdown, right?
I've started to follow these ex-CEOs so we avoid their next companies. This kind of shutdown is just terrible.