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.

There it is, that’s my rule.