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everfrustrated • today at 3:39 PM • 39 replies • view on HN

"effective immediately" means either... he doesn't have a contract with a notice period, or he does and is willing to forfeit any benefit from it like share options, etc.

One reason might be the share price has collapsed and he has no confidence in it coming back (pretty scandalous if he's the CEO!), or Meta has offered him inducements > what he's walking away from.

Good way to burn a lot of bridges. He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.


Replies

0x1ch • today at 4:22 PM

CEOs manage to fail upwards their entire career, I don't suspect this will be any different. Just some "nerds on a forum" who got annoyed with his personal decisions.

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brabel • today at 7:32 PM

I have been in a CEO replacement at my previous job. The owners were not happy with how things were going and replaced him. It was a decision only two or three people on the board participated in, even most of the board had no idea. In public, however, the only information that came out was that the CEO decided that his mission had been accomplished and it was time to look for new opportunities. These people never publicly tell the truth, what you hear on the news is what they want you to hear. The truth is almost certainly something completely different.

john_strinlai • today at 3:57 PM

>He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

just need to spin the departure as being decisive and able to make tough decisions and he'll be back in the ceo seat in no time. especially if muse does well.

ChicagoDave • today at 4:29 PM

Yeah there’s a recruiting firm that literally hires ex-CEOs, puts them on the bench, then searches for their next “assignment”. They pay these people to golf until they place them.

https://www.heidrick.com/

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orsorna • today at 3:48 PM

>He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career

I'd eat my shorts if this was true. But even then he is likely set for life with his wealth, pre Meta offer.

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Eddy_Viscosity2 • today at 8:34 PM

> He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

This is a great example of saying how things should work, which is almost the exact opposite of how they actually work.

reticulates • today at 3:50 PM

The halo effect of being in the orbit of a product on the way up (as Muse appears to be) can offset almost any wrong. If Muse succeeds, he could get a CEO job anywhere he likes.

saghm • today at 6:06 PM

> One reason might be the share price has collapsed and he has no confidence in it coming back (pretty scandalous if he's the CEO!)

From looking at the historical prices, it was down from $450 to $410 from a month ago, but still quite a bit from $235 six months ago, which is not anything close to what I'd consider "collapsed". Of course, he might have expected to continue going down, but that's going to be hard to measure in the short term given that announcements like this tend to affect the price directly in the short term (so far down to $338 today, close to double the loss of the entire previous month, although it seems far too soon to draw any conclusions).

Not that I think I'm saying anything that has any sort of bias, but it's probably reasonable in case anyone happens to read this and be suspicious: I did work at MongoDB for around five years (but haven't worked there for nearly as long), and from that stint I did have a sizable amount of shares, although as of last year I no longer hold any (for reasons completely unrelated to any personal opinions of the company; I had procrastinated way too much on making any sort of decision about how much to hold onto and for how long, so when my wife and I were buying a house, I decided it was time to just liquidate it and put it towards that instead).

minraws • today at 6:14 PM

> He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

I haven't had this experience I have found a lot of people who burnt the damn house down get hired in a company for a similar role in a few months especially CEOs and executives. Including large companies, I had someone I know in a c suite role who burnt a few other companies to join competitors now working in Tesla and a friend who burnt the bridges with supposedly half the SF who is still employed in a similar c-suite role in SF.

I really don't think people care unless you are a nobody sofware developer who tried to do the same perhaps, mostly because I can't prove it.

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mandeepj • today at 9:37 PM

> One reason might be the share price has collapsed and he has no confidence in it coming back

Not sure how you made that assessment!

52 Week Range: 215.68 - 473.10

Yesterday, it closed at 410.44. Clearly, very far away from collapse. In fact, it made a solid comeback (almost doubled from lows).

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MDB/

gadders • today at 4:47 PM

Oh man, he'll probably just have to eke out a living on $300m or something to last him the rest of his life. It will be tough.

gchamonlive • today at 9:49 PM

Which probably means it's time for the adventurous to try and short MongoDB

ojbyrne • today at 5:28 PM

Isn't it also a possibility that he gave notice and it wasn't announced to the world until his last day?

ian-g • today at 9:16 PM

Do you think he needs to make any more money in his life, or can he retire tomorrow and live comfortably long past his death?

jm4 • today at 5:42 PM

Or he told the board he’s resigning and they told him it’s immediate. It’s unlikely he resigned with zero notice so he could go the Meta the very next day.

dingdingdang • today at 3:42 PM

> He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

Maybe he had enough.

throwawayfifo • today at 5:09 PM

>he does and is willing to forfeit any benefit from it like share options

His stocks/options vested/exercised last Friday. He's not forfeiting anything.

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kevstev • today at 6:31 PM

He is 60 years old per wikipedia, this is likely his last rodeo. He has held board positions at Datadog, Athena Health, App Dynamics and other places in addition to his job at Mongo per LinkedIn. He was also at Mongo for 11 years.

It seems he is deeply connected, and probably approaching centimillionaire wealth.

Even if he is burning some bridges, its not going to affect his career at this point.

Edit: I looked at the current interim CEO's profile, not the outgoings, but its almost the same story- he is 55, been on other boards, has experience at director+ level since 1995 listed... this isn't going to hurt his career.

mcmcmc • today at 6:31 PM

I just don’t understand the drive of these people to keep seeking further power and wealth when they already are richer than most people could ever imagine. Just go enjoy your life.

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dataflow • today at 4:31 PM

> One reason might be the share price has collapsed and he has no confidence in it coming back (pretty scandalous if he's the CEO!), or Meta has offered him inducements > what he's walking away from.

Or there's something else scandalous happening and he wants to halt a bad look ASAP? I don't get why he or Meta couldn't have waited a couple weeks otherwise.

bilekas • today at 5:43 PM

The third option could surely be he was fired ? Although I would imagine MongoDB would have organised someone already to take over.

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vanuatu • today at 5:11 PM

the share price dropping was due to him leaving, not the cause of him leaving (but this is very bearish for mongo)

ExoticPearTree • today at 7:27 PM

> He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

You must be new to the corporate world or incredibly naive.

danielmarkbruce • today at 5:41 PM

People get fired effective immediately.

MisterMunchkin • today at 7:13 PM

If he makes Meta a shit ton of money then nobody will care and he’ll easily find more jobs.

dyauspitr • today at 5:34 PM

No way. CEOs with significant experience are not easy to find so he’s going to do just fine.

catchnear4321 • today at 7:21 PM

Maybe this is a silly assumption, but, he reached the title, he’s got the ladder-climbing experience to understand his choice.

blitzar • today at 4:07 PM

or "resigned to spend more time with the family" aka was fired

reenorap • today at 4:18 PM

He is likely being promised a chance at succession to CEO.

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cute_boi • today at 5:47 PM

He don't need to be CEO with the money he already have.

dominotw • today at 7:46 PM

he got fired

mrits • today at 4:00 PM

Not sure why he'd want to take the pay cut with being a CEO

b112 • today at 3:47 PM

He's never going to be hired as CEO by anybody for the rest of his career.

I wish I had your belief in sensible logic like that.

But I suspect you're wrong, even though you shouldn't be.

lenerdenator • today at 4:47 PM

> One reason might be the share price has collapsed and he has no confidence in it coming back (pretty scandalous if he's the CEO!)

Is it?

Scandals require consequence. He's getting a new job at Meta. It'll take lawsuits to suss all of this out and those take years.

Worth noting: CJ wasn't just the CEO, he was also board member and president.

This is what happens when you don't have effective corporate governance.

k33n • today at 5:38 PM

Workers are so much more militant and punitive than executives. It's not other executives that will try and hurt his career because he made a decision and went with it. It will be the worker bees that will attempt to hurt him 5 years down the road -- without even knowing the full story.

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muslimrooftoppa • today at 4:41 PM

You sound frustrated. He'll be fine.