But it didn't. They are smart guys. They'll learn that what they didn't probably wasn't advisable and they probably won't do it again, but they got away with it. They have a great story to tell and more users of their service.

I new exactly what the response to this story was going to be before even reading the comments. HN just loves to knee jerk and tell people how wrong they are. It's a bit sad really.

Perhaps. In my case it's less crucifying a company despite intentions to fix and more crucifying a company because I'm tired of hearing the same PR nonsense and not seeing real improvement to the industry as a whole.

What you're seeing is the flip side of the whole "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" nonsense.

As far as investors/Wall Street/the wider public goes, the non-answer might actually be the better response. Appearing to take the criticism seriously could be more damaging--hopefully internally, they are indeed taking the criticism seriously.

> Am I reading too much into this, or does this kind of pithy announcement usually hide skeletons? Genuinely curious here.

This line of thinking bothers me. It reads as if you feel like you're owed something from the company. Why does it matter?

If it's fundraising issues, lack of product market fit, founder disputes, team member stole the entire bank account, the end result is the same. They can't run the business. As long as there's a clear message and a path to EOL for active customers, what possible reason could help?

To me, it actually highlights the praise of the team and the products they built together instead of focusing on the details of why they're no longer operable. And reading the other threads here, they did a great job but there simply wasn't large enough captive market.

It's a little discouraging that public "exposés" of startups seems to be the cool new thing on HN and that this is so high up on the front page.

I don't know what ClusterHQ did, but presumably they may have some users for whom the abrupt shutdown is inconvenient at best, especially if their company depended on whatever this is in production and now they have to try to fix it 3 days before Xmas with 40% of the company's staff on leave and the remaining 60% mentally checked out. I think that's the only group that this post disrespects. It would've been nice if he could have at least offered some alternatives, announced the shutdown ahead of time, or given some sort of migration path.

I like the idea of sort-of serializing the 'post-mortem' parts of the story; going through my diary and emails and writing up buisness-level and technical incident reports; enough time has passed for most of these that assuming I leave off names, it shouldn't be too embarrassing for anyone.

Thanks! It's mutual by the way.

> but sometimes it seems to me that you cross the line into being a busybody

Possibly. But I'm not going to fall over and roll on my back just because it is PG that does something.

Wakemate has a great chance to manage their image here and PG has essentially thrown that away.

> I'd like to be more communicative about my startup too. The reason I don't is that I'm spending all my energy working on the product.

I've worked for enough start-ups to know that you need to do everything right, not just work on your product. If you spend all your energy on that - and you've signed up customers for pre-order - I suggest you do something about it before you copy wakemates mistakes. It's really a pity, I've seen them go from having a ton of goodwill to essentially being damaged goods.

That's wasteful.

And to see PG squelch discussion about a YC company when he's fine with us discussing everything else under the sun is for want of a better description less than elegant, especially if HN has been used as a venue to get initial customers. Another reason why it is bad to do so is because we can all learn from each others mistakes and to see bad stuff discussed in public is a learning experience for all, not just for the company involved.

You simply can't launch off HN and rely on us to do our bit with passing word of mouth to friends if there is an interesting new YC start-up and hit the mute button if there is a legitimate concern by a HN member regarding non-performance by said company. That's what causes the stink.

People that put their $5 or $50 down have a reasonably expectation of in order:

  - a product
  
  - failing that to be kept in the loop

  - if all else fails their money back or an explanation

The OP wasn't trying to kick up a stink, he was simply a concerned customer. And given the way PG handled it now he probably went from 'disappointed' to something a few steps lower than that.

Otherwise, it is just being stuck between rock and a hard place with no place to move.

As I said:

>> Assuming, of course, you're sure you did everything right.

The rest of your post assumes that there is an issue to deal with. There isn't. If they're in the right (again, assuming), being mentioned on the internet doesn't mean they should pivot into crisis mode.

There's a HN post, most of which, including the top comments, is meta and five (5) tweets - all of which are boring knee-jerk condemnation, none of which ask for clarification. If it'd gone viral, if people, if customers started asking what the hell is going on, then respond to them. But at least until that happens, it's a non-issue, PR-wise.

> I've never heard of this company, but my first impression is negative. Turn that around.

Sure. I've also only just heard of this company too. I think their technology and value proposition sounds promising. If I was in the business of putting JPEG images on in the internet, I'd be intrigued.

Also other developers need to realize that Facebooks moves in this meeting are business as usual.

Put yourselves in their shoes and realize what their motives are as a company.