Any thoughts on this:
https://twitter.com/morten_skaaning/status/866927009053716480
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1czDbFa-1o2PT5u077vIfLILhLP0oQj8Dl5_tTYKTltM/edit
Would be interesting to hear the other side of the story, as well.
We briefly discussed that in that thread.
But yeah if true, it is disappointing.
I always found Joachim a simpatico dude from the presentations.
Not sure what to make of it but the guy below had a similar experience.
I hesitate to say anything on this sort of topic, but … my impression is that in any group of people of 2 or more, quite often people don’t get along for some reason. There are misunderstandings, and so on. I hear it happens. 
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If what he says is true… well there are better ways to resolve issues than posting on the internet.
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Sucks that he had this experience, but I’d like to hear from Joachim before forming an opinion.
Also, find this part to be a bit odd:
I.e., they had a disagreement, and instead of doing what he was told, he did something different. That seems like a crucial mistake. As an employee you have an obligation to carry out the assignments you’ve been given. Naturally you should discuss any problems that arise, but if you continue down your own path despite having been told not to, I can see why Joachim (or any CTO for that matter) would be annoyed. You must adhere to the grand design of the project.
This. This behavior is very unprofessional, and seems more like trying to get back at Joachim than anything.
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Ok, didn’t see that discussion. But I guess it doesn’t hurt to have a thread about it.
And yeah, I’m not sure what to think about this: Joachim always seemed like a nice, down-to-earth guy. 
afaik Joachim doesn’t use twitter… or has no interest… I don’t blame him …though times like this, making a counter reply … would certainly up the entertainment drama. Maybe something like …“you’re being a dick.” or “we need to enforce a get things done policy”
lol I have no idea 
I’m just wondering what the prestige project was, maybe with the right person or team to work on it, it would be rad, or maybe it did have design problems that couldn’t be worked around and like scheduling reports and not showing up Joachim was just doing somethings wrong aswel.
I certainly think a some things Unity do makes one think of why is it going like that, delays, design of things etc… End users just want to see good improvements, features, performance. Don’t normally wonder about internal structure, differing mentalities, politics and employees etc.
Personally agree with SunnySunshine, hopefully Unity find the employees who are the right fit.
There was a discussion on reddit about this tweet too.
It went both ways, people have their opinions. Fact is we don’t really know more than what is written here so its really just looks like a personal smear on Joachim because they didn’t get along. Unless there is more information, there’s not much to actually discuss without making a bunch of assumptions and/or taking sides.
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Meh. Bad bosses exist. Sometimes it’s just a personality clash, sometimes the bosses are genuinely bad. I’ve dealt with the situation before.
In general it’s best for employees to move on to a different company or work team. Get another role somewhere else. Complaining about it publicly is quite unprofessional, and it’s likely to harm his future job prospects. Hanging around with a terrible boss is quite damaging to your mental health.
Either way as a customer it doesn’t really bother me. As long as Unity keeps its product quality up I’m happy.
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Yep and this applies to near enough any company I’ve worked at, you’ve got to learn how to deal with red tape… Note all correspondance, if someone asks you to do something and you disagree do it but send a follow up e-mail saying I’ve done X but I believe the recommended approach should of been X.
Then if it goes wrong it’s not your issue, if they push the subject or start finger pointing / have teflon shoulders you’ve covered yourself. If it’s not a manager causing issues it’s a customer / another engineer so you’ve gotta learn how to deal with it correctly.
We all answer to someone whether it be customers, shareholders, bosses or even yourself… Even if it’s the CEO of company X they are only human at the end of the day. I’ve seen people get in a nervous disposition when they are approached by those in authority… As long as you’re doing what you should, be professional and stand up for yourself if need be, again they are only human and nothing more than another cog in the wheel doing a specific job.
Finally, it’s difficult because you spend so long working to not become too invested but end of the day a job is a job nothing more. It’ll serve you no purpose if you have a stroke, so if you can’t rotate the situation to become a comfortable one as you said you’ve gotta move on… No job is worth your health, ever.!
I will note though, we’re a fair bit more blunt in Europe…!
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Stress because Unity think they earn more money if they make more release rather than less with higher quality. My deeply advice to the top section in Unity is to stress down and focus on quality. The last release was a real prof of this. Because Unity is a good product it deserves all the quality development it needs. I also want to thank Unity for the updates and new features that they have added over the years.
This is not only with company like Unity, i see this every where, also on my own customers, they stress because
they think speed is the key importance to beat competition. But its not… People notices quality, and we have become in the era where “fake news” will be inspected by usurers… You cant fool the world.
It’s such bad judgement to post something like this. It’s impossible for us to tell if it’s all in his head and he just can’t handle things, or if it really was a bad working environment and they should shape up.
Either way, never air your bad blood publicly. And certainly not in a way that people can see and use against you for the rest of your life. Anyone searching for his name will end up finding this and it will make it harder for him to get jobs in the future.
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Well… the one reason why this event… if true… may interest the community (I think anyway) is because it may explain something I’ve seen many people mention in posts over the years. That being the question of quality. So many bugs and having to work around bugs. If true… this Morten’s experience seems to show a management level driving force behind those things. Remove checkpoints. Which I guess is remove all error checking ditch that crap it is just slowing down the code and I want max speed.
But… who knows really. Could be he (Morten) just has too much independent thought in him and should maybe try the entrepreneur route. That is where great people who get fired, have terrible trouble blending into company culture go. He does mention he is happy at his new job though.
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Well that sucks hopefully Joachim learns his lesson or eventually gets fired, otherwise unity will go down the shitter after the good people leave.
That probably won’t happen. I think this is one of the two or three co-founders of the company. The one who actually wrote the original Unity engine based on their game. Or something like that. I don’t know for certain but thought I had read that in bits and peaces around here over the years. Kind of makes sense though and that is why he is currently the CTO head of all development.
It could just be that he sees this as “his baby” so to speak. I think most people could relate to that. Imagine building a game your very proud of and you hire someone to help you. The person may be very skilled and maybe even has great ideas but still you don’t want him changing your stuff from the way you want it work even if changing it would make it better.
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Lets keep in mind Unity is becoming a pretty big company. It’s statistically impossible that everyone is happy.
Just google "the dark truth about working at … " and pick any big company, and you’ll get results. Heck even in small offices you can’t keep everyone happy all the time.
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Yeah that is true. And nobody (well most of us anyway) have no idea what the real story was. It’s just a bummer that Unity lost a person who seemed to be a good developer and enjoyed his team and Unity in general. But maybe he is stubborn, deeply passionate about what he is doing and easily offended as a result because he doesn’t have control. Again… good things when going the entrepreneur route but mainly just a source of problems in many jobs. All depends on the job and the people you work with.
Maybe he can build MiniUnity. lol
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That paints a overall pretty good picture of UT as working place.
Yeah some people simple get not along well. And yes posting such stuff is definitely not very professional.
I think Joachim looks like a down to earth guy to me. But it’s hard to judge a person, you don’t know personally.