Initial Impressions
The official work hours were from 9 to 5 with lunch break from 12 to 1. In practice, the work environment and working hours were relaxed at Xamplify. While I was forced to work 60+ hours, it was rare to find others working significantly more than the required 40 hours. I had a different impression about start-ups prior to seeing the reality at this company.
What surprised me the most was that a few were putting in significantly fewer than 40 hours. For example, Tom Emerson, my sole colleague in the data modeling group, where the heart of the company's analytical work was done. And the funny part was that he seeemed well connected and the top management seemed powerless to reprimand him. I clearly remember one incident which happened a few months later. A group of investors were coming to the company. Jeffrey Klein, the CEO, came to us and asked us to come sharply at 9 AM. He gave a side glance to Tom Emerson, and I understood that this message was especially meant for Tom Emerson. Well, the day investors came, Tom Emerson came to the company at his usual arrival time: 10:15 AM.
As I said earlier, the glittering list of its well-accomplished advisors and management which included Elwyn Berlekamp of UC Berkeley and David Donoho of Stanford University were factors which influenced me to think of working for them. I was waiting to be awed by the high-quality work at Xamplify. Instead, Instead I was shocked by what seemed to be low-quality dishonest work with no apparent signs of input from the company's world-renowned advisors. Besides, during the eight months I worked there, I am not aware of any technical staff interacting with any of the advisors or those university-based management team members.
Turning to my colleagues was not of much help. Tom Emerson, appeared to be a mathematician who would rather be solving Hilbert Space problems or getting his root canal work done (he was frequently absent with the dentist's appointment excuse) than dealing with mundane things like work, statistics, and computer programming. Much later I found that even though finally Tom Emerson had managed to get a Ph.D. in mathematics, for most of his career he was a computer programmer after dropping out of college (like Bill Gates!) but looking at the quality of his programs, it was hard to guess.
My guess for my market-based fair wage was $150/hour but knowing that life is not fair (and I am not a Caucasian male) and given the tight cash situation for Xamplify, I thought at least $60/hour was a given which would have made my weekly wages about $3000 for 50 hours of work. This wage would also have been equivalent to my previous wage of about $2000/week when much higher cost-of-living in the bay area was factored in. Imagine my surprise when I was paid $1000 for the entire week's work which included being asked to work late on weekdays and working during weekend. When I asked Jeffrey Klein to tell me my hourly rate, he came to my desk and whispered to me that he didn't deal with wages and it was Sumer Johal's area. I needed the money and had to keep quiet. It also meant that I had to live with roommates, take shower at the YMCA to bring down my utility bills, not spending money on frivolous activities like eating out, and other such things. Later as a hint I told Sumer Johal that I was looking for a roommate to save money, he was kind enough to tell me to find an Indian one since that would be good for me. At that time Sumer Johal had already bought a house in Walnut Creek for around $800,000. I hope he names one of the rooms, preferably his bedroom, after me, since it was underpayment to me that funded his house. (In all fairness to Xamplify I must say that I didn't time my work hours even though my guess is that the security system in the company or the parking lot computer logs will indicate about 80+ hours weeks, the resultant hourly salary of about $12 without any benefits might be in fact on the borderline of Living Wages of Berkeley and the company's well-paid lawyers ($600+/hour) will be able to prove that no minimum wage laws were violated.)
One more thing. Two three weeks later, Sumer Johal and Jeffrey Klein started talking openly in front of me for the need to hire one more data modeler in the data modeling group and they hired one soon as a regular employee and higher salary. In fact, I seem to be their only regular emloyee classified as a "subcontractor." Also the lowest paid technical worker. Ever.