How a US Tech Firm Struggled to Get Its Employees Out of Kyiv

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• "The other half of my team wants to stay and fight," said Kim. "I got on an all-hands with them this morning and told them it's not their responsibility to be soldiers and there's other ways they can contribute since they're software engineers, but there's nothing I can say to dissuade them."

  Maybe they've decided their country needs them now? That loyalty is more important to them than making money?

  Ukraine has said that any male 18-60 is expected to fight... It seems this guy is just trying to protect his meal ticket like you said. Maybe he should hire a smuggler, because for a while those are the only people who will be able to get able bodied men across the border.

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    Maybe but also he may not want his employees to die because he knows them as people—silly thought, I know

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      I don’t want any Ukrainians to die either, and I don’t even personally know any.

      But I’m safe in my home and not suffering an unjustified invasion from a hostile force being driven by a megalomaniac.

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        Its not just that its driven by a megalomaniac. Russia's economy is terrible, oligarchs/crooks stole everything. Now they need Ukraine's resources, you know a fresh chest to raid. This war is all about money.

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          Why is Russia's economy terrible? Why were the oligarchs allowed to run free? I'd say that a certain megalomaniac had his hand in all that.

          But I'm suspicious of any answer that suggests that Russia just wants resources. While it's GDP may not be healthy compared to western nations, it is the physically largest country in the world, it exports a metric shit ton of wheat and (potentially) gas among other things, so it is not hurting for resources.

          And for shits and giggles, Tommy Tuberville (GOP senator fro

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            Putin is afraid of his army and wants to kill them before they kill him for his lifetime of crimes against Russia.

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              Probably not too far off the mark. His most likely causes of death are either old age or a coup. So he makes sure the generals are rich, and thus loyal, but he can't really control everyone down the line so easily.

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            I believe Putin considers all of the former Soviet Union territory to be Russia property. The resources are just a bonus.

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            Much of that is tundra, kind of like Canada. Miles and miles and miles of barren land.

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            Oligarchs running a country is the same as corporations running a country, except that the board of directors are smaller. So instead of it being Google and IBM running things, it's instead privately held companies like Koch and Cargill, And then, since it's an oligarchy, they get given state approved monopolies. You don't need to work to make money in that environment, you just sit back and let the money flow in.

            I think the whole socialism/communism obsession is the far right having run out of a good buga

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          Like Maggie Thatcher said, the problem with oligarchies is that they eventually run out of other people's money.

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          I don't think it's any of that. I think this war is about two things:

          - Building up Putin's image
          - Restoring Russia's national pride

          We've seen a variation of this movie already:

          Germany loses World War I, becomes basically a joke, and Europeans point and laugh at them. Germans get tired of it, and long for the days when they were feared. Economic hard times hit worldwide, and people everywhere are looking for answers. Hitler comes along, strokes their egos, says everything is not the fault of the great "Germa

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            Did Putin stop after he took Crimea?
            Did Hitler stop after he took Poland?

            This war is just beginning...

      • If the situation was an invasion of the United States, the first thing on my mind WOULD be to go find a rifle (easy to do, this is America after all) and head into the combat zone.

        Like them I'm basically a software engineer (although my job title doesn't reflect that) and I'd almost guarantee that my employer would rather I stay, especially given my job description is to protect the cybersecurity infrastructure of a major health care provider. But the way I do so is very indirect, and honestly I think killing Putin's commies takes a much higher priority, and unlike the vast majority of the country, I do have actual combat training. Even if it is 20 years out of date and my eyesight isn't what it used to be, it's still better than nothing.

        Hell, just watching what resistance Ukraine is able to put up is actually strongly inspiring and even brought a tear to my eye earlier today, part of me would even like to go there and fight with them (actually if somebody paid my bills while I was out, they might even be able to convince me to do so, though it may not be worth it as my combat effectiveness is questionable these days.) Prior to this I didn't even know they would have as much resolve as they do, which is especially impressive considering early propaganda spreading all over the internet (and even here on Slashdot) was suggesting that Ukraine's military had already fallen within the first few hours of fighting, and yet that didn't seem to dissuade them.

        If any Ukrainians are reading this, know this: This war is far from over. Even if your government falls, it's still far from over. We've seen many times throughout history where disparate, lightly armed militias have taken on and even won against vastly superior armies. I strongly believe Ukraine will come out on top, even if a bit bruised, and will turn Putin into a national embarrassment for Russia, and the punch line of every joke everywhere else. Stay strong, and stay vigilant.

        • • Re: Some things are worth fighting for

            You know, one nice thing about America is that they won't arrest you at the border for trying to leave.

          • Ah, bravado. Why a rifle? Are you hunting? Or do you mean assault rifle which consumers cannot legally get?

            Actually there isn't really a big difference between the two. This is mostly just a distinction made by hollywood, politicians, and weapon salesmen. One of the hard things about banning assault rifles is that hardly anybody can agree what exactly an assault rifle is. The Armalite platform itself (Armalite as in AR-15) is commonly used in rifles marketed and sold specifically for hunting. The way politicians try to ban them is they say things like "if it has a flash suppressor, it's an assault rifle" which is sheer ignorance because they obviously have no idea why you put a flash suppressor on any rifle at all. They often think it makes it so that you can't see where a shooter is, but it does no such thing, in fact it doesn't even diminish it at all to anybody except for the gunman, and for the gunman its only purpose is to stop from temporarily blinding them at night. Hunters often do hunt at night, so a flash suppressor would be useful for them.

            Or do you also have an illegal conversion kit so turns your civil "assault rifle" into automatic fire?

            No, and you don't really need the burst fire capability of the M16 (presumably what you're talking about, as the M16A2 and later do not have automatic fire) to fight in combat. In fact, it's generally best to not use it in most cases because it mostly just wastes ammo, which is exactly why the US military no longer uses it. Typically the best place to use burst fire, or even full auto if you have it, is for suppressive fire. Suppressive fire, if you don't know, is to force the enemy to take cover while your battle buddy either withdraws or advances; the intention isn't necessarily to hit anybody, even though that would be a desirable outcome.

            Does it help in that situation? Absolutely, but at the same time you can still be very combat effective without it. And while I wouldn't go out of my way to get it, I know somebody who has a CNC milling machine and could easily modify the bolt to enable the burst capability in the AR-15.

            I think you've seen too many Rambo movies BTW. No competent soldier is going to run into battle firing their weapon in full auto.

            You'd make a great Russian soldier though, as that is a bit more reminiscent of their combat style. No really, it is, that is basically both how they design their weapons and how they engage in warfare. The Russians preferred the Kalashnikov because of its sheer force of power, despite its lower accuracy and effective range. The US and all of NATO preferred the M16, despite its increased cost, complexity, and diminished reliability, because of its higher accuracy, versatility, and longer effective range.

            In Kiev, this week, the Russians still demonstrate that personality of using more blunt force while using a lot less discretion. I'm sure by now you've seen the pictures of that apartment building with a big crater in its side. I'm sure they were aiming for something else as it makes no sense to hit a target with basically zero strategic value, but they're surely satisfied that at least they left a big hole in it. They claim they're not targeting civilians, hospitals, etc, despite hitting them anyways. I'm inclined to believe them because yeah...that's exactly how Russia tends to do things. Always has been.

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              Um yes there is. An assault rifle [wikipedia.org] is generally classified with the firing mode as selectable in semiautomatic, automatic, or burst mode..

              Again, not true. Wikipedia clearly notes factors in determining what is and is not an assault rifle [wikipedia.org]. Namely: 1) It must be capable of selective fire. 2) It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle, examples of intermediate cartridges are the 7.92×33mm Kurz, the 7.62×39mm and 5.56×45mm

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                During the time you spent typing all of that up, did it never occur to you that when politicians talk about banning "assault rifles", they weren't at any point using this definition? Or that the AR-15, which is the main weapon progressives are referring to when they say "assault rifle", doesn't meet this definition?

                I didn't say it was, and even if I had, that completely misses the point I was making. But back to the first thing you said:

                If adding a selective fire to an AR-15 is a big difference to you, then

  • • Awww... Some NFT-monkey got upset! :'(

      Poo widdle snowy-flaky. Can't handle the wealidy. So sad.
      Or was it some aspiring slurper of Vovochka's and Sashenka's cloacae? Hard to tell the difference these days.

      Anyway, as I was saying before said snowflake tried to mod down reality...

      He's not "protecting his meal ticket".
      He's using a currently ongoing Russian invasion of a sovereign democratic country TO PROMOTE HIS COMPANY.
      Cause if he can no longer exploit people's work - maybe there's a way to exploit their plight as free advertisement.

      Also, to shil

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  Good on them. In their place I think (hope) I'd be making the same choice.

  Frankly, the one thing most likely to keep me from fighting would the obligation of first getting my family to safety.

• That's a lot of pessimism

  That's pretty pessimistic. How about instead maybe he actually gives a rats ass about the wellbeing of these people and doesnt want to see them get hurt or killed. I know I look out for those who work under me at work and it's not as if he cant just hire new coders after all.

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  I'm glad they've decided to stay and fight. At some point, someone needs to stand up for what is right. I feel bad for those in Belarus who might be conscripted. I hope they find the courage not to participate in such an unjust war.

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  Yeah, I don't exactly know how you tell someone whose country is being actively invaded what it is, or is not, their responsibility to do in order to secure their homeland, protect their community, or attempt to safeguard their family. As someone sitting comfortably in silicon valley, thousands of miles away from this conflict, what the fuck do I know about what Ukranians on the frontline should be doing right now???

  If a massively superior military force showed up at my border with 150,000 soldiers, planes,

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    Bosses have zero authority to claim what someone's responsibilities are. People are people first, and employees second (or third, or...).

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  I have 817 people working for me in Ukraine (also a few dozen in other places).

  We have a network of hundreds of people, constantly communicating, we worked together, found 2 buses to move people from Nikolaev, a bus full of women and children is only within a couple of hours away from the Polish border, I hope they make it out today. Another bus with people that cannot and will not leave the country just reached one of their main destination points and will get some other people a bit further tomorrow, the