Thread regarding F5 Networks Inc. layoffs

@q7m The AMA used to be incredibly cool. We had lightning talks. Teams showed actual work — big wins, small improvements. When I joined H1, I was honestly impressed by the openness and energy.

Now it feels like we’re tuning in for a broadcast from Supreme Leader Kara Sprague -un.

Some last minutes slides with her typical words salad: H1 2.0, bla bla bla, execution, alignment, strategy works, numbers agree, customer agree,

then her enforcer takes the mic to praise the strategy — and usher us to to " please clap".

FU-K Kara Sprague, fu-k her Goons

@p0b the AMA channel was never anonymous, the real spicy questions would not get accepted. All of them were subject to "approval" and we've seen many disappear without even a mention. Just like their "anonymous" company surveys with hidden unique trackers embedded in the page.

@pgz someone triggered the boomers by having feelings

@pcp They can’t. They’ve let someone dictate how they feel, someone at work no less, and given up. They all need therapy.

@pad Who needs therapy? Reread your post. Wow!

@pcp you can say the same of yourself.

wow you people need to move on

I you're a Dutch (very) junior co-founder reading this: we really hope you know you've been bought and sold for pennies, and the respect you built over the first 14 years of this company is now dead completely. To MP and JA, you've gained nothing. Your credibility is in the toilet and irredeemably so. You can maybe take back your legacy by firing your consultant trash CEO, but you're not interested in having a legacy. You'll cash out at a 3% return but with the hatred of thousands of people. Good on ya mates. This is what happens when you have a company founded by children with no vision. Fix it if you can, otherwise watch worse European companies eat all your lunch. Your value prop is D-E-D dead. It's hilarious how you didn't realize that your company only functioned because of committed ICs and not your own sh-t waffling approach to bug bounty. Gotta be one of the biggest waists of good faith community engagement we'll ever see.

@p8f you clearly don't understand the need for combradiery and catharsis in situations like this. Maybe take it up with your therapist while you learn to read facial expressions and social cues. In the meantime, leave the comments to people who actually live in the real world and not the little mindless bubble you see to think we all populate. It's called "other minds", maybe figure out that they exist and not all of them are overly sensitive to fluorescent lights like you seem to be. Justice is possible and likely when enough people have the same unjust experience. This isn't about dwelling on the past but creating a record so future companies think twice before employing this god awful, useless, woman

@kx2 likely everythng

@p8f since you won't allow being proven wrong whats the point in continuing.

@p8k actually it's still in the present

@p8k leadership or dictatorship? Leaders provide inspiration. She didn't provide any inspiration during her tour at f5

@p8f For the F5 folks: I get that whatever happened with Kara Sprague is in the past for you.
For those at H1 (and we don’t have a board like F5), we’re still dealing with the impacts of her leadership. A lot of what’s mentioned here resonates, and honestly, it’s also helpful to have a place to vent.

@p15 Because it’s a waste of your time and energy.
Prove me wrong. I’ll wait to see Kara behind bars or fined. Let me know when that’s happened. Until then, waste of time and energy.

@48n my count is 1874

@p13 why?

LET IT GO!!! LET IT GO!!!

@njn well tell us more about the slack channel, that's hysterical. just like the cpo eliminating the anonymous AMA because they could no longer handle the spicy questions.
people leadership from the best of the best!

@nmb lol they deleted the comment claiming it was Kara posting. Kara confirmed

@nq0 paid shill

@nmb she continues to make millions after destroying the lives of many.

@nmb because she's actively destroying peoples lives dum--ss. Get with it or get out

Y the fu-k is anyone still talking about kara..who cares ?

@njd Oh, we certainly don’t see her strutting around like a CEO.

Instead of handling her CEO-level sh-t, she decided to tag the entire CSM team and initiate a two-day public argument on a random public Slack channel.

Leadership turmoil, rolling layoffs, and cost-cutting measures, such as canceling the annual in-person meeting, but let's open an office in Pune. This allows Kara Sprague to travel across the globe, dressed in a saree, and open the office for just six dudes.

Since we’re implementing cost-cutting measures, why not establish a permanent office in Seattle? Right?

Here’s a shining example of her priorities and one of the first thing she pressed on.
She insists on changing “Account Region” to “Account Theatre” across the entire company and makes this one of her top priorities. Apparently, this naming convention is driving her CEO mind wild. But let’s be honest, whether it’s “Region” or “Theatre,” there are still only four dropdown options, and they all have the same four options!

@nj1 but Kara Sprague achieved her dream of being a CEO. Nothing else matters to her in how she achieved that.

@nj1 Spot on. One founder basically took a long sabbatical… and then left.

Kara Sprague’s grasp of AI is painfully simple: “GPT can do it, so why can’t you build X, Y, Z?” Because that’s definitely how engineering works.

Also, let’s keep using Kara Sprague. Sooner or later Google will do what it does.

Kara has to be the d-mbest robot they could've found for this hatchet job. She doesn't seem to realize that there is a community that will and should hack her once she ki-ls the platform they rely on for money. The founders have shown repeatedly how weak spined they are and abdicating to this emotionless robot is just the final nail in their own coffins. Imagine spending 15 years on something just to have a board assignee ki-l your dream. There is no exit under the current administration, just excuses and secondary share sales. HackerOne was a beautiful dream that actually worked. Now they've pivoted to AI, which they know nothing about, and to a CEO who can't lead. The place is done, and the people who remain will benefit little from letting another consultant-brained freak come in and ruin the game further. They've tried this multiple times in the past, and it always fails. This will be their greatest failure yet and they will dwindle into irrelevance very quickly from here. Bunch of weaklings doing things weakly. The worst tech oligarchs possible because their skin is thin as paper and they can't make a decisive decision to save their lives. Children playing grown ups without even making enough money to justify it. The company will fail in shame. IRS should check them out.

@mkx Ah yes, the "legendary" McKinsey (90s) playbook:

“Offshore office.”
“Synergies.”
“Efficiency.”
“Transformation.”
insert inspirational LinkedIn post.

Meanwhile HackerOne is just a 600-person company and Kara Sprague acting like she is scaling fu--ing Amazon in early 2000.

Flew across the world to open an office in India and hired six people like it’s the corporate version of adopting a goldfish and calling yourself a zookeeper.

@kx2 if they need triage staff, why are they keeping those in India? Not making any sense to me.

@mk4 Kara Sprague is basically a McKinsey Zombie: abstract (outdated) strategy, real-world damage, never had ownership.

@mk4 kara doesn't own up to anything

@m5c I wonder how large the hole she dug in 2025 and how many people were affected this time.

Last time, the then CEO at least owned it up and admitted a 12% reduction.

here's what happened: they burned through a bunch of cash investing in the bubble known as "ai". laid off and forced all the good people to quit, then opened up shop in india and hired dozens upon dozens of unskilled workers. unsurprising at this point to see more layoffs, as it's the one thing executives know how to do. could save millions by reducing their lavish salaries.

@m2f Every time she opened her mouth you could hear BS. Sorry, you can’t hide incompetence behind few expressions taken from the economy 101 class. It smells really bad.

@kh5 Kara Sprague brought only one thing to Hacker One. That of a goal of becoming a CEO.

On her linkedin page about 4 months ago, she talked of 2 goals she set for herself. One was to get married, the second was to become a CEO. For the married one, she married a another senior exec at F5 about 18 months before becoming CEO of Hacker One. She spoke of her "tour" at F5 like it was a vacation - she was never invested in F5 succeeding. Just passing through.

In her talk of goals, what strikes me more than anything else is her selfish focus on self. She uses the word "I" over 35 times. No "we", no "us", just "I". To effectively run a company, it's about "we" and "us". Everyone must be of value - not just "I".

I'm really sorry for those at Hacker One - Kara doesn't know how to lead and inspire people.

@ky8 They discover a financial hole or some "creative bookkeeping", realise it is risky, and they leave.

@ky8 typo, original CFO is “He”

@kx2 I’ve been wondering the same thing, and honestly I’m not even sure whether we should count this as three or four CFOs.

The original CFO announced she was leaving in September. After that, a VP in Finance stepped in as interim CFO, but she also announced pretty early on that she’d be leaving in January 2026.

So during that time, the company was already in full search mode for a CRO (since May) and a CMO (since August), with multiple exec roles unsettled at the same time.

Then in November, some of those gaps started getting filled. A new CFO was announced and started on December 15 — but by December 22, just one week later, she was gone.

And then in early January, Kara announced yet another person stepping in as CFO.

I’m old enough to have seen plenty of corporate America sh-t, but CFO is usually the most stable role even in the most unstable situations. Seeing this much churn specifically in finance is what really makes it feel off — it stops looking like normal exec turnover.

@krn centered around US / EU. not india - they need triage staff.

The CFO thing is super interesting - I wonder what is wrong with their books?