Many -- probably most -- ultimately very successful companies had near-death experiences. They aren't usually written about. Apple's near-death in 1997 is well documented. Tesla's is described in Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk. http://foundersatwork.com/ has firsthand stories about some others.
They would have become full-death experiences if the CEO had said, "Hey everybody, we're near death, just FYI". So in the alternative world where company deaths are always announced well in advance, far more companies would die. Probably not a better world.
I don't know the story here, but in most cases there was some deal on the table that would have saved the company but fell through in the couple of days before the announcement.
Regardless, the right thing is to have enough payroll in reserve for an orderly shutdown and transition plan for customers. It's not clear whether that's happening here -- I hope so.
Maybe you have been seeing things through SV pink colored glasses for too long.
Companies everywhere are shutting down daily with proper warnings to customers, employees and users. It's not uncommon for companies to give several months (or even a year) of warning that they are winding down operations, won't be accepting new users, will honor contracts, etc. And they are doing the right thing.
Every time there's a post here about how people should keep at least 3 months of salary in case things go south, the general feeling is that whoever is living paycheck to paycheck must be stupid. However, when it's a CEO that couldn't do proper planning and screwed the lives of employees and users alike.. oh, sure, let's give the guy a break.
EDIT: Let me anticipate the argument here that if anyone's "lives" were screwed then it's their problem that they didn't understand the risks properly.
Please don't be uncivil when commenting here. The middle parts are fine (though weakened by a straw man you call "the general feeling"), but the personal swipe at the beginning is not.
tlb's argument is an interesting one, and so would yours be had you focused on its substance and dropped the snark and the elbowing—which was even worse in your original comment upthread. Indignation gets upvotes, but it also reduces signal/noise ratio and primes others for fight mode. Those things are bad for HN threads.
They would have become full-death experiences if the CEO had said, "Hey everybody, we're near death, just FYI". So in the alternative world where company deaths are always announced well in advance, far more companies would die. Probably not a better world.
I don't know the story here, but in most cases there was some deal on the table that would have saved the company but fell through in the couple of days before the announcement.
Regardless, the right thing is to have enough payroll in reserve for an orderly shutdown and transition plan for customers. It's not clear whether that's happening here -- I hope so.