Why would a company do this 🤷‍♂️?

They've clearly spent time on this, so they must think they are getting a benefit from it, but I can't figure out what that benefit is.

3/3

Example role + duplicates:
job-boards.greenhouse.io/speechify?ke...

Their company description even says:
`Please apply through job posts listed under "Engineering" instead of "Global"`

And at the top of the duplicate listings:
`Please apply through this link: [link to main remote listing]`

2/

I loved those games. They were such a memorable part of my childhood. I'm so sad to learn, years later, what happened to the companies that made them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftKey
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lea...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECC
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderb...

6/6

Then comes 1999. Mattel buys SoftKey in what would later be called one of the worst acquisitions of all time. "Lack of proper due diligence" is the phrase.

The SoftKey CEO cashes out his Mattel stock.

Quarterly earnings announces a massive loss. Mattel stock tanks. Mattel CEO has to resign.

5/

With the best companies in the category gutted, Softkey rides out the late 90s squeezing out all the money they can. They even rename themselves The Learning Company.

Oh, also it turns out there were "questionable financial practices" going on.

4/

Then ~1994, SoftKey turns its attention to the "edutainment" category.

In 1995, they win a hostile takeover of The Learning Company. In 1996 they buy Mecc. Large staff cuts follow.

Broderbund fights them off for 3 years, but sells to SoftKey in 1998. Within months 40% of staff is fired.

3/

For the first decade of its life, SoftKey grew by buying low-cost CD-ROM catalogs and flooding retail with budget shovelware*, pushing prices down across the category.

*Shovelware: A software bundle known more for the quantity of what is included than for its quality or usefulness.

2/

... He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day."

1 Samuel 8:11-18
4/4

... the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. ...
3/4

... Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take ...
2/4