WeWork cofounder demanded employees be fired because she disliked their 'energy' | Hacker News Reader

WeWork cofounder demanded employees be fired because she disliked their 'energy'

businessinsider.com

43 pointstxsoftwaredev11 comments

I've seen cofounders like this. Sometimes they let someone go because they simply don't like that they look old or something.

Fwiw, the person I speak of was also looking for a hype-based exit and the mission was to sell, not build, a business. It worked.

Wow can’t imagine leaving kids aged 2-11 at WeGrow the “entrepreneurial school” she runs. Hate for my kids to be punished or expelled for bad energy. What a wackjob.

But if my kids get free WeGrow branded Yoni eggs then what’s the problem?

These two are really coming up as some of the most toxic cofounders I've seen in a while.

They seem to be up there, but I think there are a lot of more toxic ones ahead of them in the line.

They may win on the "biggest nutcase" scale, though.

When I read the headline, I thought "that's not too bad, she just thinks they are a bad cultural fit with the company".

Then I read the article and went "ohh, she means THAT kind of energy".

Open secret: "culture fit" sounds more serious, that doesn't mean the evaluation criteria used always is.

It can easily be a smokescreen for, for example, racism (perhaps unintentionally).

Certainly, and it puts the company at risk of a discrimination suit along with the associated fallout when you have arbitrary whim based termination practices like this.

Wouldn't that constitute firing someone for religious reasons and therefore be illegal?

IANAL, but I don't think so. In the US, you can't discriminate against someone because of their religious beliefs, but I doubt that "having bad energy" counts as "religious belief", even if that "bad energy" thing is itself a religious belief on the part of the employer. If I objected to the color yellow because of a weird religious stance, I think that I could legally fire someone because they drove a yellow car. I couldn't fire them because they didn't share my religious belief, though.

But this may be one of those weird edge cases where an argument can be made either way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com