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Comment by cols | Hacker News Reader

Looks as if he was asked to leave. No surprise given the terrible optics they've been under for the past year. NPM is such a vital tool and I really enjoy using it. I hope their next CEO makes better decisions in regards to the humans who work there. Good luck to all the NPM staff! I'm rooting for you!

From the Register...

"According to people familiar with the matter, Bogensberger was asked to leave by the company's board of directors." [0]

For more context...from Jonathan Cowperthwait, NPM's former vice president of marketing...

"Many of us spent the last year watching our friends and colleagues' struggle through our fingers, but I'm still profoundly confident in the company's ability to turn this around. Sometimes bad executives happen to a good company." [1]

[0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/20/npm_ceo_bryan_bogen...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/npm-ceo-bryan-bogensberger-r...

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Why was he asked to leave? To which “terrible optics” do you refer? Your implied context is opaque.

If the context is opaque to you then I would encourage you to read the articles and to read the other comments on this thread.

The comment to which I replied is top-level, and has no prior thread context.

As far as I can tell a bunch of people are upset because they got fired - so what? Companies fire people all the time.

Here is some background on some of the things that happened while he was CEO: https://twitter.com/fharper/status/1111694552262459393

Maybe I didn't read too far into the thread, but it sounds like they laid off a guy, provided some severance, and there weren't many managers that sent him a goodbye note? I don't see the connection here... what was the bad thing they did?

(The person you're replying to+ who submitted this article _is_ the person they laid off)

*one of the person who was laid off.

Yep, no goodbye note was really the highlight of everything that happened at npm in the last couple of months.

This article about union busting https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/technology/tech-companies...

and this one about working conditions at npm https://www.businessinsider.com/npm-employees-open-letter-20...

or The Register who covered mostly everything that happened since the first layoff mentioned in my Twitter thread https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/22/npm_fired_staff_uni...

I don't know anything about NPM's board of directors. I don't know who is on it. So this should not be read as some sort of criticism of them.

But I know there are some boards of directors out there, who would view the ability to bust unions (and get away with it) as a reason to hire, not a reason to fire.

I don't know why they let go of their CEO. I wouldn't assume it was necessarily for any of the reasons you mentioned. It certainly could have been, but it also could very easily have been for completely unrelated reasons.

I completely agree with you on this!

I wasn't mentioning those were the reasons, but that those were part of what happened in the last months.

Try reading that Twitter thread and count the number of times he mentions. "I" or "me" in the same sentence about how it's all about other npm employees and the greater community.

This is a textbook example of if (when!) you get let go you should strongly consider an internet moratorium.

It wasn't just about other employees. I lost my job. I got fired in a shitty way. I lost my income source. I lost a job I love. I lost faith in a company I cared about. I was afraid for the future of the ecosystem and my friends still there (most of them resigned since). It was an emotional moment for me and others. Things can be about others AND you, it's not a zero sum game.

Count for this reply: 9

A friend of mine regularly self-moderates his communications, particularly emails. If there's an "I" (or other personal pronoun) in a sentence, he deletes the whole sentence.

Often his replies are just "Thanks" style... But you know with him it's a very considered reply despite the terseness.

I'd suggest that such copious tweets (& follow up comments here) may very well harm future prospects... As you sow you reap. You need to learn to let things go: particularly in tech.

It's great that you like your (former) fellow employees: make friends with them and network with them. Alternatively, if you wish to make political actions, then undoubtedly you need to be more impersonal: just like the people who were tasked with outing you.

Thanks for sharing your personal opinion, I appreciate.

The fact that I shared my story like I did and doing now was beneficial on all levels for me. I stayed true to my principles and values. I was approach by companies and managers who have the same values also. It helped me go back on my feet emotionally and professionally way more quickly.

My personal take is that whatever you do, no matter if it's about deciding to not care or not say anything, or being vocal, stay true to yourself, and be proud of what you share.

Well, stylistically the first 20 tweets of the Twitter thread read like an introduction to to the story, rather than an actual story (and the rest looks like followup), so that makes for one really confused reading. That's perfectly understandable considering your emotional state at the time, but now that you are a bit more calm, please don't misrepresent this as a brief summary, which is the point of the original question.

Interesting, maybe it was lost in translation as English isn't my first language, but "here is some background" doesn't mean "here is the brief summary" for me. It also doesn't mean here is the complete story and the only truth. Sorry if I wasn't clear. IMHO, I still think that if people take the time to read the thread and the articles written by media like New York Times, The Register and Business Insider, it should give a proper "brief summary" (of what can be said without bringing any legal issues) for the person who asked for it.

I'm not sure what conclusions one can draw about the broader NPM culture by reading a single-sided Twitter thread from a disgruntled former employee tweeting about how he lost his job.

I only made it through the first ~10 tweets before clicking out, so maybe there's something I'm missing further in the thread. But to me, it just sounds like what you'd expect from someone being laid off.

It's a little weird that he didn't have a manager who would wish him well on his way out. But that's about it. The bit about a severance with a non-disparagement contract is absolutely standard, not out of the usual whatsoever (especially for a VC backed company like NPM).

His complaint seems to be, not that he was laid off, but that the way it was communicated to him was insensitive.

That's a very common thing, laying people off in an insensitive manner. Lot's of companies (even big massive successful companies) do that all the time.

That doesn't make it right, but, whatever the reasons their board had for letting go of their CEO, laying people off in an insensitive manner is unlikely to be among them.

Actually, it was also about the layoff itself, not just how it happened. At the beginning of the thread, I wasn't to shared details for legal reasons, but it became a NLRB case for union busting. See this article from The Register for more details https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/22/npm_fired_staff_uni...

If you read a little more, you would have seen that it was a case of union busting (which is illegal) that was taken by NLRB. It is just part of what happened.

I don't see anything having to do with union busting, but I'm probably overlooking something.

See

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/technology/tech-companies...

and

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/02/npm_abandons_settle...

Elsewhere in thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21029344

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