Telling the CEO he is full of shit is not actionable. Telling the CEO that his plan will not work and that to save the situation he needs to do XYZ is. If you've judged the situation correctly and that level of drama is actually necessary, then either they will respect you and do it or they wont and you'll quit/be fired. Either should be fine for you from your perspective as an employee even if financially it's a leap.
I say it's good advice because it's turned out to be very good for my career. I've had it blow up in my face once and turn out better than silence every other time. That's a muh better ratio than I would have guessed, I suspect because it's easier to fear the consequences of action than inaction.
Another possible/likely option - they'll pay lip service to your plan, convince you to stay, and then gradually slip back to the full of shit approach they originally intended.
But ultimately there is no substitute for good judgement here. You have to decide, sometimes quickly, whether a particular situation demands immediate action of whether it can be forestalled or defeated by other (less risky) means. And you're absolutely right that it requires good judgement and preparation to ensure that they cannot contain or deceive you.
If you're in an environment where serious ethical failure happens on the regular I would encourage you to get out. There are plenty of jobs, including in IT, where the worst you'll see is self-serving lies and corporate doublespeak.
As for my standards being laxer than yours, well, I don't know you.
I'm definitely looking to transition to a more healthy environment, but so far every place I have visited has a similar terrible attitude to the practicalities of security and handling breaches. I have asked for clarification by legal sources many times, but this appears to be legal, with the obvious exception of the illegal things. Those are not legal but they don't have a governing body that actively punishes transgressions. It also appears to be widespread. Perhaps I just live in the wrong country :)
Honestly, that's the kind of teammate I deeply love to work with - one who doesn't _need_ the job, but one who _wants_ it and believes in what we're doing.
Look at the web. There's a ton of jobs (many would say a nigh-overfull bubble's worth) in the web right now, yet most webshit doesn't meaningfully improve anyone's life and is instead just a way to trick people into looking at ads or providing their personal data so it can be collected and sold.
People say that Google does questionable things but I haven't seen any of it. Of course as a bottom-up organization it is very likely that other parts of Google are less ethical but that doesn't really affect my work or conscience.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/11/18260712/google-amit-sing... (Google confirms it agreed to pay $135 million to two execs accused of sexual harassment)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... (High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Goo...
Sure, it shows one's morals and standards, but how does that boost one's career?
This has a number of predictable benefits.
Sure, if you leave the company and go somewhere else, then you're potentially going to find your moral environment. But, there are better ways to find these environments, versus job hopping.
Without leaving, how often will your conflicts affect your situation?
Would like to hear more about the predicted benefits.
Similarly, a middle manager who has to downsize houses because he stopped working on weapons for example, it could be even harder for him because he won’t even get famous for it.
I should know, I’ve made one of those choices in another area.
Going by the theme of the post, "By making as much money as possible", wouldn't be an unreasonable measure.
If you truly value a moral career, there are surely better ways to find one than to join a company and express your opinions internally, in an almost retroactive manner.
If your only considering career benefits in terms of career advancement compensation, then perhaps doing the right thing won't be "beneficial" to you.
However, if you aim to be a good person, doing the right thing is the correct path.
This might be an important distinction between ethical and moral. Standing up against unethical behavior protects one career, but if the behavior is ethical but immoral (that is to say, it violates your own standards but is deemed acceptable in the larger community) then it doesn't really protect one's career. But the self image protection might still be worth it.
This is very bad advice purely career wise. In fact being in the good books of the cartel managers is something you should proactively do.
Also stop believing in this myth of finding a boss who is powerful, just, fair and does the right things all the time. Humans are irrational species because we have to often arrive at a one pick decision between competing priorities, sometimes even paradoxical priorities. Reality is a big mess and no straight work-reward equations are possible. This extends to so many things in the real world. Business, relationships, contracts, job space etc etc. One must always aspire to be slightly evil as much as things allow one to be. That means developing tact to manage everyday politics, negotiating, coercing, influence and various other people management things.
Plus given this specific point, if your boss or immediate leader is too powerful fighting him is pointless and self destructive. And even more important point, stop fighting other peoples battles. Whistle blowing, activism and standing for principle all gives you a huge sense of self worth and makes you feel important about yourself. But it's a very bad strategy, because you will fall out of favor and get marked up as a trouble maker in the eyes of any powerful watching. And you will never meet a boss or a leader who is likely to appreciate this. Stop trying to be a martyr or other people's cause.
The second problem with people is that they try to evangelize their own little personal moral-principles based religion, some cause they believe in and try forcing it down other people's throats. There is literally no reason why any one should care about what or why you believe in anything at all. Especially if they don't stand to benefit from it in any real way. There is also no reason why you should mark any one as your enemy for not believing in what you do. This is even more troublesome because people attach things like moral prestige/superiority/pride to their cause and humiliate other people's intelligence for not aligning with theirs. Why should you want to do this?
Stop trying to be a rebel, take a step back and what see you are doing. Your boss wants X, in an ideal situation the best you can do is convince them to agree on settling with X-dx. But if your boss wants X and you want to change their directions and want them to do A instead. They are going quietly relieve you of your work, and find some one else to get the job done.
You could call someone out, and make a fool of yourself, if you're wrong. It would make me very hesitant to ever actually do something like this, because you never know.
I sat in on an 'all hands' briefing once where a CEO level guy spent 2hrs demanding we code a 3D VR shopping mall for him to sell to local stores. When I started talking about how immature the market was (this was 1994 and most people were on dialup) I got roasted. Afterwards, the CTO said he did that randomly, to get dominance, it was just how he chose to behave in a room, in order to "win". I didn't stay in that company long.
I hate this. I can't convince colleagues that they are wrong. And I can't push too hard as long as I'm not 100% sure. So I have to make their work for them just to proof them wrong. I think it is not a good investment to aim for 100%, at least where I work.