I wonder if the many commenters here saying things like "If you being employed loses the company money you should be fired" would say the same thing in the case of Colin Kaepernick. Not passing judgement either way, just curious.
> Was this intended for me? I don't know almost anything about any sports controversies. I do my best to not follow sports news. I find it mostly boring. But I do support people fighting against oppression, especially when it comes with physical abuse by those in power.
That isn't a sports controversy. If you care about "fighting against oppression" how did you not get the reference? A link was provided to explain what you're apparently unaware of.
tl;dr: the authoritarian PRC government uses the exact same tactics you are approving of to stifle criticism and opposition to its oppression. You might feel differently about those tactics if the context was this guy getting fired for saying it's wrong of the PRC to ship Muslims in Xinjiang off to reeducation camps to crush their culture.
Did this guy lose the company a measurable amount of money?
Given that this law is like a week old and how little attention customers pay to CEO twitter, I'm almost certain that's a no.
Would he have lost them money? Yes, definitely, without question.
So would it be right to fire Kaepernick at the first hint of controversy, since it would be reasonable to predict that would cause at least some loss of revenue?
Yeah, an NFL quarterback has much higher profile. Given how well known quarterbacks are to the public, statements they make (especially on TV during games) have much higher impact than a tweet from some no-name CEO.
I think the focus on revenue, etc. have an element of bad faith to them. The real metric seems to be you agree with A and disagree with B, so it's wrong to punish A and fine to punish B. What to choose as a publicly offered "critical metric" can usually be gerrymandered to get whatever result one desires.
Personally, I don't think anyone should be fired for expressing an opinion, especially not one that's well within the Overton Window of the country as a whole. To do otherwise invites polarization and extremism.
Hilarious. I'll stop communicating as it's clear you're only communicating in bad faith.
> Hilarious. I'll stop communicating as it's clear you're only communicating in bad faith.
My statement is objectively true. Grab someone on the street, and ask them which of these names they recognize: Colin Kaepernick (QB) or Jed York (CEO)? They're going to recognize the guy they actually watch on TV.
We can even get pseudo-quantitative with this:
https://twitter.com/jimmyg_10 (one of three current starting quarterbacks for the 49ers, apparently got the job last season): 234.1K Followers
https://twitter.com/jedyork (apparently CEO of the 49ers since 2008): 128.6K Followers
Sure. It's also not relevant. You asked a question that made no sense. The appropriate question would've been "Who has more impact on company earnings, a quarterback or a CEO", in that we're discussing one's ability to impact revenue for a business. It has nothing to do with celebrity.
You're welcome to quantify whatever you like. How blue is sky blue? Ultimately it doesn't matter. A CEO has far more ability to damage the company they work than a quarterback. This is why your behavior is in bad faith. You're arguing points nobody made/don't change the outcome of what we're discussing.
Except that it is.
> You asked a question that made no sense. The appropriate question would've been "Who has more impact on company earnings, a quarterback or a CEO", in that we're discussing one's ability to drive revenue for a business. It has nothing to do with celebrity.
No. For one, you're wondering off into the weeds. We've gotten sidetracked discussing the effects of a particular type of action (stating a personal opinion publicly) on revenue, not the effects of all actions theoretically available to the role. The CEO can certainly have "more impact on company earnings," but that's because they could do things like badly misallocate investment, which are not relevant to a discussion about personal political statements.
The amount of "celebrity" someone has directly effects how much attention their statements will get, and thus the impact of those statements.
> A CEO has far more ability to damage the company they work than a quarterback. This is why your behavior is in bad faith. You're arguing points nobody made/don't change the outcome of what we're discussing.
Eh, no. Way up here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440465), someone drew an equivalence between Colin Kaepernick and this CEO, which sets up an uncomfortable dilemma for certain common clusters of political tendencies (i.e. it was right to fire Kaepernick). That dilemma was "solved" by gerrymandering criteria to differentiate their positions in a way that doesn't actually make much sense (e.g. somehow this CEO's controversial opinions can be predicted to negatively affect revenue, while Kaepernick's much higher profile statements could not have). Showing that "solution" doesn't make sense because it doesn't match the facts restores the dilemma.
My ultimate position is that both this CEO and Kaepernick should have both kept their jobs, in spite of the political opinions they expressed. I suspect that any set of seemingly politically neutral criteria that justifies the CEO being fired but not Kaepernick likely was engineered to justify a result that was really determined by underlying political biases (e.g. applying a factional Overton window to the broader population).
Or behave in a way in which nobody would purchase their products, which their role as CEO defines as one of their highest priorities.
Quarterbacks play football well.
Are you seeing how this is a silly comparison?
I'll try this one last time.
Quarterbacks aren't anonymous guys who throw a ball around. They're celebrities with a direct connection to the brand of the team they play for, and fans are familiar with whatever they do during a game. If they get involved in some controversy, it affects that brand.
It's a certainty that a greater proportion of football customers (fans) watch games than game studio customers subscribe to CEO tweets or attend to something that will bring them to their attention. That's because watching football games is more integral to being a football customer than paying attention to twitter is to pretty much anything.
Also, IIRC Kaepernick was booed on many occasions during his protests.
If a CEO's controversial personal political tweets can affect revenue to the point he should be fired, a QB's in-game controversial political statements can too.
> Quarterbacks aren't anonymous guys who throw a ball around. They're celebrities with a direct connection to the brand of the team they play for, and fans are familiar with whatever they do during a game. If they get involved in some controversy, it affects that brand.
Quarterbacks are employed to play football. CEOs are employed to run companies. If you can't see this, you're either intentionally being obtuse or aren't capable of having this type of conversation.
> If a CEO's controversial personal political tweets can affect revenue to the point he should be fired, a QB's in-game controversial political statements can too.
I'm not sure what point you're making. He was fired. He was actually cancelled, in that the people that disagreed with him prevented him from ever getting future work, which is unlike the Tripwire CEO, who will land somewhere else just fine. Employers are within their rights to fire whoever they want. The difference is, again, the purpose for which that employee was employed in the first place. Firing your plumber because of their facebook posts may be unnecessary. Firing a spokesman for damaging your brand is not.
Again, if you can't see this, you're either intentionally being obtuse or aren't capable of having this type of conversation. Either way this'll be the last exchange we have on this topic. Have an excellent day.
I question it. You’re too confident here. How much money would he lose? Is it measurable? A blip?
And how much increased revenue would be gained by his supporters? Does it even out?
How many people doing the canceling have never bought from the company, nor would ever?
No one was cancelled.
> I question it. You’re too confident here. How much money would he lose? Is it measurable? A blip?
Do you think he would've been fired if his superiors thought otherwise?