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Comment by mlyle | Hacker News Reader

In any board, the board's role is not strictly oversight but also working to preserve the health of the organization and to meet meet organizational goals.

Pissing off all your stakeholders with a snap decision isn't great governance. Particularly egregious circumstances might make it necessary.

Finding something wrong might require action, but a board's responsibility is also to make the corrective action in a responsible manner that is in the organization's interests.

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> a board's responsibility is also to make the corrective action in a responsible manner that is in the organization's interests.

That very well may have happened here. It is important to consider that this is effectively an HR matter and that the results of employee investigations cannot be made public.

There's a lot of speculation about this whole fiasco but strictly speaking the board would risk being in breach of fiduciary--as stewards of a charity--if they believed that an executive had misled them about the use of assets. It may piss off their donors because of a personal preference for the executive in question but it would be their responsibility to act accordingly.

Yes... but my point is that this doesn't preclude them taking a couple of days to figure it out, let stakeholders know, avoid making a particularly dumb public statement, changing their mind because everyone is going to quit, etc.

Here, there's been a statement that there's no malfeasance, too.

Yes but they also Determine the organization's interests

more likely I think they found that not letting him go isn't and option due to a breakdown of communication (a formulation which normally implies a fundamental break down of trust)

but the trust of the board completely braking down doesn't mean that e.g. MS doesn't trust or want him anymore as in the end the interest the board have to defend and the ones which stake holder like MS have might be in conflict

so even if it has negative consequences if it must be done it might be easier to get it done fast and then resolve the mess instead of giving other a chance to turn it into an even bigger mess

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