Hey, I'm Rob, the CPO at Slack (for real tho, this is my 3rd time posting this so please don't flag :pray:).
This was a mistake. We're fixing it. We appreciate you, Hack Club, along with all of you that are Slack users following along :heart:.
This was a mistake. We're fixing it. We appreciate you, Hack Club, along with all of you that are Slack users following along :heart:.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45287607 https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/1aj3i16/...
Fortunately a user vouched for your third try, which restored it, and I've marked your account legit now, so this won't happen again.)
But on the plus side you provided an excellent lesson to these teens and I'm sure they will consider the importance of trust, leverage, and incentives when dealing with other companies in the future.
Are you going to be fixing that your billing system is not human-reachable, or are you just going to be fixing this one incident while leaving the broken system as-is for everyone who didn't go viral?
And then say sorry to convey some kind of human connection in the hopes you will be forgiven and the bottom line can be raised again.
No answer means this.
Ref: https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/18/cloudflare_ddosed_its...
If Hack Club did pony up the $200k the rep would probably be compensated in some way. That would increase the propensity of a rep to strong arm with short deadlines and hold their 11 year chat history hostage even if it’s not the appropriate pricing for a non-profit.
Since this is bad for Slack and Salesforce’s brand I imagine they’ll be putting in new mechanisms to disincentivize this in the future. When it comes to the rep getting paid they’ll become an expert at how to do it properly.
You are dreaming... look at all of the other posts on topics like this. It's going to continue to be business as usual until you have the social capital for a post that gets to the front page of HN or similar status elsewhere.
While I'm encouraged by this response, I still feel a sense of fear that this fix is a one off, if you could speak to how this could even happen and how mistakes like these would be prevented in the future I'm sure the community would appreciate it.
In this particular instance, this was the result of an oversight in our billing process, and we are returning Hack Club to its previous nonprofit pricing. We will be reviewing our billing and communications processes to provide nonprofits clearer guidance and adequate grace periods as they grow.
If you see this massive screwup as just a price issue that can be fixed by lowering their bill, you’ve missed what’s happened here. Your company has entirely obliterated any trust here, and the way to fix this is to acknowledge that and do everything necessary to help them migrate their data to a place where you aren’t holding a gun to their heads.
Def do encourage the post mortem with root-cause analysis & robust corrective action plan. Thanks for being here.
What was this oversight? What caused it? What are you exactly doing to prevent it from happening in the future?
You mean you won't guarantee. You could guarantee this if you invested in customer service. Choosing not to do so is a choice.
So you have a billing process that includes a step where you extort the customer and demand substantial amounts of money or else you delete the customer's data on very short notice? Because that's one of the "mistakes" that your "billing process" made.
There was no "mistake", this is how you operate, this is what you've already done in the past, and, the only reason you backtracked now is because this one blew up in front of a large enough audience, many of whom are potentially decision makers in their (large) companies.
I think this is the most important finding from this story. It's not that someone has mistakenly billed a non-profit, but that this form of "customer relations" is apparently part of the standard billing process for business customers.
They are free to do so of course, but I imagine that this may impact customer retention if the practice continues. This short notice is something that I would have reacted very strongly about if I had integrated Slack so deeply in my business as the OP did. With the push for workflows, agents and additional functionality, it is actually a huge risk to the business if you get a short notice to migrate if the new terms can not be met.
This looks extremely deliberate to me. Are you seriously suggesting that one of your sales reps accidentally demanded $250k from a bunch of teenagers?
I think you don’t have to find the least charitable interpretation for what they’re saying. There can be something in the middle.
Because you've already made up your mind that they're the bad guy, so it doesn't matter what really happened. One of the prevailing rules at HN used to be engage with the most charitable interpretation of an argument. It's always a better conversation when it's followed - this thread has just devolved into a bunch of pile-on virtue signaling with no actual interest in engaging honestly.
It also looks like it only got addressed because it hit a someone with enough traction to go viral. That they had to resort to this channel at all raises questions in itself that go beyond the initial mistake and this particular customer.
So while I agree that we do not know yet what actually happened, the response from Salesforce so far does not really address these all concerns, and is not inconsistent with less charitable views on what's going on.
I think this is rightfully getting called out. With big power comes big responsibility.
It's the literal definition of virtue signaling - a bunch of folks with zero context jumping to conclusions of evil and malicious intent to satisfy their own needs to join the pile-on comments and show how fake mad they are.
I see a thread of accusations and statements, not questions and engagement.
> It also looks like it only got addressed
The issue was less than two days old, in what world do you think a senior leader is going to learn of an issue like this in an org with 3,000 people? Most managers don't even get back to their direct reports in 24 hours, nonetheless getting a decision to someone higher up the ladder.
> I think this is rightfully getting called out
We agree in spirit but not execution.
You seem to think people are responding here the way they are merely for social standing. At least, that's what virtue signaling is at its core, having looked at some definitions. I think people are upset at the actions of Slack/Salesforce and are responding accordingly. That would be a more organic or genuine motivation (for lack of a better word), while "virtue signaling" discounts the validity of people's responses and reduces them to a hollow show. That is why I called your interpretation uncharitable.
> The issue was less than two days old, in what world do you think a senior leader is going to learn of an issue like this in an org with 3,000 people?
We are commenting underneath a response by the CPO of Slack. There is a sibling comment by the CEO. I think they are aware.
People are calling them out on the things their resposes do not address, which I mentioned in my previous comment. It wouldn't even need to be answers to all the questions people have. The response could have included things like: this is not how we want to treat any of our customers; we will look into what went wrong and why; we will explain when we know and how we will try to prevent this from happening again.
That would have acknowledged the damage this issue does to the public perception of their business practices. Instead, they simply ignore all of that. Hence, people's reactions in here.
> We agree in spirit but not execution.
I agree that a lot of comments in here are quite emotional. I would be more wary if they were directed at a single individual acting in a personal capacity, instead of the representatives of a well-resourced corporation. The power imbalance matters a lot, and I think it makes a difference if someone rather more powerful is called out by more, rather than fewer, people.
"...the practice of conspicuously displaying one's good character, social conscience, or political alignment in order to gain praise, recognition, or social standing, often without taking meaningful action to support the cause one is professing to support".
People asking questions and attempting to engage are not virtual signaling, everyone else on their high horse throwing shade are doing exactly that. These comments are 100% pure worthless virtual signals that I expect to see on reddit, not HN.
> You seem to think people
I don't think, I know. Read the comments. No one here besides the original OP was impacted but everyone wants to pile-on and call them out with absolutely no real context while pulling conspiracy theories out of thin air and making statements about what must be true. I've seen very few actual posts where attempt to engage legitimately rather than some bullshit "gotcha!" comment.
> a response by the CPO of Slack
Yes, two days after the email was sent. Two days. Folks are whining that it wasn't "faster", that somehow these people are not reviewing every email that leaves the company. Worst case the OP wouldn't have paid, their Slack may have been disabled, and then when the CEO/CPO did find out the sales rep would have lost their job rather than what we're seeing here. But I believe that Slack would have done the right thing regardless.
> calling them out on the things their responses do not address
No most people are throwing accusations and making absolute statements of what they perceive to be truth. No one besides the original OP is entitled to a response from Slack, everyone else here is just using it as an opportunity to virtual signal. Why would anyone from Slack engage in this thread filled with hostility and zero lack of desire to understand what happened, because they're so convinced they already have the answer? These posters are tourists using this as an opportunity to show off how mad they are, not customers that deserve a response.
This thread is an embarrassment to the HN community, and we can go back years and find similar situations where company screwed up and will not find the vitriol found here.
I read what you wrote and I see pre-conceived notions about what is or is not going on at Slack, about the motivations of your fellow commenters and the worth of their contributions, no openness, but dismissal wrapped in an increasingly generous portion of vitriol. Take a look at your words, and tell me you're not even outdoing many of them. It's just your sympathies are aligned differently.
That in turn annoys me. Some part of me really wants to blame you, but I actually don't. What'd be the point? We're just getting caught up in this crap. I get it, it's frustrating! I'm frustrated, you sound frustrated, and if you want to give them that, the people you are complaining about are frustrated, too.
Isn't it interesting how these things perpetuate themselves in online discussions? Somebody manages to piss us off, and the first reflex is to piss right back. Does it make anybody feel better? No. It sucks.
So yeah, this thread is not a great example of the good aspects of humanity. Let's not perpetuate it. Let's do better. Let's do something nice. It's fall here, the leaves are turning red. There's the possibility of cake. Hopefully there's something pleasant waiting for you, too. I wish you a nice Sunday, wherever you are.
"Slack" didn't know anything. Slack isn't a human being. Like somehow everyone that joins the company connects a collective consciousness with shared memory.
> deliberate decision to engage in the SaaS equivalent of rent-seeking
Clearly you were involved in the process and have fist-hand knowledge to be so confident lol. The crazy absurdity of everyone being so convinced of the conspiracy theories they've pulled out of their asses.
> given the circumstances I think people in this thread have been incredibly charitable.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
A company that had a for-profit account would likely not incur that much of a bill that quickly, so it wouldn't play out the same. I imagine there are a series of escalating collections steps, and the flag switch popped them right to the most extreme end.
Just a guess.
> This was a mistake.
Calling a customer and extorting them for $50k USD this week and $200k USD per year going forward is not "a mistake."
It is a business decision which your organization made and did not expect to be held accountable for same.
> We appreciate you, Hack Club ...
You have a very different definition of "appreciate", unless you are using it in the accounting sense[0].
0 - https://accountinginsights.org/what-is-appreciation-in-accou...
Undoubtedly the only mistake here was this getting attention. I'm sure hundreds of other groups have had the same experience Hack Club did.
> We're fixing it
By this you mean making sure something like this won’t happen to ANYONE ever again, right?
I hope so and I hope that you will post about it so that you can somewhat recover from this certified PR disaster.
I had previously considered advocating for your product but sure as hell won’t as long as this situation isn’t thoroughly solved. It also prompts me to look into your other business practices before ever considering speaking positively about you again.
This was the result of an oversight in our billing process, and we are returning Hack Club to its previous nonprofit pricing while we work with them directly to ensure their workspace remains fully accessible. We will be reviewing and modifying as necessary our billing and communications processes to provide nonprofits clearer guidance and adequate grace periods as they grow.
https://fortune.com/2025/09/02/salesforce-ceo-billionaire-ma...
And ofc, it has C-level attention now because it blew up on HN. Sorry but this screams damage limitation. For every Hack Club, you wonder which other non-profits suffered this "mistake" but didn't have the social media reach to get C-level treatment.
(Speaking as someone who spent this week being gaslit by Amazon and Google support. :mad: )
One would like to know why were https://slack.com/help/articles/204368833-Apply-for-the-Slac... changes not applied to billing this time around?
With great power comes great responsibility.
Let's walk through what's going on a little more clinically in this response from Rob that was shaped like an answer:
Rob's comment looks like a good response, but only in form. Structurally it mimics apology in syntax but the batteries are missing. He starts with something a little self-effacing, a little "ownership", to bring down dehumanizing walls. All fine, if you're sincere. But Rob didn't choose to respond to a direct question and there were plenty. If he had, the mismatch between his words and the reality where his use of "oversight" did itself elide over a phone call demanding $50k in five days... that would sound absurd. By replying where he did, he gets the appearance of substance without risking contradiction when he's a no-show on any followups after this.
For crisis communication, getting a question for Rob to respond to like this works better actually than getting incoherent rage. That would be easy to dismiss as "unwilling to engage in discourse". But a comment like this can be answered harmlessly precisely because the commenter is looking to have a discourse, and socially acceptable discursive pragmatics don't require an immediate and comprehensive answer. The established pragmatics allow for a response like Rob's without seeming immediately absurd. As a result, he can be the more grounded human personality, less distant than even a sincere CEO of a multi-billion corporation would look, and soak up blame without conceding anything or answering any questions.
That's Rob's role here, to be the face to blame. This is hugely important in a crisis like this where the situation was highly avoidable and the damage is reputational. Blame. Not to be accountable: that is different than blame, though they overlap and get confused. Blame is hard to do in either direction without a specific face, and so we have Rob. Rob is the blame face. Not the architect of the policy, not the one who made the phone call, but the human buffer that makes Slack look responsive without putting someone in the firing line.
It's worth watching for this dynamic in other crises. Even if a CEO does hang out for more than the single copy-paste in the comments that Slack's did, it isn't proof of sincerity, but its absence sure does say the reverse.
The problem is that PR has learned how to simulate sincerity since the literal SCCT Theory playbook of the '90s. Unfortunately the the lesson learned wasn’t "do better" it was "signal better". But hope springs eternal, here's a paper & data set that could be part of the foundation, a a small bit of RLHF, of a state of the art corporate BS detector. It's interesting reading either way: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03638...
Heck that’s an interesting thought, why isn’t the SVP here commenting instead? If you can’t find the new one then maybe check in with Kevin Egan, congratulate him on the new CRO job, see what his take is on this being more of a mistake than standard operating procedure. Maybe have his reminisce about his sales days from way back at Oracle, where sales and revenue optimization is known for their ethical practices.
May I suggest a public post mortem so that the doubters can see that you went after the root cause?
Might be interesting for HN as well as big companies have mistakes in policy, teams and automated collections...
After this the billing department might just get a list of companies that are behind and start a process.
>Out of curiosity, will you be facilitating them exporting their chat history?
Mattermost is self-hosted and enables full data control.
There's some organizations that want to move to Mattermost for various reasons.
It's important for them to bring along their data.
Wondering what your opinion might be?
Yeah, right. Tell us more.
You mean like it has become a mistake when the story about it broken up and went viral?
But if Hack Club did not complain about it, you would have happily took and kept taking their money?
That kind of a "mistake"?
In all seriousness, why should anyone believe what you are saying?
It seems to me that your story about a "mistake" is just as plausible as this kind of behavior simply being Slack's business strategy. Be ambiguous. Change the terms of the sale after the sale. Try poking. See which tactics works. If someone bites, take advantage of it. If they complain, call it a mistake and do damage control. Collect profits. Rinse and repeat.
I would be not at all surprised if Benioff said the initial deal was a mistake and you’ve fixed it now.
Nevertheless glad to see someone here trying to put out the fire, even if in the grand scheme of things it’s probably too late.
Like someone who didn't know or a change that they were lumped into?
Here’s exactly what happened: A human account manager had to meet their 3rd quarter sales goal and sent the demand for more money. It’s less than two weeks from the end of the quarter, do you really think nobody on HN is in sales and also facing the same pressure?
This is such a transparent lie that I’m surprised you took the time to post it.
There’s still a human account manager involved, it wasn’t an automated billing error.
/s