Hacker News Reader

Comment by butlike | Hacker News Reader

You can blame her for the last 10 years because she's CEO _now_. That's what you do. You blame the head of the organization for the organization's problems.

View on HN

That doesn't make much sense to me. How can you blame someone for a problem they didn't cause?

Because it’s their job to fix it. If they don’t, the axe falls again.

Humans often think in terms of deontological ethics. Corporations operate in terms of consequentialist ethics, and the only consequence that matters is that the numbers go up.

You’re mixing “blame” and “accountability.” Sharma isn’t to blame for the problems but she’s now accountable for fixing them.

No, I’m not. I’m explicitly differentiating between those two perspectives and which corporations care about. “Blame” doesn’t exist in most corporate vocabularies.

I still think "blame" works here since we're assigning responsibility to her. The fault or wrong was caused by someone else, perhaps, but she is now responsible for that fault.

> Blame: assign responsibility for a fault or wrong.

You’re conflating the fault/wrong and the solution. Sharma is not responsible for the prior decisions but she is responsible for subsequent decisions.

Because they decided to be the figurehead and take on that responsibility. It's like a king who takes on their predecessor's war when they assume power. No one looks to the previous king when the current one has all the agency.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com