Case in point, the amount of downvoting happening in this thread: Someone says something you don't agree with so they must be the devil incarnate.
The reaction to his comments and the comments here are laughable.
He will manage, no doubt. He will not die poor. Maybe not a billionaire, but no one’s entitled to that. What’s with all the unending sympathy for rich people in public positions with lots of power making stupid mistakes and having to face the consequences for those?
The supermarket cashier being fired for picking up change from the floor, now that’s tragic. This? Doesn’t matter. Do you really believe his life is in any way ruined? Maybe because he won’t be able to become a billionaire in the future because of choices he made?
I have exactly zero sympathy for rich people in public positions of power being scrutinised. That’s the price you pay.
Really, I want someone to explain to me why it’s somehow not ok to critically examine things who are working in public do in public. I really don’t understand the argument for that.
Should some lowly employee be fired for what they do in their own time public? No, of course not, it’s none of the employers fucking business. Should leadership in public positions (representing the company to the outside) be fired for what they do in public? Yes, of course, how could you ever think otherwise?
Because he was judged in the court of public opinion. You may point and say "What this man did was obviously wrong! He deserves everything he gets!" And then someday, maybe you make one small, innocuous mistake. One off-the-cuff comment taken out of context. And the internet lynch mob will come for you.
(Please understand that I'm not saying what he did was said out of context or could be misinterpreted. It was pretty obviously a dumb thing to do. People have been "executed" in the court of public opinion for infinitesimally smaller gaffes, and it is this we must work to stop.)
However, whether or not someone is fired is not a decision a court has to make. And when someone who is in the public pisses parts of the public off the company is perfectly justified in firing that person. Isn’t that just common sense? They also can not fire the person, of course, and deal with the consequences of their actions. I’m really not sure why companies should ignore the public. I mean, they can, if they want to, but there is no good reason to ignore them just because.
Also, hey, if you are in such a public position of power your error margin will always be extremely low. No one said it’s an easy job. That’s just how it is. If you don’t like it that way do something less public and scrutinised.
The starving unemployed father who just lost his job is sad. This? At least the cashier is not going to starve to death with her family.
You really don't know what happened in this instance and all signs point to "started to view him as a liability that outweighed his value as an asset as company outgrew founders". Eich I'm sure the HN community can argue about all day, but that seemed like a REALLY unique situation to me.
Just read this thread for a few minutes for a full dosing of that.
It appears that the whole team needs to grow up. They come off as something right out of HBO's Silicon Valley.
Also, what is the deal with people's obsession with rapgenius? Its a lyrics site. I don't understand how they got all of this funding for a lyrics site. There are like hundreds of them that work fine. In face, songmeanings.com is particularly good. People can say rapgenius is the best designed site blah blah blah til they are blue in the face, but I bet it doesn't matter for 99% of the people who use these sites. I would guess most people who look up lyrics do what I do and just Google the song/lyrics and click the first link. I have literally never used a lyrics site's interface, and I have never thought, oh man I wish there was a better lyrics site out there for me to use. The valley is crazy.
I think in the past people could make these 'mistakes' in private and nobody would ever know. We're giving up more and more of a privacy and even if you 'have nothing to hide' you could very easily make a 'mistake' eventually. I think it's inevitable that in 50 years, when people have grown up without privacy and with making embarrassing mistakes in public people will be much more likely to forgive as they have their own errors publicly available.
This, this, a thousand times this. What kind of world do people think doing this kind of crap is going to create?
edit: downvoted again; I will never understand this community
Perhaps it's an indication of how the hackers here make their living.