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Comment by TheOsiris | Hacker News Reader

this is not how I read it at all. This seems very vindictive to me. The employee's comment was not as bad as the response from the CEO. He was just guessing as to why he was laid off. For the CEO to jump in and respond himself shows a very thin skin. Also, the tone of the response is a little too angry. This could've have been handled by the employee's direct manager, not the CEO.

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IMHO you and the parent post are both right: this is all around bad behavior by all parties involved.

I was let go once. I've told the story, but I have never mentioned the name of the company and I won't tell you if asked. I also had a horrible experience with a co-founder in my first startup to the point that I consider the guy a con man, but likewise I will only tell the story with all names and identifying details omitted. Calling people out in a public forum -- even if you are in the right -- just makes you look like an asshole.

But this response is also a terrible response from a CEO. He descends rapidly into the same muck as the original "AMA" poster. I agree that he was presented with two sucky options, but he should have taken the high road with his response and simply said something like "all I can say is that this individual was terminated for different reasons than the ones he states." In public at least, leave it at that.

Reddit in general is an increasingly toxic community. There was a great writeup a while back theorizing about various reasons that social networks select for snark, cynicism, and obnoxiousness over deeper and more thought-out content. If someone recalled it I'd love a link.

Agreed the response is too much. As a CEO getting involved in a dispute like this seems to be all downside with very little upside. If I had to draft a response in his position It'd go something like this:

> Reddit is not laying anyone off, you were fired.

> Your comments about our revenue had no effect on this decision. This type of criticism is welcome and even encouraged at our company.

> I don't believe it is in good taste to publicly discuss the reasoning for any termination unless it is absolutely necessary.

> If you'd like some additional clarification on our decision to fire you please contact me or (Someone in HR) directly.

> Thanks

Most importantly, none of these statements should be made in public. The company stands to gain much more with a dignified silence and a personal explanation to the hapless individual, than by wringing the dirty laundry out in public. That an individual employee is immature / causes a stink, happens every second of every day. That a company CEO does the same is unacceptably poor management, and poor PR.

I disagree, when statements like that are made in such a public area it will possibly negatively affect who decides to apply for a position at reddit. A dignified response on the reddit blog would have been the right move imo

I disagree. "Dignified silence" is effectively what doomed Brendon Eich as Mozilla's CEO. If you say nothing, you let other people define the narrative. I agree with uncoder0, a single simple dignified response would have easily deflated this whole thing.

yes I can see the need to manage the narrative. But this is bad management of the narrative, because a clearly emotional CEO is letting his anger show, instead of, as you clearly point out, being dignified and making a concise statement of the facts. The statement is not concise (in itself showing a tendency towards a rant), nor does it display the necessary humility towards an employee, who, no matter his faults, no longer has a job (unlike the CEO).

I came started reading this thread with the thought that the CEO was in the right. After reading many of the comments, I have to believe that both were in the wrong and this is the right way to go.

It's hard to stay completely rational when you're angry. I'm not perfect, and occasionally say inflammatory things.

But at the same time I realize this is something you need to try to do, especially when you're dealing in the realm of personal business relationships where it matters most.

He wasn't laid off - he was fired. This is the first point the CEO makes and it's an important distinction that the poster seemed to not own up to at all. Not knowing the difference between being fired and being laid off is bad - there's a pretty remote possibility that the poster's direct manager didn't own the message well and told the guy "we're letting you go" and he didn't understand he was being fired, but even if that's the case, most organizations of any reasonable size should have someone in HR handling the exit interview who makes things like this super clear.

I have no insight into what happened here, but I definitely have had experience working with and processing the termination of underperformers who don't recognize or accept that they are not meeting the bar and this sounds a bit like one of those cases.

There are probably some aspects of this separation that were imperfectly handled on both sides, but given the context of "guy is fired from company chooses to be interviewed on company site and say the company didn't give him any reason why he was fired" and the company says "you weren't doing your job" - I tend to trust the company.

> I was laid off. > > What was the reason?... > > > Officially: no reason...

This basically reads like he was trying to dance around saying he was fired, but he was saying he got fired. You don't get laid off by yourself, and you definitely don't get a "reason".

If he wanted to dance around, when asked "Why did you quit?", he could have given a generally vague answer like "I was let go." This could mean fired or laid-off. But he chose the specific "laid-off" answer. This means something very different than "fired." I don't think he was dancing around as much as just in denial about getting fired.

It reads to me like when he was let go, he might not have been given the clearest of communication as to the nature termination. I've been fired before, and I've been laid off. It was unambiguous in both cases.

That's not to say he wasn't clearly fired, and isn't dancing around that fact, but based on the available information, the broader internet bystander community doesn't have sufficient information to tell which story is true.

You're positing competence and or ethics when neither can be presumed. I can only wish they were safe assumptions. In fact in every layoff I've participated in (on either side) a reason for the layoff has been offered.

In one case where I and others were laid off we were told it was a layoff, our severance paperwork said it was a layoff, and the government was informed (for each of us individually) that it was for cause. The motivation was to get around the legal restrictions for layoffs and avoid an increase in their unemployment insurance contribution. In another case I was the only person laid off (from a small team), it was explicitly a layoff & my severance was paid out, and I later found out that it was part of a deliberate attempt to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the dev team. The company officer in question was later abruptly terminated and may have faced criminal charges.

In both of those cases you could argue by the standard you're using that I was fired instead, but I've got the legal documentation and if needed the witnesses to prove otherwise.

You are taking the CEOs words as fact when the reality of the situation is, we don't know what the truth is right now. Judging from the fact that the CEO responded in such a childish manner I really have no reason to believe anyone in this situation. What if the CEO just posted what he thought was the reason why this employee was fired. What if there is no documentation backing up the CEOs statements.

First of all, I wouldn't call CEO's response childish, I'd call it exactly right. Honest, clear and straight talking is what we need to have more, and not some corporate contentless PR fluffs.

Secondly, CEO just exposed himself to a potential lawsuit and a total loss of respect from his subordinates if he lied even a little bit in that statement. That is kind of a whole lot of evidence favouring trusting him over the other guy.

How do you know its clear and straight talking? It could be complete bs, and same for employee. When your angry/hateful towards someone, all logic falls out the window.

I don't see anything angry or hateful in that response. I think people here are just projecting.

That response sounds angry to me.

It was over the top, and against the general grain of "don't talk about your employees' work histories publicly".

And admin didn't clarify things that would make judgment easier like: Did you tell the employee they were fired? Are you calling him a liar? That isn't clear to me... too many employers hide firings behind other, less obvious reasons.

He wasn't laid off - he was fired.

Laid off? Fired? I'm not sure we even know which it was.

Both the CEO or the employee can be misrepresenting things, or (more likely) be simply misinformed about the technical nature of the separation. In any case, I see no special reason to take the CEO's word over that of the employee in this situation.

Replying to public statements about yourself or your company isn't "vindictive".

Things like this have a real business impact. I've cancelled interviewing at companies based on conversations with former employees that the company didn't have a satisfactory answer for.

If I saw this in a public forum and Reddit failed to point out that the former employee was fired (and was aware he was fired) in a public setting (which would make them liable for being sued, if Reddit lied) holds alot more weight than "Oh, ya, that guy. He was full of shit" told to me privately would.

"public, false statements"

What false statement?

sure, but did the CEO have to do it? And if the CEO was to respond, shouldn't "not true, you were fired" be enough? No need to call him incompetent and lazy (even if he is). That's the part that rubbed me the wrong way, especially since the guy didn't actually trash reddit as bad as they did to him.

If you read the rest of the thread, he was doing a fair bit of trashing the company, management, etc

I don't know, even still it's not really sitting well with me how the CEO handled it

This is an ugly affair, like firings always are. Perhaps an "official" response was necessary to "manage the narrative" as someone above commented, but I can't help but agree that the mud is rubbing off on the CEO here, mainly because of the tone. Badly handled.

I didn't say that. I said it wasn't vindictive.

Indeed, why would you go interviewing at companies that don't have satisfactory answers for he-said-she-said, when you can go interviewing at companies whose CEO's "call out" former employees.

Because the last time I encountered that, it turned out to be an awful, toxic situation that ended up in court?

Maybe I just have bad experiences in life but generally people who can't say "Hey, we don't fire people in retaliation" without getting sued are people to avoid.

Personally, I like straight talk. I'm happily employed, but if I weren't, this would increase my desire to work at Reddit, not decrease it.

Every large company has fired at least one person, and every large company has at least one "full of shit" disgruntled ex.

Most companies haven't had a CEO Mushroom Stamp Heard 'round The World, though.

Yes, but how many of your ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends run around trashing you in public? I'm guessing not many.

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