Agreed, this post only makes reddit look like a very unprofessional workplace.
This significantly elevates Reddit, IMO. Their CEO acts like a fucking human being instead of a politicized, sanitized, pretentious, weasel-wording sock puppet like so many other CEOs.
You have no idea how much respect I have for this.
It's a move that hurts more than it helps.
To get stroppy like this abrogates that responsibility in such a way, and to such a degree, that it may well be actionable.
This specific response with that level of harshness is definitely worth discussing, but if you're going to make the abrogation of fiduciary duty argument I think I'd side on him doing the right thing here (with respect to that).
Absolutely, letting the rumor mill run with this guy's allegations is a net negative for Reddit, so Yishan (or, preferably, his PR folks) needed to respond somehow.
My quibble is with the form and content of the response, not with there having been one.
This kid had very little credibility. Oddly enough, though his situation is overall worse now that Yishan responded, he has more.
What we now have is a factual event, not speculation, and it's far more damaging than a rumor that someone might have been fired over a dissenting opinion (which is not unusual).
That you think you were "pushed out" of Google because you disagreed with the direction of G+, and that they were headed for certain failure unless they dropped everything and pivoted due to your boundless German card game experience, is not evidence that Google regularly fires those that disagree. How you disagree also matters, and your little charade on eng-misc is a legend to this day. I have no love for Google but even I am the first to acknowledge that they have created an environment wherein dissent is encouraged and welcomed and, in my brief tenure, was given ample opportunities to have my voice be heard and considered.
I will disagree wholeheartedly with you taking your experience (as flawed as your interpretation of events is) and attempting to justify firing over disagreement as a normal practice. I disagree with my boss, and his boss, and his boss all the time. I've disagreed with my director in front of people, and called him out on bullshit in front of his boss. You just don't know how to do so effectively, mchurch, which leads to embarrassing situations like the one you've been trying to pin on Google for a few years.
And yes, I am aware of the letter.
wtf
(this is clearly personal attack here)
Besides that, even if he did have more at stake personally that is insufficient reason to take his word over the employee's, because there's nothing even close to any objective evidence in such a determination: it's purely subjective based on your own biases.
ysihan is really on the side of politicized, sanitized, pretentious, weasel-wording sock puppet; minus the sanitized part.
Consider his posts about the celeb nude photos leaks
http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/every-man-is-responsible-f...
and
http://www.reddit.com/r/yishan/comments/2frlxb/and_now_to_ma...
compared to somebody who's actually speaking like a human being
http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/2fpdax/time_t...
Am I supposed to see that as a negative or something?
Same here. A CEO doesn't have to be a "soulless robot like David Simms" type... showing some passion, fire and enthusiasm and being - as you said - "a fucking human being" is a Good Thing in some eyes.
No, he doesn't. Just because he acts like a moron one time doesn't mean he's somehow not a weasel.
Why would you expect it to be "professional"?