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Comment by opendais | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

"public, false statements"

What false statement?

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