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John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

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Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#121

Post by samastur »

busterarm wrote: post #42
Operyl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email states they’re winding down more than just him. Not everything is a conspiracy, PC Mag could just be cost cutting or downsizing due to a reduced readership.

The timing looks really bad. I'm reserving judgement to see confirmation from their other columnists (whom I listed in a separate reply). His tweet also claims it to be a false pretense -- why take one person's word over the other?

Because his whole tweet stream is like that. There will be no perfect timing where you will not be able to find something political adjacent to "explain" firing.

Still, firing over email is still sucky.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#122

Post by GW150914 »

colordrops wrote: post #83

There must be something to learn from Dvorak because he seems to have done something rare among the HN crowd, and that is being both very wrong and very appealing at the same time.

He was so consistently and predictably wrong that it was actually useful. You could bet against him and win every time, and in a way that kind of wrongness is as valuable as being prescient. He’d proclaim the death of the mouse, or the irrelevance of the iPod and you could take the opposite to the bank. If the guy said a stock was doomed, invest!

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#123

Post by yostrovs »

karmajunkie wrote: post #118
user5994461 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it have anything to loyalty? A job doesn't last a lifetime. There aren't that many company that even live a full decade.

When an employer will happily use up your most productive years and let you go as soon as it isn't constantly profitable... A job might as well be for a lifetime. It's not an uncommon story, true. But it's a pretty shitty one.

The firing happened because company ran out of money. That's what happened to most magazines lately.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#124

Post by hiram112 »

hluska wrote: post #55
kolderman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His right to free speech? Sure I am.

You have the right to say (almost) anything you want. I have the right to tell you that you can't use my microphone. Someone else has the right to build a microphone tailored for you.

So I suppose you are all for Comcast, AT&T, etc. injecting ads into your traffic, charging premium for your Netflix binges, and worse?

I mean it's their ~~microphone~~ fiber.

Oh, but this is different, I'm sure you'll say, because reasons.

Well that's why we generally, in the US at least, have always thought it was a good idea to just allow all speech, even if some awful stuff leaks out once in a while.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#125

Post by GW150914 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #75
GW150914 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When that modern Frederick Douglass is deplatformed, we can talk, instead of this hysterical “when the world ends where will you be?!” shit. If you have something more than slippery slopes to offer, and comparing Alex Jones to Frederick Douglass, I’m all ears, otherwise, have a good day.

I don't know if any modern Frederick Douglass' are being deplatformed. It's nice to imagine that if I lived in 1863 that I would recognize that Douglass was on the right side of history, but statistically that is unlikely. I highly doubt you would recognize a Frederick Douglass either, if I could manage to point one out. That is why everyone must be allowed to speak. If I find someone that I think is an Alex Jones, a…

What I don't do though is tell you that you're not allowed to listen to them either.

No one has said that about Jones, not Apple, or Youtube, and certainly not PayPal. They chose not to publish him or process his payments, and that’s all. In the same way that a book publisher doesn’t owe anyone a book, a radio station isn’t obligated to allow everyone who wants to be a DJ on the air, and TV stations don’t owe anyone a talk show. Yet when it’s the internet people pretend that a company choosing who they do business with is something new, is censorship, etc.

It isn’t, no amount of hand waving and slippery sloping makes it that, and everyone should be sick of these canards being used almost exclusively in regards to conspiracy theorists and far right nutjobs.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#126

Post by g5095 »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #107

About 12 years ago I was working for a PC Magazine competitor when they cut the Managing Editor loose, a man who'd worked there 20+ years and was in his late 50s. I ran into him in the bathroom, tears in his eyes, asking me what he was going to do now? That this is how they reward decades of loyalty? Ironically that magazine, dedicated to predicting future technology trends, would go down the toilet some years later…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SO1F_u2_iE

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#127

Post by jsjohnst »

warriormonk5 wrote: post #48
jack9 wrote: post #17

If you're an employee (no equity), be assured your employers don't care about you when the money starts to dry up. If you're overpriced for the revenue you bring in, you're gone. This is stuff everyone learned in the 90s bubble. Now the paper mags are falling over and he's acting surprised. SMH

Don't think that some paper equity gives your employer more loyalty to you

I agree, when the startup piggy bank runs out, the paper equity doesn’t mean much, speaking from personal experience.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#129

Post by itbeho »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #80
itbeho wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right and it's probably the most plausible answer. But in the spirit of interpreting the parent comment with good faith, help me walk through a thought experiment: Try getting a job or a promotion with any VC backed SV company while having a Twitter bio that indicates you voted for or support Trump. Not quite willing to do that? A bridge too far? No prob. Instead, just put that you support the 2nd Ame…

I've never seen a problem with coworkers who loudly support any of these causes at VC backed SV companies. One of my coworkers posted about how happy he was about King Trump winning the election. He was promoted and later hired at another VC-backed SV company.

Great! Please share a link to the post. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#130

Post by arkades »

blihp wrote: post #62
busterarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Tim Bajarin still a columnist for PC Mag? Wayne Rash? Whitson Gordon? Brent Johnson?

No idea. Assuming those are all 'outside columns' (I don't know as I haven't read PC Mag in years), it seems like the veracity of the story Dvorak's been told will become clear very soon.

It wouldn't entirely surprise me if this was a political issue. He's right-wing enough that he leans into, as another poster put it, "info wars lite." It wouldn't shock me if some advertisers no longer wanted to appear alongside him, pre-emptively, and his twitter thread notes that someone was complaining about him with some anti-Trump comments.

Then again, maybe not. I guess it'll become more clear once we find out the status of their other outside columnists.

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