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Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

postdesk.com

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Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#41

Post by JohnMaloney »

One very important point that William fails to mention about his email to us - he spent the time to track down every Tumblr employees email and sent it to the entire team. It was way over-the-top, and yes, discouraging to the team.

The idea that David Karp, who I've work closely for eight years over two startups, is arrogant and doesn't care about the community, is completely off base. And anyone who knows David will agree. He's a exceptional guy and huge talent.

"Go away" was reactionary, and there was probably a better way to message, but David was defending our team who are working incredibly hard to rectify the performance issues/challenges.

And we as a company are taking extraordinary measures to rectify them. We care immensely.

Mr. England - calling out the age of an employee, help me understand why that was necessary and honorable? Seriously.

Lastly, our Creative Community team focusing on Fashion Week is clearly a very different group then our Engineering/Ops team focusing on performance and infrastructure.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#42

Post by glesperance »

rriepe wrote: post #38
spolsky wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that Tumblr can certainly afford bad PR like this. Show me an example of a company that was, actually, hurt by something like this. One example, please. Every high school kid in New York uses Tumblr every minute of every day. None of them even know who David is, and those that do, revere him.

And Steve Jobs could kick a puppy as his next "one more thing." It doesn't mean shareholders would be happy about it. "We can afford it" is a terrible response to bad PR. He needs to act quickly and make this right. Apologize. Give the guy a free account or something. Everything is (mostly) better. I'm convinced that half of a PR person's work is convincing others to get over themselves.

If someone -- or any company for the matter -- can afford or not bad PR is way beyond the point.

The thing is : you usersy might be wrong,or might be right ; but the point is more that users are your even more than your whole business, giving them a good experience is your ultimate goal ; not just selling them a microblogging app.

In my opinion, comparison to steve jobs / apple here are extremely irrelevant ; yes, steve jobs might have earned the right to be obnoxious to bad clients, but the point is that apple as a company doesn't.

For one thing, its because their marketing goes hand in hand with their excellent customer service that this company is successful. Not because one compensate for the other. Its really a shame that somebody can treat its user base like that.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#43

Post by prestia »

wtildesley wrote: post #32

William checking in here - the recipient of the e-mail from Mr Karp. So I'm sitting here just waiting for my blog to be deleted...

If this is William, what relationship do you have with PostDesk? It seems peculiar to take an exchange like this and forward it to a total unknown rather than one of the larger sites. I'm not saying I don't believe this happened, but I'm rather skeptical by nature.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#44

Post by markessien »

This is one of the problems with cloud platforms. You know how people proudly announce on twitter that they "fired" a customer? What happens if a cloud platform you are using and depends on decide to "fire" you because you're a complainer or a heavy user?

If you're a cloud app user, you can't even complain loudly. If you are enemies with your host, they can just decide to kick you off. Even if they resolve it, you'll always have a bad feeling knowing that the person running your infrastructure doesn't "like you".

Software you could buy, once you have it, you own it. Nobody can kick you off.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#45

Post by wtildesley »

prestia wrote: post #43
wtildesley wrote: post #32

William checking in here - the recipient of the e-mail from Mr Karp. So I'm sitting here just waiting for my blog to be deleted...

If this is William, what relationship do you have with PostDesk? It seems peculiar to take an exchange like this and forward it to a total unknown rather than one of the larger sites. I'm not saying I don't believe this happened, but I'm rather skeptical by nature.

I'm a friend of the owner.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#46

Post by larrik »

samengland wrote: post #17
ekidd wrote: post #13

Without the original e-mail sent to Tumblr, it's hard to judge the appropriateness of Karp's response. Under most circumstances, it's rude to tell your customers to go away. But if a rare customer behaves abusively—particularly towards your employees or other customers—it may be the correct decision to politely decline their business. Of course, if lots of your customers are behaving abusively, you've got bigger prob…

Just got in touch with William to ask if I could post up the original e-mail in its entirety - and he said that was fine. I've added the original email to the bottom of the article. http://postdesk.com/debates/should-tumblr-care/

In the original email, William clearly says he wants to leave and that the lack of an export feature is the only thing stopping him.

That part makes a HUGE difference in the framing of David Karp's.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#47

Post by masklinn »

rriepe wrote: post #38
spolsky wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that Tumblr can certainly afford bad PR like this. Show me an example of a company that was, actually, hurt by something like this. One example, please. Every high school kid in New York uses Tumblr every minute of every day. None of them even know who David is, and those that do, revere him.

And Steve Jobs could kick a puppy as his next "one more thing." It doesn't mean shareholders would be happy about it. "We can afford it" is a terrible response to bad PR. He needs to act quickly and make this right. Apologize. Give the guy a free account or something. Everything is (mostly) better. I'm convinced that half of a PR person's work is convincing others to get over themselves.

> It doesn't mean shareholders would be happy about it.

Actually, shareholders would probably be ecstatic.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#48

Post by vermontdevil »

rriepe wrote: post #35
spolsky wrote: post #30

Give David a break. First of all, he's a very nice guy. Secondly, he's not running a corner greengrocer, he's running a site that's growing supernaturally fast and which has completely, utterly displaced myspace as the place where high school kids share. Tumblr has five MILLION visitors every single day, almost none of whom pay a dime. You can't run a service like that the same way you run an enterprise software comp…

I heard from an article that I read recently that he wasn't, in fact, a nice guy. Maybe you had different experiences with him, but now most people who have read about him just think he's some 24-year-old punk trying to be Steve Jobs. That's just how this stuff works. Startup, LLC and HugeCorp, Inc. alike can't afford bad PR like this. It was an incredibly stupid move on David's part and he should patch this up as qu…

Reading an article does not confirm anything.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#49

Post by AdamN »

spolsky wrote: post #37
rriepe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard from an article that I read recently that he wasn't, in fact, a nice guy. Maybe you had different experiences with him, but now most people who have read about him just think he's some 24-year-old punk trying to be Steve Jobs. That's just how this stuff works. Startup, LLC and HugeCorp, Inc. alike can't afford bad PR like this. It was an incredibly stupid move on David's part and he should patch this up as qu…

I'm pretty sure that Tumblr can certainly afford bad PR like this. Show me an example of a company that was, actually, hurt by something like this. One example, please. Every high school kid in New York uses Tumblr every minute of every day. None of them even know who David is, and those that do, revere him.

@spolsky Why are you so invested in this? If a CEO has nothing good to say, he needs to say nothing. That's his fiduciary responsibility and I'm sure the board has the same opinion.

Re: Should Tumblr care? David Karp tells users who complain to "go away"

#50

Post by idlewords »

spolsky wrote: post #30

Give David a break. First of all, he's a very nice guy. Secondly, he's not running a corner greengrocer, he's running a site that's growing supernaturally fast and which has completely, utterly displaced myspace as the place where high school kids share. Tumblr has five MILLION visitors every single day, almost none of whom pay a dime. You can't run a service like that the same way you run an enterprise software comp…

There was nothing self-righteous or whiny about the blog post or the original email. Both contained substantive and completely reasonable criticisms to which you have responded with name-calling and CAPS LOCK.
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