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Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

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Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#631

Post by geoelectric »

philwelch wrote: post #630
geoelectric wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can install business processes that give chances for unethical decisions to be reviewed and identified, though. Committees are shit for innovation but relatively effective for squashing interestingly bad ideas along with any interestingly good ones. I read the apology letter as essentially saying he single-handedly drove the idea, in part because he was flailing due to COVID killing their bottom line, and was tun…

I still don’t like the idea of hamstringing the CEO’s ability to make executive decisions because the CEO can’t be trusted to make ethical executive decisions. Processes are fine for preventing operational mistakes, but when it comes to ethics and executive judgment, they’re a poor substitute for having trustworthy people making the decisions.

They should be more trustworthy than this, for sure. But sometimes a poor or harmful decision is still an operational mistake that comes down to poor information or comprehension. If it were to become more apparent to me that this was a deliberate lapse in ethics, I’m sure I’d be more where you’re at.

As it is right now, I’m giving some charitable credence to the idea he’s the CEO equivalent of the skydiving photographer that, in his passion to get a great shot, jumped out of his plane with no parachute. It certainly may end up having an analogous effect on Triplebyte’s credibility.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#632

Post by talkingtab »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #369
photonios wrote: post #33

I am not an active Triplebyte user, but I have an account and followed the thread(s). This e-mail (which I also got) seems like a heartfelt apology. They fucked up, realized it and turned the ship around. They listened and that's what counts for me. They listened to the negative feedback and responded to it. Some comments around here are extremely negative of the whole situation. More negative than I think they deser…

I'm like you, not actually a triplebyte customer, but have followed on hn. > They listened and that's what counts for me. The fact is that they didn't listen. The ceo ammon was here on hn clearly not listening and clearly not apologising. I would surmise that it's only due to a flood of account deletion requests that he started to notice... Add this proves one thing: on triplebyte you are the commodity and not the cu…

+1 for "you are the commodity and not the customer"

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#633

Post by supercanuck »

edanm wrote: post #596
9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could've pushed through and ignored all the feedback they got. That’s a very charitable analysis of the situation. For all we know, this decision was motivated by internal KPIs that immediately reflected what a disaster this was. The whole situation reeks. Announcing on the Friday on a long weekend, the ceo defending it ardently in HN comments, the very deliberate decision to make it opt-in, the difficulty in…

You're making a false dichotomy there - there aren't only two ways. They could also have sincerely not thought about how this new platform would behave given the opt-in nature of it. There have been similar incidents throughout tech history (and history in general) - it's not always that the culture is bad. It's also sometimes an honest mistake (at least, thinking through the ramifications of it is).

You must have missed the part where the CEO actively defended the decision on Hacker news when confronted.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#634

Post by Anon54234252 »

greenyoda wrote: post #219
paulcole wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a study about surgical fuckups. In almost every case, multiple people in the OR admitted they recognized the problem but were too scared to speak up because the surgeon said things were going fine.

The same issue was found to be the cause of plane crashes: the crew knew that something was going wrong, but did not feel that they could contradict the captain (or the captain just wouldn't listen). This gave rise to the practice called Crew Resource Management (CRM): > Crew resource management formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 197…

The lessons here can be applied to software engineering as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#635

Post by megamindbrian2 »

I talked to the CEO on the phone right after he graduated from ycombinators incubator. I told him he is a lying piece of shit and he isn't solving any problems just lying to workers like every other recruiting company already out there. He d Told me to remove my bad glass door review. I should have bargained and told him I'll only remove it if he gets me a job somewhere. What a putz, karma is a bitch.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#636

Post by stanfordkid »

This is why we need data breach laws -- to which dictated Terms of service's must abide. You can't write in a TOS "we have the right to kill you"... it should be the same way with data -- any changes to the scope of how and to whom data is accessible must be approved.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#637

Post by akerl_ »

kerkeslager wrote: post #547
akerl_ wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that there don’t seem to be actual business repercussions from the internet mob’s displeasure, and the internet mob’s displeasure, once roused, cannot be quieted by apologies, changes in behavior, or explanations, it’s unclear to me that we’re actually “instilling” anything in companies, other than the lesson that it’s not worth bothering to pay attention to the internet mob.

> Given that there don’t seem to be actual business repercussions from the internet mob’s displeasure, 2000 account closures is an actual business repercussion. > and the internet mob’s displeasure, once roused, cannot be quieted by apologies, changes in behavior, or explanations It absolutely could. As a member of said "internet mob" (I deleted my account) I'll say that yes, an apology by itself is not enough, but a…

I will bet you $20 that Triplebyte does not make any long term changes to remove dark patterns within the next year, and that they also continue to do just fine without those 2000 accounts.

Additionally, even if the 2000 accounts were enough to cause business impact, the idea that they’d need to demonstrate long-term change to win back those users is effectively irrelevant. They may as well put their efforts into gaining new users to replace the 2000, rather than try to repair the burned bridges. The return-on-investment for making “long-term change” to win back people who ragequit their service is low, especially since those people self-select for “people likely to ragequit again if they disagree with future company decisions”.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#638

Post by coolgeek »

9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #573
perl4ever wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"maligned" Their culture and values have been much maligned, but you mean malignant. Please don't take this personally, it's just that it seems like this misuse of the word is going viral.

I actually really appreciate your comment. Thanks for letting me know!

While we're clarifying, the decision was opt-out - everybody was included unless they took action to be excluded. Opt-in means that you're not included unless you take action to be included.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#639

Post by kerkeslager »

akerl_ wrote: post #637
kerkeslager wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that there don’t seem to be actual business repercussions from the internet mob’s displeasure, 2000 account closures is an actual business repercussion. > and the internet mob’s displeasure, once roused, cannot be quieted by apologies, changes in behavior, or explanations It absolutely could. As a member of said "internet mob" (I deleted my account) I'll say that yes, an apology by itself is not enough, but a…

I will bet you $20 that Triplebyte does not make any long term changes to remove dark patterns within the next year, and that they also continue to do just fine without those 2000 accounts. Additionally, even if the 2000 accounts were enough to cause business impact, the idea that they’d need to demonstrate long-term change to win back those users is effectively irrelevant. They may as well put their efforts into gai…

Well, you're certainly leaving out big parts of the equation. Like: they can court new users and try to repair burned bridges. Or: the people who quit, and the narrative around why, certainly affects their ability to court new users.

But ultimately, you might be right--maybe the net effect of not apologizing would be negligibly different from the net effect of apologizing. I don't have numbers to say you're wrong, but you don't have numbers to say you're right.

But as I said elsewhere, why are we even talking about this? You seemingly have complete, disdain for users who are concerned about TripleByte using their data against them, calling them an "internet mob" and accusing them of "ragequitting". Are you capable of empathizing with users at all? Do you have a conscience? Why are we talking about this as a strategic problem when it's an ethical problem?

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#640

Post by kerkeslager »

philwelch wrote: post #592
kerkeslager wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the prevalence of comments like this, I wonder why any company would ever bother offering an apology or retraction. Because the people running the company have a conscience which causes them to feel bad and want to apologize when they harm people? Are we really entertaining the idea that the only reason someone might apologize is if it benefits them? It's disturbing to me how absolutely normal your comment is…

> Because the people running the company have a conscience which causes them to feel bad and want to apologize when they harm people? Are we really entertaining the idea that the only reason someone might apologize is if it benefits them? >... And before you tell me that everyone acts selfishly--no, they don't. I've met hundreds of wonderful people in my life who were generous, honest, kind, and/or brave, at great pe…

> I actually kind of agree with the comment you’re responding to, but I don’t interpret it the same way you do.

I think akerl_ is saying that companies shouldn't bother apologizing when they do something wrong and get caught.

I think that's some "lizard person school of business" shit that has no place in a civilized society.

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