Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#81

Post by blazespin » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:21 PM UTC

arram wrote: post #24

Umm. It was pretty clearly not done for vindictive reasons. The guy lied about why he was let go and put Reddit in the awkward position of either saying nothing and letting people believe they're a shitty workplace that fires people for disagreeing with management, or telling the truth about why the guy was fired (not laid off.) Frankly, he brought this on himself by forcing Reddit into choosing between two sucky opt…

He said he had a theory. You need to look up the word "Theory" in a dictionary. He did not say he had proof.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#82

Post by trevorcreech » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:21 PM UTC

TheOsiris wrote: post #71

opendais wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (whi…

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

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#83

Post by VLM » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:23 PM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #47

"When an employee is dismissed from employment at a company, the policy of almost every company (including reddit) is not to comment, either publicly or internally. This is because companies have no desire to ruin someone's future employment prospects by broadcasting to the world that they were fired." IMO there need to be a better solution than this. I also don't like anti discrimination laws and I have a proposal f…

Don't forget that the ex-employee might be gone, but the guy who hired him is probably still there and doesn't really need documentation of how his judgment was screwed up at hiring time. So there is very little motivation to document why someone is being fired unless you can prove in writing the problem began after hiring or couldn't have possibly been detected in the hiring process.

The explanation is silly (does any company REALLY care about its employees much less ex-employees?) but the end result is the same, no point in talking about it.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#84

Post by blazespin » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:23 PM UTC

tdicola wrote: post #50

Good lord, I hope the $50M investors in reddit are beating down the doors to get a PR person at the company so the CEO stops making crazy moves like this. There's no way a good developer would want to go work for Reddit when the CEO slaps people around in public (whether they deserve it or not). Sometimes you need to be the bigger man and move on instead of quarreling in public.

Amen. What a dumb move.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#85

Post by TrainedMonkey » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

arram wrote: post #24

Umm. It was pretty clearly not done for vindictive reasons. The guy lied about why he was let go and put Reddit in the awkward position of either saying nothing and letting people believe they're a shitty workplace that fires people for disagreeing with management, or telling the truth about why the guy was fired (not laid off.) Frankly, he brought this on himself by forcing Reddit into choosing between two sucky opt…

I agree with you that it was done for not vindictive reasons, but I think it could have been handled better. Consider following response: instead of airing everything immediately, instead a statement is made that reddit takes all the feedback seriously and firing had nothing to do with that. Make a specific point that if an employee wants full accounting of all the reasoning, he can respond to that statement and full reasoning will be explained. This way former employee clearly soliciting for feedback and reddit has extremely solid moral ground.

TL:DR While employee definitely had this coming, I think that reddit should have held onto higher moral ground and settled for milder action then the one was taken. I do not know full context, as I only read two posts, but official reddit reply does leave a bit of snide and petty aftertaste.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#86

Post by opendais » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

TheOsiris wrote: post #71

opendais wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (whi…

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.

I didn't say that. I said it wasn't vindictive.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#87

Post by irremediable » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

dreamweapon wrote: post #10

Sounds like a toxic environment. Whatever the employee may have done to deserve separation, it is profoundly weird and troubling (and also, implicitly threatening to all employees, whatever their rank or standing) to see a CEO discuss those reasons in public.

I don't know. When the employee publicly disparages the business, I feel like a swift and decisive rebuttal might be a good idea.

I'm not saying I definitely disagree with you, but I can't really see why what reddit's CEO did was bad. Risky, sure, but it strikes me as a justified and effective response.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#88

Post by kazinator » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

arram wrote: post #24

Umm. It was pretty clearly not done for vindictive reasons. The guy lied about why he was let go and put Reddit in the awkward position of either saying nothing and letting people believe they're a shitty workplace that fires people for disagreeing with management, or telling the truth about why the guy was fired (not laid off.) Frankly, he brought this on himself by forcing Reddit into choosing between two sucky opt…

Fallacy of the excluded middle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fallacy_of_the_exc...

The choice is not between saying nothing, and completely devastating that person. Surely there is a third (or even fourth, fifth) alternative.

Also, saying nothing doesn't lead to the belief it is a shitty workplace. Just because someone posting in a forum that he's been fired from Company X for a reason he doesn't understand, that doesn't automatically mean that Company X is wrong and shitty; not everyone jumps to this conclusion, and certainly not based on the absence of any response from Company X.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#89

Post by blazespin » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #79

penprog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this post only makes reddit look like a very unprofessional workplace.

Maybe it's not "professional", where that word has the common meaning of avoiding saying hard truths on the grounds that someone's feelings and/or political position might be hurt. 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.

He's adding fuel to the fire. This was a childish move on his part and certainly not leadership material.

Re: Reddit CEO Calls Out Former Reddit Employee on Reddit

#90

Post by slipperyp » Mon, Oct 06, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

TheOsiris wrote: post #57

arram wrote: post #24

Umm. It was pretty clearly not done for vindictive reasons. The guy lied about why he was let go and put Reddit in the awkward position of either saying nothing and letting people believe they're a shitty workplace that fires people for disagreeing with management, or telling the truth about why the guy was fired (not laid off.) Frankly, he brought this on himself by forcing Reddit into choosing between two sucky opt…

this is not how I read it at all. This seems very vindictive to me. The employee's comment was not as bad as the response from the CEO. He was just guessing as to why he was laid off. For the CEO to jump in and respond himself shows a very thin skin. Also, the tone of the response is a little too angry. This could've have been handled by the employee's direct manager, not the CEO.

He wasn't laid off - he was fired. This is the first point the CEO makes and it's an important distinction that the poster seemed to not own up to at all. Not knowing the difference between being fired and being laid off is bad - there's a pretty remote possibility that the poster's direct manager didn't own the message well and told the guy "we're letting you go" and he didn't understand he was being fired, but even if that's the case, most organizations of any reasonable size should have someone in HR handling the exit interview who makes things like this super clear.

I have no insight into what happened here, but I definitely have had experience working with and processing the termination of underperformers who don't recognize or accept that they are not meeting the bar and this sounds a bit like one of those cases.

There are probably some aspects of this separation that were imperfectly handled on both sides, but given the context of "guy is fired from company chooses to be interviewed on company site and say the company didn't give him any reason why he was fired" and the company says "you weren't doing your job" - I tend to trust the company.