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Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn’t expose any data. The feature wasn’t live yet.
"The new profiles will be launching publicly in 1 week" It means a preview was already available in a limited way.
One question that wasn’t addressed in the response: if the CEO did not realize that implementing the feature would be bad for users, then why did the company announce the feature as an email footnote at 5PM Friday before a holiday weekend, which is when bad news typically drops?
And why was the CEO on HN arguing for the feature, implying people complaining were the ones with the problem? I don't buy it, and I'll be steering clear.
A business saw an opportunity to make more money and took it. A large portion of consumer interests no longer aligned with their interests and we were caught in the crossfire. Fortunately, enough people shared the same concern that the risk for the business (Triplebtye) was now high enough that they had to mitigate fallout.
That's all that happened and all that typically happens. Perhaps Triplebyte management didn't see the risk or misjudged the backlash and expected only a few users to complain. I find it hard to believe this side effect wasn't at least a considered risk brought to to table and ultimately ignored by management looking purely at growth.
Yes, sometimes a shift in a business's goals cease to align with our interests and isn't necessarily meant to be malignant move against us directly, but there is certainly no concern for us in the process unless it is ultimately perceived as more net profitable.
This is why we should be quite careful as to what we allow business ownership over/access to and remember that profit seeking cost optimizations are only useful to us while they're aligned with our interests. Whatever behaviors we allow businesses to pursue without enough repercussion to care, they will pursue seeking profit: a proverbial "cost of doing business."
When a business's profit seeking interests are misaligned with ours or run counter opposite to our interests, we're in for a fight against a resource heavy entity we're likely lose, especially when certain behaviors are allowed to normalize across entire industries and accepted by culture in large segments.
This is all from a corporate playbook, but it seems Ammon hasn't read the entire book. There's a chapter there that tells how to systematically manufacture situations where all the blame flows downwards while all the rewards flow upwards, so when a bold move like this pans out, credit for it would go to the top, and if it fails, blame goes to the bottom. Basically, he should've created a clueless VP of business relations or something of that sort, manufacture the situation where the only way that VP can get a fat bonus is by implementing this shady move (the idea should be delivered via another channel to have plausible deniability later) and watch the action from his armchair. And when it's failed, blame that VP for too much eagerness and fire him with a golden parachute.
I feel bad for the company because I think the original decision meant the would lose a lot of trust in the community for what is otherwise a great service. Indeed, I had a wonderful experience interviewing with startups after having passed the TB interview process. However I also feel bad because I feel like it may indicate that the company is perhaps doing poorly financially.
However, I will say that I am very happy with this apology. It's direct, takes responsibility, and gives clear action on what they're going to do. Classic good apology. I am happy with it and it goes a long way to earning my trust back. Thanks, Ammon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point in time it doesn't matter if there is an apology or not. Like above mentioned, some would have got laid-off or for some their intentions of job search is revealed. This is much worst of an effect that an apology would do any good. He apologized so what. It is good but damage is done. Can anything be about it ?
But they didn't. They cancelled the feature in time. So no real harm was done.
In the end, I don't think this was an enormous mistake as there was no harm done to your customers.
Still, you can't erase the information you've indirectly put into the world about yourself and your company. Your near-actions have shed a bit of light on your priorities, and customer privacy was apparently not at the forefront of that list. The unfortunate truth is that this begs the question of whether other decisions have or will be made which similarly disregard customer privacy.
I'm very glad that you realized the err of your ways in this instance, and I hope you continue to demonstrate your dedication to protecting your users' privacy in the time to come.
Why not just make it opt-in? Lots of people would have done it right away and others would do it as they started to want new opportunities and/or got laid off. Candidates who didn’t opt in probably wouldn’t be open to being contacted out of the blue anyway in a public manner. They burned a lot of goodwill for nothing.
Yeah... that's a much better idea. I can tell you what was going through my head on Friday (I'm not at all trying to defend this now). Basically, it was that for a credential to carry weight with recruiters, it needs scale. There's a bootstrapping problem. But that's not an excuse for violating people's privacy. Opt-in would have been a far better idea.
I do think the bootstrapping problem is unfortunate - hopefully you can hit critical mass via opt-in.
I'm re-reading the threads, and I can't stop wondering if this whole mess could have been avoided by simply posting a "Ask HN: As a TripleByte user, would you mind having a default public profile..." question here on HN? Anyway, I still believe that asking your target audience for an opinion is a better way than trying to think instead of them. Steve Jobs might have gotten away with that, but we are not Steve Jobs, o…