Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll grant you that it showed poor judgment if he really thought he could stay anonymous. That said, I disagree with basically everything else. I think you're reading way too much into that. Where you work will have an impact on your career (I think that's obvious). Part of that is simply the social proof of which company. It helped my career by working for various YC companies, for instance. Were they necessarily be…
> Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything? The problem isn't that he doesn't understand everything. The problem is that he doesn't seem to understand "discretion". I'm about to give someone access to very sensitive HR information across multiple companies. Do I really want to do that when he just demonstrated that he can't make a simple job inquiry with enough d…
Edit: I still contend you're making a mountain out of a molehill. This kid asked a reasonable questionable in an unreasonable way. He could've avoided a lot by simply redacting the names of the companies; I think we both agree on that. That said, I kind of expect a kid fresh out of college to make a few mistakes with regards to professionalism. An organization hiring those individuals should be set up to mitigate that damage and gently steer them in the right direction, not crucify them publicly. While I expect the occasional flub of professionalism from new employees (and I think on a scale of unprofessionalism, this ranks pretty low), I expect a great deal more from CEOs of corporations with a valuation in the billions. Both messed up with regards to professionalism, but one made a much bigger screw up, and it was the one who I would most expect to behave professionally.