Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

oregonlive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 61 posts

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#51

Post by [deleted] »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #30
bmarquez wrote: post #7

> Cirne’s wife is a contributor to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, another sore point for many New Relic employees even though she has no role with the company...They see his wife’s donations to Trump as antithetical to the company’s stated values... What do the employees want to happen? Cirne to divorce or publicly condemn his wife over political contributions? He can't forbid someone else from making…

He could at the very least state that his wife's political views are not a reflection of his own. Sure, it's speculation, but I would guess that, given his other questionable donations, he probably isn't opposed to his wife's political donations. IMO this, along with a few other choice quotes from the article [0][1], indicate to me that he's neither an inspiring nor effective leader. He blames his employees rather th…

[deleted]

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#52

Post by BrendanEich »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #16
maxharris wrote: post #2

How did Mozilla fare after these same cultural forces excised Brendan Eich? And how's the Brave browser doing in comparison? (I'm using it to type this very message.) And before downvoting me, please note that I'm Jewish (ethnically speaking - I am more of a scientific pantheist in my actual views, but I digress) and bisexual. I do not support Cirne's charities or politics. I am merely calling into question the tacti…

Anyone know what Brave’s market share is?

https://brave.com/transparency

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#53

Post by BrendanEich »

bigbubba wrote: post #22
maxharris wrote: post #2

How did Mozilla fare after these same cultural forces excised Brendan Eich? And how's the Brave browser doing in comparison? (I'm using it to type this very message.) And before downvoting me, please note that I'm Jewish (ethnically speaking - I am more of a scientific pantheist in my actual views, but I digress) and bisexual. I do not support Cirne's charities or politics. I am merely calling into question the tacti…

Is there actually any data on Brave's market share? It's been my assumption that they have far fewer installs than Firefox, but admittedly my impression is not informed by any real data.

https://brave.com/transparency

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#54

Post by thu2111 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #21
dogman144 wrote: post #10

Coinbase's recent actions add interesting additions to the ammunition available for responding to employee activism. I think the longstanding questions in this area are: - are the activist employees just a vocal minority - who will care (or support) if those activists are ignored -> who just wants to get back to work and focus on whatever it is that Company X does for profit. That presents a somewhat cynical view of…

> 5% of employees left, and the makeup of the 5% reflected that of the overall workforce. I have to think other companies paid attention to this outcome, although I wonder what internal polling and the like led to CB doing it. What's your read on this? Bad outcome or good?

Good for the firm, bad for activist employees. That data point will be used against them by people like Cirne.

Clearly we're starting to see firms separating into "we just get work done here" like Coinbase/New Relic and another other category, "all in on identity politics" like Kickstarter, Google. Firms that don't want to go in that direction but were previously unclear on what the damage might be from activist exits now have at least a ballpark figure - and of course that 5% number is exaggerated. Coinbase basically gave people a huge bonus for disagreeing with the new policy. If not paying people to leave, and in the middle of a lockdown recession, the number would surely be lower.

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#55

Post by thu2111 »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #37
bigbubba wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He could at the very least state that his wife's political views are not a reflection of his own. It's unreasonable to expect somebody to publicly denounce their spouse like this. It's inappropriate for people to make a coworker's spouse a matter of contention in the first place.

That's not denouncing. That's a neutral way of stating that he had nothing to do with those donations. And stop pretending that this is just any ordinary coworker. This is the public face and leader of the company that publicly advertises a certain set of values. This is also a person who has been made rich by the success of the company, and then is using that money to donate to very morally questionable causes (eith…

This is the public face and leader of the company that publicly advertises a certain set of values

Presumably you're arguing they should stop advertising that set of values. But then that'd be used to condemn them as well.

why it is inappropriate for employees of the company to complain about such dubious donations of their CEO

Totally appropriate, just as long as those employees don't mind the CEO telling everyone that their political donations are dubious/questionable, demanding they publicly denounce their spouse, or controlling their private political and charitable donations.

But of course those employees would explode if the CEO even hinted at doing any of those things. One rule for them and another for the boss, likely justified with vague rhetoric about power. But, you can't have it both ways. If employees can demand control over the CEO's life but not vice-versa, then it's the employees who have the power, not the CEO. Yet we all know that's not how companies actually work. Eventually even tech CEOs will realise that, so expect them to get a lot more aggressive against this kind of employee activism in future. It's simply not fair on them, currently.

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#56

Post by moduspol »

kochthesecond wrote: post #38
satya71 wrote: post #36

Our politics has broken down. A minority rules, and the only avenue left to the majority is questionable tactics like this. More of these seemingly idiotic conflicts will arise until Congress functions again.

And to a non-American the code of conduct trying to bar employees from political initiatives seems... oddly controlling. Did we forget to disagree and discuss? The CEO here should address the dissonance between his actions and the stated values of the company when questioned. One does not have to agree, but he should care enough to address it.

I agree, but I don't think any employee (including the CEO) should need / bother to justify to their employer the organizations they privately contribute to or support.

It's not some big mystery how someone can support a religious school or one of the two viable presidential candidates without necessarily supporting everything about those things.

Having a PR person write out a statement on behalf of the CEO that says that more eloquently seems like a waste of time and resources.

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#57

Post by tpxl »

thu2111 wrote: post #55
thatswrong0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not denouncing. That's a neutral way of stating that he had nothing to do with those donations. And stop pretending that this is just any ordinary coworker. This is the public face and leader of the company that publicly advertises a certain set of values. This is also a person who has been made rich by the success of the company, and then is using that money to donate to very morally questionable causes (eith…

This is the public face and leader of the company that publicly advertises a certain set of values Presumably you're arguing they should stop advertising that set of values. But then that'd be used to condemn them as well. why it is inappropriate for employees of the company to complain about such dubious donations of their CEO Totally appropriate, just as long as those employees don't mind the CEO telling everyone t…

Ah yes, employees don't like what their boss is doing, they call him out, and now they have the power, not the boss. They can suddenly set their own hours, raise their pay, steer the products and take vacations whenever they like. What a load of bullshit.

The bosses have the most power and money and therefore deserve the most scrutiny.

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#58

Post by downrightmike »

IMTDb wrote: post #18

Reading the article, it really looks like some New Relic employees want : - To prevent someone from supporting the presidential candidate she believes in. It's event funnier of you consider that the person if not working at NewRelic. - Control which charities the CEO should give money to with his private philantropy fund (which he has no obligation to setup). > "It is clear that some of you are devoting more energy a…

private philantropy funds are generally setup to avoid taxes

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#59

Post by thatswrong0 »

bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote: post #47
thatswrong0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding him to the same standards that the company publicly advertises it has is not silencing.

Yes, it is, actually. That's literally what the employees voicing their displeasure want -- (1) for his speech as a private citizen to not contradict the public values of the company he leads (i.e. for him to not donate to, say, exclusionary institutions), and, (2) most likely, going beyond (1): for his speech as a private citizen to be "in alignment" with the public values of the company he leads (i.e., to compel sp…

He’s an extremely wealthy individual. His “voice” aka his “speech” aka his ability to influence the actions of the government via political donations is orders of magnitude greater than pretty much all of his employees. He ain’t being silenced.

The only people being silenced here are the LGBTQ+ kids going to that abhorrent school he donated $250,000 to

Re: New Relic employees report unrest over work culture, CEO’s donations

#60

Post by dogman144 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #21
dogman144 wrote: post #10

Coinbase's recent actions add interesting additions to the ammunition available for responding to employee activism. I think the longstanding questions in this area are: - are the activist employees just a vocal minority - who will care (or support) if those activists are ignored -> who just wants to get back to work and focus on whatever it is that Company X does for profit. That presents a somewhat cynical view of…

> 5% of employees left, and the makeup of the 5% reflected that of the overall workforce. I have to think other companies paid attention to this outcome, although I wonder what internal polling and the like led to CB doing it. What's your read on this? Bad outcome or good?

Good outcome.
Post reply on HN