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Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

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Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#71

Post by rit »

untog wrote: post #51
hosay123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This generalizes further than just antifeminism. Christians and atheists are usually in positions to hire people. I guess we should just fire everybody who ever believed in anything, and then we'd have a perfect world, right?

Where did you get the idea that "believing in anything" is the reason he got fired? It's quite simple (and already explained by rit). He posted numerous messages disparaging various groups - blacks, women, gays. He is responsible for hiring within the company. This places Business Insider in an utterly compromised position and in danger of lawsuits.

Exactly. And it potentially opens up legal grounds, with evidence. Every member of the protected classes he has venomously disparaged, who applied for and didn't get a job (or was fired) to claim discrimination by him.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#72

Post by hosay123 »

fingerprinter wrote: post #62
hosay123 wrote: post #26

For all the value of political correctness in the workplace, someone just lost their job for their honest views, because some found them too ugly to bear. If you're still thirsty for more ugly truth, check out a Twitter search for @paxdickinson just now. Apparently to many, honesty is objectively worse than endless vengeful hate. I don't support anything this guy said, but clearly some of it was sarcasm, and as for t…

I don't get this. He has a pretty, IMO, hateful view of the world. I don't care if he is honest if he is also a sociopath and a fucking asshole. Use this filter. If you were running a company and came across this type of personality, would you want them in your company? What if they were anti-gay? Anti-white? Anti-immigrant? And not just held those views but basically YELLED them in PUBLIC while using your company na…

Practically, these are great, fair, and true points, and I agree with them. Idealistically, another side of me fucking hates this. Nothing would ever change, and humanity would never progress if we withheld our differences of opinion. At what point does an opinion become too extreme to share?

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#73

Post by kmeritt »

meritt wrote: post #23
rjknight wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He hasn't been removed from the industry, just from this job. If he's any good (which I have absolutely zero knowledge of) then he'll be back somewhere else before long. Hopefully with a new attitude.

Fair enough but when top-level executives are being removed for their inappropriate behavior hopefully people will start to notice that "hey, maybe I shouldn't act this way!" and our industry can actually be respectable once again. This guy is a lawsuit waiting to happen with a very vivid history. No company is going to place themselves at risk hiring this guy again. There's plenty of other respectable talent out the…

A) "This guy is a lawsuit waiting to happen." Yep. As in... Either assign an intern to make my twitter updates for me or expect to get sued for wrongful termination and for me to finally set precedent about the limits of corporate policy with a goddamn federal lawsuit.

B) "There's plenty of other respectable talent out there." No there isn't. There are plenty of people who read hacker news and know what's trending today, but very few who can pinpoint what's going to be trending tomorrow or what a company can do to position themselves to be on the front page tomorrow.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#74

Post by fedvasu »

untog wrote: post #51
hosay123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This generalizes further than just antifeminism. Christians and atheists are usually in positions to hire people. I guess we should just fire everybody who ever believed in anything, and then we'd have a perfect world, right?

Where did you get the idea that "believing in anything" is the reason he got fired? It's quite simple (and already explained by rit). He posted numerous messages disparaging various groups - blacks, women, gays. He is responsible for hiring within the company. This places Business Insider in an utterly compromised position and in danger of lawsuits.

Yeah, But he is not announcing anything on behalf of BI right? There is an implicit disclaimer that all views are his not his employers (I am sure atleast he thinks that way). Yes BI is entitled to fire him as it portrays them in bad-light in public but that wouldn't attract lawsuits (may be american law is fucked-up). I don't know.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#75

Post by defen »

darkarmani wrote: post #55
hosay123 wrote: post #26

For all the value of political correctness in the workplace, someone just lost their job for their honest views, because some found them too ugly to bear. If you're still thirsty for more ugly truth, check out a Twitter search for @paxdickinson just now. Apparently to many, honesty is objectively worse than endless vengeful hate. I don't support anything this guy said, but clearly some of it was sarcasm, and as for t…

How are we suppressing his differences of opinion? Are you suggesting the BI isn't allowed to hire or fire whoever they want? >> In The Passion Of The Christ 2, Jesus gets raped by a pack of niggers. It's his own fault for dressing like a whore though. You'd put this guy in charge of your business?

Some of his other tweets are really bad, but I think this one is a legitimately funny satire of Mel Gibson. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/mel-gibsons-new-rac.... If The Onion had written it everyone would have had a good laugh and moved on.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#76

Post by bigonlogn »

hosay123 wrote: post #40
rit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was in a position to hire people, and expressing views that clearly indicated bias towards certain protected classes. That alone would be cause for concern. I don't know that I"d advocate his firing, but I'd certainly question his authority to hire & fire staff based on the things he's said.

This generalizes further than just antifeminism. Christians and atheists are usually in positions to hire people. I guess we should just fire everybody who ever believed in anything, and then we'd have a perfect world, right?

His views aren't the issue, his outspokenness is. How could a woman ever feel comfortable interviewing with this guy, let alone, working for him. What if said woman was a great fit for the company and had a lot to contribute? His ability to hire and fire effectively is compromised. Not because of his views, but because he couldn't keep his mouth shut about them.

Sometimes knowing when to shut the hell up is a far greater asset than being outspoken and opinionated. Especially about things related to your job...

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#77

Post by fingerprinter »

fedvasu wrote: post #61
fingerprinter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude...wtf? He can surely have an opinion, even a minority, rather ridiculous opinion. What he can't do is be a complete asshat and think there are no ramifications. It shows a complete lack of empathy as well as judgement. Guy is a CTO of a rather public company and feels the need to rant off like this on twitter? 1. extremely poor judgement and 2. shows he "doesn't get it". However you look at it, this guy shouldn'…

I get it, but seriously this thing got escalated because of feminism BS.Yes he is nuts, but why on earth send a wrong message? I am not saying he getting demoted/fired is illegal, all I am saying is so much hatred for him on HN is hypocritical.

How is it hypocritical? I'm asking earnestly as I cannot understand that view point.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#78

Post by jcromartie »

rit wrote: post #34
hosay123 wrote: post #26

For all the value of political correctness in the workplace, someone just lost their job for their honest views, because some found them too ugly to bear. If you're still thirsty for more ugly truth, check out a Twitter search for @paxdickinson just now. Apparently to many, honesty is objectively worse than endless vengeful hate. I don't support anything this guy said, but clearly some of it was sarcasm, and as for t…

He was in a position to hire people, and expressing views that clearly indicated bias towards certain protected classes. That alone would be cause for concern. I don't know that I"d advocate his firing, but I'd certainly question his authority to hire & fire staff based on the things he's said.

I'm not sure I see that bias. Did he ever indicate that he thought certain people were unfit for a job because of their gender, religion, etc.?

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#79

Post by venomsnake »

DannoHung wrote: post #56
hosay123 wrote: post #26

For all the value of political correctness in the workplace, someone just lost their job for their honest views, because some found them too ugly to bear. If you're still thirsty for more ugly truth, check out a Twitter search for @paxdickinson just now. Apparently to many, honesty is objectively worse than endless vengeful hate. I don't support anything this guy said, but clearly some of it was sarcasm, and as for t…

I hope you choke on a razor blade. That's my honest view. Oh, wait, that's an offensive and horrible thing to say. Maybe we need to be held accountable for our opinions. Now, I guess, the real question is whether my first statement is sarcasm or not.

Unless the parent is a sword swallower in the circus, your honest view will require no less than 2 Monty Python sketches to fulfill. so it is obviously sarcasm.

Re: Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm

#80

Post by untog »

cstejerean wrote: post #49
untog wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't have heard about it if you only read Hacker News - users systematically flagged any reference to it off the site. The 21st Century equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la la" Worth pointing out that the exact same thing has now happened to this thread.

After seeing all of the complaints about that event on Twitter, I was definitely surprised to find no mention of it on HN. I wonder why this wasn't worthy of discussion here.

It happens any/every time gender is discussed on Hacker News.

There was a hackathon planned last year that boasted "women, booze & massages". Numerous threads about it were immediately flagged off the site. Same the Geeklist issue with a promo video that had a woman in her underwear.

It would be one thing if the HN community was capable of looking at these issues and having a reasoned discussion about them. But no, flagged immediately. Heroic hackers jumping on the gender grenade so the rest of us don't even have to think about it.

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