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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

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Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#91

Post by beachstartup »

danilocampos wrote: post #46
blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs). What, exactly, has she to apologize for? The people in question were speaking like they were in a frat house in direct contravention of a code of conduct they'd agreed to. They had the right to speak. And Adria had the right to tweet. If they didn't like being publicly outed for saying this stuff, guess what? All they had to do was shut their mouths. > What if I acciden…

How does accidental immature behavior work?

"let's check out this pitch and then grab a beer" at a startup VC pitch event

sensitive woman in front of you hears:

"let's check out of this bitch and grab a beer"

turns around, pics, tweets, gets you fired on the spot.

HOW IS THIS OKAY? public shaming is NOT the right response. IT'S JUST NOT.

what a stunning lack of imagination.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#92

Post by CptCodeMonkey »

Goronmon wrote: post #71
salman89 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next?" I'm not agreeing with anything Adria did, but the issue of being labeled as the "tattletale" probably plays a big part in most women's reluctance to report real harassment.

I'm not agreeing with anything Adria did, but the issue of being labeled as the "tattletale" probably plays a big part in most women's reluctance to report real harassment. But there is a big difference between mentioning something to someone or someone's boss in private, and posting about it on Twitter with a picture attached.

But everyone else seems to like a good pitchfork witch hunt!

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#93

Post by knowtheory »

[deleted] wrote: post #77
knowtheory wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you'd rather see her name totally vilified and run out of the industry instead? Where's the understanding and tolerance for questionable conduct that was offered to the two guys making jokes now?

[deleted]

Once again, the woman in question was not seeking to get anyone fired, and has also said she didn't think it was right that the guy was fired.

The level of hypocrisy over this is flabbergastingly large.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#94

Post by SODaniel »

sirrocco wrote: post #11

Right now it looks like SendGrid fired her because of the DDoS they suffered a few hours ago. Once you can blackmail a company into firing someone like this .... I think it's dangerous for the company.

I doubt there is any truth to this. No company in their right mind would fire a valuable employee because they end up in a 'trollstorm'.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#95

Post by Aloisius »

I can't help but feel that if I, as a male, had posted the same tweet in response to some obnoxious guys behind me making situationally inappropriate comments and I was in her shoes as an evangelist at the time, no one would have batted an eye.

Granted, I probably wouldn't have written a long blog post about it, but I've certainly talked to event organizers in the past about obnoxious people before and had them ejected.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#96

Post by blhack »

niggler wrote: post #70
fatjokes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Adria had the right to tweet. Adria as an individual, yes. Adria as a developer evangelist? No. Her role is to speak for the company, and no company should resort to public shaming and cyber bullying.

Was she tweeting from a personal or company account?

From her account associated with sendgrid:

https://twitter.com/adriarichards

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#97

Post by masklinn »

tomp wrote: post #8

Although this would seem to be another knee-jerk, exaggerated reaction, and I personally believe that she shouldn't have been fired (and that the first guy shouldn't have been either), we should also consider the SendGrid CEO's position; his company is under attack, might fail, so getting rid of the person whom this attack is targeting seems like the obvious thing to do. I'm guessing that SendGrid will loose some oth…

> we should also consider the SendGrid CEO's position

Yeah, SendGrid was definitely between a rock and a hard place on this one, they could either resist blackmail and potentially lose a lot of business due to not being able to service their users at all (at least in the short term, bringing in DDOS specialists is not an instant proposition), or they could just fold and look weak but have their service back up.

Both alternatives were shitty for most people involved.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#98

Post by tomp »

natrius wrote: post #54
mkr-hn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't invent sensationalist media.

There's only five things we do better than everyone else: music, movies, microcode, high-speed pizza delivery, and sensationalist media.

It's been a while since I was last in the US, but I wouldn't agree with the pizza thing. Sure, it's fast, but can't be compared to real Italian pizza. Myself, I prefer the Northern Italian variant, though.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#99

Post by bcoates »

canttestthis wrote: post #17
tomp wrote: post #8

Although this would seem to be another knee-jerk, exaggerated reaction, and I personally believe that she shouldn't have been fired (and that the first guy shouldn't have been either), we should also consider the SendGrid CEO's position; his company is under attack, might fail, so getting rid of the person whom this attack is targeting seems like the obvious thing to do. I'm guessing that SendGrid will loose some oth…

The DDOS attack on SendGrid's web and mail servers stopped about an hour and a half after they announced that they were firing Richards. Also the community backlash against Richards was huge, while there weren't many supporting her actions. From SendGrid's point of view, this was a good business decision.

I'm more worried about this than I am about the pointless drama that lead up to it. That sort of provocative weakness is going to have externalities on the Internet at large and shouldn't be tolerated.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#100

Post by [deleted] »

sirrocco wrote: post #47
fatjokes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now it looks like SendGrid fired her because of the DDoS they suffered a few hours ago. Do you have evidence for this? If it were me, I'd fire her because she caused a huge wave of negativity toward the company. I don't know what an "evangelist" does, but I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of it.

I don't have evidence but the timing speaks for itself - in the middle of a DDoS because of recent events they fire her. I'm not saying they weren't right in doing so, but it looks like they cave to blackmail.

[deleted]
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