I've done similarly career-threatening things in the past and my strongest advice is to stand and deliver in an actionable way.

Telling the CEO he is full of shit is not actionable. Telling the CEO that his plan will not work and that to save the situation he needs to do XYZ is. If you've judged the situation correctly and that level of drama is actually necessary, then either they will respect you and do it or they wont and you'll quit/be fired. Either should be fine for you from your perspective as an employee even if financially it's a leap.

I say it's good advice because it's turned out to be very good for my career. I've had it blow up in my face once and turn out better than silence every other time. That's a muh better ratio than I would have guessed, I suspect because it's easier to fear the consequences of action than inaction.

> ... either they will respect you and do it or ...

Another possible/likely option - they'll pay lip service to your plan, convince you to stay, and then gradually slip back to the full of shit approach they originally intended.

Basically I'm not willing to go to this level of drama unless the consequences of going the other way are really, really obvious. That means things like illegality, safety of life issues, ethical breaches, total project failure, etc. If you just think they're wrong and don't want to deal with their wrongness anymore, tell them so in your resignation letter. Hell, maybe by the time you have an offer in hand they're have realized you're right. Won't that be fun.

But ultimately there is no substitute for good judgement here. You have to decide, sometimes quickly, whether a particular situation demands immediate action of whether it can be forestalled or defeated by other (less risky) means. And you're absolutely right that it requires good judgement and preparation to ensure that they cannot contain or deceive you.

If ethical breaches cause you to escalate to this level of drama, may I ask in what sector you are employed? In my own industry I see breaches like this as a matter of habit and I can't even imagine being generally employed in IT if this bothers you. Unless of course you have really lax ethical standards compared to mine. That's also an option.

I work in security.

If you're in an environment where serious ethical failure happens on the regular I would encourage you to get out. There are plenty of jobs, including in IT, where the worst you'll see is self-serving lies and corporate doublespeak.

As for my standards being laxer than yours, well, I don't know you.

So do I!

I'm definitely looking to transition to a more healthy environment, but so far every place I have visited has a similar terrible attitude to the practicalities of security and handling breaches. I have asked for clarification by legal sources many times, but this appears to be legal, with the obvious exception of the illegal things. Those are not legal but they don't have a governing body that actively punishes transgressions. It also appears to be widespread. Perhaps I just live in the wrong country :)

I think so many of us dream of having the financial freedom to be able to do this. At least for me, that's one of my big drivers to build passive income streams and lifestyle hustles.

Honestly, that's the kind of teammate I deeply love to work with - one who doesn't _need_ the job, but one who _wants_ it and believes in what we're doing.

There are very few jobs worth believing in to be honest.

This is not accurate. There are large number of jobs that have a directly impact, as part of solid teams working on things for the right reasons.

I strongly disagree. Many many jobs, especially the higher paying ones, are bullshit jobs. Real work to actually improve the world doesn't tend to make a whole lot of money, it's much easier to lobby for bureaucratic inefficiencies you can inhabit, create artificial scarcity, gamble with other people's money, or outright scam people.

Look at the web. There's a ton of jobs (many would say a nigh-overfull bubble's worth) in the web right now, yet most webshit doesn't meaningfully improve anyone's life and is instead just a way to trick people into looking at ads or providing their personal data so it can be collected and sold.

I work for Google and Google has a lot of products that has improved my life immensely. Google maps, Google search, Google docs, gmail and Youtube are all very useful products, especially for poor people who can't afford paid options. I don't feel bad in the slightest for working to improve them.

People say that Google does questionable things but I haven't seen any of it. Of course as a bottom-up organization it is very likely that other parts of Google are less ethical but that doesn't really affect my work or conscience.

> People say that Google does questionable things but I haven't seen any of it.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/11/18260712/google-amit-sing... (Google confirms it agreed to pay $135 million to two execs accused of sexual harassment)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... (High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Goo...

Correction: I haven't seen any of it in my work. My work is not related to any of those things. I have only seen unethical things done by Google in the news, never any emails encouraging anyone to do unethical things or anything like that.

One example doesn't make his comment invalid.

In cases like this it helps to give examples, as the person you are responding to evidently doesn't believe this is the case. Maybe you can change their mind!

I suppose it heavily depends on what is considered impact and the right reasons.

How is that beneficial to someone's career though?

Sure, it shows one's morals and standards, but how does that boost one's career?

It can protect your career when you are being asked to do something that might be illegal. Especially if you have a security clearance of some sort and it would violate it.

This might be an important distinction between ethical and moral. Standing up against unethical behavior protects one career, but if the behavior is ethical but immoral (that is to say, it violates your own standards but is deemed acceptable in the larger community) then it doesn't really protect one's career. But the self image protection might still be worth it.

Well, among other things it can mean you end up in a situation that more closely aligns with your morals.

This has a number of predictable benefits.

...by force. Although I’m sure Edward Snowden feels good ethically, I’m also sure he has material issues that make him regret (that’s the goal of his ennemies, after all).

Similarly, a middle manager who has to downsize houses because he stopped working on weapons for example, it could be even harder for him because he won’t even get famous for it.

I should know, I’ve made one of those choices in another area.

That's assuming that your input affects the current situation.

Sure, if you leave the company and go somewhere else, then you're potentially going to find your moral environment. But, there are better ways to find these environments, versus job hopping.

Without leaving, how often will your conflicts affect your situation?

Would like to hear more about the predicted benefits.

If you value living a moral/ethical life, then working for a company that operates immorally/unethically would be bad.

If your only considering career benefits in terms of career advancement compensation, then perhaps doing the right thing won't be "beneficial" to you.

However, if you aim to be a good person, doing the right thing is the correct path.

Is a moral career not better than an immoral one...?

That's a question for whoever's standing up - how do they measure career success?

Going by the theme of the post, "By making as much money as possible", wouldn't be an unreasonable measure.

If you truly value a moral career, there are surely better ways to find one than to join a company and express your opinions internally, in an almost retroactive manner.

As someone who has experienced not having money for food, an immoral career is better than being morally unemployed.

>>Have the courage to stand up for what you believe in, even if it terminates your employment status.

This is very bad advice purely career wise. In fact being in the good books of the cartel managers is something you should proactively do.

Also stop believing in this myth of finding a boss who is powerful, just, fair and does the right things all the time. Humans are irrational species because we have to often arrive at a one pick decision between competing priorities, sometimes even paradoxical priorities. Reality is a big mess and no straight work-reward equations are possible. This extends to so many things in the real world. Business, relationships, contracts, job space etc etc. One must always aspire to be slightly evil as much as things allow one to be. That means developing tact to manage everyday politics, negotiating, coercing, influence and various other people management things.

Plus given this specific point, if your boss or immediate leader is too powerful fighting him is pointless and self destructive. And even more important point, stop fighting other peoples battles. Whistle blowing, activism and standing for principle all gives you a huge sense of self worth and makes you feel important about yourself. But it's a very bad strategy, because you will fall out of favor and get marked up as a trouble maker in the eyes of any powerful watching. And you will never meet a boss or a leader who is likely to appreciate this. Stop trying to be a martyr or other people's cause.

It bothers me that your comment is written well because it lends credibility to a comment that essentially amounts to 'don't stand up for what you believe, it won't work! Be a weasel instead!' I strongly disagree, I think this approach is worse off for pretty much everyone in the long run. I can also tell you that unless you are really good at hiding your opinions/intentions, for some(me for example), your attitude is a repellant and you will be labeled a weasel. There are a number of such types in my office and I really do wonder if they realise how transparent their behavior is. To some people this behavior will be effective, some will tolerate, but for others you will be on a blacklist, prevented from going further because they effectively see you as the type of person who won't say anything that doesn't further your own cause. They just won't trust you and it's really uncomfortable for some people to try to gel with this.

Pretty much any one responsible for making decisions for others can't be fair by any definition. Add to this that they have to tend to their own interests too. You have to align your interests with their's. There is nothing wrong with this. The problem is often people get in your way when this is supposed to happen. This is where 'throwing people under the bus' situations happen.

The second problem with people is that they try to evangelize their own little personal moral-principles based religion, some cause they believe in and try forcing it down other people's throats. There is literally no reason why any one should care about what or why you believe in anything at all. Especially if they don't stand to benefit from it in any real way. There is also no reason why you should mark any one as your enemy for not believing in what you do. This is even more troublesome because people attach things like moral prestige/superiority/pride to their cause and humiliate other people's intelligence for not aligning with theirs. Why should you want to do this?

Stop trying to be a rebel, take a step back and what see you are doing. Your boss wants X, in an ideal situation the best you can do is convince them to agree on settling with X-dx. But if your boss wants X and you want to change their directions and want them to do A instead. They are going quietly relieve you of your work, and find some one else to get the job done.

What if you're 99% sure someone doesn't know what they're talking about, but there could be on shred of crucial information, you aren't privy to, since companies are sometimes large and unwieldy things, and information doesn't always flow as it should.

You could call someone out, and make a fool of yourself, if you're wrong. It would make me very hesitant to ever actually do something like this, because you never know.

So this is a legit thing. You don't know all the facts, there can be reasons CEO asshats say things. But there are also times you have to think hard about what you trust: do you trust your core knowledge, or do you assume they know better? Remember, CEO level people have KPI which is about shareholder benefits, not necessarily reality, or ethics.

I sat in on an 'all hands' briefing once where a CEO level guy spent 2hrs demanding we code a 3D VR shopping mall for him to sell to local stores. When I started talking about how immature the market was (this was 1994 and most people were on dialup) I got roasted. Afterwards, the CTO said he did that randomly, to get dominance, it was just how he chose to behave in a room, in order to "win". I didn't stay in that company long.

> What if you're 99% sure someone doesn't know what they're talking about

I hate this. I can't convince colleagues that they are wrong. And I can't push too hard as long as I'm not 100% sure. So I have to make their work for them just to proof them wrong. I think it is not a good investment to aim for 100%, at least where I work.