Everyone makes mistakes and if nobody would be willing to look past that, then we'd never get anywhere.

And it would have gone over a lot better if he was honest about what happened. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he's all "was that wrong? Should I not have done that?". They knew exactly what they were doing and calculated that it was worth it.

> spend a couple days on HN telling people they shouldn't be mad about it.

It was actually a only a couple of hours and a few (very inflammatory and highly downvoted) comments, near the beginning of the thread, and then radio silence as the fire raged on.

I think that he took a step back and began reconsidering after realizing that his comments weren’t helping any, but because they were the only thing he said in that thread and a lot of discussion was focused on them it seemed like a lot more activity than it really was. (Not that this excuses anything, but I think it’s important to be clear about what happened.)

So when you receive negative feedback on something - how should you respond?

What if you're used to some certain baseline level of negativity? How should you respond then?

I feel like there is feedback on the individual level and the aggregate level. Clearly in this case TripleByte saw that they would have alienated a large and important community but I'm convinced you can blame a CEO for being diplomatic but thick skinned.

I mean this is the community famed for trivialising Dropbox

Most of us get through life without ever making that many people that unhappy all at once though. It's not like this outcry wasn't obvious and predictable to any reasonable person.

Empathy is unconditional. It says "wow, that must be really painful/terrible/scary". It carries no judgement around the accuracy of such feelings, only an understanding that they are real for the other person.

Disagreeing comes later after you have shown there are legitimate competing solutions.

"I'm sorry you feel that way" fails at the first so you haven't yet earned the right to disagree agreeably.

Any new feature that is announced can be met with some negativity. Sometimes it just ends up working despite that. It is not surprising to me that at first, they tried to defend their plans. It probably took a while for the backslash to sink in and their own opinions to change.

I wouldn't expect every company, even ones that target HN's primary audience to turn everything around right away because of an angry thread within a few hours. They turned around in 2-3 days. Quick enough if you ask me.

Disclaimer: I am really not in any way affiliated with Triplebyte. I am not even a user/customer. I just see a lot of negativity that I that I find unjustified.

And engaged in a host of dark patterns that made it difficult for people to effectively respond to that, for example by getting the data deleted and cancelling any account they had. The problem wasn't just the original error in judgement, serious as that was. It was the doubling down on it in both the implementation and the handling of the criticism when it was announced.

Calling it only a "feature" is just downright twisting the facts.

He's not sorry about what he did. He's sad he got caught.

Assuming good faith is not prudent when dealing with people who want your money or data. We have enough collective experience at this stage to say this conclusively.

Edit: Being cynical is the new normal when dealing with companies. Especially if they have your data, or want it.

How am I being taken advantage of if I read that letter and think "Well, good for them to finally realize things and take the right steps"? And I hope you're not speaking for everyone when you talk about good faith.

They've "stopped beating their wife". That's nothing to be proud of or rewarded for.

Everything else so far is just empty words. (Well written and convincing words, sure. But that guarantees nothing, any of us could find somebody to write a great apology if we're prepared to pay. Means nothing.)

So reversing and apologizing is still taking the wrong steps? Is this one of those situations where no positive descriptor must ever be uttered about someone?

> That's nothing to be proud of or rewarded for.

Good thing I never said that. I don't think we're speaking the same language here.

Well said. This ought to be taught in schools.

Being slightly pedantic I'd change it to "when dealing with companies that want your money or data" rather than "people" (though I've pretty sure that's the general meaning you intended anyhow).

Yes, we know they weren't doing it for the goodness in their hearts, but there's a huge leap between

- using what they know about me to sell services to others (classic Google)

- and outright selling/publishing my data to others

There's a reason why I still - despite all my dislike for Google - still respect them somewhat: they actually seems to try to guard their treasure chest of juicy customer data against both governments as well as everyone else, they seem to be in this for the long haul.

Edit: try to avoid being rude / abrasive

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This confuses me. What big payout could they have gotten from making this public?

I was also furious when I found out, and still am upset at how they went about this situation in the beginning. They could've handled it much better. But they did what the community asked for, and nobody was harmed in the end. I would argue that this was the system actually working.

I think we should incourage good behavior, instead of being totally unforgiving of all mistakes. Hopefully other companies can learn a lesson from Triplebyte and think twice before making this mistake at all in the future.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep my account with them, but I do feel better about it

Why wouldn't another company first try to push privacy violating changes on a Friday, when people like you are so willing to turn a blind eye to it if they get caught?

They violated trust and it's going to take a lot more than an email apology to get it back from people who care.

Again, it will take a lot more than some words on the internet to gain back trust from people who care about the fact that they were tricked for financial gain.

Ammon got talked out of making all his user's sensitive job seeking intent public. He is still the guy who thought that was an OK thing to do. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was going broke. He didn't _actually_ beat his wife. This time.

Consider how you would feel if a credit card or a bank did this? Would you ever trust them again?

No, you would not.

You make it sound like they tried to hide this and got caught - that’s absurd given the facts.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283237

And worse, who is to say they won't do this again later when no one is paying attention?

Do you have personal guarantees they won't?

This reaction seems way overblown. Its fine to criticize a feature but lets not pretend this is some nefarious plot that would have resulted in layoffs

> This reaction seems way overblown.

A badge on a user's now-public profile at a service that's used only when job hunting. Any company that noticed that one of their existing employees had a profile at Triplebyte could guess that the employee was looking for employment elsewhere. This would not be good for their career prospects, and could easily result in the job-hunting employee being chosen for a layoff or skipped for a promotion - most companies would rather keep or promote someone who's not about to leave.

-- Layoffs are happening around COVID, now who do you think a manager will feel more OK picking?

-- For luckier companies, bonuses/refreshers/promotions happen at different times, a candidate may want their manager thinking about their work vs. them exploring greener pastures

That's sensitive stuff! Some candidate may like being exposed (it's a threat!), some won't (shows disinterest! distracts!). Crucially, the question is of agency: folks entrusted TripleByte, expected privacy based on TripleByte's marketing and industry norms, and instead of having the decision, got into a world of dark patterns (opt-out, weak notification, difficult avoidance, long time delays, ...).

Edit: People are down-voting this. Consumer tech companies have been going through layoffs, generally one or more rounds of 20%. Many B2B's are on a delay, and are starting to see numbers around their b2c customers plummet: easy for more to happen as ripples continue. What could have been an opt-in feature to help folks maybe get better new positions was instead setup to add easily-avoidable risk.

This won't happen to everyone, but again, it's a matter of agency. Someone at a tiny startup may not care, but someone at a bigger or more political org might might feel risk differently. It's their career, not TripleByte's.

Right now? None. Because sensibly there is no such publicly available thing.

Any recruiter or hiring manager who doesn't at least look for a candidate's public LinkedIn page (and in those roles, they should also have LinkedIn premium or whatever it's called too) is not doing their job properly.

I have little doubt that this would have become "standard procedure" for managers when prepping for the "forward looking" section of a performance review and when making decisions about promotions/layoffs/payrises - if Ammon had got his way.

If a company would lay you off because you have a profile on a jobs network, they’re really a shit company you wouldn’t want to work for anyway.

Not that I agree with their actions - anything like this ought to be opt in only, but I can’t see people getting laid off. I have a profile on linked in with my boss and multiple people from my company as contacts, I’ve got profiles on multiple additional jobs board both locally and nationally. I’m not really looking for a job, but I have absolutely no reason to think I’d get fired for having a profile on triplebyte (which I do as well).

You have strong evidence Employee A is unsatisfied and looking to move on. Employee B has given no indication of such.

Which one do you lay off? Keep in mind that unsatisfied employees often have a detrimental effect on the morale of their (otherwise content) co-workers.

Answer: You lay off Employee A. And not because you are a bad CEO or bad person. You do it because it's legitimately in the best interest of the company.

Now take the same scenario and substitute a promotion in place of a termination. Which employee will get the promotion? Which employee is in your best interest to invest more money and time in? I think you know the answer.

So you're not going to point out any logical flaws in the scenario? You're not going to tell me why it's not a useful exercise? You're just going to avoid answering it because.... reasons.

> Firing someone because they have a profile on triplebyte is just silly.

Neither of the examples I gave were about firing.

>I ge that you all need to justify your rage over this, but this really makes no sense

I don't have any rage. My comment didn't express any rage. It gave two perfectly sound illustrations of why this information being public could put one at a disadvantage.

>The world doesn't work the way you want to believe it does.

Please elaborate. How does it work? And why is your experience about how it works more "correct" than the hundred of commenters here?

>I don't know, maybe you work somewhere that's normal, but if you want to call something toxic, that's toxic.

You can prove it by answering my question. What decision would a non-toxic, perfectly reasonable employer do? What would you do? I'm genuinely curious.

>No boss I've ever had would care less about my online profiles.

Same here. Aren't we lucky. Not everyone has had the same experience as evidenced by this thread.

You've now admitted you're not even in the situation, so why debate for it other than internet gotcha points?

You haven't given a _reason_ why it's "silly" and "not worth addressing", you just declared it so. That's not how civilized debate works and not how intelligent, honest, people disagree.

>You've now admitted you're not even in the situation, so why debate for it other than internet gotcha points?

Because I believe in privacy, ethics and get some enjoyment out of vigorous and fair debate. Sometimes my mind gets changed, sometimes I change other peoples minds. Other times, there are people who just aren't up to it intellectually and cover their ears and spew childish nonsense.

So let's cite some sources shall we?

1) According to a specialist in employment law at Dilworth Paxson LLP and author of the online law blog “The Employer Handbook” it is sometimes advisable for employers to terminate an employee looking for other work.[0]

2) According to hundreds of professionally employed developers on HN. "We feel at risk of this happening to us."

3) According to internet user jkl275. "That's silly because it doesn't match my experience. And if it is true, the company you work for is shit. Therefore your concerns are unfounded because.. well... I'm not sure. Why are you even arguing with me!?"

[0] https://blog.shrm.org/workforce/caught-in-the-act-employees-...

Sure, but you still have a mortgage to pay and would like to switch companies on your terms rather than on your employer's terms, right? Have enough time to find the right job you want, instead of the least-worst because you're really not comfortable with being out of work in what's looking to be a long economic crisis?

That would have been much easier to say a few months ago. But now, lots of startups and even large companies like Uber and Airbnb are laying off workers. Suddenly, for many, staying at that crappy company they currently work for is starting to seem like a much better option.