The best damage control would have been to admit the mistake and move on, not try to blame it on the "unclear" company policy. The founder tries to make it look like it wasn't his fault, but ends up looking even worse.

There is a silver lining for all of this -- future company founders will know what NOT to do when presented with bad PR.

Usually attributed to Lincoln:

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

If this is attributed to Lincoln, that kind of phrase does not play to his own advantage. (hint: read "The Real Lincoln" if you are interested).

Holy shit that book looks bad.

From the inside cover: "DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized?as the Founding Fathers intended?to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade."

No mention of, you know, slavery? Or the fact that southern states seceded before he was even inaugurated? I'd like to see a Venn Diagram of people who like this book and people who own confederate flags.

We are clearly getting way off track, but anyone who has entertained the (false) idea that the South seceded from the union because of some States Rights principle would benefit from reading the original secession proclamation from the state of South Carolina. The document is available online; here is one source:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/12/the-south-has-risen.ht...

The first section in the linked page is a preface written on a state website, summarizing that the secession document was totally concerned with slavery. It is then followed by the document in its entirety so that you can see the truth for yourself.

Well, there's no better way to find out if this book makes sense than just reading it. I think you can take it with a pinch of salt, nonetheless it makes some valid points about how Lincoln treated power. The new edition answers to the criticism that was made against it.

Hm, this book has also lot of criticism.

There is a huge problem with this attitude: it doesn't leave room for someone to honestly realize they were wrong and be believed when they express they learned something. If someone thinks you're not going to believe him anyway, you remove part of the incentive for someone to learn.

I disagree. I've come to this point of view via self awareness of when I've failed this test. You can understand how others might make this mistake quite easily.

But I also think the employer's behavior here fails your own test. There's no expression of learning that a poor choice was made, just expression of plausible deniability.

In some sense, me calling my perspective out as I see it, is a hope that it does affect such change.

True. But at this point, what exactly does anyone expect them to do? They screwed up, got caught, apologized and finally, paid him. It is very much possible that they wouldn't have paid him, if he didn't go public. It is also possible, that companies in similar positions will behave the same way in future (abusing power, until they get caught). There is probably nothing that can be done at this point, except move on.