Curious what you think would be the 'correct' course of action in such a scenario

The GP isn't saying Jensen took the wrong action, he's saying that this is a carefully crafted message from a top PR firm, and that the posters saying how its "genuine and heartfelt, I can see he really cares" are just eating it up. Those lines will become advertising for the agency as they land the next big client, like book reviews, but for the "publicly vulnerable executive" PR package.

Its not that Jensen is wrong, its a good play, the GP is just saying how sad it is to watch people eating this up like they think Jensen cracked open his laptop and drafted a note, pushed it up to the public web site, then forwarded it to axios or something.

There were lots of people involved in a carefully crafted rollout, the wording of which has nothing to do with how Jensen or his family are handling this. We will never know how he personally feels or how any of this really played out behind closed doors. For all we know he and his wife are talking divorce and shouting it out and this piece is just crafted damage control.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I think both can be true at the same time: Jensen regretting genuinely what happened and taking responsibility, while the PR department also steered and approved the message.

GP's take seems to assume bad faith, regardless of the message. Mu question was aimed at finding out what GP would actually consider a "genuine" response in this situation.

The problem is precisely that there is no reliable way to discern "genuine" from "competently synthesised".

Many social situations have this signalling problem -- in fact I would say it's the rule, and the exception is the case where it's rational to believe another person's signals because it's known to be costly to generate them.

"The most important thing in show business is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made"

> GP's take seems to assume bad faith, regardless of the message. Mu question was aimed at finding out what GP would actually consider a "genuine" response in this situation.

We have no way of knowing what he feels genuinely regardless of the words which doubtlessly were crafted by experts and approved by him. We do know his actions that caused this though. And the only real and verifiable thing will be future actions. Rest is fluff.

<For all we know he and his wife are talking divorce and shouting it out and this piece is just crafted damage>

...just like Bill Gates and Bezos, both were found to be "foolin around" behind the backs of their spouses. A pic of a young Russian babe appears on the net with Gates. Money = power and corrupts most of us. But to Huang's credit, it likely was not he that "chased down" this Chinese spy. The Spy was the one coaxing him into an affair.

It's sort of like 1st degree versus 2nd degree. If you kill a person in cold blooded murder it is 1st degree, but if you have a good reason, or, are "lured" into the act, it's 2nd degree. I would argue for 2nd degree in this case.

Acknowledging that he compromised US national security by selling billions of dollars of chips to the shell company his spy girlfriend worked for.

What do you genuinely believe that a person looses if they choose empathy? And what does a person win if they choose the opposite?

Let's say there was a false apology. And a person here on HN fell for it. What exactly have they lost by falling for it? Let's say a person here on HN didn't fall for it. What exactly did they win?

People get to caught up in being right and "not being a sucker" that they forget if it's worth their time and worry. It seems people are most competitive when stakes are the lowest and there's nothing to gain.

None of us here have any stake in this.