I'm not saying I definitely disagree with you, but I can't really see why what reddit's CEO did was bad. Risky, sure, but it strikes me as a justified and effective response.

In this case, they probably did not need to respond, since the 'attack' was merely an insinuation that disagreeing with management led to termination, which isn't the strangest idea in the world, nor defamatory. But if they did have to respond, this is one of the worst possible ways to do it: negatively, by senior management, in public, on a forum, discussing personal private details about an ex-employee. If there is a textbook somewhere on "How to deal with employee firing", this is the example of what not to do.

The proper response is to address the main point in contention without emotion or judgment and point out the business's policies and values. Short, sweet and impartial.

The guy basically said he was "laid off" followed by "because I pissed off management with my feedback". Claiming it was a retaliatory firing forces a response.

"Whatever the employee may have done to deserve separation, it is profoundly weird and troubling (and also, implicitly threatening to all employees, whatever their rank or standing) to see a CEO discuss those reasons in public."

Going through legal and posting a public statement is still discussing those reasons in public under the psuedonym of the CEO with the words benig ghostwritten by legal.

Until the CEO responded, this was just an ex-employee with limited credibility saying pretty mild and unremarkable things few people would ever see. Now it's a CEO obviously feeling threatened and bringing wide attention to it.

If an ex-employee publicly posts/publishes in a visible way that would be obvious to the previous employer...and the previous employer says nothing, that speaks volumes more. Generally corporate silence is a sign they can't refute the statement without opening themselves up to libel/being sued.

The fact yishan is willing to say this (no matter how poor the delivery) basically means he is comfortable that he won't be sued successfully over it. That means the former employee (at best) failed to understand why he was let go.

Is it satisfying? No. But it avoids exactly this situation.

And by the way, even that response is only expected when the company is directly asked. The correct response until then is to simply pretend nobody (or at least nobody in management) is aware of the issue.

Now, however, potential experienced employees who actually live in the real world will be avoiding Reddit. Why put your career at the mercy of an obviously angry, irrational CEO? There are all sorts of companies big and small where the CEO is either rational or at least kept on a short leash by a competent board of directors.

Going into ordinary damage control mode whenever somebody says something negative about your company is worse than the original damage. Any statement at all draws attention to the issue and risks making you look defensive.

But this isn't even ordinary damage control mode, this is a CEO personally attacking an ex-employee. It may even make mainstream news now (...and so it begins[0]). And worse, he's doing this right after getting another $50 million to play with and announcing a new anti-worker policy.

Before seeing the CEO's response, I would have said that responding to the thread at all was the worst possible choice. But I would have been expecting the response to at least be of a remotely responsible form. If the comment hadn't already been two hours old when I saw it, I would have thought it more plausible that the account had somehow been compromised than that anyone would actually think to respond in such a manner.

And now he's doubled down, but vaguely[1], "there's actually more, but we're pulling our punches, if you can believe it". If the original comment wasn't legally actionable, that one might be. The CEO has created a PR and potentially legal nightmare where there was originally nothing but some guy howling at the moon.

I'm reminded of the OMGPOP/Dan Porter/Shay Pierce fiasco. Troubling that the CEO of "the front page of the internet" wouldn't have learned from that...

[0] http://gawker.com/reddit-ceo-shames-ex-reddit-staffer-on-red...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditCensorship/comments/2ifd3p/ud...

I've worked for a certain popular online gaming service and have been threatened in my personal email by people who've had their accounts banned. Being in any position of authority (public facing or otherwise) on a site that caters to gamers and/or people who spend all their time on the internet is something I would recommend against.

e: www.reddit.com/r/yishansucks yup. You don't want to be in a situation where you're always under fire from these guys.

1) Well, that is demonstrably false. I'm employed just fine.

2) I've encountered a similar situation before that was a real toxic mess where I took the view you espouse and I regret it. So I think you are the one who is naive.

But hey, whatever. I must be lying since your absolutist view is 100% correct to you.

In a thread where you are defending a CEO being criticized as, amongst other things, childish, do you not see the irony of this?

Given you are making absolute statements that are demonstrably false, I was hoping being childish would get the point across that I consider the validity of your argument on par with childish behavior.

Sorry that wasn't clear.

Deliberately childish behavior engaged in to be manipulative makes it easy to conclude someone lacks integrity.

Is it your intent to be dismissed as lacking integrity?

Umm -- did he say that, in the words you are using (and took the trouble to put in quotes)? If so, where? It doesn't seem to appear anywhere in the comment thread.

..."

When you make a statement like "Some management likes getting feedback, some doesn't." in relation to being laid off, you are implying it was retaliatory. I'm pretty sure Yishan saw it as that hence his reply.

But anyone who responds to being called out publicly, isn't retaliating imo.

I've taken that tone with people in this thread to point out how stupid I consider there demonstrably false absolute statements.

So...I think the issue here is some people are bothered by Yishan (obviously) and some people are not.

Tbh, given the only way a CEO can safely say "you failed to perform" in regards to an employee is if they have documented missed deadlines by that employee...I don't think your point of view is likely grounded in reality.

Most (sane & rational) people don't open themselves up to a lawsuit without being pretty sure they evidence to support their statements.

I think you meant to say, "Sorry, I was just making that up."

How else could you possibly interpret this rationally in a conversation about being laid off?

The way his comment actually reads is: "I really can't work out why I was let go. The only thing I have done out of the ordinary in the last few weeks was ..."

Which, as you knew, it wasn't.

http://www.italki.com/question/143633 "When we summarize something that somebody said, we use this expression. "

Eh. You have an interesting way of understanding English I've never encountered before.

You also fail to provide said intepretation/explanation/whatever you like to call it. So...ya.

The guy basically said he was laid off because I pissed off management with his feedback.

then it would have been perfectly clear that this was an interpretation of what happened, rather than a literal description of what happened.

You basically started an argument on the internet over my use of "" to differentiate between his posts.

K. Glad we cleared that up and I don't really care anymore.

I dunno, how about interpreting it as what it says instead of making up an evil motive? It says he wasn't sure why and his best guess was that.

This is hardly some horrible accusation against reddit. If anything, as far as fired employees talking about former employers goes, this is downright tame and respectful.

Moreover, he actually didn't bring it up first -- he was asked about it and simply answered the question.

If anything, he should have someone else respond. The fact it irked the CEO enough to stop whatever important things he was doing to log in and craft a fairly long rebuttal is telling.

I know plenty of people in PR and most would look at this and say this situation was completely mishandled. The CEO's comments actually makes him look worse than the whining ex-employee.

I've had jobs where I've performed poorly and jobs where I've performed excellently. I've also had years I was "on" and years I was a little "off."

Businesses are not charities. They need to get things done. If you can't do the things, then they don't have to continue to pay you. Like it or not, that's how it works.

If you like don't like someone, you performance managament them out by like giving them lots of terrible tasks or stupidly high targets. This is a well known technique, recommend by most HR people.

Anyone who's been work for a decent amount of time, knows this. Workplaces can be more like high school playground the with popular kids and the outcasts, then a merit based thing.

I was not successful. So I'm quite familiar with the technique.

Basically, if you get the vibe that you're not well-liked, you should just leave or figure out how to.

A pro would have either ignored this AMA or issued blanket, definable statements, such as "You were fired for performance related reasons."

And that's what's so tragically stupid about this whole thing -- what happened at the outset (the employee's remarks in a public forum) was a very little thing. And what did Yishan do? He want out of his way to make it a big thing. It's like he sees a fire in the wastebasket, and his natural instinct is to throw more oil on it.