http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fallacy_of_the_exc...

The choice is not between saying nothing, and completely devastating that person. Surely there is a third (or even fourth, fifth) alternative.

Also, saying nothing doesn't lead to the belief it is a shitty workplace. Just because someone posting in a forum that he's been fired from Company X for a reason he doesn't understand, that doesn't automatically mean that Company X is wrong and shitty; not everyone jumps to this conclusion, and certainly not based on the absence of any response from Company X.

The ex-employee implied management doesn't like criticism. Management then completely overreacts to criticism.

Officially: no reason. And I get this; I vaguely know how CA employment law works and that you limit your liability by not stating a reason. It's also really hard to work through in your mind. The best theory I have is that, two weeks earlier, I raised concerns about donating 10% of ad revenue to charity. Some management likes getting feedback, some doesn't. The reason I had concerns was that this was revenue, not income. That means you need ~10% margins to break even. This can be hard to do; Yahoo and Twitter don't. Salesforce does something similar, but it's more all-around, and in a way that promotes the product without risking the company's financials.

Are you kidding me? What world do you live in where corporate executives and companies are punished for lying?

I do see a great potential for bad consequences here.

Not only was it an overreaction, but it really has the stank of pettiness attached to it.

I don't trust either of them. At all. What I do know, though, is that one of them wrote a comment which is tremendously meaner than those of the other person.

That sort of response strikes me as crazily vindictive and the sheer anger of it makes it pretty hard for me to trust its author.

It's a kind of guilt-by-association reasoning: if someone has X bad quality, they likely have Y bad quality also. The boy who stole the loaf of bread from the baker must be the one who assaulted the farmer's daughter.

A lot of companies are very vague when they fire an employee. I've been let go twice, once for "poor performance" and once for "not the right fit". In both cases when I pressed for more detail I was not given anything concrete.

In the poor performance case I would say things like "but I had all my code reviewed and the reviewers said my code was fine...". And get responses like "we just didn't feel like your performance was up to scratch".

I was upset and angry at the time because they never provided me with any real evidence or gave me a chance to fix it. I kept coming up with all sorts of reasons (like the fact that I was 20 years older than the next oldest developer). OTOH, I am not stupid enough to air my grievances on a public forum.

You might want to reevaluate that position. You're reflexively siding with the CEO. You don't know that he's lying and saying "I think was fired because I did this" is not lying either way anyways.

I'm not saying you have to side with the ex-employee either, doing an AMA like that was pretty stupid as well. But the CEO's level of basic professionalism here leaves anything he's saying as pretty suspect as well.

You're right, thank you. I got carried away.

You are calling Reddit a web page! Nice hyperbole!

But this bias is a good thing. It causes internal disagreement, hindering solidarity, but it increases the rate at which we learn new things.

I was let go once. I've told the story, but I have never mentioned the name of the company and I won't tell you if asked. I also had a horrible experience with a co-founder in my first startup to the point that I consider the guy a con man, but likewise I will only tell the story with all names and identifying details omitted. Calling people out in a public forum -- even if you are in the right -- just makes you look like an asshole.

But this response is also a terrible response from a CEO. He descends rapidly into the same muck as the original "AMA" poster. I agree that he was presented with two sucky options, but he should have taken the high road with his response and simply said something like "all I can say is that this individual was terminated for different reasons than the ones he states." In public at least, leave it at that.

Reddit in general is an increasingly toxic community. There was a great writeup a while back theorizing about various reasons that social networks select for snark, cynicism, and obnoxiousness over deeper and more thought-out content. If someone recalled it I'd love a link.

> Reddit is not laying anyone off, you were fired.

> Your comments about our revenue had no effect on this decision. This type of criticism is welcome and even encouraged at our company.

> I don't believe it is in good taste to publicly discuss the reasoning for any termination unless it is absolutely necessary.

> If you'd like some additional clarification on our decision to fire you please contact me or (Someone in HR) directly.

> Thanks

But at the same time I realize this is something you need to try to do, especially when you're dealing in the realm of personal business relationships where it matters most.

I have no insight into what happened here, but I definitely have had experience working with and processing the termination of underperformers who don't recognize or accept that they are not meeting the bar and this sounds a bit like one of those cases.

There are probably some aspects of this separation that were imperfectly handled on both sides, but given the context of "guy is fired from company chooses to be interviewed on company site and say the company didn't give him any reason why he was fired" and the company says "you weren't doing your job" - I tend to trust the company.

Secondly, CEO just exposed himself to a potential lawsuit and a total loss of respect from his subordinates if he lied even a little bit in that statement. That is kind of a whole lot of evidence favouring trusting him over the other guy.

And admin didn't clarify things that would make judgment easier like: Did you tell the employee they were fired? Are you calling him a liar? That isn't clear to me... too many employers hide firings behind other, less obvious reasons.

Laid off? Fired? I'm not sure we even know which it was.

Both the CEO or the employee can be misrepresenting things, or (more likely) be simply misinformed about the technical nature of the separation. In any case, I see no special reason to take the CEO's word over that of the employee in this situation.

This basically reads like he was trying to dance around saying he was fired, but he was saying he got fired. You don't get laid off by yourself, and you definitely don't get a "reason".

In one case where I and others were laid off we were told it was a layoff, our severance paperwork said it was a layoff, and the government was informed (for each of us individually) that it was for cause. The motivation was to get around the legal restrictions for layoffs and avoid an increase in their unemployment insurance contribution. In another case I was the only person laid off (from a small team), it was explicitly a layoff & my severance was paid out, and I later found out that it was part of a deliberate attempt to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the dev team. The company officer in question was later abruptly terminated and may have faced criminal charges.

In both of those cases you could argue by the standard you're using that I was fired instead, but I've got the legal documentation and if needed the witnesses to prove otherwise.

That's not to say he wasn't clearly fired, and isn't dancing around that fact, but based on the available information, the broader internet bystander community doesn't have sufficient information to tell which story is true.

Things like this have a real business impact. I've cancelled interviewing at companies based on conversations with former employees that the company didn't have a satisfactory answer for.

If I saw this in a public forum and Reddit failed to point out that the former employee was fired (and was aware he was fired) in a public setting (which would make them liable for being sued, if Reddit lied) holds alot more weight than "Oh, ya, that guy. He was full of shit" told to me privately would.

Maybe I just have bad experiences in life but generally people who can't say "Hey, we don't fire people in retaliation" without getting sued are people to avoid.

Every large company has fired at least one person, and every large company has at least one "full of shit" disgruntled ex.

Most companies haven't had a CEO Mushroom Stamp Heard 'round The World, though.

What false statement?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't; people here are going to accuse him anyway, because it fits the David vs. Goliath narrative.

You don't seriously believe that do you? If he did that there wouldn't even be a thread here.

"Former Reddit worker does an AMA; CEO talks to him privately about why he was let go" is not nearly as catchy.

Don't forget that just before Reddit's CEO commented, this guy was a hero of the thread; his comments could have started a completely different discussion.

If you need to deny it, you can say, "This isn't an accurate account of events" and leave it at that. But even that's unnecessary.

Sure, this guy was phenomenally stupid to start a pissing contest with his own employer on a forum said employer controls but that whole pig/mud thing is really true.

If it's performance related, that's all that you should state. Defining and qualifying "much" is difficult.

It's probably not best to tell the public that inappropriate interview questions have been being asked ~for a while~.

This response stinks of a small company that could have definitely benefited from using a PR statement instead of a posting from the CEO.

TL:DR While employee definitely had this coming, I think that reddit should have held onto higher moral ground and settled for milder action then the one was taken. I do not know full context, as I only read two posts, but official reddit reply does leave a bit of snide and petty aftertaste.

Theoretically (excuse the pun) they could all be disproved some day but most people know they will not be.

To cite wikipedia for lack of a better source:

"Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge, in contrast to more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which is better characterized by the word 'hypothesis'"

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory