To put it in a bit more context: this was out-of-hours, and those Walmart cashiers shouldn't be sacked for immaturity and poor judgement in their personal lives if their work is life is up to scratch.
I know it is more complicated than that when your actions have wider reach, especially for someone as high up as a CEO, but for all of us these days with ubiquitous social media potentially giving us all more reach, as what you do in your off-time can negatively impact the company, and your position can lead to your stupid moments having far more impact on people generally.
Even a grade A class 1 drunken cockup, in personal time, shouldn't result in a firing unless it is part of a larger or repeating pattern.
IMO: he has taken ownership of his actions, accepted that they were stupid, apologies for causing office (and not in the “sorry you found it offensive” non-apology sort of way), etc, so : ridicule him by all means, but sacking seems OTT at this point. And if he does it, or something else similarly foolish, again, then we break out the pitchforks.
There's no out-of-hours for CEO. He was using is official Twitter account to make a public statement, that's a work-related mistake. (It's not like he used some anonymous account to troll on some subreddit)
> Walmart cashiers shouldn't be sacked for immaturity and poor judgement in their personal lives if their work is life is up to scratch.
I don't know if they should, but they definitely are. Musk's obsession with his employees drug use out of work is an example (and also an example of double standards between CEOs and blue collar workers).
If his contract foes specifically say that, then I doubt it is legally enforceable anyway.
> He was using is official Twitter account to make a public statement, that's a work-related mistake.
If he used an official work account, then yes that paints a different picture and is a more clear-cut case of abusing resources and directly bringing the company into disrepute. But @GarryTan doesn't sound like a company account to me (I'm assuming the 陈嘉兴 in the account display name “Garry Tan 陈嘉兴” is also personal name information, not company affiliation, please correct me if I'm wrong).
> I don't know if they should, but they definitely are.
Calling for the bad side of a double-standard to apply to all is not the way I'd choose to fix the situation.
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Of course the people threatened by the ill-advised quotes, which might indicate overly string views, are well within their rights to pursue legal action against as they see fit, but at this point I'd say it isn't a sacking matter for the company.
He’s right. Source: was executive, CEO adjacent, and id still have been let go for such behaviour. At that level, you’re a very different representation of the org and you’re held to a higher standard in such cases where your actions regardless of when or where they took place reflect upon the org.
>Unless his contract specifically says that, bull.
I imagined he's not paid hourly. I have to deal with off work bad behavior so I don't see how holding someone accountable on an official social media account is too far.
>But @GarryTan doesn't sound like a company account to me (I'm assuming the 陈嘉兴 in the account display name “Garry Tan 陈嘉兴” is also personal name information, not company affiliation, please correct me if I'm wrong).
that is indeed where things get muddy and where we gotta look closer.
In this case, this isn't just some small personal account for maintaining contacts. his Bio has a banner that reads
```President and CEO
Y Combinator (insert social contacts on the right)```
and his bio reads
```President & CEO @ycombinator
—Founder @Initialized
—PM/designer/engineer who helps founders—YouTuber—San Franciscan—technology brother—Accelerate human abundance```
Other workers who mix these in their bio would at least say "Opinions are my own", which is a dubious defense for someone like a CEO, but one that was not taken anyway.
>Calling for the bad side of a double-standard to apply to all is not the way I'd choose to fix the situation.
well we've tried the good side for decades, and headway isn't made. You gotta change your approach if you want empathy.
I agree that this guy is a tosser. I’m always first in line to give a fatcat tech bro what for. But you’re completely barking up the wrong tree with this tribalist argument. You’re holding him to a standard that you at least in part don’t believe in, but are simply saying “an eye for an eye!” when he wasn’t even the one responsible for taking the first eye. Chill.
>You’re holding him to a standard that you at least in part don’t believe in
In part. but CEOs have a lot more money and PR on the line than some WalMart worker who may not even be recognized by regular shoppers at that store.
And yes, some of it is spite. We're in a period of time where the economy is crashing and such C level execs will drop thousands of jobs at the drop of a hat, for people who did nothing wrong and probably made the company millions, billions. I don't really sympathize when suddenly they screw up on their own volition and may be given the sack themselves.
They may think that it's reasonable to hold tech CEOs to higher standards in this respect than Walmart cashiers. So I don't think there's necessarily any inconsistency here.
I know it is more complicated than that when your actions have wider reach, especially for someone as high up as a CEO, but for all of us these days with ubiquitous social media potentially giving us all more reach, as what you do in your off-time can negatively impact the company, and your position can lead to your stupid moments having far more impact on people generally.
Even a grade A class 1 drunken cockup, in personal time, shouldn't result in a firing unless it is part of a larger or repeating pattern.
IMO: he has taken ownership of his actions, accepted that they were stupid, apologies for causing office (and not in the “sorry you found it offensive” non-apology sort of way), etc, so : ridicule him by all means, but sacking seems OTT at this point. And if he does it, or something else similarly foolish, again, then we break out the pitchforks.