I don't know, Jeff, I'm on the fence on that one. I've been in situations where formers just make shit up about the company and trash it in discussion threads around the Internet, and it's a pretty demoralizing experience when none of it is true. My CEO at the time said "no, just ignore it, it'll blow over," which is advice I've hated since grade school when I was told to do that with the kids teasing me (at least now I understand why I was given that advice, but it did take me longer to discover that standing up for yourself pays more dividends). I mean, the situation it creates sucks: we can't say absolutely anything about it but Dickbag McFired can call us all lazy and incompetent all over HN and Reddit? And we just have to take it ... why? Because it'd be bad for the company if we didn't?
If my team is getting shit on constantly like that and none of it is true, I can kind of get behind a leader taking a stand and calling bullshit bullshit. I can also see the other side of how some folks would consider it the low road and unprofessional, even though I don't necessarily agree.
As I said, on the fence. Part of me appreciated calling bullshit bullshit. Part of me sympathized that he should probably have spoken through a PR mouthpiece. Honestly, I probably would have done the same thing in that situation, and that might be why I'm not a CEO.
Real talk: if considering whether or not to work for Yishan, that little incident might slip to the "pro" side instead of the "con" for me. The rest of his management of Reddit, not so clear.
If my team is getting shit on constantly like that and none of it is true, I can kind of get behind a leader taking a stand and calling bullshit bullshit. I can also see the other side of how some folks would consider it the low road and unprofessional, even though I don't necessarily agree.
As I said, on the fence. Part of me appreciated calling bullshit bullshit. Part of me sympathized that he should probably have spoken through a PR mouthpiece. Honestly, I probably would have done the same thing in that situation, and that might be why I'm not a CEO.
Real talk: if considering whether or not to work for Yishan, that little incident might slip to the "pro" side instead of the "con" for me. The rest of his management of Reddit, not so clear.