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This is how you do a public apology. Nicely played.

• DenisM 16y ago
  Joel's school of apology: apologize unreservedly, it buys a lot of goodwill. My theory is that when there is an unfortunate outcome the righteous sub-person in us thinks that blame must be assigned before progress can be made. This is might be true in some cases and not in other cases, but overcoming the mental habit might be harder than playing into it.
  • kpanghmc 16y ago
    And yet, when Joel made the decision to shaft the Stack Exchange 1.0 testers, they didn't get anything close to an apology. What they got instead was a pitch about why they should be happy to give up their business model.
    • hga 16y ago
      I also don't recall ever getting an apology for his capping CityDesk without any recourse, open sourcing of the software, whatever. I suppose in both cases the distinction is that Joel decided not to apologize. The original point was about how he does that when he actually does it. And all or nothing is a legit thing to do here.
      • DenisM 16y ago
        > he original point was about how he does that when he actually does it. And all or nothing is a legit thing to do here. yes, that's what I meant.