6 ms·

Chief Executive of Social Finance to Step Down

51 points by coloneltcb 9y ago

djchung23 9y ago
Yikes. Culture starts from the person at the top and flows down. Curious to see how and if the cultural narrative within Silicon Valley companies will change one year from now after all that's happened. Will there actually be meaningful change? I don't know, but I'm hoping so.
- lefstathiou 9y ago
  I was chatting in bed with my lady about this last night and we hit on a few negative potential outcomes and concerns: Companies and their investors are going to look for ways to prevent these issues from happening. Part of the solution will rest on coaching, monitoring and policing (perhaps through employee empowerment etc) the "aggressive" people (mostly men) in the workplace. A concern my girlfriend highlighted is that this may increase unconscious bias in the hiring process, for example: Will men consider beautiful girls a risk to the workplace? If you have 90% male employees working in your office and a beautiful girl who is definitely qualified for the job but for the sake of argument not someone you "have to have" for this role, are you introducing risk into the workplace by hiring her knowing that people react stronger to attractive people? Said differently, is there a possibility that her presence becomes a potential "distraction" in the office. Will progressive personalities be considered a risk to the workplace? Beyond looks to personality types, if you are interviewing a candidate and through rounds of interviews you discover they actively contribute their spare time and energy toward socially progressive movements, rallies, campaigns etc, will they be deemed higher risks as potential work-place agitators? I never really thought about these things until my gf mentioned them but apparently she and her girlfriends consider these factors when strategizing about interviews ("don't look too good, etc"). Another anecdote: we have a handful of couples we're close to whose girlfriends/wives insist that their CEO boyfriends/husbands never conduct challenging performance based conversations with female employees without a witness present. This was consistent with my girlfriend's experience in banking where she found that her senior managers were comfortable having performance reviews 1-1 (which in theory facilitates more candid dialogue and deeper relationships) whereas all the girls had multiple managers present reviews. On the margin, does this disadvantage women? I don't know but my gf seemed to think so.
  - thebiglebrewski 9y ago
    I didn't know Smoove B was on Hacker News. Oooooh yeah. http://www.theonion.com/personalities/smoove-b-1022 http://www.theonion.com/personalities/smoove-b-1022
  - thebiglebrewski 9y ago
    Also woah I didn't read your whole comment. "Will men consider beautiful girls a risk to the workplace?" What kind of question is that? So beautiful girls don't have a right to a job because men are afraid of them? Honestly that's kind of messed up to think about. "Beautiful girls" are people too...
    - rndmwlk 9y ago
      >Also woah I didn't read your whole comment. Is this some form of satire? I would suggest reading their whole comment or refraining from commenting yourself.
      - thebiglebrewski 9y ago
        No this comment was not. Sorry if you thought my comment was offensive. I'm just saying that I think it's offensive to say that "beautiful women" are a problem in an office as if they're not people too...is that an outlandish thing to think?
        thebiglebrewski 9y ago
        ...apparently it is judging by the number of downvotes I'm getting.
        bluntfang 9y ago
        it's outlandish to think that your reading comprehension is so poor, but it true.
        thebiglebrewski 9y ago
throwaway6497 9y ago
Interesting that branding is not important/creatively skirted when negative news is involved. Doesn't come as a surprise. Wondering, if this is intentional. Difficult to imagine that the company is spoon feeding an NY times reporter the headlines. Always saw SoFi everywhere in ads and branding. Social Finance on Google doesn't rank SoFi in the top two organic search results. Wonder why the headline is Social Finance instead of SoFi though there is mention of SoFi in the article.
- CPLX 9y ago
  Maybe they put that in the headline because that's the name of the company. Doesn't seem particularly confusing to me.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    The NYT frequently uses full company names, for example they used to refer to SpaceX as "Space Exploration Technologies", and they still put periods in places where other journalists won't (I.B.M.). I wouldn't read anything into it other than the NYT marches to the beat of a different drummer.
mgkimsal 9y ago
Maybe he was busy having "inappropriate relations" with the people who should have been "reviewing" my paperwork? Tried to use them years ago and... turnaround time took weeks. Their web interface just kept telling me they were "reviewing" then "need more info" without any concrete info as to what was needed. Emails took days to get a reply to. Tried to use them again last year - same horrible turnaround/response time (days/weeks). I was able to use another institution and have my financial stuff handled and done in less time than it took them to even clarify why the exact same info other financial agents were fine with wasn't good enough (and, they never did). They followed up about 4 months later to ask if I still needed service.
SoFiThrowaway 9y ago
The internal messaging is the same as external: "buisness is strong, we continue to execute as we did, looking for a new ceo". However, if you read between the lines, it sounds like the board might have been looking for an excuse to oust Mike, who preferred high risk ventures and expansions, and replace him with someone experienced in bringing companies to an IPO. It seems like this is an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, in terms of bad press.
blizkreeg 9y ago
“I believe now is the right time for SoFi to start the search for a new leader,” Mr. Cagney said in a statement. What's with these cowardly statements? Admit your mistakes, say you're no longer the right leader, and that's why you're stepping down.

51 points by coloneltcb 9y ago

Yikes. Culture starts from the person at the top and flows down. Curious to see how and if the cultural narrative within Silicon Valley companies will change one year from now after all that's happened. Will there actually be meaningful change? I don't know, but I'm hoping so.

lefstathiou 9y ago
I was chatting in bed with my lady about this last night and we hit on a few negative potential outcomes and concerns: Companies and their investors are going to look for ways to prevent these issues from happening. Part of the solution will rest on coaching, monitoring and policing (perhaps through employee empowerment etc) the "aggressive" people (mostly men) in the workplace. A concern my girlfriend highlighted is that this may increase unconscious bias in the hiring process, for example: Will men consider beautiful girls a risk to the workplace? If you have 90% male employees working in your office and a beautiful girl who is definitely qualified for the job but for the sake of argument not someone you "have to have" for this role, are you introducing risk into the workplace by hiring her knowing that people react stronger to attractive people? Said differently, is there a possibility that her presence becomes a potential "distraction" in the office. Will progressive personalities be considered a risk to the workplace? Beyond looks to personality types, if you are interviewing a candidate and through rounds of interviews you discover they actively contribute their spare time and energy toward socially progressive movements, rallies, campaigns etc, will they be deemed higher risks as potential work-place agitators? I never really thought about these things until my gf mentioned them but apparently she and her girlfriends consider these factors when strategizing about interviews ("don't look too good, etc"). Another anecdote: we have a handful of couples we're close to whose girlfriends/wives insist that their CEO boyfriends/husbands never conduct challenging performance based conversations with female employees without a witness present. This was consistent with my girlfriend's experience in banking where she found that her senior managers were comfortable having performance reviews 1-1 (which in theory facilitates more candid dialogue and deeper relationships) whereas all the girls had multiple managers present reviews. On the margin, does this disadvantage women? I don't know but my gf seemed to think so.
- thebiglebrewski 9y ago
  I didn't know Smoove B was on Hacker News. Oooooh yeah. http://www.theonion.com/personalities/smoove-b-1022 http://www.theonion.com/personalities/smoove-b-1022
- thebiglebrewski 9y ago
  Also woah I didn't read your whole comment. "Will men consider beautiful girls a risk to the workplace?" What kind of question is that? So beautiful girls don't have a right to a job because men are afraid of them? Honestly that's kind of messed up to think about. "Beautiful girls" are people too...
  - rndmwlk 9y ago
    >Also woah I didn't read your whole comment. Is this some form of satire? I would suggest reading their whole comment or refraining from commenting yourself.
    - thebiglebrewski 9y ago
      No this comment was not. Sorry if you thought my comment was offensive. I'm just saying that I think it's offensive to say that "beautiful women" are a problem in an office as if they're not people too...is that an outlandish thing to think?
      - thebiglebrewski 9y ago
        ...apparently it is judging by the number of downvotes I'm getting.
      - bluntfang 9y ago
        it's outlandish to think that your reading comprehension is so poor, but it true.
        thebiglebrewski 9y ago

throwaway6497 9y ago

Interesting that branding is not important/creatively skirted when negative news is involved. Doesn't come as a surprise. Wondering, if this is intentional. Difficult to imagine that the company is spoon feeding an NY times reporter the headlines. Always saw SoFi everywhere in ads and branding. Social Finance on Google doesn't rank SoFi in the top two organic search results. Wonder why the headline is Social Finance instead of SoFi though there is mention of SoFi in the article.

CPLX 9y ago
Maybe they put that in the headline because that's the name of the company. Doesn't seem particularly confusing to me.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  The NYT frequently uses full company names, for example they used to refer to SpaceX as "Space Exploration Technologies", and they still put periods in places where other journalists won't (I.B.M.). I wouldn't read anything into it other than the NYT marches to the beat of a different drummer.

mgkimsal 9y ago

Maybe he was busy having "inappropriate relations" with the people who should have been "reviewing" my paperwork? Tried to use them years ago and... turnaround time took weeks. Their web interface just kept telling me they were "reviewing" then "need more info" without any concrete info as to what was needed. Emails took days to get a reply to. Tried to use them again last year - same horrible turnaround/response time (days/weeks). I was able to use another institution and have my financial stuff handled and done in less time than it took them to even clarify why the exact same info other financial agents were fine with wasn't good enough (and, they never did). They followed up about 4 months later to ask if I still needed service.

SoFiThrowaway 9y ago

The internal messaging is the same as external: "buisness is strong, we continue to execute as we did, looking for a new ceo". However, if you read between the lines, it sounds like the board might have been looking for an excuse to oust Mike, who preferred high risk ventures and expansions, and replace him with someone experienced in bringing companies to an IPO. It seems like this is an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, in terms of bad press.

blizkreeg 9y ago

“I believe now is the right time for SoFi to start the search for a new leader,” Mr. Cagney said in a statement. What's with these cowardly statements? Admit your mistakes, say you're no longer the right leader, and that's why you're stepping down.