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> In a letter to employees made public in October, Ms. Townsend said Activision had “exited” 20 employees and another 20 had faced disciplinary action. “We know

by pm90 5y ago

> In a letter to employees made public in October, Ms. Townsend said Activision had “exited” 20 employees and another 20 had faced disciplinary action. “We know there’s a desire to know about the outcome when misconduct is reported,” Ms. Townsend wrote. “Sometimes, there are privacy reasons we can’t share. But where we can, we will be sharing more information with you. We will also be providing you regular, aggregate data about investigative outcomes.” They fired 20 people, not the CEO, and haven’t disclosed who it what reason these people were fired for. Smells to me like major scrapegoating.

alisonkisk 5y ago
Why would you assume scapegoating and not firing offendors who aren't "too big to fail"? Not disclosing a reason is the opposite of scapegoating. It's downplaying to avoid a fresh news cycle with lurid details.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> They fired 20 people, not the CEO Oh no, he's trying to save face and trying to make it look like he fixed the issues - even though he was a participant and he allowed this culture to develop.
- huxflux 5y ago
  I might be out of the loop, but what is indicating that, this is what actually happened?
  - 0xfaded 5y ago
    Setting culture is a large part of leadership. Most likely one of two things happened: a) the leadership was complicit in the culture, b) the leadership was too weak to prevent a toxic culture from festering. In either case, the leadership is not fit for, ahem, leadership.
    - ChrisLomont 5y ago
      Or leadership is new, is correcting the problems, which takes time. Otherwise every time you replace leadership you must immediately replace the new leadership, since they too have not instantly fixed the culture.
      - olodus 5y ago
        Guessing you are talking about the general case...? Bobby Kotick is hardly "new" to the Activision leadership position. He has been there for quite a while.
    - bsenftner 5y ago
      Don't forget the more likely situation of absent leadership and the resulting "Lord of the Flies" situation that results. FWIW, I had many friends spend time at Activision. Lord of the Flies is an apt description of their internal politics.
    - vanusa 5y ago
      Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though. Mr. Kotick, who has served as CEO for more than three decades, didn’t inform the board of sexual misconduct allegations that he was aware of, including rape, against managers across the company. The Nov. 16 article, citing interviews and internal documents, also detailed misconduct allegations against Mr. Kotick, including when an assistant complained in 2006 that he had threatened in a voice mail to have her killed.
      - detaro 5y ago
        Or Microsoft is looking to get rid of him and others first chance, but it's difficult and awkward to get rid of the CEO of a company you haven't actually bought yet and you need to talk to when trying to buy it. Seems equally possible.
      - alimbada 5y ago
        > Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though. A very odd statement to make when at this point all we know is that MSFT is acquiring Acti-Blizzard and very little information about what will happen to the latter's existing leadership post-acquisition.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    I was "out of the loop", too - until I read the article. It's all there, just a few paragraphs down. Even if you believe the "maximize shareholder value" line - it is the very definition of the CEO's job to prevent stuff like this from happening.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
LegitShady 5y ago
There may be legal privacy issues involved with disclosing private employment information.
- bertil 5y ago
  I suspect that they get around that by giving a total number, no personal details. If, for instance, they gave the rank of those employees, director or above former employees could argue that they were identifiable and couldn’t hide behind the usual churn.
toyg 5y ago
> scrapegoating Is this a typo of "scapegoating", or a conscious neologism to indicate "scraping (the bottom of the barrel) to look for a scapegoat"...?
- andygroundwater 5y ago
  Like it! Scrapegoating it is from now on in these circumstances.
daoismyname 5y ago
> Smells to me like major scrapegoating. cough cough massive severance package cough cough
ransom1538 5y ago
"Smells to me like major scrapegoating." My bet is on security engineers and QA. If I could bet on this - I would have my money on those people being fired. Always annoying at meetings, constantly being downers /s
willcipriano 5y ago
"They expect twenty of us in the wreckage, brother."

by pm90 5y ago

alisonkisk 5y ago

Why would you assume scapegoating and not firing offendors who aren't "too big to fail"? Not disclosing a reason is the opposite of scapegoating. It's downplaying to avoid a fresh news cycle with lurid details.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

> They fired 20 people, not the CEO Oh no, he's trying to save face and trying to make it look like he fixed the issues - even though he was a participant and he allowed this culture to develop.

huxflux 5y ago
I might be out of the loop, but what is indicating that, this is what actually happened?
- 0xfaded 5y ago
  Setting culture is a large part of leadership. Most likely one of two things happened: a) the leadership was complicit in the culture, b) the leadership was too weak to prevent a toxic culture from festering. In either case, the leadership is not fit for, ahem, leadership.
  - ChrisLomont 5y ago
    Or leadership is new, is correcting the problems, which takes time. Otherwise every time you replace leadership you must immediately replace the new leadership, since they too have not instantly fixed the culture.
    - olodus 5y ago
      Guessing you are talking about the general case...? Bobby Kotick is hardly "new" to the Activision leadership position. He has been there for quite a while.
  - bsenftner 5y ago
    Don't forget the more likely situation of absent leadership and the resulting "Lord of the Flies" situation that results. FWIW, I had many friends spend time at Activision. Lord of the Flies is an apt description of their internal politics.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though. Mr. Kotick, who has served as CEO for more than three decades, didn’t inform the board of sexual misconduct allegations that he was aware of, including rape, against managers across the company. The Nov. 16 article, citing interviews and internal documents, also detailed misconduct allegations against Mr. Kotick, including when an assistant complained in 2006 that he had threatened in a voice mail to have her killed.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Or Microsoft is looking to get rid of him and others first chance, but it's difficult and awkward to get rid of the CEO of a company you haven't actually bought yet and you need to talk to when trying to buy it. Seems equally possible.
    - alimbada 5y ago
      > Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though. A very odd statement to make when at this point all we know is that MSFT is acquiring Acti-Blizzard and very little information about what will happen to the latter's existing leadership post-acquisition.
- vanusa 5y ago
  I was "out of the loop", too - until I read the article. It's all there, just a few paragraphs down. Even if you believe the "maximize shareholder value" line - it is the very definition of the CEO's job to prevent stuff like this from happening.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

LegitShady 5y ago

There may be legal privacy issues involved with disclosing private employment information.

bertil 5y ago
I suspect that they get around that by giving a total number, no personal details. If, for instance, they gave the rank of those employees, director or above former employees could argue that they were identifiable and couldn’t hide behind the usual churn.

toyg 5y ago

> scrapegoating Is this a typo of "scapegoating", or a conscious neologism to indicate "scraping (the bottom of the barrel) to look for a scapegoat"...?

andygroundwater 5y ago
Like it! Scrapegoating it is from now on in these circumstances.

daoismyname 5y ago

> Smells to me like major scrapegoating. cough cough massive severance package cough cough

ransom1538 5y ago

"Smells to me like major scrapegoating." My bet is on security engineers and QA. If I could bet on this - I would have my money on those people being fired. Always annoying at meetings, constantly being downers /s

willcipriano 5y ago

"They expect twenty of us in the wreckage, brother."