6 ms·

I wanted to reply since that NYT article is so damming and it's absurd for me to be parent comment about Juul and not reply (since obviously I saw your comment

by pclark 4y ago

I wanted to reply since that NYT article is so damming and it's absurd for me to be parent comment about Juul and not reply (since obviously I saw your comment and have thoughts) and was thinking about how best to, I am not sure of the details of this but: * I cannot reiterate enough just how incompetent Juul was in 2017. Everyone was running around with their hair on fire and had zero of the skills or experience to deal with these issues * I believe that Juul did a lot of really really really stupid things like going into schools and trying to hamfistedly state that vaping was bad but safe — again, Juul had a lot of very inexperienced executives who were obsessed with doing things they thought were really smart but were just plain stupid * It's worth noting that these actions didn't actually contribute to making youths vape. Vaping was exploding amongst teens because of social media and being a meme — in what world would going to a school and talking about Juul make youths want to use that product? that is what makes all this so hilarious - Juul did a stupid thing, has to live with the consequences, and the underlying thesis of why they did it in the first place was totally ridiculous. Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul, but I am sure that their incompetence meant that their communication and actions blurred their dreadful attempts at dealing with the issues. The very fact this NYT article exists without a clear rebuttal and explanation from Juul says it all, really.

mike00632 4y ago
You keep saying Juul was "incompetent" and "stupid" when it's neither. Marketing to children is a very calculated and well-tested means of peddling drugs. A better way to describe it is malicious, diabolical or downright evil.
- hammock 4y ago
  Not just drugs- any kind of deviant culture really.
  - mike00632 4y ago
    In this case it's drugs.
  - skyyler 4y ago
    What are you implying here?
- loonster 4y ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
easyat 4y ago
I am confused. They didn't want children to vape but they were in schools saying it is safe? This makes zero sense and I am not sure how your reply is coherent. Does the Sinclair quote apply here?
- brutal_chaos_ 4y ago
  It could probably go something like this: Juul the brand does not want to market to kids because laws, FDA, etc. Some incompetent VP of marketing wanted to quickly boost numbers, ethics be damned. I don't mean to stick up for Juul, but it's not out of the realm of possibility considering how incompetent the company sounds from the above.
  - pclark 4y ago
    Hahahaha you think they had goals?? :) If I had to guess it would have been some nebulous 'youth prevention' team thinking it was wise to go into schools and explain why cigarettes were bad and vaping wasn't encouraged yada yada. Inexcusable but Juul was a quintessential "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" company. (I don't expect people to believe me on that.)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - robocat 4y ago
      Fantastic commentary - thank you. Now I am waiting for the conspiracy theorists to twist your words and imply that you must be a company shill. Or to tell you how evil you were working, and how they only produce using ethically sourced curly braces, with fairtrade electricity, an organic compiler, on their own hand-carved recyclable wooden laptop.
      - presentation 4y ago
        Lol Juul's meta strategy of shilling themselves by painting themselves as painfully incompetent, it's genius
overtonwhy 4y ago
"We just wanted to offer candy flavored highly addictive vaporizers to the market in every store that young people shop at. We weren't TRYING to get young people addicted!"
- tekknik 4y ago
  Do you believe that adults don’t like these flavors as well? Do you not remember the campaigns by adults when they banned flavored cartridges?
  - overtonwhy 4y ago
    Oh wow drug addicts don't want to quit? Shocking.
FireBeyond 4y ago
> People spend a lot of time discussing the chronic youth issues but the reality is that Juul never wanted to sell to youths or anything of the sort — they were just _so_ incompetent at operations that they couldn't do anything. > I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul This... is not incompetence or a side effect. They fucking paid schools to tell kids that Vaping was safe. You can try to say "oh, they didn't realllllly want to sell to kids, they just weren't good at their job". They gave ad agencies specific briefs saying that their target market for a campaign was '13-17 year olds'. "They didn't realllllly want to sell to kids". No. They knew exactly what the fuck they were doing.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  I think what parent is saying is that you get a lot of outcomes when you have unmonitored VPs with a few million dollars of budget. Regardless of what the corporate intent is. Inasmuch as there can be one in such a company.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    When your corporate intent is not to fire VPs who go "off the reservation", but continue to employ, reward them with bonuses, there's a plausible argument that you're absolutely defining that as your corporate intent.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Per parent's description, there was no reservation. It was just everyone doing their own thing. And having worked at a few companies that suddenly fell into orders-of-magnitude more revenue, it rings plausible. When the money hose is spewing, nobody spends much time asking "Why?" anyone is doing anything, as long as it's just shy (or sometime inclusive) of embezzlement.
  - krageon 4y ago
    Corporate intent is the intent of the VPs in aggregate.
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
> Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul. Juul is not conscious and cannot want anything. I think it's pretty clear that there were some Juul employees who wanted children to use their company's product. Company representatives did not just wander into schools by chance; someone reached out and struck that deal. Clearly not you, and maybe no one on your team, but certainly someone. And incompetent or not, Juul the organization is responsible for its actions.
- civilized 4y ago
  It seems like pclark is suggesting Juul's attempts to market to kids were so incompetent and doomed to failure that they arguably don't even qualify as worthy of serious moral condemnation. Like if I attempted to kill you with a wet noodle believing it was a knife. Not sure I buy this but it's amusing at the very least.
  - flycaliguy 4y ago
    I think it’s more like: Random people were being hired by random VPs to do random things.
    - civilized 4y ago
      Which, sadly, will get you dinged by regulators, since this is the one of the main reasons regulators exist.
      - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        Um, is that sad? (Did you mean the sad part sarcastically?)
        civilized 4y ago
        I sure hope so!
- deleted 4y ago
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Your rationalizing that it was Juul's "incompetence" that led them to market to children comes off as nonsense. A perfect example of the "banality of evil" - it's easy to blame incompetence because it's harder to come to terms that seemingly good people barely batted an eye while getting an entire generation hooked on nicotine. "I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul." I do, and their actions prove it. Individuals who worked at the company were simply reacting to the obvious economic incentives of "growth at all costs", and it was clear they were allowed to market using whatever means necessary.
ineedasername 4y ago
If I grant your premise that Juul's actions were the result of incompetence then I still don't think it's much better. Accidentally promoting their product to minors has 1) The same impact as if it was done on purpose and 2) demonstrates criminal negligence. I also don't regard Altria's operational professionalism and discipline as a net positive in this situation. A company with a historical track record of deliberately marketing to children and a current track record of continuing to do so (IQOS) is no improvement merely because they control headcount and limit vanity projects.
Gatsky 4y ago
Note that a Corporation can do things without anyone who works there wanting to do those things. No employee of Union Carbide wanted to poision 2.5k people in Bhopal [1]. Yet it still happened, and there is no question about who caused the disaster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
jimmydddd 4y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I disagree with your basic point, but I didn't work there and your follow up did help me understand your opinion better.

by pclark 4y ago

mike00632 4y ago

You keep saying Juul was "incompetent" and "stupid" when it's neither. Marketing to children is a very calculated and well-tested means of peddling drugs. A better way to describe it is malicious, diabolical or downright evil.

hammock 4y ago
Not just drugs- any kind of deviant culture really.
- mike00632 4y ago
  In this case it's drugs.
- skyyler 4y ago
  What are you implying here?
loonster 4y ago
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

easyat 4y ago

I am confused. They didn't want children to vape but they were in schools saying it is safe? This makes zero sense and I am not sure how your reply is coherent. Does the Sinclair quote apply here?

brutal_chaos_ 4y ago
It could probably go something like this: Juul the brand does not want to market to kids because laws, FDA, etc. Some incompetent VP of marketing wanted to quickly boost numbers, ethics be damned. I don't mean to stick up for Juul, but it's not out of the realm of possibility considering how incompetent the company sounds from the above.
- pclark 4y ago
  Hahahaha you think they had goals?? :) If I had to guess it would have been some nebulous 'youth prevention' team thinking it was wise to go into schools and explain why cigarettes were bad and vaping wasn't encouraged yada yada. Inexcusable but Juul was a quintessential "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" company. (I don't expect people to believe me on that.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - robocat 4y ago
    Fantastic commentary - thank you. Now I am waiting for the conspiracy theorists to twist your words and imply that you must be a company shill. Or to tell you how evil you were working, and how they only produce using ethically sourced curly braces, with fairtrade electricity, an organic compiler, on their own hand-carved recyclable wooden laptop.
    - presentation 4y ago
      Lol Juul's meta strategy of shilling themselves by painting themselves as painfully incompetent, it's genius

overtonwhy 4y ago

"We just wanted to offer candy flavored highly addictive vaporizers to the market in every store that young people shop at. We weren't TRYING to get young people addicted!"

tekknik 4y ago
Do you believe that adults don’t like these flavors as well? Do you not remember the campaigns by adults when they banned flavored cartridges?
- overtonwhy 4y ago
  Oh wow drug addicts don't want to quit? Shocking.

FireBeyond 4y ago

> People spend a lot of time discussing the chronic youth issues but the reality is that Juul never wanted to sell to youths or anything of the sort — they were just _so_ incompetent at operations that they couldn't do anything. > I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul This... is not incompetence or a side effect. They fucking paid schools to tell kids that Vaping was safe. You can try to say "oh, they didn't realllllly want to sell to kids, they just weren't good at their job". They gave ad agencies specific briefs saying that their target market for a campaign was '13-17 year olds'. "They didn't realllllly want to sell to kids". No. They knew exactly what the fuck they were doing.

ethbr0 4y ago
I think what parent is saying is that you get a lot of outcomes when you have unmonitored VPs with a few million dollars of budget. Regardless of what the corporate intent is. Inasmuch as there can be one in such a company.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  When your corporate intent is not to fire VPs who go "off the reservation", but continue to employ, reward them with bonuses, there's a plausible argument that you're absolutely defining that as your corporate intent.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Per parent's description, there was no reservation. It was just everyone doing their own thing. And having worked at a few companies that suddenly fell into orders-of-magnitude more revenue, it rings plausible. When the money hose is spewing, nobody spends much time asking "Why?" anyone is doing anything, as long as it's just shy (or sometime inclusive) of embezzlement.
- krageon 4y ago
  Corporate intent is the intent of the VPs in aggregate.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

> Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul. Juul is not conscious and cannot want anything. I think it's pretty clear that there were some Juul employees who wanted children to use their company's product. Company representatives did not just wander into schools by chance; someone reached out and struck that deal. Clearly not you, and maybe no one on your team, but certainly someone. And incompetent or not, Juul the organization is responsible for its actions.

civilized 4y ago
It seems like pclark is suggesting Juul's attempts to market to kids were so incompetent and doomed to failure that they arguably don't even qualify as worthy of serious moral condemnation. Like if I attempted to kill you with a wet noodle believing it was a knife. Not sure I buy this but it's amusing at the very least.
- flycaliguy 4y ago
  I think it’s more like: Random people were being hired by random VPs to do random things.
  - civilized 4y ago
    Which, sadly, will get you dinged by regulators, since this is the one of the main reasons regulators exist.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      Um, is that sad? (Did you mean the sad part sarcastically?)
      - civilized 4y ago
        I sure hope so!
deleted 4y ago

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Your rationalizing that it was Juul's "incompetence" that led them to market to children comes off as nonsense. A perfect example of the "banality of evil" - it's easy to blame incompetence because it's harder to come to terms that seemingly good people barely batted an eye while getting an entire generation hooked on nicotine. "I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul." I do, and their actions prove it. Individuals who worked at the company were simply reacting to the obvious economic incentives of "growth at all costs", and it was clear they were allowed to market using whatever means necessary.

ineedasername 4y ago

If I grant your premise that Juul's actions were the result of incompetence then I still don't think it's much better. Accidentally promoting their product to minors has 1) The same impact as if it was done on purpose and 2) demonstrates criminal negligence. I also don't regard Altria's operational professionalism and discipline as a net positive in this situation. A company with a historical track record of deliberately marketing to children and a current track record of continuing to do so (IQOS) is no improvement merely because they control headcount and limit vanity projects.

Gatsky 4y ago

Note that a Corporation can do things without anyone who works there wanting to do those things. No employee of Union Carbide wanted to poision 2.5k people in Bhopal [1]. Yet it still happened, and there is no question about who caused the disaster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

jimmydddd 4y ago

Thanks for the clarification. I disagree with your basic point, but I didn't work there and your follow up did help me understand your opinion better.