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Just months ago, "The Crying CEO" guy became a viral meme for expressing too much empathy in a layoff. It's fucking job terminations. You're GOING to be criti

Just months ago, "The Crying CEO" guy became a viral meme for expressing too much empathy in a layoff. It's fucking job terminations. You're GOING to be criticized no matter how you do them. The best approach is to just be robotic about it, and maybe throw in a platitude that amounts to, "It's not you, it's me".

Aeolun 4y ago
No, he was criticized for using it as publicity on LinkedIn.
jghn 4y ago
Sure. But it's only "taking responsibility" if you demonstrate you're actually intending to either a) actually be accountable in some fashion and/or b) actually lay out how you'll change to make the bad thing not happen in the future. "We need to layoff half of the company. I'm sorry and take responsibility. I have failed our employees and shareholders. Because of this, I am stepping down". That's taking responsibility. "We had a major F-up. It was my responsibility. And here are the concrete steps I am taking to ensure it never happens again, along with the mechanisms you all have to hold me accountable. If these fail, the following bad thing will happen to me." That's taking responsibility
- wickedsickeune 4y ago
  I know that this is a low quality comment, but thank you, you have restored my faith in humanity.
- vasco 4y ago
  A company is bound to fire people in a well functioning economy or the alternative is every single employee will lose their job when the company goes bankrupt. Some people would rather bring every company down to the ground before firing a single person. In a well functioning economy what you then want is a short worker reallocation time. Also if one of your options for "taking responsibility" is quitting, I guess your view of the world is that you would also fire any of your employees when they mess up, when whole industries have recognized the need for blameless cultures where making mistakes is part of the learning process.
  - jghn 4y ago
    You can fire people and/or let them go without claiming you "take full responsibility". That's ok, and exactly my point. The phrase "I take responsibility" is never accompanied with any sign that the person does in fact take responsibility. It means more than just "Ooops, I did a bad"
greenthrow 4y ago
He was not criticized for showing too much empathy. He was criticized for not actually showing empathy. He made it all about himself. You might want to look into how you misunderstood that so badly.
jherskovic 4y ago
The Stripe people did it right, or at least as right as you can under these circumstances. https://stripe.com/en-au/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees https://stripe.com/en-au/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons... Relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450753
- MertsA 4y ago
  Compare the Stripe layoff to the Meta one. The severance terms are very similar and I think the Meta offer is objectively better, if only slightly depending on tenure. Both the Stripe founders and Zuckerberg are both "taking responsibility" for the layoffs but without any resignation or personal financial burdens outside of just share price. This has basically zero chance of being a decrease in operating costs until well into 2023. Stripe and Meta seem to be on par with one another as far as how they handled their respective layoffs other than the Meta leak.
- sigstoat 4y ago
  they got grief for exactly the same line zuckerberg is getting grief for in this thread.
  - hamburglar 4y ago
    Because there are a lot of people who just aren’t ever going to be satisfied with anything short of Zuckerberg feeling the pinch of not knowing whether he’s going to make his mortgage payment next month. It’s just people’s natural desire for punishment. I personally have a lot of disdain for zuck and what he’s built but the idea that he is ever going to experience enough misfortune to seem “just” as an offset for these layoffs is pure fantasy. If anyone is waiting for that, there is simply no path to satisfaction for them. Nothing except his own actions is going to stop him from being as billionaire as he wants to be.
lovich 4y ago
He wasn’t criticized for having empathy, he was criticized for the narcissistic attempt to make the layoffs all about how his emotions.
SilasX 4y ago
What? It wasn't for "expressing too much empathy", it's for being obviously staged. Like, who gets their hot-take emotional reaction on video and then uploads it? /r/whyweretheyfilming vibes.
idontpost 4y ago

Aeolun 4y ago

No, he was criticized for using it as publicity on LinkedIn.

jghn 4y ago

Sure. But it's only "taking responsibility" if you demonstrate you're actually intending to either a) actually be accountable in some fashion and/or b) actually lay out how you'll change to make the bad thing not happen in the future. "We need to layoff half of the company. I'm sorry and take responsibility. I have failed our employees and shareholders. Because of this, I am stepping down". That's taking responsibility. "We had a major F-up. It was my responsibility. And here are the concrete steps I am taking to ensure it never happens again, along with the mechanisms you all have to hold me accountable. If these fail, the following bad thing will happen to me." That's taking responsibility

wickedsickeune 4y ago
I know that this is a low quality comment, but thank you, you have restored my faith in humanity.
vasco 4y ago
A company is bound to fire people in a well functioning economy or the alternative is every single employee will lose their job when the company goes bankrupt. Some people would rather bring every company down to the ground before firing a single person. In a well functioning economy what you then want is a short worker reallocation time. Also if one of your options for "taking responsibility" is quitting, I guess your view of the world is that you would also fire any of your employees when they mess up, when whole industries have recognized the need for blameless cultures where making mistakes is part of the learning process.
- jghn 4y ago
  You can fire people and/or let them go without claiming you "take full responsibility". That's ok, and exactly my point. The phrase "I take responsibility" is never accompanied with any sign that the person does in fact take responsibility. It means more than just "Ooops, I did a bad"

greenthrow 4y ago

He was not criticized for showing too much empathy. He was criticized for not actually showing empathy. He made it all about himself. You might want to look into how you misunderstood that so badly.

jherskovic 4y ago

The Stripe people did it right, or at least as right as you can under these circumstances. https://stripe.com/en-au/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees https://stripe.com/en-au/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons... Relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450753

MertsA 4y ago
Compare the Stripe layoff to the Meta one. The severance terms are very similar and I think the Meta offer is objectively better, if only slightly depending on tenure. Both the Stripe founders and Zuckerberg are both "taking responsibility" for the layoffs but without any resignation or personal financial burdens outside of just share price. This has basically zero chance of being a decrease in operating costs until well into 2023. Stripe and Meta seem to be on par with one another as far as how they handled their respective layoffs other than the Meta leak.
sigstoat 4y ago
they got grief for exactly the same line zuckerberg is getting grief for in this thread.
- hamburglar 4y ago
  Because there are a lot of people who just aren’t ever going to be satisfied with anything short of Zuckerberg feeling the pinch of not knowing whether he’s going to make his mortgage payment next month. It’s just people’s natural desire for punishment. I personally have a lot of disdain for zuck and what he’s built but the idea that he is ever going to experience enough misfortune to seem “just” as an offset for these layoffs is pure fantasy. If anyone is waiting for that, there is simply no path to satisfaction for them. Nothing except his own actions is going to stop him from being as billionaire as he wants to be.

lovich 4y ago

He wasn’t criticized for having empathy, he was criticized for the narcissistic attempt to make the layoffs all about how his emotions.

SilasX 4y ago

What? It wasn't for "expressing too much empathy", it's for being obviously staged. Like, who gets their hot-take emotional reaction on video and then uploads it? /r/whyweretheyfilming vibes.

idontpost 4y ago