6 ms·
Bobby Kotick will remain as CEO until the end of 2023 and get a huge check for this purchase. He's getting rewarded for building a toxic, fratboy workspace, se
by xinayder 3y ago
Bobby Kotick will remain as CEO until the end of 2023 and get a huge check for this purchase.
He's getting rewarded for building a toxic, fratboy workspace, sexually and psycologically harassing women.
I wonder if Microsoft can be held accountable for allowing a sex predator like him to continue working.
- paradoxyl 3y ago[flagged]
- benced 3y agoI suppose literally anything is legally actionable in the sense you can write anything on a lawsuit and pay the filing fee - but you’d be highly unlikely to come even close to winning on these grounds in the US.
- xinayder 3y agoBobby Kotick threatened to have his former assistant killed [0] Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant [1] Activision's Bobby Kotick Didn't Just Know, He Also Was Shitty To Women [2] Activision Blizzard CEO Brushes Off Company’s Harassment Issues—Argues There Is No ‘Systemic’ Problem [3] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-reportedly-threatened-former-assistant-killed-2021-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kotick-sexual-misconduct-allegations-11637075680 https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot... [2] https://kotaku.com/report-activisions-bobby-kotick-didnt-just-know-he-al-1848066600 https://kotaku.com/report-activisions-bobby-kotick-didnt-jus... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/05/31/activision-blizzard-ceo-brushes-off-companys-harassment-issues-argues-there-is-no-systemic-problem/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/05/31/act...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- conjecTech 3y agoI mean, there is the rather extensive "Sexual harassment investigation" section of his wikipedia page where he paid $1.4 million as part of a jury verdict in a case of sexual harassment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Kotick#Sexual_harassment_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Kotick#Sexual_harassment...
- WillPostForFood 3y agoTo be clear, he was not the one accused of sexual harassment in that case, his co-owner of a plane was.
- blibble 3y agothere was a sexual harassment lawsuit against him which he lost https://kotaku.com/activision-boss-loses-legal-battle-over-sexual-harassme-452575586 https://kotaku.com/activision-boss-loses-legal-battle-over-s... separately it was highly reported that he left death threats on his secretary's answering machine https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-reportedly-threatened-former-assistant-killed-2021-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-... which the company apologised for he's obviously a very shrewd businessman, but my god, you've got to be thick to leave death threats on an answering machine
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darklycan51 3y agoI always get surprised reading hn and seeing comments defending the indefensible, like you could not take 3 seconds out of your time to google all the scandals he's been in?
- benced 3y agoHe won’t continue working after this year, like you said. Microsoft can’t magically make his equity disappear.
- SteveNuts 3y agoI think the problem is the optics of allowing him to continue working a single day after Microsoft takes over. It sends a message that it's okay.
- xinayder 3y agoThe problem was allowing him to keep his job and walk away with a bonus check. This guy should have walked away with nothing instead.
- songbird23 3y agoive never heard of optics being used in context like this
- selimthegrim 3y agoIt is used in the PR sense
- manicennui 3y agoPeople at that level have complicated employment contracts. Getting rid of them without huge downsides isn't always straightforward.
- echelon 3y agoFocusing on one asshole getting undeserved rewards is one thing, but it distracts from the real story. What hurts way more at scale is the increasing monopolistic power of Microsoft Games. That should be the primary focus of everyone's attention. This weakens Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Epic. The consumer. Everyone but Microsoft. Microsoft can give away "experiences" under-cost and sink a lot of human attention into it. That translates to opportunity cost will be spent in the machine rather than distributed economies of innovation.
- xinayder 3y agoI don't know how the authorities were convinced that they won't make ActiBlizz games exclusive. When they acquired Bethesda, a similar concern was brought up. Fast-forward to today, new Bethesda games aren't releasing on Sony consoles. It started with Starfield. TES6 won't release on PS either.
- zuminator 3y agoThere are a ton of Nintendo and Sony exclusives, so to compete on an equal footing eventually Xbox will need some good exclusives as well. If all their premium AAA titles are released on PlayStation, and PlayStation has a ton of premium titles that don't get released on Xbox, why would anyone bother buying an Xbox? You don't have to have any great love for Microsoft to acknowledge that their departure from the console market would restrict consumer choice and hinder console development.
- stale2002 3y agoWell seeing as Microsoft has signed and has offered to sign 10 year deals on not making certain games exclusive, then nobody has to "trust" Microsoft to do anything. Also, you can just look at all the non exclusive games Microsoft has.
- Capricorn2481 3y agoWhile I'm not excited about this, it's hard to really bring up Sony in this context. They have been horrible about exclusives and only recently started putting anything on PC, not to mention they were the reason cross-play was held off on for so long
- e63f67dd-065b 3y agoHe's being rewarded for growing net income roughly a hundred fold between 2010 and now. I think it's fair that he gets a huge chunk of the value he's created for investors.
- xinayder 3y agoHe also got a $200mi bonus shortly after he laid off 200 employees: https://frontofficesports.com/activision-blizzard-ceo-bonus-employee-layoffs/ https://frontofficesports.com/activision-blizzard-ceo-bonus-...
- e63f67dd-065b 3y agoAnd? Laying off 200 employees isn't really that much, Activision-Blizzard employs 17k people after all, and he is creating a lot of value. Boards want to incentivise CEOs to take moonshots -- for institutional investors, a 50% chance to make $100 million is better than a 100% chance to make $30m. Keeping employees around for the sake of keeping them around is just bad business. A 1% layoff isn't a cost cutting exercise, it's just organisational reshuffling. Employee churn is a fact of life, no need to get too hung up over it. The optics might be not great, but that doesn't really matter.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThere is no concept of “fair”. It is just what he and the board ended up negotiating.
- satvikpendem 3y agoIn a market economy, what's negotiated between the parties involved is the true value of that item, so in a way, that is what is fair.
- esotericimpl 3y ago[dead]
- AlexandrB 3y ago
- huytersd 3y agoI’m reading this as he was a regular guy that may have asked some women out a few times given the hyperbole and dissembling around this entire thing.
- deprecative 3y agoBobby is the same dude who left a voicemail threatening to kill an employee.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoTo put into context, he was a close associate of one Jeffery Epstein, and in his book of clients and close associates. Why? Hard to say, Epstein wasn’t really in the games industry. That’s really just the beginning of it, Kotick is quite a prolific pos himself: https://nypost.com/2021/11/16/activision-ceo-threatened-to-have-his-assistant-killed-report/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/16/activision-ceo-threatened-to-h.... And he’s alleged to have covered up sexual assault at the company, which given the Epstein connections… tracks.
- huytersd 3y agoEveryone famous in the 90s in the eastern US was an associate of Epstein. He was a rich famous guy, it’s sort of expected.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoA rich famous guy who was known to be surrounded by underage women at all times, yeah. I'm not exonerating anyone.
- AlexandrB 3y agoI don't understand how this is supposed to exonerate anyone. Many accounts attest to the fact that Epstein's "interests" were hardly a secret. Donald Trump himself alluded[1] to it. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10314430-i-ve-known-jeff-epstein-for-15-years-terrific-guy-he-s https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10314430-i-ve-known-jeff-ep...
- esotericimpl 3y agoI think hes getting rewarded for growing the company by 95x over the past 20 years. As a shareholder since 1999 my cost basis for my shares in ATVI is about $1.11 - Exiting at 95.00. Pretty good return TBH.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI was curious so I looked up the returns on dqdyj, and Aug 1999 to Aug 2023, ATVI’s return was 20.5% per year compared to 7.1% per year for SP500.
- gdulli 3y agoThey essentially announced that he's fired. A standard transition period would be much longer, if they actually wanted him.
- Waterluvian 3y agoHe’s being rewarded for making money. Unfortunately none of what you listed is evaluated by the market.
- deelowe 3y agoHis tenure post acquisition is governed by the acquisition agreement. Microsoft isn't "allowing" anything.
- wfleming 3y agoMS negotiated the agreement. So “allowed” seems like a fair description of the contents of a contract they negotiated and agreed to.
- deelowe 3y agoWithout knowing all the details, I think it's fair to assume this is a fair approach. I'm sure there are all sorts of legal details to work through that make axing him immediately untenable. 3 months seems like a reasonable timeline.
- mrguyorama 3y agoGotta love this "at will employment" for people doing work, and the "leaders" get to be an open and known sex pest and still manage to go home with huge checks. Does Activision not have HR policies? If I sexually harassed my co-workers, you could bet I wouldn't get a golden parachute.
- deelowe 3y agoIf you had a contract? Yes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kcb 3y agoBobby Kotick spent 30 years building Activision from nothing to a company worth $70 billion. If he doesn't deserve some of that $70 billion then who does?
- gainda 3y agohis victims
- AlexandrB 3y agoHis employees that made the actual games?
- huytersd 3y agoWhat an asinine, worthless comment. Yes they get some equity too.
- deprecative 3y agoThe ones that are still there. Let's not pretend like Blizzard, or the games industry broadly, kept their employees around.
- surgical_fire 3y agoThat's typically not how employment works.