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And this guy is the gold standard for accountability based on these comments. Whoever pressured him to resign I think is making a mistake. Bugs happen, and he'

by Spivak 2y ago

And this guy is the gold standard for accountability based on these comments. Whoever pressured him to resign I think is making a mistake. Bugs happen, and he's doing exactly what's expected of a leader in this situation. Anyone who thinks "this incident is personally my fault because I didn't read every line of code the devs who work for me wrote, and for this dishonor I am now unfit to lead" is a sane reaction to these events is not living the blameless postmortem life.

fizx 2y ago
Seems like he fell on his own sword.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  It's always the way. The people with honour tend to hold themselves to a high standard, and step back when they find they do not meet it. Their replacements are either the same in this regard, or they're not. Captains used to go down with their ships. In most organisations, this is no longer the case, because we lost all the captains willing to do so, without replacement. Resigning when you fail to prevent an incident rarely helps, directly. But it's not something the power-hungry do, unless forced (and if they expect to be forced, they will try to cover things up). It rarely fails to win my respect. As a move in a social game, I suspect that the general strategy "resign when an unacceptable failure has occurred" makes things better, overall, even if it doesn't directly benefit the organisation you're leaving. (I'm not sure whether this applies when you don't expect that your replacement feels the same way about duty.)
hackernewds 2y ago
maybe he resigned on his own volition or they found systematic issues pertinent to him? either speculation is likely, unless you have counter evidence
- braiamp 2y ago
  He explicitly expressed that he's taking the knife for the DigiCert failures. There's no need to speculate further than that.
czbond 2y ago
Last I looked, a CISO's tenure was only 3-5 years (I'm being generous) because the stress is incredible and you end up being responsible to every other CxO in the company. You have much power, but little as well because every department claims security is the reason their projects are delayed - or if they move quickly and there is an issue, they point back at CISO.
hackernewds 2y ago
see here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177521 that it were self initiated

by Spivak 2y ago

fizx 2y ago

Seems like he fell on his own sword.

wizzwizz4 2y ago
It's always the way. The people with honour tend to hold themselves to a high standard, and step back when they find they do not meet it. Their replacements are either the same in this regard, or they're not. Captains used to go down with their ships. In most organisations, this is no longer the case, because we lost all the captains willing to do so, without replacement. Resigning when you fail to prevent an incident rarely helps, directly. But it's not something the power-hungry do, unless forced (and if they expect to be forced, they will try to cover things up). It rarely fails to win my respect. As a move in a social game, I suspect that the general strategy "resign when an unacceptable failure has occurred" makes things better, overall, even if it doesn't directly benefit the organisation you're leaving. (I'm not sure whether this applies when you don't expect that your replacement feels the same way about duty.)

hackernewds 2y ago

maybe he resigned on his own volition or they found systematic issues pertinent to him? either speculation is likely, unless you have counter evidence

braiamp 2y ago
He explicitly expressed that he's taking the knife for the DigiCert failures. There's no need to speculate further than that.

czbond 2y ago

Last I looked, a CISO's tenure was only 3-5 years (I'm being generous) because the stress is incredible and you end up being responsible to every other CxO in the company. You have much power, but little as well because every department claims security is the reason their projects are delayed - or if they move quickly and there is an issue, they point back at CISO.

hackernewds 2y ago

see here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177521 that it were self initiated