4 ms·

Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand this type of comment. It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of

Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand this type of comment. It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off. But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs. Layoffs are awful. They affect lives and families deeply. But all businesses don't go up and to the right forever. Reductions are a necessary part of running competitive companies.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
Why can't the executive taking responsibility also take a pay cut and tighten their belt the way they expect the company to and the people who they've fired do?
ziddoap 2y ago
They say "I take responsibility" and then.. don't take any responsibility. It's insult on injury. How big of a bonus will this CEO get this year? Last year?
- foobarian 2y ago
  Why do people understand this phrase "taking responsibility" as some kind of admitting of fault? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems neutral and could even be referring to positive future outcomes for the company.
  - fwip 2y ago
    Because the context is that 20% of their employees are now unemployed. The tone of the letter is also "this is a hard but necessary choice" and not "this is great news for dropbox!" > As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Because that's what it means to take responsibility. You're saying "I did this, and to the extent that it's a bad thing you can blame me".
- yojo 2y ago
  I think Houston being a cofounder means the financial picture looks different. Last year he made $1.5M in total comp. Which is a lot in absolute terms, but cutting his pay to zero would only allow keeping ~6 of those laid off. OTOH, he owns 25% of a $9B company. His salary is a rounding error compared to the performance of the stock. Not to be an apologist, but I bet Drew really does feel responsible. He’s not professional management, and he always acted like Dropbox was his kid, at least from what I saw working there. I’m sure this feels shitty to him, though it’s obviously worse for the people laid off.
  - fwip 2y ago
    True - it means he could transfer, say, a billion dollars worth of stock to the affected employees and still be a billionaire. If he actually felt all that bad about it, of course.
black_puppydog 2y ago
yeah, taking a personal financial hit on this would go some way to at least pretend to actually have tried preventing it. Not sure about this particular CEO's salary, but I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't finance a few engineers' salaries by cutting the CEO's, without it even hurting very much. Not saying it's enough, not saying that's the only way, but I find it peculiar that this seems to be unthinkable.
Shank 2y ago
> But what would that even look like? > Iwata ran the Kyoto, Japan-based video game company [Nintendo] from 2002 until his death in 2015. To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding. [0] [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-salary-to-prevent-layoffs-why-thats-uncommon.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-sal...
- pizzathyme 2y ago
  This is probably the best answer in terms of what people want to see, that would also still give the company the best leadership going forward.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    If the CEO taking a paycut materially reduces the size of what would otherwise be a large layoff on the basis if reduced cost savings, the CEO was way overpaid to start with. (And it probably doesn't change the number of people the firm can usefully employ under changed conditions, even if it provides cost savings, because the latter is based on whether employing them makes more money than it costs, to which external cost savings are probably mostly irrelevant.)
- voisin 2y ago
  By taking that pay cut, how many employees could Nintendo keep that would otherwise have been fired? 5? 20? Certainly not in the hundreds or thousands. This just seems like virtue signalling. Edit: to expand on my point re virtue signalling: the article states the CEO took a salary cut, not total compensation (and it doesn’t elaborate on the value of the cut). Salary is a small fraction of CEO total compensation - the bulk of which is stock based, and even in the event that stock grants were also cut, the CEO surely already had significant stock. Cutting a relatively small component of compensation in order to boost the stock price which disproportionately adds to the CEO’s personal wealth seems like virtue signalling to me. If the CEO said “shareholders be damned, morale and culture are all that matters in the long run, no layoffs etc etc” that would seem more meaningful.
netsharc 2y ago
Probably: just leave out the full-of-shit sentence... There's an Indonesian joke based on the word "responsibility" which is "tanggung jawab". "Tanggung" in this context means to carry the consequences, and "jawab" is to answer. One can say to a friend "We have to share this responsibility. I'll do the answering, and you'll do the carrying of the consequences."
evoke4908 2y ago
A CEO should not be rewarded for recordbreaking layoffs with recordbreaking pay raises.
growse 2y ago
It's simply pointing out that "I take full responsibility" is empty, meaningless rhetoric and serves no real purpose. It's often offensively insincere.
triceratops 2y ago
> Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward Why? > who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs That's actually a valid point. We don't commonly fire normal employees for mistakes. The counterargument is CEOs aren't normal employees.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Yeah I'm not sure people with compensation well into the millions get to go "haha, sorry, still figuring this out!" Cool, can we pay you intern wages then? [EDIT] To make this a bit more substantive: I think this is a sign both that we need to stop with this whole professional-managerial-class horse-shit, promote people who know how to do the actual work of the business, and reduce exec wages because the job's simply not all that damn special and the comp shouldn't be so high that only godlike-perfect performance could possibly justify it, because in truth nobody's that good at it. Step one of this would be reducing M&A activity (hellooooo antitrust enforcement) and reigning in the power of finance, since letting Wall Street suits put their HBS frat brothers in charge of everything is at the heart of why this stuff's how it is.
  - _dark_matter_ 2y ago
    Preach! The job is straightforward - lot of these decisions they make are very clearly articulated by LLMs. We need more businesses, more competition, not bigger businesses.
marcelsalathe 2y ago
Agreed. But just say that. No need to pretend taking responsibility, which is defined as facing consequences when things go bad. “As CEO, I’m truly sorry to those impacted. But I strongly believe that this change is what is needed now to make sure Dropbox can thrive in the future.”
- pizzathyme 2y ago
  Makes sense. "I take responsibility" conveys that they will also suffer consequences, which isn't true. "I'm the sole person who made this decision" is probably closer what they are trying to say.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tacticalturtle 2y ago
I think a start would be to stop saying the phrase “I take full responsibility for this decision” if you aren’t also publicly taking a pay cut. There’s no need for a CEO to bring themselves and their feelings into the conversation. It’s this weird attempt at empathy that fails, because the CEO isn’t making any sacrifices. Just say that there are layoffs. Most rational people who have been in any business for more than a few years recognize them as an unfortunate part of the business cycle.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
100% agree, but the opposite is what happens. Mass layoffs -- unless the company is actually tanking and on its last leg, which isn't the case with any of the tech companies who have been doing this recently -- cause the share price to rise. CEO pay, or at least bonuses, are often tied to the share price. So a CEO is rewarded instead.
- vundercind 2y ago
  To put salt in the wound, my understanding is the research on elective layoffs (ones that aren't forced by circumstances) indicates the outcomes are mixed at best, leaning negative. So all this crap is just cargo-culting our current management paradigm, and/or execs cooperating to suppress wages and weaken labor, which had gotten a bit too uppity after Covid (that's one thing waves of layoffs like this do accomplish).
vundercind 2y ago
I think it's an outlet for general frustration with the justification for high executive compensation (and returns on capital, for that matter) often being "they have much more responsibility and risk" when the actual downside is typically nonexistent, and even if there are consequences, the outcome is something like "LOL still richer than any ten of you combined will ever be", i.e. the "risk" is all fake.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > "they have much more responsibility and risk" Perhaps you've misinterpreted that statement? It is the board that takes on greater risk with executives as compared to other employees. The executives are given the keys to the kingdom, which means only an exceedingly small group of trusted individuals can be considered for the job. By the transitive properties of supply and demand, when supply is limited, price goes up.
  - galactus 2y ago
    The thing is, high executives have become a self-perpetuating class entrenched in corporate boards, this is the reason CEOs comoensation keeps skyrocketing, not supply and demand. And this entrenchment obviously also stifles accountability.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      How does this self-perpetuating entrenchment not become a factor in what establishes the supply and demand, instead managing to exist as something off to the side?
mv4 2y ago
Yes, sometimes reductions are necessary. However, layoffs isn't the only way to reduce variable costs.
lr4444lr 2y ago
> It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off. No - as a consequence of poorly planning cost controls. It's not that the people don't need to be laid off for the health of the company, but that the executives who made the bad decisions don't get the boot along with them, in favor of more cautious or frugal leaders.
lm28469 2y ago
> But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs. Well they're the one asking to "take responsibility" here, the fact that they claim responsibility yet nothing happens is exactly why people don't like this phrasing. Also who the fuck else can be responsible anyways ? The cook ? The guy who mops the fucking floor ?
Eric_WVGG 2y ago
Yeah that opinion is unpopular because it's deeply stupid. “you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs” or you would maybe get a better decision maker who didn't have to layoff — or hire unnecessary — workers in the first place? Ridiculous speculation. Responsibility without consequences just means failing upward. That's why we have a gilded executive class of people who are barely qualified to run a local Taco Bell franchise.
fullshark 2y ago
The point is words mean nothing from the C-suite, and are just tools to accomplish whatever labor/public relation goals they have.
a0123 2y ago
"Unpopular opinion", sure, how brave of you. Simple: they sure love to talk a big game about responsibilities and taking responsibilities. Until it's time to actually do it. For the good of the company of course (if the company is in such dire straits, as the most highly paid employee - and probably not the hardest working one - why don't you take a big pay cut? For the good of the company of course). That's what people don't take well. It's amazing this still has to be explained.
zo1 2y ago
It's the grey goo of manager-speak. It rides both sides, but never truly picks one. The other two options: blame employees(someone not you), or take some form of punishment as an individual. I too do it sometimes, and I feel bad each time. I at least tell people what it is and that it's just the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna commit career suicide and jeopardize my family's livelihood but I also won't blame them. So I follow the meaningless middle road where the status quo mostly stays and we all at least learn from it.
- fwip 2y ago
  Ah, you're only going to endanger the livelihood of your employees' families, most of whom have substantially less wealth than you. I bet the rest of your employees don't really care that you "feel bad." At least they learned not to trust you, though.
  - zo1 2y ago
    I'm not responding in the context of layoffs nor have I fired people because of my mistakes luckily. That's a different story, and I was trying to explain to OP my take on it.
    - fwip 2y ago
      I'm glad to hear that, I apologize for misunderstanding.
hshshshshsh 2y ago
You can make money by either reducing head count or coming up with plans that involves generating more money with existing workforce. Obviously you as a CEO failed at doing second. Now question is do you fire yourself and try to get a better CEO or you choose to fire 20% and generate more profits. If it's up to the workforce they probably choose to fire CEO. But if it's upto the CEO he choose to fire the 20%.
rurp 2y ago
Taking a hit on their giant salary seems completely reasonable to me. Having skin in the game makes people perform better in all sorts of cases, and I don't see why a CEO would be different. Do you also object to sales reps or athletes making less money after a long period of performing poorly?
consteval 2y ago
> It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off Um... yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I want. I used to work at a Dairy Queen. One dude there had been working there for a couple years. Unfortunately, one shift his drawer came up a dollar short. Our cutoff was 5 cents - a nickel - over or under. He was immediately terminated, of course. He cost the company one dollar. A Dairy Queen cashier making minimum wage is held to a higher standard of accountability.
mrthrowaway999 2y ago
People come in two flavors: conflict theorists and mistake theorists. Conflict theorists think that every event is a result of power struggler. So if someone gets hurt, someone must be punished for that. Mistake theorists think that the world is complex and sometimes bad stuff happens because most people operate with good intentions most of the time. Often, that means no punishment needs to be metted out. To mistake theorists, conflict theorists look like ideological blood thirsty savages. To conflict theorists, mistake theorists look like enemy troops. This is a gross oversimplification but it always shocks me to see how much more conflict theorists there are on hn now than before. So many comments here blaming the CEO or capitalism, most of which are going off extremely scant information.

aprilthird2021 2y ago

Why can't the executive taking responsibility also take a pay cut and tighten their belt the way they expect the company to and the people who they've fired do?

ziddoap 2y ago

They say "I take responsibility" and then.. don't take any responsibility. It's insult on injury. How big of a bonus will this CEO get this year? Last year?

foobarian 2y ago
Why do people understand this phrase "taking responsibility" as some kind of admitting of fault? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems neutral and could even be referring to positive future outcomes for the company.
- fwip 2y ago
  Because the context is that 20% of their employees are now unemployed. The tone of the letter is also "this is a hard but necessary choice" and not "this is great news for dropbox!" > As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Because that's what it means to take responsibility. You're saying "I did this, and to the extent that it's a bad thing you can blame me".
yojo 2y ago
I think Houston being a cofounder means the financial picture looks different. Last year he made $1.5M in total comp. Which is a lot in absolute terms, but cutting his pay to zero would only allow keeping ~6 of those laid off. OTOH, he owns 25% of a $9B company. His salary is a rounding error compared to the performance of the stock. Not to be an apologist, but I bet Drew really does feel responsible. He’s not professional management, and he always acted like Dropbox was his kid, at least from what I saw working there. I’m sure this feels shitty to him, though it’s obviously worse for the people laid off.
- fwip 2y ago
  True - it means he could transfer, say, a billion dollars worth of stock to the affected employees and still be a billionaire. If he actually felt all that bad about it, of course.

black_puppydog 2y ago

yeah, taking a personal financial hit on this would go some way to at least pretend to actually have tried preventing it. Not sure about this particular CEO's salary, but I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't finance a few engineers' salaries by cutting the CEO's, without it even hurting very much. Not saying it's enough, not saying that's the only way, but I find it peculiar that this seems to be unthinkable.

Shank 2y ago

> But what would that even look like? > Iwata ran the Kyoto, Japan-based video game company [Nintendo] from 2002 until his death in 2015. To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding. [0] [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-salary-to-prevent-layoffs-why-thats-uncommon.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-sal...

pizzathyme 2y ago
This is probably the best answer in terms of what people want to see, that would also still give the company the best leadership going forward.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  If the CEO taking a paycut materially reduces the size of what would otherwise be a large layoff on the basis if reduced cost savings, the CEO was way overpaid to start with. (And it probably doesn't change the number of people the firm can usefully employ under changed conditions, even if it provides cost savings, because the latter is based on whether employing them makes more money than it costs, to which external cost savings are probably mostly irrelevant.)
voisin 2y ago
By taking that pay cut, how many employees could Nintendo keep that would otherwise have been fired? 5? 20? Certainly not in the hundreds or thousands. This just seems like virtue signalling. Edit: to expand on my point re virtue signalling: the article states the CEO took a salary cut, not total compensation (and it doesn’t elaborate on the value of the cut). Salary is a small fraction of CEO total compensation - the bulk of which is stock based, and even in the event that stock grants were also cut, the CEO surely already had significant stock. Cutting a relatively small component of compensation in order to boost the stock price which disproportionately adds to the CEO’s personal wealth seems like virtue signalling to me. If the CEO said “shareholders be damned, morale and culture are all that matters in the long run, no layoffs etc etc” that would seem more meaningful.

netsharc 2y ago

Probably: just leave out the full-of-shit sentence... There's an Indonesian joke based on the word "responsibility" which is "tanggung jawab". "Tanggung" in this context means to carry the consequences, and "jawab" is to answer. One can say to a friend "We have to share this responsibility. I'll do the answering, and you'll do the carrying of the consequences."

evoke4908 2y ago

A CEO should not be rewarded for recordbreaking layoffs with recordbreaking pay raises.

growse 2y ago

It's simply pointing out that "I take full responsibility" is empty, meaningless rhetoric and serves no real purpose. It's often offensively insincere.

triceratops 2y ago

> Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward Why? > who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs That's actually a valid point. We don't commonly fire normal employees for mistakes. The counterargument is CEOs aren't normal employees.

vundercind 2y ago
Yeah I'm not sure people with compensation well into the millions get to go "haha, sorry, still figuring this out!" Cool, can we pay you intern wages then? [EDIT] To make this a bit more substantive: I think this is a sign both that we need to stop with this whole professional-managerial-class horse-shit, promote people who know how to do the actual work of the business, and reduce exec wages because the job's simply not all that damn special and the comp shouldn't be so high that only godlike-perfect performance could possibly justify it, because in truth nobody's that good at it. Step one of this would be reducing M&A activity (hellooooo antitrust enforcement) and reigning in the power of finance, since letting Wall Street suits put their HBS frat brothers in charge of everything is at the heart of why this stuff's how it is.
- _dark_matter_ 2y ago
  Preach! The job is straightforward - lot of these decisions they make are very clearly articulated by LLMs. We need more businesses, more competition, not bigger businesses.

marcelsalathe 2y ago

Agreed. But just say that. No need to pretend taking responsibility, which is defined as facing consequences when things go bad. “As CEO, I’m truly sorry to those impacted. But I strongly believe that this change is what is needed now to make sure Dropbox can thrive in the future.”

pizzathyme 2y ago
Makes sense. "I take responsibility" conveys that they will also suffer consequences, which isn't true. "I'm the sole person who made this decision" is probably closer what they are trying to say.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tacticalturtle 2y ago

I think a start would be to stop saying the phrase “I take full responsibility for this decision” if you aren’t also publicly taking a pay cut. There’s no need for a CEO to bring themselves and their feelings into the conversation. It’s this weird attempt at empathy that fails, because the CEO isn’t making any sacrifices. Just say that there are layoffs. Most rational people who have been in any business for more than a few years recognize them as an unfortunate part of the business cycle.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

100% agree, but the opposite is what happens. Mass layoffs -- unless the company is actually tanking and on its last leg, which isn't the case with any of the tech companies who have been doing this recently -- cause the share price to rise. CEO pay, or at least bonuses, are often tied to the share price. So a CEO is rewarded instead.

vundercind 2y ago
To put salt in the wound, my understanding is the research on elective layoffs (ones that aren't forced by circumstances) indicates the outcomes are mixed at best, leaning negative. So all this crap is just cargo-culting our current management paradigm, and/or execs cooperating to suppress wages and weaken labor, which had gotten a bit too uppity after Covid (that's one thing waves of layoffs like this do accomplish).

vundercind 2y ago

I think it's an outlet for general frustration with the justification for high executive compensation (and returns on capital, for that matter) often being "they have much more responsibility and risk" when the actual downside is typically nonexistent, and even if there are consequences, the outcome is something like "LOL still richer than any ten of you combined will ever be", i.e. the "risk" is all fake.

randomdata 2y ago
> "they have much more responsibility and risk" Perhaps you've misinterpreted that statement? It is the board that takes on greater risk with executives as compared to other employees. The executives are given the keys to the kingdom, which means only an exceedingly small group of trusted individuals can be considered for the job. By the transitive properties of supply and demand, when supply is limited, price goes up.
- galactus 2y ago
  The thing is, high executives have become a self-perpetuating class entrenched in corporate boards, this is the reason CEOs comoensation keeps skyrocketing, not supply and demand. And this entrenchment obviously also stifles accountability.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    How does this self-perpetuating entrenchment not become a factor in what establishes the supply and demand, instead managing to exist as something off to the side?

mv4 2y ago

Yes, sometimes reductions are necessary. However, layoffs isn't the only way to reduce variable costs.

lr4444lr 2y ago

> It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off. No - as a consequence of poorly planning cost controls. It's not that the people don't need to be laid off for the health of the company, but that the executives who made the bad decisions don't get the boot along with them, in favor of more cautious or frugal leaders.

lm28469 2y ago

> But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs. Well they're the one asking to "take responsibility" here, the fact that they claim responsibility yet nothing happens is exactly why people don't like this phrasing. Also who the fuck else can be responsible anyways ? The cook ? The guy who mops the fucking floor ?

Eric_WVGG 2y ago

Yeah that opinion is unpopular because it's deeply stupid. “you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver seat going forward, who also didn't learn from experience of going through layoffs” or you would maybe get a better decision maker who didn't have to layoff — or hire unnecessary — workers in the first place? Ridiculous speculation. Responsibility without consequences just means failing upward. That's why we have a gilded executive class of people who are barely qualified to run a local Taco Bell franchise.

fullshark 2y ago

The point is words mean nothing from the C-suite, and are just tools to accomplish whatever labor/public relation goals they have.

a0123 2y ago

"Unpopular opinion", sure, how brave of you. Simple: they sure love to talk a big game about responsibilities and taking responsibilities. Until it's time to actually do it. For the good of the company of course (if the company is in such dire straits, as the most highly paid employee - and probably not the hardest working one - why don't you take a big pay cut? For the good of the company of course). That's what people don't take well. It's amazing this still has to be explained.

zo1 2y ago

It's the grey goo of manager-speak. It rides both sides, but never truly picks one. The other two options: blame employees(someone not you), or take some form of punishment as an individual. I too do it sometimes, and I feel bad each time. I at least tell people what it is and that it's just the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna commit career suicide and jeopardize my family's livelihood but I also won't blame them. So I follow the meaningless middle road where the status quo mostly stays and we all at least learn from it.

fwip 2y ago
Ah, you're only going to endanger the livelihood of your employees' families, most of whom have substantially less wealth than you. I bet the rest of your employees don't really care that you "feel bad." At least they learned not to trust you, though.
- zo1 2y ago
  I'm not responding in the context of layoffs nor have I fired people because of my mistakes luckily. That's a different story, and I was trying to explain to OP my take on it.
  - fwip 2y ago
    I'm glad to hear that, I apologize for misunderstanding.

hshshshshsh 2y ago

You can make money by either reducing head count or coming up with plans that involves generating more money with existing workforce. Obviously you as a CEO failed at doing second. Now question is do you fire yourself and try to get a better CEO or you choose to fire 20% and generate more profits. If it's up to the workforce they probably choose to fire CEO. But if it's upto the CEO he choose to fire the 20%.

rurp 2y ago

Taking a hit on their giant salary seems completely reasonable to me. Having skin in the game makes people perform better in all sorts of cases, and I don't see why a CEO would be different. Do you also object to sales reps or athletes making less money after a long period of performing poorly?

consteval 2y ago

> It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off Um... yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I want. I used to work at a Dairy Queen. One dude there had been working there for a couple years. Unfortunately, one shift his drawer came up a dollar short. Our cutoff was 5 cents - a nickel - over or under. He was immediately terminated, of course. He cost the company one dollar. A Dairy Queen cashier making minimum wage is held to a higher standard of accountability.

mrthrowaway999 2y ago

People come in two flavors: conflict theorists and mistake theorists. Conflict theorists think that every event is a result of power struggler. So if someone gets hurt, someone must be punished for that. Mistake theorists think that the world is complex and sometimes bad stuff happens because most people operate with good intentions most of the time. Often, that means no punishment needs to be metted out. To mistake theorists, conflict theorists look like ideological blood thirsty savages. To conflict theorists, mistake theorists look like enemy troops. This is a gross oversimplification but it always shocks me to see how much more conflict theorists there are on hn now than before. So many comments here blaming the CEO or capitalism, most of which are going off extremely scant information.