Errrr... I'm not really getting the tenor of many of the comments here. For one, look at what he isn't saying. But start with what we know. He is being fired

Errrr... I'm not really getting the tenor of many of the comments here. For one, look at what he isn't saying. But start with what we know. He is being fired. That means he isn't leaving by choice, and most likely doesn't want to be leaving at all. He is the CEO, and the CEO takes responsibility for the company's failures. Them's the rules of the game, for any leadership role. He is saying no more than that. In particular, he never says he was wrong. He says he failed to continue being the successful CEO of this particular company. In fact, he somewhat obscurely implied that his intuition was right when what the company did turned out to be wrong. Why do you think the company did those things then? Did he tell it to, or did he lose the battle? This letter was not written to us. It was written to the people at his company. People who are important to him. Which means it probably wasn't written for us either. The speculation that this is wholly a calculated move seem BS to me. All that is just pointing out the known facts and suggesting likely deductions. More speculatively, I'd like to share my interpretation of the tone of the letter: He's pissed. He's pissed but doesn't want to show it. He is staying well in control, writing a decent letter that puts something of himself into it but not too much, not enough to lose face or stir up conflict that could only harm the ones left behind. He's trying to bow out gracefully without capitulating, and I think he did a decent job of it. But this is no "wow, this guy is awesome, I bet he's learned some great lessons and I'd be stoked at the chance to work with him" letter. It's adequate, mainly admirable for hitting just the right level of adequacy when you know the guy probably wants to scream and rip someone or something's head off. He just got fired, dammit!