"They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company."

"They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company." Doesn't explain why one person is still an employee while the other gentleman was canned. "It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them." I strongly suspect this happened, given the comment in the PlayHaven response: "we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 EDIT: clarifying that one person was not fired.