11 ms·

Listen to AOL’s CEO Fire Employee in Conference Call With 1,000 people

157 points by wikiburner 13y ago

ForrestN 13y ago
I would leave that company immediately if I worked there. This isn't a TV show. You don't fire people that coldly and abruptly regardless of the circumstances, especially not in public.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > This isn't a TV show. rdtsc's law of failing large companies: "a large enough failing company, with a power crazy CEO is indistinguishable from a TV show"
  - charlieflowers 13y ago
    Well done! And especially true in this age of reality TV. Let me add my own bastardized quote: "We're a race so primitive that we still think reality TV is a pretty neat idea."
mcot2 13y ago
I used to work for a high level executive that would throw around the words "you're fired" as a joke sometimes during all hands meetings. The fact is, using those words on someone in public (joke or not) is embarrsing and cringeworthy for all. I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. More times then not, those words are a sign to run away as fast as possible. This guy is a joke and his product is a joke.
- kyllo 13y ago
  Never been a fan of power trip humor. If you actually have the authority to fire someone, you should never ever say "you're fired" to them, even as a joke, unless you are actually firing them, and that should be done in private.
  - mcot2 13y ago
    Well this guy was in a league of his own. He openly made jokes about a fellow employees lazy eye in public and once made a semi-racist off color joke to begin another all-hands. I'm pretty sure he was left off of the investor quarterly calls for being such a loose cannon. Amazingly enough he left on his own and didn't have any openly public HR complaints or lawsuits against him.
    - jpalioto 13y ago
      Last season of the Office was awesome, wasn't it?
  - haberman 13y ago
    Yeah I think this is covered in the very first episode of The Office: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSibGV5Y_WA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSibGV5Y_WA
  - jfoster 13y ago
    And even in private there are Mich better ways of saying it. "You're fired" is unnecessarily hostile.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Sometimes my former boss would tell me I was fired if I made a bad joke when we were out drinking . . . but in general, I agree that it should not be done if there is any ambiguity at all in the situation.
- bane 13y ago
  > I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. Yes the old "we only want true believers here", people you can abuse endlessly and treat like animals.
- troymc 13y ago
  This reminds me of a character… "The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
- jasey 13y ago
  Ok so a guy named "lenz" got fired for taking a "photo" from a product team at AOL that nobody had herd of and now theres free bad/good? publicity all over the media. If this does turn out to be a joke its one of the best publicity stunts in history. Of-course if it is not a joke/stunt. All the best to Lenz
- goingtogetit 13y ago
  > I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. I'm going to get this speech in about 48 hours (flying to HQ at the moment). What's your advice?
  - nick2021 13y ago
    I don't see your boss saying this to you unless you are valued as a dime-a-dozen pizza maker. If you love your job and/or are making what your worth then stay, otherwise it sounds like you could do better.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Leave.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Work on your resume on the flight? It's not an actionable speech, it just gives you insight into the current state of the company. When leadership feels this needs to be said, there aren't many good things it can be a sign of.
  - hef19898 13y ago
    As hard as it is, leaving in the mid-term may be the best option. i can only talk for myself, but when my supperior doesn't think I'm on board I can't go "on board" or fake it realistacally. Well, I can long enough to find something better. For the meeting itself, not so easy. Part one: Come up with a plan for the meeting. Best if you know what "on board" means and come up with some believable actions or things you can do in the future showing you ARE. Find some explanations why you were not in the past, even if it means to only find expalnations why your boss thinks you're not "on board". Maybe you even know what kind of agenda your boss has for himself, this adds a lot of usefull context to the points mentioned above. Part two: Use the time you bought yourself to find something better elsewhere. There are people that can addopt enough and get "on board" (whatever that really means), but I'm none of those. In cases like this, it's all about how a situation is percieved and not how it really is. Hope it helped a little bit. And even if it's not easy, don't worry or even panic, stay calm and polite. Be prepared, but don't argue any points before they are brought up by someone else. Disclaimer: Had one meeting like that myself, came up with a defense a couple of weeks later, left 4 months later. Teached me to be prepared for meetings like this.
- qwerta 13y ago
  >"you're fired" as a joke sometimes There was case like that in Germany. But the guy accepted and company had to pay him three month salary for compensation. He was 'hired' back after couple of days of holiday.
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computer 13y ago
I doubt that this call and the exchange that we're shown is all that there's to it. Having said that, if you're on a conference call and you say such a thing without context, you can expect it to get interpreted in ways it might not have been meant.
- ivanbrussik 13y ago
  I jumped into another thread and said this already - the guy that was fired was responsible for a poor UX that was hated amongst all and ended up failing.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  So that was fun. I guess I'll move on to the next contextless story.
oh_sigh 13y ago
:yawn: Who cares what AOL is doing?
- jmduke 13y ago
  AOL staffs around 5500 employees, posts incomes of around $2.5 billion, and owns -- amongst other things -- TechCrunch and HuffPo. If you don't think they're an important company, I suggest you talk to more people who are outside of the tech industry.
- recursive 13y ago
  Not you, I take it. Thanks for sharing.
temphn 13y ago
Sounds bad. But almost certainly was not simply a spur of the moment decision, but rather that Lenz was on the list of people to be fired later in the day and had done things that Armstrong knew about (like leaking Patch information). Still bad to do it like that on a call where people are getting fired for real, but this gives some context. http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-appeared-to-fire-this-man-in-front-of-1000-coworkers-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-appeare... A few minutes later, Armstrong complained about leaks to the media. He said the leaks were making Patch seem like "loser-ville" in the press. He said, "That's why Abel was fired." "We can't have people that are in the locker room giving the game plan away."
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  From the recording in the article (@ 1:15) "I also want to clear up the fact that leaking information or anything around Patch isn't going to bother me. Doesn't bother me. I'm not changing direction." So what you're saying is, Armstrong also gives inconsistent directions to his employees?
  - kolinko 13y ago
    "Won't bother me", meaning "won't stop me". It still hurts the team/the project and is considered an offence.
    - rgbrenner 13y ago
      That's certainly one way of interpreting his statement, and I agree with you that it's an offense to the team.. but.. I don't think it exactly helps Armstrong if instead of giving inconsistent direction.. he instead gives unclear and ambiguous directions. He's the CEO.. he should be able to communicate consistently and clearly.
- anthonyb 13y ago
  Except that in the call, he specifically says that he doesn't care about leaks. Which is it?
juanbyrge 13y ago
What an awkward time to take photos. My company was interviewing a candidate once. He was spectacular during the interview, but then he stared taking pictures of our office and our employees, which made us all uncomfortable, and that's the only reason we did not offer him a job. What may seem like normal behavior to one person may be offensive or intrusive to someone else.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  In this case, the guy had just rambled on for some time about how he didn't care if anything "leaked." If I were inclined to take photos, his earlier words in the recording might well have sounded like permission.
- gojomo 13y ago
  Except: it came right after Armstrong talking about not being bothered by "leaking information". And that according to Business Insider, this same employee "always" took photos during meetings/conference-calls, for internal publishing. It's possible that in the stressful moment, with his mind on the "you're with the plan or should leave" theme, Armstrong misread or overreacted to the photo-taking. (Perhaps even, the "you're fired" was a reaction to a momentary facial expression from the photographer, in reaction to the first "put that camera down" command.) Or maybe there's a history, and Armstrong already viewed the employee as insufficiently serious about Patch. Either way, an odd occurrence.
- tga_d 13y ago
  This was considered normal behavior. "We hear that Lenz, based in New York, would always take pictures of people talking on company-wide conference calls so that he could post them on Patch's internal news site." http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-audio-listen-to-aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-fire-a-patch-employee-snapping-a-photo-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-audio-listen-to-aol-ce...
- colmvp 13y ago
  I couldn't disagree more. Your anecdote and this situation are completely different.
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zw123456 13y ago
It does not matter what the circumstances, to fire someone in any sort of public setting is a since of profound ineptitude and immaturity. I was surprised that AoL even still exists, I do not know who this person is, but if he is in charge of AOL then it is only a matter of time before it is no longer in existence.
bvssatish 13y ago
- The tone of "Arrogance" is striking. - Ahh "Humility" is such a wise trait.
rdtsc 13y ago
"We spent 100s of millions of dollars the board is committed, I am committed" Choo-choo, everyone jump on the fail train. No really, this is what is wrong with big companies. They pick a failed direction and they can't stop. It is a giant rusty ship heading to its grave, the captain waving his big dick around "Doesn't matter what everyone says, this will be successful!" I think most people there know it is failure that is why the explicit warning not to joke about it (there is probably enough of that to warrant that comment). Critics who don't believe in the failed cause are pushed out as non-team players. It leaves the desperate and the brainwashed. ... Yes, patch will be the next Facebook if you just work an extra night no matter if your daughter fell of the stairs and broke her leg.
- anthonyb 13y ago
  Well, this is the first I've heard of Patch, so I went and had a look at http://www.patch.com/ http://www.patch.com/ ... Er, is this supposed to be a news site? There's not a lot of actual news, but I can go and see what's happening at "Propwash Junction". Which isn't actually a real place but a Disney ad. Real news is at least two clicks deep. Doomed!
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    It is supposed to be local news. As in stuff from your local small town. I did use it once. There was a hostage situation in my small town and somehow a Patch page ended up with some coverage of the event.
  - bs9 13y ago
    The problem is local news on a large scale means finding thousands of people who for some reason want to write for pennies about what's happening locally. On top of that advertising isn't exactly easy to get. When Patch first came around they also looked at gaining traffic from an SEO perspective for local queries but as algorithms changed their organic traffic plummeted.
  - dionidium 13y ago
    This, for example, is basically a press release, although it doesn't say that. Instead, it claims that it's a contribution from a "community member": AT&T Network Enhancements Strengthen Nation's Fastest, Most Reliable 4G LTE Network in St. Louis http://chesterfield.patch.com/groups/stl-tech-news/p/att-network-enhancements-strengthen-nations-fastest-most-reliable-4g-lte-network-in-st-louis http://chesterfield.patch.com/groups/stl-tech-news/p/att-net...
kumarski 13y ago
I'm curious. For those of you who have lead and managed teams of 100 or more, would you ever resort to firing someone spontaneously in front of their peers?
- sbarre 13y ago
  Never, not even in front of a team of 10, or 5.. If you have to let someone go, you do it in private.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    How about if you're a psychotic asshole looking to spread terror in order to quell opposition? Random violence is a staple of terrorist tactics, and random firings is certainly comparable.
    - kbatten 13y ago
      Someone like that needs help, not a firing in front of everyone on the planet.
      - joseph_cooney 13y ago
        I think the CEO is the random asshole, not the person being fired.
  - kumarski 13y ago
    That's how I feel about it too.
- drill_sarge 13y ago
  It is not even possible here to "fire" someone at your will and immediately when this person has a job contract. Also I almost forgot about AOL. What were they doing in the last 10 years? I only remember they threw their "AOL Internet CDs" in every mailbox.
  - 13y ago
ja27 13y ago
I think anyone that survived the dotcom boom and crash has stories like this. Pud's F-ed Company was full of them. We had the meeting where only half the company was invited and the half that wasn't invited was let go. We had the VP that found out he was let go when his card key stopped working in the middle of the day. We had the employee lock himself in the office and refuse to leave. We had the contractor that was "let go" that laughed and just kept showing up for work. My boss that "let him go" was fired 3 weeks later. We had the guys that were let go but slipped through the cracks and nobody told them until HR sent them a packet. I saw the CEO fly into town just to fire my boss but she panicked and left before he got to the office and refused to answer her phones. Most of us kept all of our stuff packed in cardboard boxes, ready to walk out the door or change offices whenever people left. One friend kept a wall of ex-employee nameplates in his cube. The day I quit, I handed him my nameplate on my way to meet with my boss to resign, so everyone else knew by the time I walked out of his office. The winners were two I didn't get to see. In some customer crisis, we hired a new guy with some special expertise on a platform and put him on a plane somewhere with a VP / Director of Development. They start talking on the plane and by the end of the flight, the VP realized he was so full of crap that he fired him, told him to not even leave the airport and go rebook his return flight back home. The same VP hired another new guy but on his first day he went to lunch with other developers and somewhat joked about how he realized that it isn't what you do but what they think you do that gets you ahead in this business. He was fired 30 minutes after lunch.
- recroad 13y ago
  Amazing. Please start a blog and post more stuff like this.
  - andreipop 13y ago
    I second this.
    - caycep 13y ago
      for some reason this whole thread reminds me of that SNL skit with Donald Trump and Jimmy Fallon. "Jimmy, you're fired."
sbarre 13y ago
I wonder if this was a publicity stunt to get people to go check out patch.com? I'm only half-kidding.. I had never heard of it before, and I went to look at it after reading the article. Anyone else? I'm not an American so I'm not in the target market, but a lot of these kinds of sites live and die by early adopters and tech influencers who start using them and advocate to their networks.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  Crossed my mind. I sure went and checked it out. I've used it once by accident and didn't know it as AOL. But, if anything, this just made it worse. Now it has a bloodstain on it. So if it was meant to be a publicity stunt, it sure as hell backfired. But then again, if they were good at marketing and publicity stunts, they probably wouldn't be firing people on the spot or extolling how great it is for employees to sacrifice their nights and weekends for the cause even after their children break their legs falling off the stairs.
dbecker 13y ago
If Aol is still making most of its revenue by charging monthly fees to people who have forgotten it exists, I find that more reprehensible than anything on this call... and I'd be happy to see them go out of business.
- trimbo 13y ago
  Yup, looks like most of their revenue is still from subscription: http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=quarterlyearnings http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=quarterlyearnings
- kolinko 13y ago
  I don't know about their profit structure right now, but I think they've been moving away from this for quite a some time. It bought Techcrunch, among other things.
  - oijaf888 13y ago
    They've been trying, and I believe most of their traffic is from acquisitions but all of their money/revenue is from old subscriptions. I think if you look at their financials, they actually lose money on ever part of the business except the old subscriptions.
  - drill_sarge 13y ago
    I can't wrap my head around how you can still have an aol dial-up subscription in 2013.
    - grkvlt 13y ago
      Except AOL provide high-speed broadband subscriptions now, just like all other ISPs...
      - drill_sarge 13y ago
        I can't find anything about offering broadband directly from aol here: http://get.aol.com/plans/index.php?regtype=client&offergrp=webreg http://get.aol.com/plans/index.php?regtype=client&offergrp=w... Only some crappy "security" software for broadband users (I wouldn't call their subscription model for broadband users scam buts it is a bit shady to take 12 bucks a month for some discount coupons and "$750 Extended Computer Protection"). they seem to offer only 56k dial-up service. ?
pavanred 13y ago
To me this is just arrogance and probably even irresponsible. If I employed someone in my company and if I could fire the person at a moments notice, then I believe the employee and his skills were not leveraged to the benefit of the company in the first place. I agree company's shouldn't create exclusive dependencies with employees but if nothing is affected by letting an employee go suddenly or if the employer didn't have to think twice before doing so, then the employee probably wasn't needed in the first place. Both the company and the employee should be invested in each other in terms of skill, effort, time and compensation. Not to mention that you just burned a bridge that you didn't have to.
fsck--off 13y ago
A quote from the Business Insider article linked to in this thread: This source tells us that Lenz always took photos at Patch all-hands meetings. He would later post them to Patch's internal news site. There isn't enough background to understand why this happened. AOL may have a clause in their employee contracts that makes picture taking at certain meetings a "firing offense". The source says that Lenz "always took photos", but it's possible that Lenz might have been warned not to take any more photos at meetings. Lenz's silence about the matter is also ambiguous. Nevertheless it is odd that an employee was fired for taking pictures of a meeting when the audio was leaked to the media.
- wikiburner 13y ago
  His silence could easily have something to do with a non-disparagement clause in his severance. I'm sure they are giving him a decent one (assuming this whole situation can be taken at face value) in order to mitigate this wave of bad press.
- Shank 13y ago
  I kinda wonder if the silence was a "shock and awe" one or if the call was muted or something on their end. I don't see why that wouldn't warrant at least a small reaction that would be audible over the call.
icedog 13y ago
I wonder if TechCrunch will post this story...
mylorse 13y ago
Relevant older post from a different source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195996
cyanbane 13y ago
I have on occasion used Patch (I live about 30 miles outside a metro area on the border of suburb vs farming land). I don't read the site, but instead read a twitter feed of the local corespondent. She happens to be fairly good at filtering good community news. I'll be keeping her in my twitter stream (assuming she isn't let go) but I will think about that recording every time I start to click a link to patch.com from her feed or anywhere. I will probably just query the main terms from her tweets in a Google news search from here on out if I want to know more. Somethings should be handled privately even when the opportunity may be presented publicly. There is no value to any point that was presented by firing someone in that manner.
sciguy77 13y ago
AOL is still a thing?
negamax 13y ago
I am getting lots of AOL job ads on linkedin for my location and expertise. Won't be applying there in a hurry
beedogs 13y ago
Gotta love right-to-work, eh?
tvladeck 13y ago
Off topic, but if Armstrong is serious about wanting people to leave the company if they're not committed, why not offer buyouts? That would remove one reason why people may decide to stay even if they don't believe in the company. I know Zappo's offers new trainees a cash bonus if they decide to /not/ join the company after completing the training program. That way Zappo's can be more sure that their new hires are not /just/ financially motivated but also are excited about the company itself. Buyouts are commonly used during downsizing, but any thoughts as to why this isn't more widespread - i.e., used during 'normal' times as well? You could imagine companies offering a cash bonus (or health insurance for a certain # of months, or something) to anyone that quit but didn't have another job lined up. That, presumably, would have the effect of empowering people to leave their job. So people who were not aligned with the company itself or otherwise dissatisfied could leave, improving the culture of the company as well. On a more meta level, pleas like Armstrong's, to "leave if you're not committed" reminds me of the quote from North Dallas Forty [0] (A movie about professional sports): "Every time I say it's business, you say it's a game. Every time I say it's a game, you say it's a business." Leaders of businesses can try to pull the same thing; they alternate between appealing to your sense of mission, and then make decisions under a different logic. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dallas_Forty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dallas_Forty
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > they alternate between appealing to your sense of mission, and then make decisions under a different logic. When things go sour they also falsely blame a scapegoated 3rd party. "We would give you bonuses and severance packages but those pesky lawyers/accountants can't let us do it", as if those entities are forces of nature outside of CEO's or board's control.
damian2000 13y ago
Wondering why there was no shouts of derision at the CEO when he said that? The others at the meeting should have spoken up in my opinion.
joering2 13y ago
What a dirtbag scum. What can you learn from a leader that loose it because someone was taking his photos. This CEO made a fool of himself and I can bet some people wont work with someone like that in the future. This was not only embarrasing but unprofessional too. What was the reason he got fired? Real reason?
lynchdt 13y ago
I love the way he only dropped maybe two beats in executing that one.
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martin-adams 13y ago
Wait what?! Am I being thick or something? He mentions several times that he doesn't care about information leaking, then fires someone for taking out a camera.
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  Yeah, that left my head spinning as well.
  - bsg75 13y ago
    Powertrip vs leadership. Spends significant time telling people why they should leave instead of why they should stay. Maybe a new term should be invented: "Got patched".
- HannibalLecter 13y ago
  He was going to fire him anyway but he did it publicly because it has a huge advantage for him. Everyone at AOL will be working ten times harder now. This kind of leadership through coercion is why companies like AOL are fucked companies.
rip747 13y ago
really? a site that is centered around local news that doesn't have miami or fort lauderdale as an available area for florida? you'd figure the first thing they would do is have all the major markets covered

157 points by wikiburner 13y ago

I would leave that company immediately if I worked there. This isn't a TV show. You don't fire people that coldly and abruptly regardless of the circumstances, especially not in public.

rdtsc 13y ago
> This isn't a TV show. rdtsc's law of failing large companies: "a large enough failing company, with a power crazy CEO is indistinguishable from a TV show"
- charlieflowers 13y ago
  Well done! And especially true in this age of reality TV. Let me add my own bastardized quote: "We're a race so primitive that we still think reality TV is a pretty neat idea."

mcot2 13y ago

I used to work for a high level executive that would throw around the words "you're fired" as a joke sometimes during all hands meetings. The fact is, using those words on someone in public (joke or not) is embarrsing and cringeworthy for all. I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. More times then not, those words are a sign to run away as fast as possible. This guy is a joke and his product is a joke.

kyllo 13y ago
Never been a fan of power trip humor. If you actually have the authority to fire someone, you should never ever say "you're fired" to them, even as a joke, unless you are actually firing them, and that should be done in private.
- mcot2 13y ago
  Well this guy was in a league of his own. He openly made jokes about a fellow employees lazy eye in public and once made a semi-racist off color joke to begin another all-hands. I'm pretty sure he was left off of the investor quarterly calls for being such a loose cannon. Amazingly enough he left on his own and didn't have any openly public HR complaints or lawsuits against him.
  - jpalioto 13y ago
    Last season of the Office was awesome, wasn't it?
- haberman 13y ago
  Yeah I think this is covered in the very first episode of The Office: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSibGV5Y_WA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSibGV5Y_WA
- jfoster 13y ago
  And even in private there are Mich better ways of saying it. "You're fired" is unnecessarily hostile.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Sometimes my former boss would tell me I was fired if I made a bad joke when we were out drinking . . . but in general, I agree that it should not be done if there is any ambiguity at all in the situation.
bane 13y ago
> I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. Yes the old "we only want true believers here", people you can abuse endlessly and treat like animals.
troymc 13y ago
This reminds me of a character… "The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
jasey 13y ago
Ok so a guy named "lenz" got fired for taking a "photo" from a product team at AOL that nobody had herd of and now theres free bad/good? publicity all over the media. If this does turn out to be a joke its one of the best publicity stunts in history. Of-course if it is not a joke/stunt. All the best to Lenz
goingtogetit 13y ago
> I've also had the "get on board or leave" speech thrown at me. I'm going to get this speech in about 48 hours (flying to HQ at the moment). What's your advice?
- nick2021 13y ago
  I don't see your boss saying this to you unless you are valued as a dime-a-dozen pizza maker. If you love your job and/or are making what your worth then stay, otherwise it sounds like you could do better.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Leave.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Work on your resume on the flight? It's not an actionable speech, it just gives you insight into the current state of the company. When leadership feels this needs to be said, there aren't many good things it can be a sign of.
- hef19898 13y ago
  As hard as it is, leaving in the mid-term may be the best option. i can only talk for myself, but when my supperior doesn't think I'm on board I can't go "on board" or fake it realistacally. Well, I can long enough to find something better. For the meeting itself, not so easy. Part one: Come up with a plan for the meeting. Best if you know what "on board" means and come up with some believable actions or things you can do in the future showing you ARE. Find some explanations why you were not in the past, even if it means to only find expalnations why your boss thinks you're not "on board". Maybe you even know what kind of agenda your boss has for himself, this adds a lot of usefull context to the points mentioned above. Part two: Use the time you bought yourself to find something better elsewhere. There are people that can addopt enough and get "on board" (whatever that really means), but I'm none of those. In cases like this, it's all about how a situation is percieved and not how it really is. Hope it helped a little bit. And even if it's not easy, don't worry or even panic, stay calm and polite. Be prepared, but don't argue any points before they are brought up by someone else. Disclaimer: Had one meeting like that myself, came up with a defense a couple of weeks later, left 4 months later. Teached me to be prepared for meetings like this.
qwerta 13y ago
>"you're fired" as a joke sometimes There was case like that in Germany. But the guy accepted and company had to pay him three month salary for compensation. He was 'hired' back after couple of days of holiday.

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computer 13y ago

I doubt that this call and the exchange that we're shown is all that there's to it. Having said that, if you're on a conference call and you say such a thing without context, you can expect it to get interpreted in ways it might not have been meant.

ivanbrussik 13y ago
I jumped into another thread and said this already - the guy that was fired was responsible for a poor UX that was hated amongst all and ended up failing.
AsymetricCom 13y ago
So that was fun. I guess I'll move on to the next contextless story.

oh_sigh 13y ago

:yawn: Who cares what AOL is doing?

jmduke 13y ago
AOL staffs around 5500 employees, posts incomes of around $2.5 billion, and owns -- amongst other things -- TechCrunch and HuffPo. If you don't think they're an important company, I suggest you talk to more people who are outside of the tech industry.
recursive 13y ago
Not you, I take it. Thanks for sharing.

temphn 13y ago

Sounds bad. But almost certainly was not simply a spur of the moment decision, but rather that Lenz was on the list of people to be fired later in the day and had done things that Armstrong knew about (like leaking Patch information). Still bad to do it like that on a call where people are getting fired for real, but this gives some context. http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-appeared-to-fire-this-man-in-front-of-1000-coworkers-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-appeare... A few minutes later, Armstrong complained about leaks to the media. He said the leaks were making Patch seem like "loser-ville" in the press. He said, "That's why Abel was fired." "We can't have people that are in the locker room giving the game plan away."

rgbrenner 13y ago
From the recording in the article (@ 1:15) "I also want to clear up the fact that leaking information or anything around Patch isn't going to bother me. Doesn't bother me. I'm not changing direction." So what you're saying is, Armstrong also gives inconsistent directions to his employees?
- kolinko 13y ago
  "Won't bother me", meaning "won't stop me". It still hurts the team/the project and is considered an offence.
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    That's certainly one way of interpreting his statement, and I agree with you that it's an offense to the team.. but.. I don't think it exactly helps Armstrong if instead of giving inconsistent direction.. he instead gives unclear and ambiguous directions. He's the CEO.. he should be able to communicate consistently and clearly.
anthonyb 13y ago
Except that in the call, he specifically says that he doesn't care about leaks. Which is it?

juanbyrge 13y ago

What an awkward time to take photos. My company was interviewing a candidate once. He was spectacular during the interview, but then he stared taking pictures of our office and our employees, which made us all uncomfortable, and that's the only reason we did not offer him a job. What may seem like normal behavior to one person may be offensive or intrusive to someone else.

CamperBob2 13y ago
In this case, the guy had just rambled on for some time about how he didn't care if anything "leaked." If I were inclined to take photos, his earlier words in the recording might well have sounded like permission.
gojomo 13y ago
Except: it came right after Armstrong talking about not being bothered by "leaking information". And that according to Business Insider, this same employee "always" took photos during meetings/conference-calls, for internal publishing. It's possible that in the stressful moment, with his mind on the "you're with the plan or should leave" theme, Armstrong misread or overreacted to the photo-taking. (Perhaps even, the "you're fired" was a reaction to a momentary facial expression from the photographer, in reaction to the first "put that camera down" command.) Or maybe there's a history, and Armstrong already viewed the employee as insufficiently serious about Patch. Either way, an odd occurrence.
tga_d 13y ago
This was considered normal behavior. "We hear that Lenz, based in New York, would always take pictures of people talking on company-wide conference calls so that he could post them on Patch's internal news site." http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-audio-listen-to-aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-fire-a-patch-employee-snapping-a-photo-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-audio-listen-to-aol-ce...
colmvp 13y ago
I couldn't disagree more. Your anecdote and this situation are completely different.

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zw123456 13y ago

It does not matter what the circumstances, to fire someone in any sort of public setting is a since of profound ineptitude and immaturity. I was surprised that AoL even still exists, I do not know who this person is, but if he is in charge of AOL then it is only a matter of time before it is no longer in existence.

bvssatish 13y ago

- The tone of "Arrogance" is striking. - Ahh "Humility" is such a wise trait.

rdtsc 13y ago

"We spent 100s of millions of dollars the board is committed, I am committed" Choo-choo, everyone jump on the fail train. No really, this is what is wrong with big companies. They pick a failed direction and they can't stop. It is a giant rusty ship heading to its grave, the captain waving his big dick around "Doesn't matter what everyone says, this will be successful!" I think most people there know it is failure that is why the explicit warning not to joke about it (there is probably enough of that to warrant that comment). Critics who don't believe in the failed cause are pushed out as non-team players. It leaves the desperate and the brainwashed. ... Yes, patch will be the next Facebook if you just work an extra night no matter if your daughter fell of the stairs and broke her leg.

anthonyb 13y ago
Well, this is the first I've heard of Patch, so I went and had a look at http://www.patch.com/ http://www.patch.com/ ... Er, is this supposed to be a news site? There's not a lot of actual news, but I can go and see what's happening at "Propwash Junction". Which isn't actually a real place but a Disney ad. Real news is at least two clicks deep. Doomed!
- rdtsc 13y ago
  It is supposed to be local news. As in stuff from your local small town. I did use it once. There was a hostage situation in my small town and somehow a Patch page ended up with some coverage of the event.
- bs9 13y ago
  The problem is local news on a large scale means finding thousands of people who for some reason want to write for pennies about what's happening locally. On top of that advertising isn't exactly easy to get. When Patch first came around they also looked at gaining traffic from an SEO perspective for local queries but as algorithms changed their organic traffic plummeted.
- dionidium 13y ago
  This, for example, is basically a press release, although it doesn't say that. Instead, it claims that it's a contribution from a "community member": AT&T Network Enhancements Strengthen Nation's Fastest, Most Reliable 4G LTE Network in St. Louis http://chesterfield.patch.com/groups/stl-tech-news/p/att-network-enhancements-strengthen-nations-fastest-most-reliable-4g-lte-network-in-st-louis http://chesterfield.patch.com/groups/stl-tech-news/p/att-net...

kumarski 13y ago

I'm curious. For those of you who have lead and managed teams of 100 or more, would you ever resort to firing someone spontaneously in front of their peers?

sbarre 13y ago
Never, not even in front of a team of 10, or 5.. If you have to let someone go, you do it in private.
- ihsw 13y ago
  How about if you're a psychotic asshole looking to spread terror in order to quell opposition? Random violence is a staple of terrorist tactics, and random firings is certainly comparable.
  - kbatten 13y ago
    Someone like that needs help, not a firing in front of everyone on the planet.
    - joseph_cooney 13y ago
      I think the CEO is the random asshole, not the person being fired.
- kumarski 13y ago
  That's how I feel about it too.
drill_sarge 13y ago
It is not even possible here to "fire" someone at your will and immediately when this person has a job contract. Also I almost forgot about AOL. What were they doing in the last 10 years? I only remember they threw their "AOL Internet CDs" in every mailbox.
- 13y ago

ja27 13y ago

I think anyone that survived the dotcom boom and crash has stories like this. Pud's F-ed Company was full of them. We had the meeting where only half the company was invited and the half that wasn't invited was let go. We had the VP that found out he was let go when his card key stopped working in the middle of the day. We had the employee lock himself in the office and refuse to leave. We had the contractor that was "let go" that laughed and just kept showing up for work. My boss that "let him go" was fired 3 weeks later. We had the guys that were let go but slipped through the cracks and nobody told them until HR sent them a packet. I saw the CEO fly into town just to fire my boss but she panicked and left before he got to the office and refused to answer her phones. Most of us kept all of our stuff packed in cardboard boxes, ready to walk out the door or change offices whenever people left. One friend kept a wall of ex-employee nameplates in his cube. The day I quit, I handed him my nameplate on my way to meet with my boss to resign, so everyone else knew by the time I walked out of his office. The winners were two I didn't get to see. In some customer crisis, we hired a new guy with some special expertise on a platform and put him on a plane somewhere with a VP / Director of Development. They start talking on the plane and by the end of the flight, the VP realized he was so full of crap that he fired him, told him to not even leave the airport and go rebook his return flight back home. The same VP hired another new guy but on his first day he went to lunch with other developers and somewhat joked about how he realized that it isn't what you do but what they think you do that gets you ahead in this business. He was fired 30 minutes after lunch.

recroad 13y ago
Amazing. Please start a blog and post more stuff like this.
- andreipop 13y ago
  I second this.
  - caycep 13y ago
    for some reason this whole thread reminds me of that SNL skit with Donald Trump and Jimmy Fallon. "Jimmy, you're fired."

sbarre 13y ago

I wonder if this was a publicity stunt to get people to go check out patch.com? I'm only half-kidding.. I had never heard of it before, and I went to look at it after reading the article. Anyone else? I'm not an American so I'm not in the target market, but a lot of these kinds of sites live and die by early adopters and tech influencers who start using them and advocate to their networks.

rdtsc 13y ago
Crossed my mind. I sure went and checked it out. I've used it once by accident and didn't know it as AOL. But, if anything, this just made it worse. Now it has a bloodstain on it. So if it was meant to be a publicity stunt, it sure as hell backfired. But then again, if they were good at marketing and publicity stunts, they probably wouldn't be firing people on the spot or extolling how great it is for employees to sacrifice their nights and weekends for the cause even after their children break their legs falling off the stairs.

dbecker 13y ago

If Aol is still making most of its revenue by charging monthly fees to people who have forgotten it exists, I find that more reprehensible than anything on this call... and I'd be happy to see them go out of business.

trimbo 13y ago
Yup, looks like most of their revenue is still from subscription: http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=quarterlyearnings http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=quarterlyearnings
kolinko 13y ago
I don't know about their profit structure right now, but I think they've been moving away from this for quite a some time. It bought Techcrunch, among other things.
- oijaf888 13y ago
  They've been trying, and I believe most of their traffic is from acquisitions but all of their money/revenue is from old subscriptions. I think if you look at their financials, they actually lose money on ever part of the business except the old subscriptions.
- drill_sarge 13y ago
  I can't wrap my head around how you can still have an aol dial-up subscription in 2013.
  - grkvlt 13y ago
    Except AOL provide high-speed broadband subscriptions now, just like all other ISPs...
    - drill_sarge 13y ago
      I can't find anything about offering broadband directly from aol here: http://get.aol.com/plans/index.php?regtype=client&offergrp=webreg http://get.aol.com/plans/index.php?regtype=client&offergrp=w... Only some crappy "security" software for broadband users (I wouldn't call their subscription model for broadband users scam buts it is a bit shady to take 12 bucks a month for some discount coupons and "$750 Extended Computer Protection"). they seem to offer only 56k dial-up service. ?

pavanred 13y ago

To me this is just arrogance and probably even irresponsible. If I employed someone in my company and if I could fire the person at a moments notice, then I believe the employee and his skills were not leveraged to the benefit of the company in the first place. I agree company's shouldn't create exclusive dependencies with employees but if nothing is affected by letting an employee go suddenly or if the employer didn't have to think twice before doing so, then the employee probably wasn't needed in the first place. Both the company and the employee should be invested in each other in terms of skill, effort, time and compensation. Not to mention that you just burned a bridge that you didn't have to.

fsck--off 13y ago

A quote from the Business Insider article linked to in this thread: This source tells us that Lenz always took photos at Patch all-hands meetings. He would later post them to Patch's internal news site. There isn't enough background to understand why this happened. AOL may have a clause in their employee contracts that makes picture taking at certain meetings a "firing offense". The source says that Lenz "always took photos", but it's possible that Lenz might have been warned not to take any more photos at meetings. Lenz's silence about the matter is also ambiguous. Nevertheless it is odd that an employee was fired for taking pictures of a meeting when the audio was leaked to the media.

wikiburner 13y ago
His silence could easily have something to do with a non-disparagement clause in his severance. I'm sure they are giving him a decent one (assuming this whole situation can be taken at face value) in order to mitigate this wave of bad press.
Shank 13y ago
I kinda wonder if the silence was a "shock and awe" one or if the call was muted or something on their end. I don't see why that wouldn't warrant at least a small reaction that would be audible over the call.

icedog 13y ago

I wonder if TechCrunch will post this story...

mylorse 13y ago

Relevant older post from a different source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195996

cyanbane 13y ago

I have on occasion used Patch (I live about 30 miles outside a metro area on the border of suburb vs farming land). I don't read the site, but instead read a twitter feed of the local corespondent. She happens to be fairly good at filtering good community news. I'll be keeping her in my twitter stream (assuming she isn't let go) but I will think about that recording every time I start to click a link to patch.com from her feed or anywhere. I will probably just query the main terms from her tweets in a Google news search from here on out if I want to know more. Somethings should be handled privately even when the opportunity may be presented publicly. There is no value to any point that was presented by firing someone in that manner.

sciguy77 13y ago

AOL is still a thing?

negamax 13y ago

I am getting lots of AOL job ads on linkedin for my location and expertise. Won't be applying there in a hurry

beedogs 13y ago

Gotta love right-to-work, eh?

tvladeck 13y ago

Off topic, but if Armstrong is serious about wanting people to leave the company if they're not committed, why not offer buyouts? That would remove one reason why people may decide to stay even if they don't believe in the company. I know Zappo's offers new trainees a cash bonus if they decide to /not/ join the company after completing the training program. That way Zappo's can be more sure that their new hires are not /just/ financially motivated but also are excited about the company itself. Buyouts are commonly used during downsizing, but any thoughts as to why this isn't more widespread - i.e., used during 'normal' times as well? You could imagine companies offering a cash bonus (or health insurance for a certain # of months, or something) to anyone that quit but didn't have another job lined up. That, presumably, would have the effect of empowering people to leave their job. So people who were not aligned with the company itself or otherwise dissatisfied could leave, improving the culture of the company as well. On a more meta level, pleas like Armstrong's, to "leave if you're not committed" reminds me of the quote from North Dallas Forty [0] (A movie about professional sports): "Every time I say it's business, you say it's a game. Every time I say it's a game, you say it's a business." Leaders of businesses can try to pull the same thing; they alternate between appealing to your sense of mission, and then make decisions under a different logic. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dallas_Forty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dallas_Forty

rdtsc 13y ago
> they alternate between appealing to your sense of mission, and then make decisions under a different logic. When things go sour they also falsely blame a scapegoated 3rd party. "We would give you bonuses and severance packages but those pesky lawyers/accountants can't let us do it", as if those entities are forces of nature outside of CEO's or board's control.

damian2000 13y ago

Wondering why there was no shouts of derision at the CEO when he said that? The others at the meeting should have spoken up in my opinion.

joering2 13y ago

What a dirtbag scum. What can you learn from a leader that loose it because someone was taking his photos. This CEO made a fool of himself and I can bet some people wont work with someone like that in the future. This was not only embarrasing but unprofessional too. What was the reason he got fired? Real reason?

lynchdt 13y ago

I love the way he only dropped maybe two beats in executing that one.

deleted 13y ago

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martin-adams 13y ago

Wait what?! Am I being thick or something? He mentions several times that he doesn't care about information leaking, then fires someone for taking out a camera.

MetaCosm 13y ago
Yeah, that left my head spinning as well.
- bsg75 13y ago
  Powertrip vs leadership. Spends significant time telling people why they should leave instead of why they should stay. Maybe a new term should be invented: "Got patched".
HannibalLecter 13y ago
He was going to fire him anyway but he did it publicly because it has a huge advantage for him. Everyone at AOL will be working ten times harder now. This kind of leadership through coercion is why companies like AOL are fucked companies.

rip747 13y ago

really? a site that is centered around local news that doesn't have miami or fort lauderdale as an available area for florida? you'd figure the first thing they would do is have all the major markets covered