3 ms·

The thing that irks me the most is not the practice itself. My problem is with everything else in that post. Note that he has not described it as a morally amb

by phaker 12y ago

The thing that irks me the most is not the practice itself. My problem is with everything else in that post. Note that he has not described it as a morally ambiguous but sometimes unavoidable choice (like you did) but as the most righteous and noble option. That he's openly admitting he knows that it's illegal. Pay attention the sugar-sweet language of his parable and how its tone gets more colorful whenever the story takes a darker turn (from pov of the employee). I mean, this entire thing is something out of a dilbert strip. I'm serious. This is something you'd expect Dilbert's CEO to write. The self deceit, the contrast between the language of "hurt feelings" vs the unstated reality of a person getting fired as a consequence and the stupidity of it all are mocked in hundred different Dilbert strips. Remember when this wage fixing story surfaced and the surprised comments that they were stupid enough to put it in email? If Mr Horowitz ever gets in similar trouble the paragraph i quoted above will make these troubles a lot worse.

001sky 12y ago
There's plenty of scope to fairly critique the BH piece. He's not perfect or beyond taking a few shot across the bow on a controversial subject. But the situation of apple and google colluding (ie, this linked article) IMHO is a ~different situation here than the subject of the BH piece. 1> Google and AAPL as of the time of the lawsuit were not small players (fighting for their lives). They were 'fat cats' essentially at the top of the food chain. 2> Their motivations seem inherently economic/greedy, and fundamentally anti-competitive. They were not even vaguely 'customer centric' or otherwise constructive (except at the most tenditious levels). 3> The defendents were self aware their actions were unethica/illegal, and in the context of (1) and (2), were actively taking steps to hide/bury/conspire/collude regarding the illegal activity. So this type of context is not the same. Calling out the BH essay seems to add a layer of useful sophistication to the discussion here. Half the utility, tho, is understanding the difference.

by phaker 12y ago

001sky 12y ago

There's plenty of scope to fairly critique the BH piece. He's not perfect or beyond taking a few shot across the bow on a controversial subject. But the situation of apple and google colluding (ie, this linked article) IMHO is a ~different situation here than the subject of the BH piece. 1> Google and AAPL as of the time of the lawsuit were not small players (fighting for their lives). They were 'fat cats' essentially at the top of the food chain. 2> Their motivations seem inherently economic/greedy, and fundamentally anti-competitive. They were not even vaguely 'customer centric' or otherwise constructive (except at the most tenditious levels). 3> The defendents were self aware their actions were unethica/illegal, and in the context of (1) and (2), were actively taking steps to hide/bury/conspire/collude regarding the illegal activity. So this type of context is not the same. Calling out the BH essay seems to add a layer of useful sophistication to the discussion here. Half the utility, tho, is understanding the difference.