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Comment by whafro | Hacker News Reader

There were so many other things he could have said and not created this maelstrom – "Of course Mr. Khashoggi's murder was reprehensible and inexcusable, but we're told by the Crown Prince that it was a rogue operation, and we trust that's the case. If a member of our board were involved in this sort of heinous act, I would be asking for his or her resignation."

But he didn't, and squirmed with a few "well, you're obviously deeper in this than I am" indications that he wasn't well-prepared on this issue.

It's tough for a CEO to go from talking to the press about the tech behind their tech company to talking about everything else in the world – that's what the CEOs of conglomerates and oil companies spend decades of their career being groomed into. In this case, he's learning on the job, the hard way.

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> but we're told by the Crown Prince that it was a rogue operation, and we trust that's the case

We also believe in:

- the tooth fairy

- SantaClaus

And many other such examples besides. All that wriggling in order not to find a reason to resign and show some conscience. Either that or be blunt about it, what he really should have said was:

"Yes, Khashoggi was murdered. My investors unfortunately are lying murderous scum but I still have a company to run."

Do you really think that's what he should have said? Because that sounds like a vastly dumber thing to say, even if it's "honest".

The "rogue operation" story is "good enough". It's plausible. That doesn't mean it's true of course. It doesn't have to be. Nobody has to actually believe it. It's just good enough so that everyone involved can save the minimum amount of face required to move on.

The reason that the murder can be considered "a mistake" is that the fallout was far greater than estimated. Consider that the Saudis are killing political opponents all the time with very few issues.

It's probably the grandeur of the plot that made the difference here. If Khashoggi had just been shot in the streets by "unknown assailants" (Putin style), it wouldn't have been that big a deal.

This isn't the traditional learning on the job. He won't be given any second chances. I expect he'll resign or be fired by tomorrow.

I'm sorry, what? Have you been paying attention? 24 hours from now almost no one will be talking about this.

And ESPECIALLY with Uber. They've had month-long disasters that were worse than this that didn't push out anyone too critical.

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