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Comment by joegahona | Hacker News Reader

This warrants maximum punishment and humiliation:

1. Yuan should immediately terminate himself as CEO, and his salary/bonus should be divvied up among those who were [IMPACTED]. In fact, all 1,300 people should be named co-CEOs and together they shall lead the company to prosperity and avoid such a boneheaded misstep in the future.

2. He should have to give his life savings to those 1,300 people. His family should live in squalor going forward, effective immediately.

3. He should be imprisoned for fraud, for no fewer than 25 years —- or ideally sent to a North Korean prison camp, if such arrangements with DPRK can be secured.

That’s what true accountability looks like.

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Clearly being laid off is painful. I'm sensing some of that pain in your reply. I have a lot of sympathy for those who have been laid off.

However your solution, as seen from outside that pain, is "worse than the disease".

Firstly it's worth pointing out that most (but not all) layoffs right now are a result of over-hiring during the pandemic. Now, granted, those jobs didn't last forever, but they did last a while and kept a lot of people working during a time when a lot of people couldn't work. It would likely have been very profitable to not make those hires in the first place.

Secondly, you are proposing penalties out of proportion to the mistake. Or put another way you are strongly disincentiving hiring in the first place.

The more penalties there are for failure, the lower the chance that people will try at all. Your suggestion that over-hiring leads to criminal fraud, or personal destitution, has out outcome - no one will ever hire anyone.

In a private company the decision makers are typically the owners. They're taking risks everyday, spending "their money" and working hard to keep everyone employed. It's a weighty responsibility. But life happens and things don't always work out as planned. Management-via-hindsight is easy.

Parent’s post has an invisible /s.

ahh - a visible /s would have been helpful :)

It wasn’t obvious from the North Korean prison camp mention?

The comment literal dripped sarcasm

This is the internet, it's hard to tell where some opinions end and where sarcasm starts these days. :)

>> In fact, all 1,300 people should be named co-CEOs and together they shall lead the company to prosperity and avoid such a boneheaded misstep in the future. 2. He should have to give his life savings to those 1,300 people. His family should live in squalor going forward, effective immediately.

I mean honestly…you thought the above (emphasis is mine) was serious?

I wonder if any country has ever thought of attempting to dump unwanted prisoners in North Korea. I wonder how NK would respond to that.

Lol. Now that’s taking it to the next level.

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