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Comment by wheels | Hacker News Reader

Please leave the asinine BS out of this forum. One of the things that sets the conversations here apart from run of the mill news sites is the civil tone. Note that it's very possible that the guy you're making fun of is reading what you write, and one of the guidelines is, "Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation."

Projects fail. I would be exceedingly surprised if Bill takes the current state of affairs lightly and would even expect that his absence is only nominally his choice. Do you really want people lining up to mock you the next time you invest a chunk of your life into a project and it goes south? The guy is already rich from previous massive successes; the CEO checks that you mention won't contribute significantly to his net worth.

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Maybe I'm just an asshole, but if I were involved in Color and my CEO has been vacationing for two months while we struggle with product failure... I'd say something fairly similar to his face (if he showed his face in the office, anyhow).

> "Do you really want people lining up to mock you the next time you invest a chunk of your life into a project and it goes south?"

Nobody is picking on him because of Color's product failure. Not even the TechCrunch article. People are picking on him because he's vacationing while his company flounders.

I don't know enough about this guy's life to tell whether or not this is the right call for him personally, but I don't think it takes a rocket surgeon to figure that this is really bad for the company and its employees.

Your comment assumes he's actually just on vacation and not that he was forced (or significantly nudged) out. I'd put my money on the latter. That he wrote a mail saying, "Everything's fine, this is totally normal..." in a time of (probable) crisis speaks very little to actual structure of events.

So we should be second guessing his own quotes (assuming they're accurate)? "I do this historically. I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting,"

From my point of view, a guy who's not been in the office for two months, who takes a phone call from a journalist while boarding a plane to Maui, doesn't sound like he's being 'forced' to do anything.

I empathize with your concern about the tone. Without trying to dispute your feelings (which are yours and I respect that), I'd just like to point out some considerations that may or may not make any particular comment an exception to the rule:

1. There is a difference between being uncivil to a fellow HNer in a comment thread and being uncivil to a third party that is the subject of a post.

2. There is a difference between kicking a dog when it is down and kicking a giant that topples.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=billnguyen

2. I don't really mind poking fun at projects, but poking fun at people, especially when they're probably feeling shitty about things, in a place that they're likely to read it, just seems nasty to me and exactly the sort of thing that doesn't belong on HN.

The account you link to was created 21 days ago and has 3 karma. Granted, anyone can read without needing an account but it doesn't really lend weight to what (I think) you're trying to point out.

Also, the post you've taken issue with is simply a parody (or satire). There very little in there that seems like a personal attack (at least to me).

I wasn't speaking to whether he is an HN reader but rather to whether a particular comment is an uncivil reply to another Hn reader.

As in the difference between "This post shows that raganwald is an ass" and "Raganwald, you are an ass."

1. There's no indication that account belongs to the Bill Nguyen in question. Nguyen in one of the most common surnames in the world, and Bill is an exceedingly common first name.

Actually I thought the parent was a very witty and relevant comment. It's seems absurd that the CEO would just take off and vacation in Tahoe and Hawaii for MONTHS while his company is completely failing from pretty much any perspective.

He says, man if I was there we'd be pivoting. Well, you're the CEO, get your ass in the office and pivot. If he's been forced out, then say that. Fire him and get a new CEO. Maybe this is a problem with Color's board, maybe it's a problem with the CEO, but you can be damn sure this is a problem for Color. It needs a CEO, and he needs to be actively leading the company.

I would hope that Tim Cook has a sense of humor about things as well as a sense of perspective about life. As such, you need to be able to laugh at yourself (sometimes) and you certainly need to separate a problem like this from your general happiness. The parent-poster could very well become "FakeTimCook" (tm).

As for Bill Nguyen, my impression is that he's become a bit too comfortable with failure, but you're right ... we don't really know what's up based on the fluff piece we read.

There's no rule against snark here, so long as it is snark of interest to an intelligent hacker.

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