Comment by jerrya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerrya | Hacker News Reader

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The situation wasn't that difficult, and Sendgrid's response was inappropriate.

Welcome to the Corporate State where every problematic statement you make as an errorful human being prone to making mistakes will be used against you to preserve the corporate bottom line.

An actual appropriate response from SendGrid and Play Haven would have been recognition that its employees are human's first, and all of us are subject to making mistakes of one form or another. That they back their employees, and support them, even as they disagree with their statements or their behaviors.

I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write

It is ironic, it is tragic that SendGrid, an email delivery company, chose to fire an employee expressing speech, as opposed to just offering more speech in rebuttal.

The answer to the ugly free speech of Adria Richards is more speech, not firings.

(Yes, Hacker News, downvote my comment. Make sure a reasonably stated position that disagrees with you is shown its place.)

I can't agree with this. It's not a question of speech, it's a question of responsibility: She was present in a professional capacity and, as stated in the post, behaved in a way that subverted the goal of her position.

That's pretty open and shut. She said what she believed, and did exactly what she wanted to... unfortunately, she did not do so in line with the best interests of the community or her employer, and that's who she was supposed to be representing during this series of events.

You don't have to disagree with freedom of speech to find some speech harmful to your business, and there is no unconditional right to employment without regard to personal conduct.

Re-read the post. The reason she was fired was not because of what she said but because her actions resulted in the shitstorm today when her job is specifically to foster good relationships between sendgrid and the developer community. Basically, she failed at her job, so was fired.

I am curious what you make of this portion of the response in particular:

"A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid."

I consider that to be fluff and nonsense.

48 hours is not the right interval to be making that judgment. And firing her in response to correct the situation was about the worse and most extreme of actions.

(And please note, I think Richards made a mistake and showed terrible judgment.)

In the sense that you don't think it was a valid conclusion, or in the sense that given that conclusion, it was a nonsense reason to fire her?

This aspect of the situation seems exceedingly clear to me.

I don't think it was a valid conclusion, and I think the CEO had other actions he could take that would be better for everyone involved.

I think you are overlooking the fact (clearly elucidated by SendGrid) that her position as Developer Evangelist makes her the face of their company at conferences. Reaching out to her hundreds of Twitter followers to bring public shame to decent people runs perpendicular to the ethics of her company, her position, and (I hope) to the tech industry.

It is truly "ironic" - a word I shall borrow from you - that you attack SendGrid on the grounds of Free Speech, when in fact, the men in question in the incident were having a private conversation themselves.

She acted as a developer evangelist, there is absolutely no way she could do her job. I would go so far as to say no company will EVER employ her for a job with that title ever again.

1) free speech is a guarantee that the government will not pass laws preventing you from expressing yourself. it has nothing to do with your private employer.

2) Adria Richards acted in a way contrary to what her employer was paying her to do. If your job is public relations, but you generate animosity instead of good will you are incompetent at your job. That is grounds for termination in the old fashioned sense, having nothing to do with free speech or anything else.

free speech is a guarantee that the government will not pass laws preventing you from expressing yourself. it has nothing to do with your private employer

Yeah, this is a common fallacy.

There is the first amendment which regards the relationship of our government to our free speech, and then there is free speech that we, as humans, intellectuals, give to each other.

Her speech was piffle, and should have been treated as such. A regrettable mistake, but one that humans make, and ultimately of little impact to the company.

"I Joe Bob, CEO of SendGrid disagree completely with Adria Richard's behavior, she made a mistake. But I know her, I respect her, and there is no way I would fire her over these particular comments, over this particular mistake.

I believe that a Hacker Culture is respectful and encouraging of speech and accommodating of the mistakes we all might make.

I encourage Joe Briggs of Play Haven to take a step back and consider this, even as I support his former developers there in their private communications."

FWIW, while I disagree with your position fairly strongly, I upvoted you. Because I don't believe in the "downvote to show disagreement" idea, and because your position does lead to a potentially interesting discussion about how much "float" an employee should have when making a mistake.

I do believe pretty strongly in the general idea of "stand behind your people", but I also think this situation went far enough that SendGrid was justified.

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