
SendGrid fires Adria Richards? - cullenking
http://blog.sendgrid.com/sendgrid-statement/
======
dkulchenko
Previous discussion (all dead posts, all posted within past hour):

Why are all the posts related to Aria Richards getting deleted? -
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416578>

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria
Richards - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416514>

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria
Richards - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416422>

SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards -
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416312>

SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards? -
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416021>

~~~
untog
Because people are flagging it. This happens _every single time_ a story about
sexism appears on HN.

The best explanation I've ever got from a flagger is that the topic "isn't
relevant". Funny how it's only topics that require self-examination of the
industry's perception of gender that aren't relevant.

~~~
tptacek
Don't jump to conclusions. I'm flagging these threads too, and I'm extremely
jumpy about gender/privilege issues. The reason I'm flagging the threads is
that they're a message board version of a TLC reality show; they're
unproductive and horrible. They aren't animated by a drive to hash out an
important issue; they're animated by our love for drama.

~~~
untog
To what extent is that counter-productive, though? The OP lists 5 other
submissions on the topic. At a certain point isn't it just simpler to contain
it all in one thread? If you don't want to read it (and I certainly don't
blame you) you can just skip that thread and move on.

~~~
tptacek
Because the threads are, in the parlance of our times, embarrassing shitshows.
It was clear to me that they needed to be torched off the site as soon as we
got to the comment about the hetero guy in the gay bar.

That is what the flag button is for. To scorch the shit off the site. More
people need to use it. These threads are horrible and they need to go.

~~~
untog
I both agree and disagree. The threads are utter shitshows (and yes, the
hetero guy in a gay bar comment was the lowest point in a very low thread) but
at the same time I think that flagging the content off the site means that a
lot of people are never aware of the (excuse me if this sounds dramatic) true
nature of many in Hacker News. I suppose I think of it as painting over the
cracks in the community here. I'd prefer everyone sees the shitshow for what
it is, and then maybe has a think about what HN is, or should be.

~~~
tptacek
This site would be better if we could get over the idea that all issues
related to technology demand comprehensive litigation in comment threads.
Sometimes issues that are relevant to us can't be resolved in comment threads.
And then all those comment threads do is degrade the community.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I'm planning to link to this at a later date. :-)

~~~
tptacek
I flag the CISPA threads too. I can write a 500 word comment on a topic and
still hope the thread ends up dead.

------
danso
It's hard to know which company acted in a less respectable way: PlayHaven,
which fired the accused dongle-joker after a 1-2 day "thorough investigation"
(<http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/>). Or SendGrid, which fired
someone only after they suffered a huge DDOS.

If you can ignore the actual content of the fired employees' speech, they were
both fired for speech that was only tangentially connected to their official
duties. Both the joke and the accusation was made on company time (as
representatives at PyCon), but not in a direct manner (i.e. not "At PlayHaven,
we all have huge dongles").

It's a little disturbing that a firing over he-said/she-said in such an
expedited manner, during a time when the facts and intent are still in dispute
(arguably moreso, given the fog and noise created by the outburst of
discussion and tweets).

~~~
josh2600
This is a reminder that you are an at-will employee until you're an owner.

Don't forget that.

~~~
dangrossman
You don't have to be an owner to have an employment contract. Most union
employees aren't at-will for one.

------
jrajav
Okay, this is clearly interesting news, and an official statement from
SendGrid. If this gets deleted too, can we _at the very least_ get
confirmation that this is mod action and not a flagging ring?

Edit: Confirmed mod action (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416908>). I
think it's reasonable, but this blog post seems to confirm that the
development is real. I agree with pg that reporter confirmation would be nice.
Presumably that's on its way.

~~~
DanBC
I'm flagging all of them, and I'm not part of a ring.

~~~
goodwink
If you wouldn't mind sharing, could you please elaborate on your reasoning for
flagging them? I'd like some further insight into which elements of the
coverage of the story (rather than the story itself) you find objectionable.

~~~
zheng
While I'm not flagging anything (I didn't even realize there was anything
going on until about 10 minutes ago), I can see how people wouldn't want to
hear about all this drama on HN. Regardless of where the incident started, HN
isn't really the place for this. Can't we just get back to talking about X's
new API and leave the gossip to twitter?

~~~
goodwink
It seems like if you didn't want to discuss it on HN the easiest way would be
to just let one story sit on the page where others who _do_ want to discuss it
can do so and ignore that one story. If people are flagging these because they
don't want to see it discussed on HN they're just making the problem worse and
ensuring that it's an even _bigger_ story since it adds another layer of
controversy.

------
coldtea
While I'm against what Adria Richards did, I would normally be sad by these
news, because it's a pity for anyone to lose his job over something that he
did outside of it.

But -- I've read her blog post on the incident, and it comes off as so
unapologetic, self-entitled and arrogant, while never saying that she is at
least sorry for getting the guy fired, that I think that in this case she got
what she deserved.

This is what I'm against: \-- She eavesdropped on a private conversation ("it
was loud enough" is no excuse: two people talking are TWO people talking). \--
She took a picture and exposed said private conversation on Twitter. \-- She
got a guy fired and publicly shamed two people for making a joke in private.
\-- She never asked the guys to stop (if they were talking loudly), or
complained to the conference organizers. \-- She presented a joke as a
"thought crime" to be shamed off. \-- After the guy was fired, she never
showed any sympathy or empathy. A guy that SHE got fired, and that hasn't done
ANYTHING to her personally. \-- She took advantage of the whole incident to
promote herself and her job.

Still, I wouldn't want anyone to lose his job over something like this. Asked
to offer a public apology would be enough.

------
juiceandjuice
The joke, while violating the terms of the python convention, was PG-13 at
best. It was the equivalent of a "that's what she said joke". It's a joke a 12
year old would make. It wasn't violent, it wasn't oppressive, it was just off-
color. It wasn't a reason for anyone to get fired over.

Yes, it was immature. It was no reason to get up in arms over. Her blog post,
with the "Think of the Children" aspect was equally immature in a different
way.

The reason I'm sure Adria was fired was because she continued to handle the
situation poorly and unprofessionally.

I think both parties should have been reprimanded, and apologized, and that
should have been that. Instead there's a few people without jobs and a public
disgrace.

------
jiggy2011
My god what a trainwreck!

I really don't like this idea of internet vigilantism via twitter or DDOS
threatening people's jobs.

I would certainly not feel great if somebody who disliked me decided to get
back at me by sending a message to my employer threatening to smash up their
premesis if they didn't fire me, which is basically what this amounts to.

I wonder if the lady in question and the guys making the dick jokes could get
together and make a collective apology to the python community and salvage
something from this clusterfuck?

~~~
doktrin
Not having followed this in excruciating detail, but the gentleman who was
fired did apologize. Adria, AFAIK, has not.

------
throwaway125
I'm really disappointed in the way this story is getting buried. It's quite
clear people _want_ to talk about this.

------
donretag
A simple apology was all that was required. Seriously.

A childish, humorless joke turns into this situation?

~~~
adrr
I assume Sendgrid management tried to unweave whole issue by asking their
employee to publicly apologize and ask for PlayHaven to rehire their employee.
This would have been the best situation for everyone. Could have resulted with
no one losing their jobs and everything blowing over after a couple weeks. I
think someone's ego got in the way which resulted in the termination of the
employee. Really saddens me that how a small incident can spiral out control.
People need to be aware of other people's sensitivity in public areas and on
the opposite side, people need to have a little bit thicker skin and shrug
minor things off. Failure on both sides combined with knee jerk reactions from
companies.

------
Karunamon
It's all but official now. There was a possibility the earlier facebook and
twitter posts were the actions of a hack, but the company blog too?

PS: I really wish the mods would deign to respons when stuff is getting mass
deleted like this. This is quite possibly the most intensely debated story
right now, and not letting us talk about it has rather unfortunate
implications.

~~~
Throwadev
What if the same passwords were used for all there? I think if FB and Twitter
were hacked, it's possible the blog was compromised in the same way.
Presumably you get access to someone's email, and through the email you get
their passwords to various systems. I'm not saying it's what I think happened,
or that it's likely, just that you still can't rule out that all three mediums
were hacked.

------
cullenking
The reason this is important, to me as a business owner who is looking to hire
our first few developers, is I have to learn how to deal with these
situations. You may call it drama, but I consider it a lesson in how I should
behave when forced to deal with these sorts of difficult decisions.

Is there a right or wrong answer? Probably not. To borrow the title of an
absurdly sexual book referenced a thousand times in this argument, it's fifty
shades of gray.

I'd like to at least see what the community thinks on these topics, so I can
make better informed decisions later on. Not to mention understanding even how
to _communicate_ those decisions to the public.

------
orangethirty
This company seems to not have an idea on how to handle a PR disaster.

~~~
mullingitover
They need some kind of evangelist who will rally the community around them.

~~~
orangethirty
Stop. Just stop. Its not nice to make fun of someone who got fired. Doesn't
matter why or how. The person is going through a very hard time right now, and
you should, at the very least, feel sorry for the situation.

What they need to do is hire someone who will simply take care of the
situation by assuring their whole base that this sort of thing will: not
happen again, and will be dealt in private. Everything blew up because they
chose to handle it publicly.

~~~
mullingitover
> The person is going through a very hard time right now

Hey, at least she doesn't have three kids to take care of.

Seriously though, what about everyone else at SendGrid who is suffering
through this ordeal because of this one bad employee? They're going through a
hard time, too, and they really do need a good PR person. Badly.

~~~
orangethirty
My point is that you should not joke about her situation. I'm not defending
her, nor saying that everyone should take pity.

~~~
mullingitover
Not being able to joke about things is what got us into this mess. We must
joke our way out, 'tis the only way.

------
josh2600
This whole thing is ridiculous.

Less Eye for an Eye, more code for more peace.

Write code, don't tweet.

------
zurn
Clearly the US needs better labour rights rules.

------
Jabbles
Are we sure SendGrid hasn't been compromised?

~~~
Jabbles
No one is sure: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979>

------
minitrollster
Let's see how long it takes for this one to be removed.

------
tzaman
I don't approve what ms. Richards did, but I still think it's a bit
hypocritical from SendGrid to post the message of firing her on facebook,
because it's essentially the same thing: public lynch.

------
espadrine
Post reproduced below.

 _Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria
Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to
employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken
action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its
employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of
information, we will post something more comprehensive._

My understanding is that the publicity of the reported issue was the cause of
the lay-off.

------
jcc80
This is really the best thing for her even if it doesn't seem like it now. She
can focus on the issues she cares about and get better at promoting those.

~~~
thisone
Being someone who's made a big mistake in the past and very nearly lost my
job, I think the best thing is for an employer to care about an employee and
try to help them work through what are often temporary problems.

That being said, I don't know what happened behind the doors of SendGrid. I'm
not happy to hear anyone lose their job over this and I hope, for the sake of
morale at SendGrid, it wasn't the company being scared of the internet.

------
Narretz
Why has she been fired? Any background on this?

------
noonespecial
Of all the lessons here, the simplest might be that sometimes simple actions
have _vast_ unintended consequences.

------
therobot24
Despite it being a knee-jerk response obstacle1 very well puts why this was
done: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416517>

------
lhnz
Posted but dead here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416422>

------
orf
What a clusterfuck this has become.

------
kmfrk
Did they really have to name her in the post? It's not like we won't know who
it is anyway.

~~~
freehunter
What should they have said? "Today we fired an employee. Please go about your
business."?

------
jessaustin
Wow if anything this announcement is more terse and unfeeling than Playhaven's
was. I guess companies have to do this in the USA, but it makes me sad.

~~~
khuey
No companies don't have to do this at all. Publicly announcing people's
termination (other than maybe the CEO) is extremely unusual.

~~~
jessaustin
You're right of course. In retrospect, if both of these companies had had some
adults in charge, the CEOs would have reached out to each other, apologized,
and agreed to table the issue for two weeks. The employees involved would have
been admonished not to say a fucking thing, and to delete all the crap they'd
posted so far. After two weeks, we jibbering morons of the internet would have
moved on, and the two CEOs could then jointly announce an amicable settlement,
and joint corporate donation of $X to the PSF by way of apology to that august
body for all the bullshit. (Seriously, I feel more sorry for the PSF than
anyone else: they actually have attempted to do the right thing and _this_ is
what it gets them. What is the motivation for any other conference to get
inclusive policies in place?)

Everyone would have come out of that scenario smelling better than they smell
now.

------
mtrimpe
And here is a capture of the Facebook post (and some reactions) before they
pulled it:

[http://www.webpagescreenshot.info/i/240616-321201371406pm.pn...](http://www.webpagescreenshot.info/i/240616-321201371406pm.png)

------
Kabacaru
well, that escalated quickly, really that got out of hand fast!

------
edwardunknown
HN censoring this story is only going to send it to defcon 4.

~~~
goodwink
A conspiracy theorist might surmise that's the point. It'd be very funny in a
very SV sort of way, but I don't think it's true.

------
antidaily
This has to be fake, right?

