
Why isn't anyone calling out Yelp's CEO - ReadingInBed
https://medium.com/@troyjensen/why-isn-t-anyone-calling-out-stoppelman-977410b5917e
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bruceb
Maybe because her post was whiny more than constructive criticism. Also this
guy's post is I am richer than Yelp's CEO and quite self righteous. That being
said at least he brings up more numbers.

This stood out: "Half of my staff is under 30"

I look forward to a medium post "Why isn't anyone calling out nxVenture
Capital's CEO for age discrimination!"

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bonestamp2
> Also this guy's post is I am richer than Yelp's CEO and quite self
> righteous.

I didn't read it that way; I read it as "you can pay people well and be richer
than Yelp's CEO and here's proof."

The purpose of that ethos is to negate the argument that you have to pay
people shit to have a good balance sheet. He's using his numbers to argue that
paying people well makes you more profitable because you can have the best,
most engaged people -- and better retain those people, which is important
since you've invested a lot to teach them your domain knowledge.

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wdmeldon
Why do I get the feeling Yelp has a lot more low skill employees than
nxVenture Capital? The exact opposite point can be made with Walmart.

edit: also, did anyone else find his claim that he pays his Administrative
Assistant 300k to be a bit strange? That's an insane amount of money for that
position is it not?

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breischl
Seems to me they pretty much all suck.

Talia Jane had some points, but was also whiny and defeatist.

Stoppelman and Yelp seem to have pretty much failed at HR and possibly
business in general.

Jensen (author of this article) seems mostly interested in talking about how
much more rich and badass he is than everyone in sight, and generally being an
egomaniacal prick. And I notice that he has plenty of time to talk about how
much he pays employees and his vacation house in Florida, but spent not one
word on how much his investors have made. And I would not be even a little bit
surprised if he's talking his own book. ie, they shorted Yelp right before he
published this article.

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kafkaesq
I'll call him out, right now.

Even though I previously criticized[1] talia jane's original missive (not for
being ideologically incorrect, or otherwise "out of bounds"; but for being
depressingly defeatist and self-negating) -- this was definitely a moment that
called for restraint and magnanimity on the CEO's part. But as it went down,
his instinctive response (to smash the lowly, disenchanted employee) was
incredibly petty-minded and vindictive. And for Yelp's own interests, also
depressingly counter-productive and self-defeating.

And on top of that, the assertion that he was somehow out of the loop as to
her firing (or that it "wasn't his call") simply lacks credibility. Even if,
technically speaking, the decision was left to someone in middle management --
it's the CEO who sets the culture and tone for the environment in which these
decisions are made. And when faced with embarrassing public missteps of this
sort, strong, principled CEOs always step forward and take responsibility for
decisions executed by subordinates acting on their behalf -- rather than point
fingers downward and say, "sorry, that wasn't my call."

Being as he certainly must have been _aware_ of the decision, at the time it
was being made, and could have easily given his input to it, or chosen to
override it, had he wished to.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11154553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11154553)

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jsprogrammer
>But as it went down, his instinctive response (to fire the lowly,
disenchanted employee)

I believe the CEO said he was not involved in the firing (and perhaps only
heard of it after Talia's termination?).

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kafkaesq
Right -- he _said_ that, but if you think for a moment how decisions are made
in these environments, it lacks credibility.

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nilkn
Talia has also confidently maintained on Twitter that she was told she was
fired for the letter, even though Yelp's CEO wrote that her dismissal was
unrelated to it. I'm personally more inclined to believe her. It would be far
too coincidental that she was let go immediately after the letter but the
letter was not involved in any way. Once you've established that part of the
CEO's response was fabricated, the rest of it doesn't seem trustworthy either.

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kafkaesq
_I 'm personally more inclined to believe her._

Right, me too. The CEO's evasions on this matter serve no purpose, and just
bring Yelp's credibility further into question, generally.

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6stringmerc
While I'm pretty sure there are valid points in the article regarding how to
treat talented employees who don't fanatically lap up the teachings of a
private equity acolyte, I can't help but think that in a battle of self-
important CEOs the one who blows out the most hot air usually drowns first.

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russelluresti
No one is calling out Yelp's CEO because we live in a culture that idolizes
young, entrepreneurial CEOs like gods.

Steve Jobs can make billions off the backs of underpaid and abused overseas
employees and intentionally avoiding paying taxes to the country that helped
him succeed.

"Zuck" can run psychological experiments on his users and try to destroy net
neutrality in developing countries.

But no one speaks up because they are the people we want to be, and no one
wants to think the person they want to be is a bad person.

Instead, it's much easier to hop on the "millennials are entitled" train -
largely because GenX (my generation) is so antisocial that any attempt to
point out flaws in the system or make improvements is met with mockery,
because we don't understand how to actually empathize with people.

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kelvin0
I think your logic is impeccable, and I think it's time we take a good hard
look at the things we as a society value. You can't have your cake and eat it
too ...

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cmsj
What, exactly, is the point of a cake you can't eat?

Such a weird metaphor. I've eaten every cake I've ever had!

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kelvin0
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_can't_have_your_cake_and_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_can't_have_your_cake_and_eat_it)

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antidaily
That's not his girlfriend.

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antidaily
Well, it's not.

