I remember the long period of no CEO after the previous one went to Uber and Barry Diller, I think he was chairman of the board, was kinda at the helm
eventually there was an all hands where it was announced Peter Kern would be the new CEO
his qualifications? "we used to play golf together"
the old boys club vibe was next level
which is like, ok, it always is, but they weren't even trying to tastefully hide it, they literally just made it clear on the record first thing
to be clear, I'm not saying Barry or Peter did a bad job (nor a good one) - as a cog, I usually find C level news and initiatives distractions that merit little attention
I do remember though how Barry said Expedia's work life balance was all balance no work
and how Peter would phone in all hands from his castle in Colorado where he was spending time with his family to tell everyone how important it was people wound down remote work and started coming in to the office again (AFAIK he himself was very rarely in office in any meaningful capacity)
would I call it a well-run company? no, not really, but neither are most other companies, lol. most execs seem to have no better or worse idea what they're doing running a company than the average employee would.
Yeah I quit Expedia around that time, early 2020. They began this massive reorg merging a bunch of eng from VRBO and Hotels.com and whatever else together haphazardly. I went through 4 different managers under a year. Very “productive” !!!
To anyone else.. Please if you have the means and skills, and find yourself at these shitty companies, just leave.
Honestly the best decision I made was leaving the shitty albeit huge company I worked at to join a startup that had great reviews and working on something actually meaningful. Run by people who weren’t d bags. Ended up becoming a unicorn and is today a big company.
Put something good into the world and you’ll find the rewards. No point wasting life working for losers. Just my opinion.
Expedia was not always shitty. When Expedia bought Orbitz the Expedia head of HR really went out of her way to ensure people were taken of. They were very generous.
I agree with you but Expedia was the best game in town where I was at the time, and while the company left a lot to be desired, my individual team was the best I've ever worked with. But yeah in a perfect world toxic leadership and companies that run mostly on just decades old momentum wouldn't be the norm.
I don't think it's conscious or deliberate, these people are literally just completely oblivious to their own privilege
even the few who do reach that level from more humble beginnings seem to quickly forget what it was like down there, overestimate their competence and start to look down on the plebs
pretty infuriating to be talked down to that way
like, you're talking to professional adults with Computer Science degrees here, not some deadbeats off the street lol (not that people on the street deserve scorn either, I'm just being rhetorical)
No. They are conscious. You see this whenever someone becomes unaccountable and surrounded by yes men. Did they have these views before? Probably. Could they express and act on them before? No. That’s the difference.
There’s a reason why fair and respectable people in power are called out as a rarity.
>In a statement provided to PhocusWire, the company said, “Rathi Murthy, Chief Technology Officer, and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, Senior Vice President, Core Services Product & Engineering, are no longer employed at Expedia Group. This decision is the result of a violation of Company policy.
Having a CTO and SVP axed in the same statement means rather specific circumstances. Realistically rules out harassment, performance, even "kickbacks". These you would only expect one or the other to be terminated. Whether you agree or not, a company does not want to terminate immediately (she was just on stage as key speaker) two such key positions at the same time in the same department. It's a very large gap in the org that represents a material risk to the business. So their actions have to be so "huge" to match.
Stealing, but more likely some form of colluded insider trading.
I'd wager that the SVP was helping perform trades of expedia stock on behalf of the CTO. They got caught before the SEC and were fired.
Having two people involved doesn’t preclude kickbacks, it makes it easier. One of them submits the spending request, the other one approves it, they both share the kickback.
People trying to get away with insider trading don’t use someone else at the same company, they use friends or family.
mmmm grain of salt because I have no details. I'm just having fun now.
> Having two people involved doesn’t preclude kickbacks, it makes it easier. One of them submits the spending request, the other one approves it, they both share the kickback.
Possible. Maybe the CTO brought in a relationship, maybe AI?, and the SVP caught wind of a kickback and got "cut in" as a result (Lord of War?).
Still, I'm not fully convinced because kickbacks, the speed is just too fast.
> People trying to get away with insider trading don’t use someone else at the same company, they use friends or family.
I wouldn't use friends or family that's what everyone else does and it becomes super obvious to the SEC. Someone within the company is not unlikely to trade the stock.
I don't get why someone at your company would be a natural accomplice (surely their trading is monitored too?), but the timing could make sense. They missed earnings on the 1st and dropped about 15%. Maybe it takes a week to catch them and a week to fire them.
Hard to know what to say without engaging in the very speculation they are hoping to avoid. But apparently there's more details coming.
In the absence of those though, this feels rare to me, for such a thing to either (1) happen at all or to (2) have this degree of visibility.
Are high level executives getting fired all the time for violating internal company policies that are something short of being against the law, and we're just not hearing about it? I suspect not, or at least, when they are there is not often press releases about it.
Usually, one is gently but firmly pushed out. The charade of them resigning helps them save face in a job where reputation is important. They are also less likely to speak ill of the company afterwards (especially if a severance of some sort requires silence).
Actually outright firing is more rare, since the company loses any leverage over their behavior afterwards. I've seen it happen, but only once.
Does Expedia have a lot of contract work force or offshoring presence? Maybe, kickbacks between these execs and such offshoring companies/staffing companies could be one reason.
Normally the C Suite gets a bunch of flowery handshaking when they leave to not spook investors. Saying they got fired for violating company policy effective immediately and dumping the news on a Friday is highly unusual.
I remember the long period of no CEO after the previous one went to Uber and Barry Diller, I think he was chairman of the board, was kinda at the helm
eventually there was an all hands where it was announced Peter Kern would be the new CEO
his qualifications? "we used to play golf together"
the old boys club vibe was next level
which is like, ok, it always is, but they weren't even trying to tastefully hide it, they literally just made it clear on the record first thing
to be clear, I'm not saying Barry or Peter did a bad job (nor a good one) - as a cog, I usually find C level news and initiatives distractions that merit little attention
I do remember though how Barry said Expedia's work life balance was all balance no work
and how Peter would phone in all hands from his castle in Colorado where he was spending time with his family to tell everyone how important it was people wound down remote work and started coming in to the office again (AFAIK he himself was very rarely in office in any meaningful capacity)
would I call it a well-run company? no, not really, but neither are most other companies, lol. most execs seem to have no better or worse idea what they're doing running a company than the average employee would.