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!"
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.
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?
Maybe it was. But there are also moment where, when someone says or does something that seems rash and ill-considered (and may even seem a bit unsettling) -- when we would hope that an inner voice would call out for, you know, magnanimity and restraint:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek
rather than a cold, hard, boot to the face. Which unfortunately was the CEO's instinctive response, in this situation.
Perhaps people aren't calling out the Yelp CEO because they are getting tired of participating in the internet's self-righteous rage mob.
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.
I believe the CEO said he was not involved in the firing (and perhaps only heard of it after Talia's termination?).
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.
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.
