r/technology • u/rationalworld • Feb 01 '23
A tech CEO apologized for quoting Martin Luther King Jr. when announcing layoffs, calling it 'inappropriate and insensitive' Business
https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-layoffs-pagerduty-ceo-apologizes-martin-luther-king-jr-quote-2023-23.7k
u/FreekFrealy Feb 01 '23
"I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther Kingsaid, that 'the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] standin the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand intimes of challenge and controversy,'" Tejada wrote, slightly tweakingthe original quote from the civil-rights activist and including her ownwords in brackets.
The fact that she was using the quote in a layoff announcement as a way of congratulating herself is absolutely astounding.
She's certainly made it clear where she stands
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u/static_func Feb 01 '23
Not at all surprising. This kinda masturbatory talk is par for the course in any executive/"entrepreneurial" environment
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u/jctherik Feb 01 '23
Masturbatory talk.
I work in tech and the term "Masturbatory talk" somehow perfectly describes the endless stream of uninterrupted monologue that's being produced by management, marketing and HR.
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u/mooshoomarsh Feb 01 '23
You'll also find more than your fair share in r/Linkedinlunatics
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u/THEBLOODYGAVEL Feb 01 '23
Dont quit. Because it's the same with all corporations and large organizations.
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u/I_am_not_JohnLeClair Feb 01 '23
Basically any company that has a Mission Statement
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u/Vonmule Feb 02 '23
Uh...A mission statement is usually step one for starting any business. It's essentially the thesis of your business plan.
Hell, I ran the most half-cocked, lazily-managed business with myself as the sole employee, and I still had a mission statement.
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u/Captain___Obvious Feb 01 '23
Just think that there are employees who's entire job is to think about Mission Statements, Company Culture, and other nonsense that goes in powerpoint slides that are used for the quarterly meetings
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u/Fr1toBand1to Feb 02 '23
I once had to go to a company retreat and had a conference in which they broke us up into groups and tasked us with inventing the companies mission statement. As if that wasn't bad enough they also hired street artists to come in and try to visualize these missions statements.
My questions is, was that masturbatory? did we jack off management? or did we just create porn for later circle jerks?
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u/DesiOtaku Feb 02 '23
Technically speaking, every corporation is legally required to have a mission statement as part of their articles of incorporation.
The difference is that 99% of mission statements are a simple "Develop software" or "Medical Practice". Nothing that superfluous that make most people roll their eyes over.
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u/The_Clarence Feb 01 '23
And if you go academia then you get a bunch Mental Masturbation.
People gonna masturbate I guess
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u/ZhangB Feb 01 '23
Ah yes, the weekly email blast from the manager that include but is not limited to: * their kids/dog/perfect family * book they are reading (non-fiction) * how important mental health is * synergies and value alignment
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u/togetherwem0m0 Feb 01 '23
Oh God we really are in a fake productivity bubble aren't we
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u/jctherik Feb 02 '23
Not really, we produce a lot, so much in fact our society can affort paying a large amount of people for producing a babble that nobody wants to read.
Sure, instead of paying them to do a meaningless job, we could just pay them to stay at home and shut up, but that would be socialism.
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u/Gabriel_Aurelius Feb 01 '23
endless stream of uninterrupted monologue that’s being produced
I was in a call JUST A FEW HOURS AGO where some guy did this. It was a 1 on 1 where I was giving him some info that helped him get done what he was doing and he proceeded to spout endless LinkedIn self important drivel.
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u/Crunkbutter Feb 02 '23
It's the same in the military.
2LT: "We all stood up and volunteered to defend our country!"
Not really, bro. I'm here mostly for capital and industry because I didn't have anything to do after high school and they promised to pay for my college.
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u/TheSheetSlinger Feb 01 '23
It reminds me of the Better Mortgage CEO making the layoffs all about himself and how he feels about it.
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u/Yokuz116 Feb 01 '23
That's literally all they do at these meetings. They just jerk each other off as they read off various performance statistics.
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u/KingGilgamesh1979 Feb 02 '23
Ugh. I once was given the chance to review the text for an announcement of major layoffs at a former (thankfully) company. He went on and on about how hard this was on him and how it really hurt him to have to fire all these people. Meanwhile I’d been in zoom calls with him where I could his new pool house being built in the background. The man had zero empathy.
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u/ahyouknowme Feb 01 '23
Why is she talking about herself and her leadership in a layoff email? Lmao
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u/jimmy_three_shoes Feb 01 '23
She also announced that an executive was being promoted and how excited she was to have appointed them in the same goddamn email.
Hey, ya'll are getting fired and that's hard for me, but this dude is getting a promotion and more money! Congrats!
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u/eserikto Feb 02 '23
Emails are expensive, bro. They cost like $10! You gotta be efficient with that shit.
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u/ehsahr Feb 02 '23
Aren't you're supposed to sandwich a bad thing between two good things:
"Hey everyone the company's doing great and we've got record profits!
Hundreds of you all are getting laid off.
And Fred is being promoted to a C-suit position with a huge bonus!"
Like that, right? /s
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Feb 01 '23
Yeah!
Like, that sounds like more of a criticism of her shitty leadership than congratulations.
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u/Pinecone Feb 01 '23
That's what they do. Remember that mass layoff video from another CEO? He only talked about himself saying shit like "I hope I'm stronger during this message than last time". They seriously have no soul whatsoever. Their whole being is entrenched in their job.
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u/gonnagle Feb 02 '23
Reminds me of the email our director sent us in December 2020 (I work in patient care in a hospital). Earlier that month I had made a pointed remark in our huddle meeting (knowing upper management was on the call) about how we need to say thank you to each other because no one else is saying thank you to us for working in the hospital during a pandemic. Two weeks later we got this email "thanking" us - but the director spent two whole paragraphs talking about how hard and scary it was for her to work during the pandemic (in her private office), how her two year old would say "mommy show-show" because she would shower as soon as she got home (from her private office that wasn't even in the hospital) etc. Nothing acknowledging the actual employees who were in COVID patient rooms all day long - nope, the whole email was about her. Totally insensitive.
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u/Thisisntmyaccount24 Feb 01 '23
“This was hard for me too, I mean, I had to upset a bunch of my lessers, how do you think I feel?”
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u/jbaugues Feb 01 '23
I was stress eating caviar all night and ended up busting the seems on my $3000 pants. Come on!
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u/Thisisntmyaccount24 Feb 01 '23
The pants were $3000, but the tailoring was another $50, show some empathy!!
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u/Sintered_Monkey Feb 01 '23
She makes 9 million a year and owns 17 million in company stock. That buys a lot of Kleenex and ice cream. I think she'll get over it.
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u/Thisisntmyaccount24 Feb 01 '23
Yes, but how brave of her to stand up and say, “you no longer have health care, and you, you no longer have health care either….”
The quote is about taking a principled stand when it’s the unpopular thing to do. What fucking principle is she putting her neck on the line here for?
I hope she breaks her arm jerking herself off.
Also, the frustration and sarcasm is not meant to be aimed at you, just a continuation of how ridiculous her using the quote is.
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u/Cre8ivejoy Feb 01 '23
You said it! The audacity of an individual to cut human beings off from their healthcare astounds me.
One of my older friends was recently fired from a private, non profit. 60 years old, was the actual top employee of the year in yearly evaluations.
He and at least 10% of company, out.
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u/slippy7890 Feb 02 '23
It shouldn’t even be a thing. In no sane world should our access to healthcare be determined by the company we work for.
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u/Politicsboringagain Feb 01 '23
If she would have taking a $5 million pay cut to help keep people on the staff, than maybe she could have been taking a principled stand.
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u/supamario132 Feb 01 '23
"If I don't fire you, I can't increase my dividend by 50% this quarter and is that a world you want to live in?!?"
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u/Sintered_Monkey Feb 01 '23
"You have no idea how many Versace handkerchiefs I've gone through crying over this. And organic vegan locally sourced ice cream. Do you know how much I'm going to have to pay my personal trainer to work off all this ice cream? And my therapist! I have to fly all the way to London for office visits. I've been so down about this that my butler needs therapy too!"
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u/MrDerpGently Feb 01 '23
I will never financially recover from this... I mean, I will. But it will take a couple weeks and also you're fired.
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u/Sintered_Monkey Feb 01 '23
"You have no idea what I'm going through! I was so upset that I crashed my Bentley into my Ferrari!"
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u/beelseboob Feb 01 '23
Worth noting, that her salary is likely to be approximately the same as the salaries of the 70ish employees she laid off. People often go on about how the salaries of the rich wouldn’t be a drop in the ocean compared to the money needed to pay decent wages, but this is the perfect example of that being pure bullshit. All she would have to do is make a still fairly gratuitous $1m a year, and suddenly none of those layoffs would be necessary.
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u/vanityklaw Feb 01 '23
It’s like when you dump someone. It absolutely does truly suck, but don’t act like you have it just as bad. You really don’t.
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u/errdayimshuffln Feb 01 '23
These past few years have opened my eyes to the inevitability of the event where people will use MLKs words to justify and argue for violence against black people.
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u/IEnjoyFancyHats Feb 01 '23
The whitewashing of MLK's legacy is almost complete. He's been reduced to milquetoast feel good liberal who advocates for nothing more than complacency in the face of injustice when he was very radical for his time
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u/loki1887 Feb 01 '23
I dare any of these clowns to read any of the books he wrote. Especially, the dimwits that like to claim he was Republican.
Read "Where Do We Go From Here?" Reading that book, they would turn red in the face. That man was not mild in his ideas and they were far left even for today (especially for today). Hell, the right were attacking him as a communist back then ( and they probably weren't too far off).
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u/theholyraptor Feb 01 '23
Let's not leave out the part where he saw how economically disadvantaged black people were as a result of their treatment and realized that they and all poor people only had a real shot at bettering their lives if massive economic policy changes happened. He worked with many socialists and was pushing for more social safety nets when they killed him.
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u/squiddlebiddlez Feb 01 '23
“Black history month” MLK is right up there amongst the great myths with characters like Supply Side Jesus, “the party of Lincoln”, and the infallible founding fathers
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u/Soleos Feb 01 '23
She watched The Menu and admired how chef used an MLK quote. Everything about that movie went over her head.
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u/welestgw Feb 01 '23
I think it was more her copy pasta'ing the quote from the success to the layoff email as it was in both. Still brain dead, but more of a case of lack of attention to detail. Which of course is what you want from a CEO.
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u/errdayimshuffln Feb 01 '23
A tech CEO? Why so general?
PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada
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u/dont_worry_im_here Feb 01 '23
Haha they were blowing up my inbox 2 months about Enterprise AE roles.
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u/Beginning_Book_2382 Feb 01 '23
'Xactly. Name 'em and don't generalize to the whole industry
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u/rontrussler58 Feb 01 '23
Yeah no kidding, Intel CEO just took a 25% pay cut along with all the executives, so they didn’t have to do layoffs. There are pockets of integrity but they don’t generate engagement so we mostly don’t see them.
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u/DeeeetroitSportsFan Feb 01 '23
They better not be laying off people when they just got 15 billion from the government.
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u/DemSocCorvid Feb 02 '23
Typically huge government disbursements means: "We have to lay people off since we needed government assistance. We also need to pay our executives big bonuses for saving us so much in overhead with these layoffs."
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u/geeky_username Feb 01 '23
Intel CEO just took a 25% pay cut along with all the executives, so they didn’t have to do layoffs.
.... but Intel did have layoffs. But they "took a cut" to "prevent more layoffs"
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u/Funktastic34 Feb 02 '23
Take the W man. A 25% pay cut is huge compared to the multimillion bonuses that other CEOs reward themselves with for having to layoff staff
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u/cmandet Feb 01 '23
Idk if you know this but he took home $197M in 2021. Of course now they're having to resort to cutting salaries across the board to save jobs.
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u/primarily_pidgin Feb 01 '23
What do you mean don't generalize to the industry? Are you aware of a secret trove of benevolent tech CEOs doing good stuff? Please don't respond with one article about one guy ~ trying ~ because that doesn't matter against myriad crimes - of both a legal and moral nature - that are repeatedly committed on over-worked and underpaid staff, the environment, and society at large so billionaire tech CEOs can make an additional few million dollars. I just... it's like the inverse of "a few bad apples spoils the lot": "a few good apples salvage the rest" and it's just patently false. "90% of tech CEOs give the other 10% a bad name!" is an unfathomable position.
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u/SooooooMeta Feb 01 '23
At the same time, it sure fits the stereotype to a ‘t’. We’ll see how many of her fellow CEOs will make a statement against this. Oh right, exactly zero because they don’t want it on record such that it can be reposted when they do something remarkably similar in future
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u/rookie-mistake Feb 01 '23
why would people involved in managing completely separate and unrelated companies be expected to make a statement in the first place
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u/AppMtb Feb 01 '23
The best part is she was patting herself on the back with the MLK quote, not trying to uplift her now laid off employees lol. I can’t tel if i like this one or the CEO who took the crying selfie better. Probably crying selfie to be honest.
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u/hamilkwarg Feb 01 '23
The crying selfie was pathetic. This is just oblivious. This is more palatable.
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u/Nubsondubs Feb 01 '23
The manner in which she presented her announcement was 100% for the benefit of her bosses, not the people being laid off.
She doesn't give a shit about them.
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u/BigMax Feb 01 '23
Holy crap, I just read what the quote was. Talking about "the ultimate measure of a leader."
While laying people off, she had the nerve to COMPLIMENT HERSELF! As if it's HER that is facing adversity and doing hard things, and not all those people who are now out of a job.
"You're all fired. But just know, with great strength, courage, perseverance, I WILL get through this! I will come out stronger than ever! So as you pack your desks today, as you collect your final paycheck, do not worry, I will be OK!"
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u/bigmac1122 Feb 01 '23
It reminds me of the Lord Farquad quote "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make"
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u/EricIsEric Feb 01 '23
I just rewatched Shrek for the first time in years and Lord Farquad has such great asshole lines: "Now really, it's rude enough being alive when no one wants you, but showing up uninvited to a wedding?"
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u/Prophet2Nations Feb 01 '23
One of my favorite quotes of all time. I remember when it was applied to Boris Johnson
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u/Tearakan Feb 01 '23 •
And ultimately the responsibility of layoffs is on her. Had she done her job effectively she wouldn't have hired so recklessly in the 1st place.
Layoffs like this mean the company leadership failed in doing their one job, actually forecasting the business.
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u/BigMax Feb 01 '23
And the kicker I also just saw - she excitedly announced someone else's promotion in the same email. Talk about tone deaf.
"I'm a great leader! Also Jim got a promotion, great work Jim! Also, you're fired!"
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u/WayneKrane Feb 01 '23
My company does this constantly. They’ll say “We’re sad to see this team go but I’m sure they’ll land on their feet. Anyways, let’s congratulate Susan, the new director of strategic operations…”
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u/Mr_ToDo Feb 01 '23
Ya, I've got a manager sort of like that.
It's the complement sandwich, say something nice then something bad(or make a demand) and if you have time another nice thing(but ain't nobody got time for that, open faced sandwiches for everybody). It's incredibly disingenuous, and when it's the only way you hear nice things they end up meaning nothing(but it is a great way to know when to run out of the room).
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u/Thingisby Feb 01 '23
It's seen as sugaring bad news with good.
"Company will fail so we had to let 350 people go. But in better news Bob has been promoted from dogsbody to senior dogsbody so well done Bob!"
So many of my bosses think this is a good idea.
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u/Scaryclouds Feb 01 '23
I mean even the best hypothetical CEO might have to lay people off, markets can change in unexpected ways. In such cases laying people off might be the only option. When that happens, give people a fair (or generous) severance package, thank them for their service and take the reasonable steps to help them on the next step in their career; opportunities to find other positions in the company, career counseling service, good recommendation to future employer.
Of course other parts with that you'd hope the CEO and executives would also be taking substantive reductions in their compensation as a signal of shared burden, a sign that they recognize their role in these failures, and reduce the number of people laid off.
In all of this though, you'd hope they'd have the wisdom to not quote civil rights leaders.
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u/ArbitraryMeritocracy Feb 01 '23
Layoffs like this mean the company leadership failed in doing their one job, actually forecasting the business.
Companies refuse to cut higher up salaries. They're being overpaid and now the quality of the product suffers as a result of all the layoffs.
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u/BevansDesign Feb 01 '23
Yeah, this is pretty standard sociopathic stuff. We need to find ways to restructure our society so it doesn't reward sociopathic behavior. We shouldn't have people who have impaired empathy running everything.
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u/Nubsondubs Feb 01 '23
Laying people off sucks and it's really hard, but it is significantly harder for the person being laid off.
She's a sociopath.
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u/ReadingGoat Feb 01 '23
I have to think someone this brain dead doesn’t ACTUALLY understand why what they did was wrong. They just see the bad press and say sorry.
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u/xxFrenchToastxx Feb 01 '23
PR department probably forcing her to apologize. What a horrible person. Announce layoffs, promotions and the fact that they forecast strong growth no matter which way the economy goes this year in the same email. CUNextTuesday you slimy bitch
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u/greenappletree Feb 01 '23
its also show egotism because the quote is calling herself a leader in harsh time- wtf.
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u/Reasonable_Ticket_84 Feb 01 '23
She's just proving that she's another individual that failed upwards into their role.
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u/christophxc Feb 01 '23
Wasn’t there just a ChatGPT layoff announcement that went viral with an MLK quote? The AI knows us well
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u/KVEMMCG Feb 01 '23
Yeees, was the chatGPT prompt real or was it a joke to mock this CEOs letter?
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u/SiliconValleyIdiot Feb 01 '23
PagerDuty CEO and the Away suitcases CEO proving once again that sociopathy is not a trait reserved only for male execs. Female execs and CEOs can be just as sociopathic.
In a way it's heartwarming to know sociopathy in executives is gender neutral.
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u/AutomaticMechanic Feb 01 '23
I love that for us!
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u/shockingnews213 Feb 02 '23
"I hear that our drone striker is a woman! How progressive!"
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u/charging_chinchilla Feb 01 '23
Lord Farquad vibes from that email
"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
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u/pmmartin Feb 01 '23
Can we eat them yet?
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u/responseAIbot Feb 01 '23 •
Nope. The only time you could was in 1700s in France.
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u/PabloDickasso69 Feb 01 '23
ironic that you used the term "incident", and PagerDuty is an incident management platform
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u/Exoddity Feb 01 '23
She went on to say, that having been humbled, she now understands why the caged bird sings.
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u/teddytwelvetoes Feb 01 '23
what happens when a regular employee makes an eyebrow-raising made-public fuck-up like this? the CEO is supposed to be the big brain business genius whose unrivaled knowledge and savviness justifies their infinite salary, no?
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u/Beginning_Book_2382 Feb 01 '23
what happens when a regular employee makes an eyebrow-raising made-public fuck-up like this? the CEO is supposed to be the big brain business genius whose unrivaled knowledge and savviness justifies their infinite salary, no?
This quote can be used to describe Elon's situation perfectly
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u/stinking_badgers Feb 01 '23
If you read the original letter it’s so stuffed full of tech biz jargon it’s amazing this MLK quote was even decipherable. She comes off like a very typical tech bro CEO.
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u/hawkweasel Feb 01 '23
It's so awful. Like three whole pages of ass-licking, meaningless word puffery that completetly glosses over the "oh yeah, we're also going to be shitcanning 9% of you today".
These are the type of companies that you read about where the employees wake up on a Monday morning and cry because they have to go back and spend another week grinding out meat for a soulless, management heavy, number-crunching behemoth.
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u/Clairvoidance Feb 01 '23
Tech CEO clearly doesn't know that paying attention to it only makes it stay in the news longer
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u/DaveinOakland Feb 01 '23
“The time is always right to do what is right, and right now you should take that door on the right, and leave your ID with security right there"
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u/Sumfuc Feb 01 '23
Still kept her job though, right?
Apology NOT accepted. Fuck your company.
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u/Turbulent-Smile4599 Feb 01 '23
I have a dream! That one day, tech CEOs will make 9, and 10-figure bonuses!
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u/Eladiun Feb 01 '23
The capitalist washing of Dr King is astounding they continue to try and make him a mouthpiece for actions the opposite of what he stood for.
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u/M_R_Nanashi Feb 01 '23
She’s not sorry. This reminds me of serial killers who get caught, they don’t feel bad for the victims but feel bad cuz they got caught.
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u/RightZer0s Feb 01 '23
My company laid people off recently and every time my manager or an exec talked about it it just pissed me off. I would honestly prefer if execs and managers would shut up when this stuff happens.
It's all just excuses and bullshit about why them failing means we have to let people go. Meanwhile, they don't take a single fucking pay cut.
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u/djcarpentier Feb 01 '23
A good example of why high paid CEO's are not 'special'. They are idiots like everyone else.
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u/XavierRex83 Feb 01 '23
CEOs announced layoffs, and while they must understand the effect of the layoffs, they don't personally deal with it. The order gets moved down, and mid level managers or upper management deal with it. I have seen so many times where Upper Management will lay the full burden on the mid level manager. As someone who had to do this cycle, it makes you feel sick, even when the person is not a doog employee. In recent times, we were told we have to get rid of x headcount, and even though we had spots open and didn't have anyone who was not performing, we still had to let people go. I couldn't take any more and left for a new company that was small and growing instead of a giant corporation.
There was one round of layoffs where they had a manager tell like 6 people they were getting laid off, and then they brought that manager in and laid him off.
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u/lowpolydinosaur Feb 01 '23
There was one round of layoffs where they had a manager tell like 6 people they were getting laid off, and then they brought that manager in and laid him off
That is ice cold, holy shit. I thought the Zoom call layoffs were bad, but that takes the cake.
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u/captainsave Feb 01 '23
For those wondering what the quote actually was...
"I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that 'the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy,'" Tejada wrote, slightly tweaking the original quote from the civil-rights activist and including her own words in brackets.
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u/deepsea333 Feb 01 '23
MLK said “man” in each of those instances. In the sense of ‘one who posses the desirable qualities of courage vigor and strength.’
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u/FridgesArePeopleToo Feb 01 '23
Best part is that she chose to include an MLK quote complementing her leadership ability.
"Sorry y'all lost your jobs, but if it's any consolation, I'm awesome"
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u/off_the_marc Feb 01 '23
How do people this stupid get jobs like this?
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u/counttyme Feb 01 '23
She’s probably very smart. She’s probably also a psychopath and has no empathy or concern for other people
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u/holden_mcg Feb 02 '23
I worked in marketing/communication for years and was at first stunned by how bad senior executives are at public and company communications. The problem often is they are surrounded by kiss-asses who think they're great communicators, but REALLY aren't.
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u/Mach12gamer Feb 02 '23
You know, this makes me think of some quotes from MLK.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."
“We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together... you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others... the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order."
“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell."
Yeah fun fact for those who might not know MLK was a socialist.
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u/Olasg Feb 01 '23
MLK was a marxist and pro worker rights, this doesn’t make any sense.
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u/hasordealsw1thclams Feb 01 '23
I think the people most likely to quote him are the least likely to know anything he actually stood for besides racial equality and even then they are usually just paying lip service to that aspect.
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u/truculentduck Feb 01 '23
Amazon put up a banner about honoring him too on mlk day
It’s like
He didn’t say “I have a dream that one day people can be overworked beyond their well-being and pee in bottles on delivery runs”
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u/metaphorm Feb 01 '23
I feel like we're facing a moment where the sort of bullshit from executives that we've all seen for years and years has got to become culturally taboo, and grounds for dismissal or demotion if it becomes a pattern.
good leadership matters. good leadership means having actual empathy and communicating effectively. the kind of ego-inflated tone-dead nonsense that we keep seeing from executives should make their company radioactive to both investors and job seekers. there should be real consequences to missteps like this. more consequences than people snarking at them on social media. it should impact THEIR job and THEIR career path.
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u/Mr-IT-Guy Feb 01 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
When she asked Chatbot to write her speech she forgot to say "while not sounding like MLK".
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u/varateshh Feb 02 '23 edited Feb 02 '23
Her statement was pure generic corpo self-masturbation. It was so generic that chatgpt uses same MLK quote (except keeping the man part) when you ask for an 'inspiring' corporation layoff pr statement.
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u/SpeakingFromKHole Feb 01 '23 •
'I have a dream... And you are not part of that dream.'