[jlarocco]

I don't know if this is such a great example.

The right thing to do seemed pretty obvious, and it would have been easier to just give it to Pinboard in the first place. The skeptical view here is that they're only fixing things because they were so vocally called out for screwing up.

So yeah, taking responsibility is great, but doing the wrong thing and taking responsibility only you're called out for it, isn't so great. When possible, just do the right thing in the first place.

[santoshalper]

You have to give people a path to get apologize and get better. Sometimes, it takes getting yelled at to realize that you are wrong. That doesn't make the learning any less real.

Otherwise, we just live in a world where everybody demonizes each other and we are knives out all the time. Oh, wait...

You can't ask for much more than a full apology and an offer to make it right. This was as good as we can expect to get.

[jlarocco]

I'm not sure I agree with that in general. There should be negative consequences for doing the wrong thing. Companies shouldn't be able to do whatever they want and say "Oops, our bad! Look how awesome we are for owning up to it!" Otherwise there's no motivation to do better in the future.

I'm not saying YC should go out of business, or YC funded companies should be boycotted or anything like that, but some negative publicity is well deserved. The parent comment seemed to be sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

[vidarh]

The consequence is closer scrutiny next time, and less likelihood of "getting off" as easily next time.

Being allowed to go "oops, our bad" every time would have bad consequences, I agree. Being able to go "oops, our bad" every now and again because you usually do ok is another matter entirely.

One of the incentives to do good can very well be that it makes you more likely to get off easy when something occasionally goes wrong - it's good insurance.

It boils down to trust: You get off easy with a "oops, our bad" when people believe it is a genuine, occasional mistake, rather than a regular case of "shit, they caught us, better backpedal".