[sanderjd]

I don't know how you could read this thread and get to what you wrote for your alternative "instead of expanding". The alternative proposed by the thread starter is something like: "having invested in expansion, she should continue supporting the employees that were hired during that expansion". And that expansion is the change in the mission that the thread starter is referring to.

[chipotle_coyote]

The expansion was, according to the linked article, largely into live events. I disagree with characterizing that as a "change in the mission" -- the Atlantic always hosted some live events, and they continued publishing the magazine, so it's not as if they pivoted into becoming something they weren't.

But the point I was trying to get at is that if they won't be able to hold live events at all for a year or more to come and may take years past that to get back up to their original level, what does "supporting the employees" hired for that group mean? If we're talking super-generous severance packages, we're in agreement -- but if we're talking about paying them to keep doing a job in support of a business the company can no longer perform, which was the implication I got from the thread, I'd pretty hesitant to sign on.

I suppose I'm pushing back a bit at the notion that because there's a billionaire benefactor involved, that immediately changes the ethics of the situation. If Powell Jobs hadn't invested in them, they hadn't expanded, and they still had to do layoffs like so many media companies have in the last few months have, wouldn't their obligations be essentially the same? It seems to me they would -- yet it also seems to me we probably wouldn't be having this argument in that scenario.

(To be clear, I'm not saying "pity the billionaires" as much as saying "should billionaires exist" seems to me to be a somewhat orthogonal argument.)