I am not criticizing them for expanding. I am criticizing Jobs for using her power to hire more people, but not using her power to temporarily maintain their jobs in a uniquely dangerous situation.
First of all, you assume she is running the day-to-day. I don't know that she is. My guess is she isn't and its Emerson plus The The Atlantic. Thats their job.
In terms of "temporarily maintain their jobs", events have been cancelled for months. You can argue that management did try this.
However with no clear Federal management or proper guidance, and states taking opposing approaches, we are going to see this return in waves and events business is not coming back soon.
As I said to someone else, if the argument is that she should step in to ensure they have super generous severance packages, I'm in agreement. (I didn't define that above, but I'm thinking around a year, including benefits.) I'm just not on board with what seemed to be an argument for keeping them employed indefinitely.
I agree with the other reply to you, too, though -- I don't know that she "used her power to hire more people," per se. If a VC gives a tech company an infusion of capital and the tech company goes on a hiring spree, I don't think we'd really look at that as the VC using their power to hire more people, and I think that's a much better analogy. Laurene Powell Jobs didn't buy The Atlantic and install herself as an editor or publisher -- she started a social-minded investment organization that bought a majority stake in The Atlantic, and there's little indication she's involved with day-to-day affairs.
In terms of "temporarily maintain their jobs", events have been cancelled for months. You can argue that management did try this.
However with no clear Federal management or proper guidance, and states taking opposing approaches, we are going to see this return in waves and events business is not coming back soon.