[pxc]

Highlights from the paywalled Times article which is the basis of the OP:

> In 2019, former Kraken employees posted scathing comments about the company on Glassdoor, a website where workers write anonymous reviews of their employers. [...] In response, Kraken’s parent company sued the anonymous reviewers and tried to force Glassdoor to reveal their identities. A court ordered Glassdoor to turn over some names. On Glassdoor, Mr. Powell has a 96 percent approval rating. The site adds, “This employer has taken legal action against reviewers.”

--

> That same day, he invited employees to join him in a Slack channel called “debate-pronouns” where he suggested that people use pronouns based not on their gender identity but their sex at birth, according to conversations seen by The Times. He shut down replies to the thread after it became contentious. Mr. Powell reopened discussion on Slack the next day to ask why people couldn’t choose their race or ethnicity. He later said the conversation was about who could use the N-word, which he noted wasn’t a slur when used affectionately.

It is absolutely childish, unprofessional behavior for a CEO to derail a whole company by creating Slack channels for sophomoric 'debates' about questions such as 'is it actually rude and shitty for white people to use racial slurs' and then just shut them down when the conversation doesn't sufficiently favor his view for his liking.

The BI piece is a bit less explicit about the CEO's ridiculous behavior.

[Zanni]

I have to agree. The BI article really makes it seem as if Powell just wants to hasten the exit of agitators and malcontents. But the NYT article [0] makes it clear that Powell himself is the agitator.

[0] Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220615180655/http://www.nytime...

[devwastaken]

Yeah these are topics entirely inappropriate in work place communications. This ceo isn't mature enough to understand that, therefore they are not fit to be residing over any sort of "debate".

It's also very good evidence for a Title IX violation, so, this CEO is an active liability for the company too.