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Just to be clear, you are comparing two hip hop artists, two comedians, two actors, and an avante garde pop artist to the CEO of a mobile games company? In fact you are comparing a group of individuals who are all famous or infamous in their own way for being edgy and/or a mess, to a company that makes family friendly games. There is a very large difference between the responsibilities of an entertainer and a CEO. The responsibilities of some of the aforementioned celebrities could arguably include being "offensive". Witness the scorn heaped upon Eddie Murphy when he decided to shed his Raw persona and turn to family movies. If you are worrying about having to censor your public persona in the future, go into a line of business where being edgy is part of the attraction. However, it is never a good move, whether as a CEO or public figure or basic human being to get up on a soapbox and say bitchy, petty, mean spirited things. The OMGPop CEO is not speaking "brutal honesty", he's just acting like a dick most likely because his ego has swollen out of control by the sale and the success of Draw Something and he can't stand that this "little guy" is pissing on his parade. This is the behaviour of a child, not a leader. Lastly, this isn't about "holding people to high standards", as if it is some sort of conscious thing we participate in. In societal interactions there is a implicit understanding of the range of acceptable behaviour for a public figure, it is unconscious and breaching those boundaries will have immediate emotional consequences on how people perceive you. If Snoop Dog says fuck or calls himself a pimp nobody will blink, if he punched a child in the face people would immediately react negatively. Likewise if he stopped all of his Snoop persona and started working for the Rick Santorum campaign. If you are the CEO of a company that makes family friendly mainstream games, people expect that you will act like an adult in possession of self-control are good judgement. If you are the CEO of a company that sells coke spoons, maybe less so. Notch is able to say what he did because he has garnered significant good will, and because it embodies the mass public reaction to the OMGpop tweet. If he tweeted this kind of thing all the time he would lose that good will eventually. As a one off though.. it IS idiotic and insane to publicly belittle former employees as a CEO. Moral of the story is don't be a dick in public view, unless you are in public view for being a dick ;) |