[newishuser]

You did them more good than harm.

1) Not having backups is an excuse-less monumental fuckup.

2) Giving anyone delete access to your production db, especially a junior dev through a GUI tool, is an excuse-less monumental fuckup.

Hopefully they rectified these two problems and are now a stronger company for it.

[generalpf]

I think it's a bit extreme to say he did more good than harm. He might have done some long-term good by having the company re-examine permissions and environments, but he probably did a lot of long-term harm by alienating current and future customers.

[stanleydrew]

There's an argument to be made that the company is doing harm to customers just by existing in such a precarious state. Anything that forces the technical leadership of the company to do the right thing or fail completely is actually better for customers in the long term.

[newishuser]

Better that it happened 2 months after backups were canceled than 6 months or later. If you're going to cancel your backups you're begging for disaster.

[Piskvorrr]

"But but but but...that item in the expense report is HUUUGE, and what revenue did we get out of having backups lately? Or ever? I say we drop it, nothing could possibly happen."

Some experiences are non-transferable. This identical conversation has taken place millions of times, but noooo: every penny-wise-pound-foolish CEO wants to experience the real thing, apparently.