[aredington]

He got whacked because he was being dismissive of people's objection to a business decision.

He compared the business decision to engineering limitations (vacuums need AC out of plugs, mobile phones need cell towers in range), and was snide about people objecting to the business decision to have a console that only works when it is connected to the internet.

He wasn't having open an honest dialog, and he wasn't conducting that dialog politely.

I think most folks on HN know of some marginalized political philosophies such as anarchism or libertarianism. These political philosophies aren't popular, but there are polite and intellectually rigorous ways of discussing them, and there are immature and inconsiderate ways of discussing them.

You can discuss marginalized or unpopular things without being an asshole. But Orth was discussing them while being an asshole, and was doing it as a representative of Microsoft.