I would suggest you step away from any scripts and turn on the company ears. Simply explaining what is going on more “clear” and repeating it more often probably won’t get you anywhere good.
Why does this make your users uncomfortable? How can you work with them to achieve your product goals without undermining your relationship with them?
I strongly object to characterizing this situation as a PR disaster. The problem isn't that TripleByte is perceived as doing something unethical. The problem is that what TripleByte is doing is unethical.
You’re not wrong, and as far as you and I are concerned, that is the problem.
From TripleByte’s perspective it is a PR disaster, or at least we should treat it as such. Appealing to TripleByte’s internal moral compass is unlikely to succeed since they’ve demonstrated that they don’t have one. So we resort to appealing to their self-interest, since that is something they care about.
I'm not ready to write people off and conclude that the Triplebyte team have no moral compass. Certainly many business people do lack a moral compass, and they show a lot of the signs. But writing off people as simply bad people is a pretty extreme step.
But whether these particular business people have a moral compass or not is irrelevant to whether we should be discussing this as a moral or strategic mistake:
1. If they have a moral compass, then the strategic mistake pales in comparison to the ethical mistake, and they'll get that. We should be encouraging people to listen to their conscience, not teaching them to equate their conscience with selfishness.
2. If they don't have a moral compass, then we shouldn't even be talking to them, we should be talking to each other about how we dis-empower them and remove them from positions where they can do harm. Even if we persuade a narcissist or sociopath that it's in their best interest to do the right thing in one situation, they'll just be presented with a new situation where they think it's not in their best interest to do the right thing. If they really are just bad people, they should be treated as the blight on society that they are.
> I'm not ready to write people off and conclude that the Triplebyte team have no moral compass.
I’m not going to pronounce any absolute judgment or certainty about this, but I think it’s a serious possibility for us to consider.
> If they don't have a moral compass, then we shouldn't even be talking to them, we should be talking to each other about how we dis-empower them and remove them from positions where they can do harm.
I won’t ever use TripleByte again; will you?
> Even if we persuade a narcissist or sociopath that it's in their best interest to do the right thing in one situation, they'll just be presented with a new situation where they think it's not in their best interest to do the right thing.
I never accused anyone of being a narcissist or sociopath. Those are relatively extreme conditions. I’m simply describing people who have bad intrinsic moral character. And the world is filled with these people. As a society, we elicit good behavior out of these people by creating and applying incentives. It turns out that PR is one such incentive. Laws are another.
True, but we're talking about problems here, not things working correctly. The ethical disaster is the problem. An ethical disaster should result in a PR disaster. If an ethical disaster results in a PR disaster, that's not a problem, that's the system working correctly.
I have absolutely no interest in helping companies who pull shit like this recover from their PR disasters. If you do something like this, you deserve all the bad press you get.
The rhetorical technique that annoys me the most plays out like this...
Me: Thing
You: I hate that thing
Me: You don’t understand Thing. Here’s Thing explained.
You: I understand Thing, I still hate it.
Me: You don’t understand Thing. When you understand it, you’ll like it. (Repeat)
Sometimes this is stupidity thinking that understanding is missing, but I think it’s usually shady just so they have something to say to counter the objection that is visible to people outside the conversation, who are interested, and at least see some form of technical interaction.
There needs to be a catchy name for this type of interaction. I loathe it as well and it's annoyingly common. Companies that rely on this behavior should be called out repeatedly.
Willful misunderstanding?
Confusion redirect?
Defray to diffuse?
The technique seems super common now, and I’ve been expecting to run into it in some communications training, but haven’t yet.
I feel like there’s some crisis PR tactics this fits into that involves “Never disagree, redirect and ignore.” It diffuses criticism and makes it hard to argue.
It seems related to when I see a complaint on a review site that’s been responded to with “I’m the manager, please call me.” It doesn’t resolve the issue, but it shows that someone is doing something, so it diffuses pile on because it stops complaints of ignoring customers.
Opt-In doesn't help them achieve their product goals.
Triplebyte as founded isn't working so they're trying to take a valuable asset they have (engineers looking for jobs) to compete with linkedin
The problem with bootstrapping a linkedin competitor is the same chicken-and-egg problem with networks generally. You need people on it for people to join it.
What Triplebyte wants is your identity public. That's the product goal. The problem is that opt-in won't get them that. What are the incentives for anyone to make theirs public?
How many people who were searching for a job without telling their company are going to opt-in to make that public?
Most certainly not enough to bootstrap a LinkedIn competitor.
So someone had the idea to move fast and break things, either:
a) hoping no one would notice
b) hoping the fallout wouldn't be bad
c) not caring that the fallout would be bad
d) not knowing that there would be fallout
none of the above are particularly inspiring. It does seem hard to miss this coming
> How many people who were searching for a job without telling their company are going to opt-in to make that public?
I think that's the real issue: timing. The only time this can work is when someone has just resigned or joined a new company, so they can (and are actually willing to) "legitimately" pump up the volume about themselves.
So make it an easy opt-in triggered by these events. Any triplebyte candidate that "closes the deal" should get opted-in automatically. Anybody without an ongoing work relationship, should get opted-in automatically. Everyone else, you hold fire until something significant happens publicly, at which point you gently prod them. You can even ask, when someone signals they are looking for a job, "do you want your profile public at this time? It's a pretty cool thing! If not, no biggie, we'll ask again once things change."
It's not rocket science to do this respectfully and it's sad that they didn't.
> Any triplebyte candidate that "closes the deal" should get opted-in automatically. Anybody without an ongoing work relationship, should get opted-in automatically.
Am I misunderstanding you? If you "get opted in automatically", then it's no longer opt-in; it's opt-out.
But doing it all at once and having it opt-out accomplishes that. If "John Smith" has a public TripleByte profile next week, as a third party the only signal I can get out of that is that "John Smith" passed the TripleByte interview some time in the past. I'd be okay with this if TripleByte gave a couple weeks to opt-out and made certain potentially sensitive information opt-in. Just make it 4 weeks to opt-out and by default don't display the date they interviewed with TripleByte and don't display "Open to new opportunities". Then just ask the user what they want after new interviews and accepted job offers.
If they made the initial launch opt-in then that signals that the user deliberately chose to advertise that to the world. The message a current employer gets out of something that's opt-in instead of opt-out is notably different. This is just like the whole opt-out fiasco with the Do Not Track header. If it's opt-out, the signal is largely meaningless. In this case that's a benefit.
> Opt-In doesn't help them achieve their product goals.
None of the users care. Just because something is convenient, doesn't mean it's right.
On that note, I wish one day we'll stop letting startups get away with dishonest behavior (e.g. astroturfing) and dark patterns done for the sake of "solving the chicken-and-egg problem". Building a network is hard, tough shit. Doesn't mean you should build your company on lies and disrespectful treatment of your users from the start.
If their goal is to have my identity public, that's a pretty bad goal--certainly not a profitable one.
I own my own business. I'm not looking for a job. Unless something goes really horribly wrong, I won't be looking for a job in 24 months, or ever. Having my profile public doesn't add to the signal on their platform, it adds to the noise. Having my profile public is a waste of time for me, them, and employers looking for someone with my skills.
Hopefully his last too, as the company goes down in flames. But well, scumbag CEOs usually have parachutes (or Mary Poppinsesque umbrellas?) that take them elsewhere..
I would suggest you step away from any scripts and turn on the company ears. Simply explaining what is going on more “clear” and repeating it more often probably won’t get you anywhere good.
Why does this make your users uncomfortable? How can you work with them to achieve your product goals without undermining your relationship with them?
Good luck!