As AOL Prepares To Downsize Patch, CEO Fires Employee During Meeting

An anonymous reader writes "AOL is closing or plans to sell nearly half of the 900 'hyperlocal' news websites operated by its money-losing Patch Media subsidiary (TechCrunch is also owned by AOL). Hundreds of staff layoffs are believed to be imminent. AOL acquired Patch in 2009, soon after ex-Googler Tim Armstrong took over as CEO; Armstrong was also a co-founder of Patch. During a tough conference call last Thursday Armstrong told Patch editors: 'Something at Patch has been missing for some time and that's leadership – leadership with a capital L'. Armstrong then demonstrated his grasp of Donald Trump's management style by firing an employee during the meeting for taking a picture. At 1:18 of the NY Post's sound clip from Jim Romensko: 'Leaking information Patch isn't going to bother me. I'm not changing direction'. At 2:00: 'Abel [Creative Director Lenz], put that camera down. Abel, you're fired. Out.' Armstrong later explained that 'The reason I fired Abel is I don't want anyone taking pictures of this meeting' and that, much like a sports team, AOL couldn't afford to have people 'giving the game plan away'."

Comments

Re:He was the Creative Director

[fermion]

This is what happens when you work for someone else. You do things they don't like you get fired. It really has nothing to do with management. It has to do with common sense.

I know this is not directly related, but we saw this in the Boston thing. Common sense says when bullets are flying you go the other direction. We had all these people running towards it trying to get photos. Bullets can be fatal even from a mile away.

So you are in a meeting where tension is running high, and you start doing something that common sense tells you is going to antagonize your boss or a c-level executive. Yeah, that is really smart. Someone like that deserves to keep their job. Maybe the nest thing that person is going to do is watch videos while they are driving, because, you know, you have an inherent right to do stuff like that.

Life lesson. If you do something dumb, just let it go. The Streisand effect. Now the entire internet knows how dumb this guy is.