The Real Reason Palmer Luckey Was Fired From Facebook (zdnet.com)

ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols argues that the founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, wasn't fired because of his political views, as a recently-published Wall Street Journal article suggests, but because the virtual-reality company lost a $500 million intellectual property theft case to game maker ZeniMax. An anonymous reader shares the report: According to The Wall Street Journal, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, a virtual reality company, was fired by Facebook because "he donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group" during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign. But the article fails to mention a simple little fact: On Feb. 1, 2017, Oculus lost an intellectual property (IP) theft case against game maker ZeniMax, to the tune of $500 million. So, if one of your employees just cost your company a cool half-billion bucks for doing wrong what would you do? Well, Facebook isn't saying, even now, but on March 30, 2017, it let Luckey go.

Yes, Luckey also lied about his political moves, which went well beyond donating to an anti-Hillary billboard campaign. But let's look at the record. Everyone knew he'd lied by Feb. 22, 2016. Was he fired then? No. Was he fired after being found guilty of stealing ZeniMax's trade secrets? Yes. Officially, Facebook stated: "All details associated with specific personnel matters are kept strictly confidential. This is our policy for all employees, no matter their seniority. But we can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views." Let me spell it out for you: He made some political waves. Nothing happened. He cost Facebook $500 million. He was fired. Can anyone here seriously not draw the lines between the dots?

Comments

TRASH Article

[bongey]

John Carmack still works for Facebook, who was a party in the ZeniMax case. Palmer Luckey wasn't even a party in the case. Utter bullshit story trying to deflect.

Re:TRASH Article

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, as any freshman business major can tell you, sunk costs should be ignored. You don't fire people because they lost money in the past, you fire them because you think they are going to lose money in the future.

My experience is that the most common reason people are fired is incompetence. The 2nd most common is being on the losing end of internal office politics. As you move up the hierarchy from janitor to CEO the first reason diminishes and the 2nd increases.

Re:TRASH Article

[PopeRatzo]

My experience is that the most common reason people are fired is incompetence.

Costing the company half a billion dollars might be seen as incompetence in some circles.

Re:TRASH Article

[squiggleslash]

Carmack is an important software developer who knows how the system works. Luckey isn't. He's an entrepreneur, not an engineer.

Additionally Facebook has pro-Trump people on its board, including Peter Thiel, who gave far more to the Trump campaign than Luckey, so the argument that Facebook fired anyone for supporting Trump is plain ludicrous on the face of it.

Re:TRASH Article

[Wescotte]

According to the court case decision Carmack wasn't head liable for any wrongdoing.

The jury trial completed on February 2, 2017, with the jury finding that Luckey had violated the NDA he had with ZeniMax, and awarding $500 million to ZeniMax.[15][16] However, the jury found that Oculus, Facebook, Luckey, Iribe, and Carmack did not misappropriate or steal trade secrets,[15][16][17] though ZeniMax continued to publicly assert otherwise

Re:TRASH Article

[serviscope_minor]

Also, as any freshman business major can tell you, sunk costs should be ignored. You don't fire people because they lost money in the past, you fire them because you think they are going to lose money in the future.

As anyone who's older than freshmen will tell you that never happens in practice. Businesses do not operate in some sort of platonic drive for profit free from emotion. They're made of people and people get really pissed off if you loose a cool half billion.

"Let me spell it out for you"

[iMadeGhostzilla]

The author of the article seems very intent on the readers taking his speculation as truth. I wonder why he cares so much.

Doubtful

[110010001000]

Execs lose billions of dollars and there are no repercussions. For example: Microsoft bought github for $7.5 billion. Eventually that will be marked down as a "writedown" for $7 billion, because Github isn't worth nearly what Microsoft paid for it. Essentially the executives wasted $7.5 billion. So, losing a $500 million court case is nothing. GE just did a writedown of $23 billion. There are no ramifications for the executives, but the stockholders get the shaft.

Re:Doubtful

[fatwilbur]

While I agree with your point, your first example of MS and github is wrong. You provided a textbook example of what is defined as goodwill in accounting. It's not an seldom used concept either; nearly every time you buy an entire company, unless it's performing very poorly, it's universally expected you're going to have to pay more than it is actually worth (based on sum of assets, income, etc.). While this may look like a "write down" in the sense it is a non-cash loss, the goodwill remains as an asset on the balance sheet. This is very different than "wasting" money (at least from an accounting sense) or a write-down where you're acknowledging the company has less valuable assets.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[Raenex]

The kind of folks who run Facebook couldn't care less which side won.

Oh really?

"Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta in June 2015 that she wants Clinton to "win badly" and that she is there to "help" as best she can, a leaked email reveals.

"Thank you -- means a lot to me that you reached out. And I like that you are praying for Dave. I have to believe in heaven now. And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids," Sandberg sent to Podesta in response to an email of his wishing condolences following the death of her husband.

In another email contained in the WikiLeaks release, this one from August, Sandberg asks Podesta if he'd be willing to meet with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

She wrote that Zuckerberg "is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about. He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals on social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research)."

Sandberg has donated tens of thousands to Democrats. In 2016 alone, the Facebook executive donated $270,800 alone to Democratic candidates and party committee, that includes $2,700 to Clinton."

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[AmiMoJo]

What about Peter Thiel? He's on the Facebook board and gave far more money to Trump than Lucky did.

Re:I don't know why he was fired

[AmiMoJo]

Well his presence rather undermines the notion that people get fired for for the political views or that Facebook itself has some kind of corporate level political agenda.