The Wrong People Suffer

an interesting article posted on CIO Group:

In order to stem the tide of refugees entering Europe, many countries have adopted stringent rules. For example, aid workers have been prevented from offering food or permanent shelter to refugees arriving by sea to the island of Lesvos. They can offer bottled water, care packages for mothers and babies, and dry clothes. But no hot meals, no comfortable beds, no rides to the next way point some 40 miles away. In 2016, more than 25% of these tens of thousands of arrivals were unaccompanied children. I'm pretty sure this broad stroke of international policy genius was completely lost on them. They just stayed hungry and cold as they made their way, on foot, to the next misery. Unless they died.

And did you hear about Ron Bell? It seems that Ron, an ethical and thoughtful attorney who advocated inside of Yahoo! for more than a decade for user privacy and full corporate transparency, was the only person fired by Yahoo's Board of Directors as having culpability for Yahoo's multiple security breaches. Apparently, Ron knew something about these challenges back in 2014, and now has been made an example to the rest of us. Meanwhile, Yahoo's technical information security team, its user data group, and its CEO, Marissa Mayer, just had their hands slapped. No bonus for Ms. Mayer! I wonder if Ron knows a good employment attorney?

Of course you've heard, dear reader, that thousands of people were laid off by publicly-traded companies in Silicon Valley over the past few months, even my beloved GoPro. And if the rumor mill is to be believed, there are probably more layoffs happening somewhere in Silicon Valley as I write this. I guess that makes sense in the perverse logic of publicly-traded companies. After all, margins aren't achieved by the little people who keep rowing the ship in the blazing sun while the "thought leaders" steal their rations to build ice sculptures. No, margins are achieved by good old fashioned cost-cutting, especially when senior leadership can't figure out how to make revenue out of water vapor.

Karma's a bitch to the wrong people. The wrong people suffer.