Fried Dorsey: Soggy, Not Crispy
December 15, 2022
I noted an odd shift in Big Tech acceptance of responsibility. For now, I will call this the Fried Dorsey Anomaly.
First, CNBC reported about a letter the MIT graduate and top dog at FTX wrote to employees. The article has the snappy title “Here’s the Apology Letter Sam Bankman-Fried Sent to FTX Employees: When Sh—y Things Happen to Us, We All Tend to Make Irrational Decisions. The logic in this victim argument and the use of a categorical affirmative are probably interesting to someone who loved Psychology 101. Here’s the sentence which caught my eye:
“I lost track of the most important things in the commotion of company growth. I care deeply about you all, and you were my family, and I’m sorry…”
This is the “Fried” side of making or not making certain decisions. Then there’s the apology.
Now let’s shift to the Dorsey facet of the anomaly. The estimable Wall Street Journal published “Dorsey Calls Twitter Controls Too Great.” The write up appeared in the December 15, 2022, dead tree version of the Murdoch output. The online, paywalled article is at this link. Here’s the statement I noted:
If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions.
These quotes are somewhat different from the “Senator, thank you for the question” and “We will improve…” statements from what we can think of as the pre-Covid era of Big Tech.
Now we have individuals accepting blame and demonstrating a soupçon of remorse, regret, or some related mental posture.
Thus, the post-Covid era of Big Tech is now into mea culpa suggestions and acceptance of blame.
Will the Fried Dorsey Anomaly persist? Will the tactic work as the penitents’ anticipate. Wow, I am convinced already.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2022