“This is going to be the most underrated thing I will ever share. I debated whether or not to publish this. We just had to lay off some of our employees,” Braden Wallek, CEO of marketing agencies HyperSocial and HyperSphere, began a letter posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday. Also included is a selfie crying over her.
He explained in his letter that he had recently seen several reports about layoffs and that they are all due to the economy. But why did his company have to lay off employees? It is the same, he says. “I made a decision in February and stuck with it for a very long time. Now, I know my team would say ‘we made that decision together’, but I framed us. Because of those flaws, today I had to do the hardest thing I had to do.” He writes that he wants to show with his message that not every CEO is heartless and doesn’t care that employees should be fired.
“Another world”
In one day, about 32,000 people responded to the message and the reactions were certainly not all positive. Many believe Walek, but his position has also been frequently criticized. Especially in the photo he posted. Many feel that it would be better for him to use his platform to help separated people than to send a “non-worldly” message with a selfie.
Due to the many reactions, Wallick decided to answer himself after a few hours. “Hi everyone, I’m the crying CEO. No, I didn’t mean to speak up or make myself a victim. I’m sorry it happened that way. It wasn’t up to me to give the employees names publicly,” he wrote. “What I want to do now is try Improve this situation and start a thread of people looking for work.” He asked people looking for work to reply to the letter and thus help his former employees, but also others.
