The big topic of discussion last week was the fallout from the PyCon conference. At the conference, former Adria Richards, who, at the time, worked in developer relations for SendGrid, heard two conference attendees behind her making jokes about “forking” and “dongles” in the sort of juvenile way that often happens in the tech industry.
Richards took a photo of the jokers and tweeted it: “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles. Right behind me #pycon”
The results of this act were both serious and unexpected.
1) One of the developers pictured was fired by his company, PlayHaven. He went on to explain his side of the story on Hacker News. You can read Richards’ side of the story on her blog.
2) Richards’ then-employer, SendGrid, was heavily criticized for employing Richards, and came under a DDOS attack. Note that PlayHaven was not attacked (more on this later).
3) SendGrid fired Richards, explaining its rationale in a Facebook post that has since been removed by the company, followed by a blog post that is still accessible:
A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid.In the end, the consequences that resulted from how she reported the conduct put our business in danger. Our commitment to our 130 employees, their families, our community members and our more than 130,000 valued customers is our primary concern.
- http://www.businessinsider.com/adria-richards-dongle-and-forking-jokes-2013-3
- http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
- http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/
First of all I’d like to say I’m sorry. I really did not mean to offend anyone and I really do regret the comment and how it made Adria feel. She had every right to report me to staff, and I defend her position.

(Cross-posted @ Adventures in Capitalism)
Scariest thing here is that it appears to be fine with everyone involved that companies can just fire at will. What kind of world is that to live in?
Sure, it’s great if you’re successful, and I’m sure it’s wonderful if you run a business, but most people need that job they have to get by. I’ve just read about two people losing theirs because of a joke and a decision to tweet something.