Idiotic teenagers are eating Tide Laundry Pods; poison control centers have reported 39 cases already in January. Procter & Gamble, the company that makes the detergent pods, had responded. I salute its social media response, but the CEO’s statement is tepid. Let’s address one thing right off: failing to talk about this problem isn’t a…
President Trump’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to try to block publication of Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s revealing account of President Trump’s first 200 days in office. The publisher, a division of Macmillan, published it anyway. Now Macmillan CEO John Sargent has sent a memo to all of his staff about the role of publishers…
Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg said his personal challenge for 2018 was to fix Facebook. This is a good sign, but we need to hold him accountable. Zuckerberg’s brief statement (432 words, posted on Facebook of course) is direct and personal compared to most CEO communications. Let’s take a look at what he’s saying, how he’s saying…
After news reports revealed that Apple was slowing down older iPhones with worn-out batteries, the company posted a public message to explain itself. It also offered to replace your battery for $29. This statement is clearer and more transparent than most corporate statements after missteps, but not up to Apple’s usual standards. Apple attempts to…
Patreon, a crowdfunding site for artists and creators, screwed up with an ill-conceived attempt to change how it charges fees. Now its co-founder Jack Conte has admitted the company’s mistake and asked for a do-over. His apology is sincere, human, and effective. Learn from it. According to Patreon’s blog, its original fee structure had resulted…
Hackers stole information on 600,000 Uber drivers and 57 million riders in 2016. The company paid $100,000 to the hackers to delete the data, but didn’t inform the affected people until now. New Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s remorseful apology is far clearer than Uber’s past statements, but never mentions the ransom. These are the facts,…
Should companies make political statements? I pondered this when I received a clearly political message in the catalog for the Uline, the company I get my shipping supplies from. Uline’s catalog is over 700 pages long. It’s filled with everything from corrugated cardboard boxes to book shippers, which I use a lot of. You could…
On Papa John’s most recent earnings call, its CEO and founder John H. Schnatter blamed poor results in part on controversies surrounding the NFL, which the restaurant chain sponsors. Stepping into the middle of a political controversy was a mistake. So was clumsily trying to walk it back on Twitter. What Papa John’s said on…
The New York Times, reviewing leaked documents from the law firm Appleby, described how Apple reroutes profits to avoid taxes. Apple’s denial is full of facts but lacks clarity. In Monday’s New York Times article “After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits,” here’s what we learned: Five months after [Apple…