I'm frustrated by this logic. On one level, you're punishing an entire company because of the actions from one guy. Wouldn't it suck if your CEO committed some offense, and you personally had to pay for it by losing your job?
Second, I simply do not feel it is my place as a consumer to punish a person for his behavior. The legal system is in place to deal with this, and that should be more than sufficient, and it's important that is the system used to deal with the issue, because everyone has rights. The legal system is designed to allow both parties to exercise their rights. Cowboy boycotts by consumers are emotionally driven mobs. That's not justice.
Finally, we as a society used to believe in second chances. Once someone commits an offense, usually they pay some price (maybe losing a job, going to jail, paying a fine etc) and then we give them a chance to participate in our society again. They don't always get all their previous privledges back. If you commit a felony, you won't be able to own a firearm for example. But you do get a another chance to be productive.
I hope you're kidding but don't think you are. This guy doesn't need a second chance - he has hundreds of million of dollars.
Anyone working at this company is smart enough to get a job anywhere else with relative ease. I'm hardly worried about highly skilled people "losing their job" - at this point the ones that choose to stay are doing so for some reason, not because they just need any random job.
What about a secretary at the company? Is it fair if (s)he loses their job? But what is it about being highly skilled which makes it okay that they should have to uproot their lives? Just because I might not fall down does not imply that I would enjoy being kicked.
I just don't feel like you're being morally consistent here. Sure I get having empathy for the guys victim(s) (i have no idea what the details of the situation here are). But there's two sides to the coin that are worth considering.
I'm sympathetic to this -- especially the first paragraph re: the employees who aren't directly involved -- but it's your last paragraph that I think is kind of the sticking point in this particular case. What material price did Andy Rubin pay for his behavior? Yes, he was asked to resign from Google -- but they not only didn't fire him, they gave him a $90M exit package and agreed to keep the reason why he was leaving secret. This all only came out due to investigative reporting years later. The "price" Rubin paid was... being compensated so highly he really doesn't have to ever work again if he doesn't want to?
Look, I don't want to see the man's head on a pike, but as near as I can tell he's not only paid absolutely nothing for what he's done, he hasn't even admitted he did anything wrong. (And, sure, it's possible that he didn't actually do anything wrong and this is an elaborate smear campaign, but Google has a history of what the NYT dryly called a "permissive workplace culture," which included giving executives accused of sexual harassment very soft landings.)
I don't know how "as a society" we should handle cases like this. As individuals, though, I think it's okay for (some of) us to believe that Rubin hasn't acted in a very ethical manner, that he's compounded the issue by not apologizing (or presenting a very credible defense of his actions), and finally, that as an employee, your perception of the ethics of your company's culture -- including the behavior of your executive team -- should factor into your decision about whether to seek other employment or, in fact, take the job at all. There are companies I certainly wouldn't work for on such grounds.
He’s not even saying he changed: he has never acknowledged his behaviour as wrong, nor apologised for his behaviour. He describes it as a “smear campaign”.
I think you're missing my primary point. I do not think it is my "job" as a consumer to get to the root of the issue, and make a judgement. I don't know the full story (in fact here I don't know ANY of it). My consumer life is separate, and I think the legal system is the way to deal with bad people doing bad things.
Second, I simply do not feel it is my place as a consumer to punish a person for his behavior. The legal system is in place to deal with this, and that should be more than sufficient, and it's important that is the system used to deal with the issue, because everyone has rights. The legal system is designed to allow both parties to exercise their rights. Cowboy boycotts by consumers are emotionally driven mobs. That's not justice.
Finally, we as a society used to believe in second chances. Once someone commits an offense, usually they pay some price (maybe losing a job, going to jail, paying a fine etc) and then we give them a chance to participate in our society again. They don't always get all their previous privledges back. If you commit a felony, you won't be able to own a firearm for example. But you do get a another chance to be productive.