Very juvenile and unprofessional way of dealing with the situation, really erodes trust in the platform (simply deleting the comment would have been a better response).
Would maybe expect this from the founder of a young fledgling startup, but the 33 year old CEO of a company like Reddit ought to know better.
I'm worried that the answer is "not at all", which seems weird.
"Never Ruin an Apology With an Excuse."
I read Steve's apology and to be honest it was more dismissive and excusing than it was a real apology. So, it shouldn't surprise you that he isn't being cut the same slack you would expect after a sincere apology.
But, This is exactly my point. His reason doesn't matter. Reasons aren't relevant to apologies.
When you are apologizing, you are admitting wrongdoing...defending yourself in the same breadth is essentially saying you didn't do anything wrong in the first place.
Every time I have to apologize I am tempted to throw in a reason/excuse and everytime I remind myself of that quote and stick with just "I'm sorry" I end up with a better result than when I tag on a reason...
That being said, if you read his post...he actually doesn't apologize at all. He even goes so far as to say he wont do it again (only) because it upset the community team, not because it was wrong to do. He also claims he fixed it. He might of changed back the comments...but he certainly didn't fix anything.
It wasn't something you accidentally do when the stress gets too much all the while you really know and believe how wrong it is. They have rules about this.
He obviously didn't believe that. Or that the rules don't apply to him.
> What could he have said differently to make that reason more .. reasonable?
Nothing, probably. He done fucked up, that's it. This is firing-on-the-spot material if he weren't CEO. If they have to keep him for being important as CEO in other ways maybe, at the very least they should take away all his toys and admin powers and uh oh yeah, BAN his reddit account. He can talk announcements through some communication team, but I don't think he should be really touching or modifying anything on the site any more.
Excuses and reasons are pretty irrelevant here. The last part is forgiveness, a dish best served cold :)