In a recent “ask me anything” session via video call, employees were informed by top executives, including the current CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, about impending job cuts and title changes for some positions.
According to the meeting’s transcript, Unterwurzacher, among other employees, expressed dissatisfaction and ridiculed Cannon-Brookes’ comments on an internal Slack channel known as “Outrage Notification.” This response was particularly noted because Cannon-Brookes was speaking from the office of a basketball team he partially owns.
Unterwurzacher sarcastically remarked, “What’s up Outragers, just dialing in from my NBA team’s headquarters to yell at the people whose careers I’ve just pummelled.”
A few days following this incident, Unterwurzacher was terminated.
Atlassian justified the termination by stating that she engaged in “acrimonious communications and ad hominem attacks against teammates and colleagues.”
Troy Valdez, Atlassian’s legal representative, explained, “While employees are urged to discuss workplace concerns, they must maintain professionalism and respect, as the law does not shield conduct that is abusive or gratuitously insulting.”
“Just because it was a CEO doesn’t excuse the conduct. It was an irrelevant personal attack and insult directed at a colleague, essentially calling him a ‘rich jerk.’”
However, Puckett in the transcript argued that Unterwurzacher had merely acted in the company’s “Open Company, No Bullshit” philosophy.
The company announced it was cutting 500 staff in March 2023, about five per cent of its global workforce, due to the “changing and difficult macroeconomic environment”.
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