Thread regarding Comcast layoffs

@bj I hope Elad is kicked out

@xc wow

A comment got deleted again. Someone is definitely reading this. How very interesting…

Time to 'Open the Kimono' and sack the 'leader' who championed that phrase.

@r7 Unfortunately this is why employees end up coming together publicly. For years, many people have felt that concerns raised through internal channels were not meaningfully addressed, and that leadership’s version of events often carried more weight than the employee experience. Whether that was the intent or not, the result has been a culture where people feel unheard, discouraged from speaking up, and increasingly willing to share their experiences outside the company.When internal systems stop feeling credible, people eventually look for another way to be heard.

@qg Even on an anonymous website, their behaviors are continually overlooked. HR has ignored several documented complaints about Gwen. Why is this website censoring the truth too?

@nr Adding to the point, for anyone feeling nervous about the legal threats in this thread. Opinion is not defamation. Believing the company is mismanaged, saying leadership made bad decisions, or describing how you were treated is opinion. Defamation requires a false statement of fact. True statements aren't defamation either, even when they're unflattering. Employees also have a federally protected right to talk to each other about pay, working conditions, and how the company is run, including publicly, under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Trying to scare people out of doing that can itself be an unfair labor practice.

Keep it simple- say what you know, not what you heard. If it happened to you, say so. If someone told you, say that. Opinions are yours. Facts need to be true. Nobody has to go quiet because someone typed the word "libel."

@k0 opinion is not libel, slander, nor defamation. When people are mistreated or not heard for too long, history shows they begin speaking up collectively. It is (was?) the largest employer in PA. That means hundreds to thousands of livelihoods are on the line even those who were publicly humiliated with pies to the face… “allegedly”

There’s a difference between demanding leadership and a toxic culture. Employees should not be treated like punching bags. Fear-based management, gaslighting, condescending communication, dirty looks, constant swirl, and making people afraid to speak up eventually take a toll. Accountability and high standards are fair; disrespect and intimidation are not. I have a list.
of leaders and plenty of stories. If Netflix ever wants the documentary, I’m ready.

At this point, I’d rather report to an AI leader programmed to treat people with basic respect than some of the human leaders I’ve encountered. It says a lot when a leader can remember the email you didn’t send or the directive you supposedly missed, but can’t remember to say happy birthday, ask how an important personal appointment went, or simply acknowledge the person behind the work.

Leadership isn’t just tracking deliverables and pointing out misses. It’s how you treat people. When empathy and basic human decency disappear but criticism never does, don’t be surprised when good employees disengage or leave.

@ax I survived nine of them! The 10th however, took me out. Not a bad survival record IMO!

@hc ides of march, june, july, october, november

I get the frustration — there are clearly some toxic leaders being called out here, and for good reason. But if this turns into a wall of naming and shaming specific people, we risk losing the site entirely. Posts that single out individuals by name open the door to libel claims, and that's exactly the kind of thing that gets a site like this shut down.

This is one of the few places where people can speak freely and anonymously, and where real issues can actually surface. Let's keep it that way — focus on patterns and problems, not on naming names, so we don't lose this outlet altogether.

@f3 None of this new. For years we’ve known in corporate about how terrible and toxic it can be to work with them. They’ve developed a reputation that extends well beyond one team or one bad experience.

Beware the Ides of October

@ev I don't think (or at least hope) anyone believes TV is king, however, I do agree that our leadership teams, especially on the "growth" side, do not know how to compete in today's competitive landscape. I am not even alluding to price. There are so many other levers beyond price we could pull that our "growth" team/leadership cannot seem to figure out how to hold or gain ground. Not even in new expansion areas can we seem to compete. It is embarrassing.

@at Schreiber is the worst. His brown nosing lacks finesse, which would make even Soviet apparatchiks blush, but makes up for it with enthusiasm. He truly excels at hollowing out any team he touches and installing his cronies.

@br I agree there is a bureaucratic/CYA culture at Comcast, but the root cause is a lack of vision and strategic clarity on how to compete in the 2020s. The media landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade (cord cutting, streaming wars, youtube, social media, etc), and the leadership is still acting like it's the 90s and TV is the king of entertainment. In a battle, you have troops which can win new ground and you have troops which can hold ground. We have a bunch of "hold ground" executives, but the ground they're holding is quickly eroding and they have no idea what to do about it.

Trotter is the absolute worst that I’ve ever worked for and Manchester’s cronie.

@ay I think culture can hurt the bottom line by making a large organization slower, more expensive, and less willing to challenge its own assumptions. I don’t think this is uniquely a Comcast problem, or necessarily anything nefarious. It is a natural challenge for any huge and complex organization. Successful companies accumulate processes, structures, and expertise that made sense at the time, but eventually those same things can become difficult to question or unwind.

There is also a huge disconnect between calling ourselves a “technology company” but operating with the risk tolerance of a behemoth/incumbent. Being a technology company means experimenting, taking calculated risks, failing fast when appropriate, and being willing to challenge established thinking. We obviously cannot operate like a Silicon Valley startup given the scale and critical nature of our network, but there is a difference between being appropriately cautious about operational risk and being culturally resistant to questioning the business itself - which is the single biggest culture issue we have now with tenured leaders who have been on a journey of building a media/distribution giant for a decade plus.

You can see the financial impact in our product strategy. We have built a premium, highly engineered product and cost structure in a market where many customers increasingly value simplicity, reliability, and price. Customers do not necessarily care how advanced the underlying technology is. They want internet that works, supports Netflix and FaceTime, and does not cost a fortune. That helps explain why fixed wireless, satellite, and other lower-cost options are gaining ground.

The result is ultimately an economics problem. Entrenched structures, long development cycles, territorial thinking, and a reluctance to challenge established assumptions can make us slower and more expensive while limiting our ability to respond to the market. There are probably opportunities to simplify the product and pricing strategy and rethink what we should build internally versus outsource, but doing that requires some uncomfortable examination of how and why we operate the way we do.

That is not an argument that Comcast has a uniquely bad culture or that everyone needs to start acting like a startup. It is an argument that organizational inertia has a real economic cost, even when it comes from reasonable decisions and nobody is acting with bad intent. If we want to compete as a technology company, we need more room for experimentation, calculated risk, and challenging the status quo/entrenched mindsets. Otherwise, the cost of the culture hits revenue, margin, and market share.

@a6 Crisafulli 100%

@a6 Elad

@a6 eFF Stirling

Let me ask: it’s notoriously known Comcast has a sh-t culture. I await the day for the documentary. But I want to hear other’s views of how leadership (even if superficial) say the culture is hurting the bottom line so badly that it calls for change. I know culture is for certain hurting the bottom line. I’m unsure how the AG hasn’t investigated. But now that leadership is so focused on fixing culture, I want to know how leadership is explaining culture hurt the bottom line to the point they're even open to call it out.

They should start including achievements in workday: Achievement earned "Survived 4 layoffs/restructurings", as an example

Manchester

I’ll start.

• Crisafulli
• Schreiber
• Trotter

NAME THEM

Should we just start naming the toxic leaders here? At this point I don’t think they will do anything about it unless someone starts calling out who is the problem.