John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

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[+] 365 points 3 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)
  • [–] 186 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    Then 6 months later gets a VP job somewhere else because he "has experience" all the while eyeing another run at CEO.

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  • [–] 138 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Nah once they're CEOs they're good. They just go sit on various boards making millions for doing relatively nothing.

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    [–] 219 points 3 years ago (39 children)

    Pisses me off that CEOs never get fired for their bullshit and get to "retire" or "resign" like they didn't just make the most boneheaded decision that severely hurt the company.

    There really needs to be some organizational structure where the CEOs have the power to make the decisions they make, but the employees have the power to punish and fire them when they do shit like this. No golden parachutes for them!

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  • [–] 125 points 3 years ago (13 children)

    This is actually wrong. There's a near 100% chance that the decision was made by the board, and also the decision to remove the CEO. So we're talking about the fall guy, but being an insider, the fall guy will get a tidy sum for the dive

    Then the CEO can be recycled to some other project, and a new CEO instated at Unity, so they can pivot or double down with no moral dilemma. In reality, the board was there all along and it's all a big PR game

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  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    CEOs are beholden to the shareholders, not the employees

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  • [–] 58 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (6 children)

    Employees should be automatic shareholders. Ought to be a workers right by default to receive some portion of the equity they're producing.

    Edit: And to be clear, shareholders win too. More companies should voluntarily structure themselves to grant shareholder rights to employees. Dumbass company ending mistakes are usually seen a long way off by line and rank employees.

    But it should also be legally mandated structure, much like 401k rules exist now. I propose that all players involved are better off with such a rule, other than the (not currently rare) asshole CEOs who only want to pump and dump their stock.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    It's actually pretty common to provide employees with stock options. But depending on the situation, it can be a better deal for the company than the employees. For the company, equity is a relatively cheap way to "motivate" employees. For the employees, it goes against the principle of portfolio diversification: if the company does badly, not only is their regular income threatened, but so are their assets.

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    [–] 112 points 3 years ago (15 children)

    Former EA CEO will be replaced in interim by James Whitehurst from IBM/Red Hat.

    Is that better or worse?

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    [–] 108 points 3 years ago (19 children)

    Tell me again why these hacks get paid so much for "taking risks" when they never end up being fired? I have not seen a single CEO officially fired from a company for driving it into the ground. They always "choose" to retire after fucking up the entire thing and collect a fat paycheck for doing so.

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  • [–] 38 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    He's been told to retire or be fired.

    Being actually fired is not at all good for his CV at that level, hence he is leaving by "retiring", a different process in legal terms.

    That said, anybody with any experience with high-level management knows that a manager "retiring" after having made the kind of the decision this one did with the consequences it had, actually means he's been pushed out, just not through the formal process of "firing".

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  • [–] 22 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Once you slightly climb the career ladder, vocabulary turns into marketing bs. Suddenly you most not say "problem" anymore. They're "opportunities" or "challenges". So at that level you don't get "fired" because that would sound bad for the next company you're going with. You're looking for new challenges elsewhere. Leaving behind a dumpster fire like in this very case.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    when they never end up being fired

    When you're a career professional, this is what being fired looks like.

    "Choosing to retire" is face-saving language for "is being asked to step down," which is sort of like the police asking you to turn yourself in. You can choose not to, but you're still getting arrested either way

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    [–] 94 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    They treated a game engine company like a Silicon Valley startup. It's a limited customer base. It was never going to scale. Dummies.

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    [–] 74 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    It's a start.

    Now do the Board who chose an EA CEO with his track record to lead Unity and stood behind this until finally forced by the consequences of his actions to push them out.

    Certainly and after what happenned, merelly pushing out one guy in the nicest, most career protecting way possible, isn't sufficient to restore my trust in Unity as a platform on top of which to base my business.

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  • [–] 67 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I'm excited to know where that money hungry pos is going next 🤔

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    [–] 60 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    death to Unity long live Godot

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    [–] 54 points 3 years ago

    Is that.. the guy from EA?

    This explains lot!

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  • [–] 52 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Too late, I wouldn't trust Unity from this point on. Spend tons of time and effort only to have it all yanked away. Screw that!

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    [–] 50 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    Urrespective of all the other BS, why was the CEO also president of the board?

    The role of the board is to supervise the executives.

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    [–] 44 points 3 years ago

    Unity is dead, but at least one guy made it out like a bandit.

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  • [–] 42 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    pops the golden parachute

    "Later, bitches!"

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  • [–] 15 points 3 years ago

    "So, board of directors, you can force me to do any dumb thing you want, or fire me for not doing it? Yeah. Imma need an escape shuttle."

    "Fine. We'll cut you a check for a couple of million if it comes to that. But we're so smart, it won't come to that."

    "It came to that."

    "Here's your check."

    Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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    [–] 33 points 3 years ago

    Wow he only had to tank the company before his 50m worth of EA ownership became a problem...

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  • [–] 31 points 3 years ago

    Do not let the door hit you on the way out.

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  • [+] 29 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 27 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Why do we call it "retiring" when we all know he'll be CEO of some other company in 2 months?

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    [–] 26 points 3 years ago

    Good riddance, but idk if this is a case of too little too late

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  • [–] 26 points 3 years ago

    inb4 he gets a job at fucking blackstone inc or something lmao

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  • [–] 26 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, after burning down something popular, he get off without any repercussions (aside maybe a big bag of cash) and is likely to go find the next successful thing to burn it down, to get another big bag of cash.

    Can we purge these people out once they failed everywhere?

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago

    He didn't fail. He did what the board asked of him which proved to be more unpopular than they all had expected. So they gave him an obscenely generous severance package and sent him on his merry way.

    He's been rewarded and they're just trying to position it so it looks like the company leadership gives a shit and won't try the exact same thing at a later date.

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  • [–] 23 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Out with the old guy and in with the new guy. No change to the incentive structure. I wonder if things will turn out differently this time?

    I hope Unity users will get to continue to use the tool they have spent so many hours learning. I also think the industry should try to make things more CEO proof.

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