A founder of a startup company located in the US has responded to criticisms regarding one of his latest LinkedIn posts, which has since been dubbed as one of the “most depressing” things on the site.
Honestly, I thought everything on LinkedIn was depressing. It’s just a kiss-arse fest, right?
Over the weekend Torrey Leonard — the founder of A.I. company, Thoughtly — went viral on the professional networking site after he shared an image of his co-found Casey Mackrell working on his laptop.
Pretty normal stuff for LinkedIn, aye? Well, what made the post so polarising was that it was an image of Casey working away at his wedding!
“My co-founder Casey has built a reputation for himself as “the guy who sits on his laptop in bars” from SF to NYC,” Torrey began in his hyper-viral post.
“Last week Thoughtly brought on a customer that needed to launch within two weeks. He just so happened to be getting married within that two-week window.
“So, here he is wrapping up a pull request. At his own wedding. Congrats Casey – now please, go take some time off.”
Soon after Torrey hit post, it slowly began to rack up comments, shares and likes from fellow LinkedIn users who chucked in their two cents on Casey’s decision to work while getting hitched.
“Divorce papers being sent to his LinkedIn inbox so he actually sees them… In all seriousness though, if this isn’t satire, this work ethic should neither be publicised nor applauded. Doesn’t say a lot about the company either, if he was the ONLY person that could deal with this that day,” one user joked.
“Utterly bizarre to post this. This is nothing to brag about. This guy is his laptop, working at his own wedding and you’re congratulating him?” another person wrote before adding that the post was “completely tone deaf”.
“This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen,” wrote a third.
Torrey Leonard responds to comments claiming his LinkedIn post is “depressing”
Following the backlash, Torrey has since defended his posting, telling news.com.au that his company and what they do is “very high-stakes” and that the things they handle need around-the-clock attention.
“As a company, what we do is very high-stakes. Every single one of our customers, they depend on us to function perfectly, 24-7, around the clock, no questions asked,” he told the publication.
“We work with many publicly traded companies across the globe, and we spend long hours of the night, early mornings awake, monitoring these calls, proactively fixing issues, fixing problems, building new features.
“The context of this post, he had to solve a problem, and it was really only something that he could solve. It was a three-to-five-minute task.
“We understand that this lifestyle is not for everybody. It’s obviously something that is a lot of work, but it’s something that we love.”
Torrey added that Casey’s wife, Grace, was fussed by her husband’s decision to jump online for a work task during their nuptials, stating that the co-founder “is just as devoted to Grace as he is to the company”. The Thoughtly founder also stressed that Casey wasn’t away for the festivities for a long time.
“If she needs something, he acts the same way. He would drop everything for her. And so she gets that, and she loves that about him,” he continued.
“They were dating for many years, so she’s seen him pull a laptop out at a restaurant dinner table. I mean, it looks crazy, but that’s just who Casey is. She’s obviously fine with it.”
Towards the end of his interview, Torrey shared that “founders” have a “different work mentality” which is something others may not be able to understand as “it’s not for everyone”.
“As founders, of course, we have a different work mentality. We’re trying to create something big and that can’t be achieved in a 40-hour week,” he told the publication.
“Again, it’s not for everyone and there’s no judgement. It’s just what we do.”
Look, as someone who’s absolutely devoted to her career in yapping, I totally understand the grind.
But during a wedding????? Like, weddings cost an arm and a leg these days.
You best believe I will NOT be working during that shindig, if it ever happens.
Image source: LinkedIn
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