CEO of AOL Tim Armstrong recorded firing employee for snapping his photo

THE CEO of US communications giant AOL stunned thousands of employees by firing a creative director for allegedly snapping his picture during a conference call announcing layoffs. 
 
Tim Armstrong suddenly interrupted a speech he was giving to tell Abel Lenz, the creative director at AOL’s struggling Patch local-news network, he was out of a job.

On the audio Armstrong can be heard saying, “Abel, put that camera down right now! Abel, you’re fired. Out!”

After only a moment’s pause he carries on as if nothing had happened, ironically, assuring the Patch staff who were listening that AOL is fully committed to them.

The recording of Armstrong’s outburst was published on his website by media reporter Jim Romanesko.
When Romenesko tweeted at Lenz on Saturday for a comment on the firing, Lenz replied: “I appreciate the interest Jim, but I have nothing to share. Go Patch!”

Armstrong, a former top Google executive was one of the key backers of Patch, which he sold to AOL for $US7 million ($7.6 million) in 2009, shortly after he became CEO of AOL.

He had hoped the news network would be key to his efforts to reinvent AOL after a decade of steady decline.

news.com.au 12 Aug 2013

Most people may forget or not know that this is coming from a company that (deliberately?) wrote code into their browser to illegally hack into (their) user's computers.

This allowed AOL to access the user's personal data, steal files, all undetected by the trusting user.

The corporates played it down, whereas in reality, hacking / stealing / pirating are apparently all offences (at least when it comes to the canon fodder doing the 'offences'), and the company should have been shut down.

In the modern era, people like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or now Herve Falciani are seen as 'criminals' whereas the same acts carried out by corporations are dismissed.