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During a video conference where staff could ask questions freely, company leaders, including current CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, informed employees about impending job cuts and changes to job titles.
According to the meeting transcript, Unterwurzacher, along with other staff members, expressed frustration and ridiculed Cannon-Brookes’ remarks. This was done in an internal Slack channel named “Outrage Notification,” while he was speaking from the headquarters of a basketball team he partially owns.
Unterwurzacher sarcastically commented, “What’s up Outragers, just checking in from my NBA team’s headquarters to address the people whose careers I’ve just impacted.”
A few days later, Unterwurzacher was dismissed from the company.
Atlassian stated that her termination was due to her involvement in “bitter communications and personal attacks against team members and colleagues.”
“While employees are encouraged to speak up about workplace issues, they must do so in a manner that remains professional and respectful, as the law does not protect conduct that is abusive or gratuitously insulting,” Atlassian’s attorney Troy Valdez said.
“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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