The emotional LinkedIn post of Braden Wallake CEO of Hyper Social announcing laying off his employees at his Ohio-based marketing services company was a talk of social media this past week.
Braden though was surprised that so many people responded to what he shared, which he revealed while talking to the media. “I think I have 22,000 connections on LinkedIn and for most of my posts I get 20 engagements and a couple of comments,” Braden said in an interview yesterday.
His crying post has generated more than 7,500 comments on LinkedIn. Wallake was heavily criticized by people on the internet accusing him of gaining publicity by laying off his employees.
To which he responded to all the comments made to him he said in his second post that he wasn’t trying to victimize himself. While opening up about the entire unfolding of events, Wallake said that he received a mixed set of feedback involving both positive and negative.
But people issuing threats and wishing my family to get cancer was too vicious and aggressive which he didn’t expect. The CEO said people have misunderstood the details of my company.
He doesn’t own a large corporate entity but operates with fewer than 20 employees. He said, “I’m just a small business owner,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve got the fourth mansion.”
This was the reason Wallake further says he was so devastated about letting his employee go, he further added it was just two employees, not a mass dismissal. He went ahead to blame himself for not having sufficient work for them.
“I wanted them to know that they would be taken care of. I sat there and cried,” which he responded to the LinkedIn post he initially made. It was also an attempt from him to show the world that if there are a bunch of heartless CEOs in the world there also exist helpless people and bosses like me and said he never intended to become a viral phenomenon.
The “crying CEO” said he is suddenly fielding numerous requests from people potentially interested in hiring his company. If his business picks up, he could be able to rehire the dismissed employees. The CEO sees a sheer possibility in this.