What I Tell Employees About Negative Press | by Henry Ward | Oct, 2023 | Medium

Carta has gone through a few bad press cycles and we are going through another one. I know other CEOs have to deal with this so I wanted to share what I shared with employees in case it’s helpful for other CEOs thinking through similar problems. It is a really long read but hopefully helpful. The TLDR is: 1. Press is a consequence of legal strategy 2. Press incentives are perversely distorted 3. Most negative press is sensationalized noise (media) 4. Employees matter most I’m also happy to chat with other CEOs dealing with negative press if you want to reach out directly. Below is what I sent to employees recently. — — — — — — Hi everyone, I want to write a note to you about the recent press. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can be helpful. I think there are many questions people have so I’d like to try to answer some of them here. Warning, this is a really (really) long one so my apologies ahead of time. But I hope it is helpful. Why do we keep ending up in the press? Because of a

Carta has gone through a few bad press cycles and we are going through another one. I know other CEOs have to deal with this so I wanted to share what I shared with employees in case it’s helpful for other CEOs thinking through similar problems. It is a really long read but hopefully helpful. The TLDR is: 1. Press is a consequence of legal strategy 2. Press incentives are perversely distorted 3. Most negative press is sensationalized noise (media) 4. Employees matter most I’m also happy to chat with other CEOs dealing with negative press if you want to reach out directly. Below is what I sent