"5. The internet outrage suddenly switches to him. The employee of Business Insider calls him an asshole on twitter."<p>This is incorrect -- Anil Dash doesn't work for Business Insider. Agree with your first and second takeaways. Beyond that..not so much. You mentioned potential cultural differences, here's my American perspective:<p>While the tweets in question may be a small sample of the overall volume, you just can't make those statements as an officer of a company. Period. Because:<p>-He used the N word. Sounds like he was referencing a movie out around then, but given our country's history, that word is just 100% off limits and rightfully so.<p>-In the US, we're finally coming around to the fact that gay people aren't a scourge on society. We also (especially in tech) are working to make the workplace more friendly to women than it has been in the past. We're also a very litigious country, meaning that having an officer making those kinds of statements about protected classes while being involved in hiring/firing decisions exposes the company to risks that 95+% of executives would be wise/willing enough not to expose their employer to.<p>You may be right that most people have tweeted something that would outrage people, but if you want to be one of the faces of a company, part of your job is not doing that. I tweeted plenty of dumb stuff (not racist/sexist, mind you) while drunk in college and with a privacy-protected account. Given that I aspire to hold an executive-level position, I went through and removed all of those tweets as I was nearing graduation and made my account public, and I avoid those types of posts now. Image matters.