It's a shame that this had to go the way it did. If you read Rakesh's Twitter recently, it's pretty clear that something has gone dramatically and completely wrong -- and that is something that David alludes to in his blog post.<p>Obviously there can be no real clinical diagnosis of anything at all from a tweet stream, but what he's been posting really does scream "psychotic break" or "manic episode"; when people say things in those kinds of states, they might not be grounded on any real beliefs of theirs at all.<p>In an ideal world, it would be nice if the next thing that happened to him was for him to be placed on medical leave, surrounded by a community that supports his recovery; upon his return, a statement like "I'd lost my mind briefly, and obviously didn't mean anything that I said" could patch things up. This might not be that world today: as a society, we're remarkably bad at recognizing mental illness when it comes along, and we're not so good at dealing with it even when we figure it out.<p>So, PayPal did what it had to. A public firing is never a pretty thing, and maybe that was a little excessive, but I can certainly see where it comes from. Either way, I hope that this guy gets the help he needs -- and preferably sooner, rather than later.