As reported by The New York Times, Skype chief development officer Madhu Yarlagadda has left the company following a string of controversial comments posted on popular blog TechCrunch.
The controversy reportedly began after a number of users started posting extremely negative posts regarding Yarlagadda on TechCrunch, most of which have now been deleted by the site.
These posts prompted a response from Yarlagadda’s wife. TechCrunch reports her as saying that these comments will “likely warrant legal action. We want to get in touch with your contact person before the situation escalates further”.
However, TechCrunch then reports Yarlagadda asked former colleagues to post positive comments which would counteract the negative posts.
“We spend a lot of time moderating comments and generally try to remove random negative stuff about individuals,” TC posted on its website. “But in this case the outpouring of negativity was detailed and overwhelming. And the threat of legal action ensured that we weren’t going to do anything very quickly about it. It’s just a bad situation all around.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
