One wonders how bad things got internally before they decided to do this. https://twitter.com/fintechfrank/status/1311148741311725568

According to one Twitter thread, apparently a good chunk of the engineering team walked off.

CEOs in that position have few options. Firing the strikers is not among them - apart from being rash, and not giving the company time to adapt, wrongful termination claims could arise.

What was done instead makes sense. It's now internal corporate policy not to use company time and resources for political discussions. Everyone is on notice of the new policy; they can either adhere to the policy, or not. It's politically neutral so affects everyone at the firm.

Armstrong found a way to politely remind everyone - once - that he signs the checks. Now he never has to do it again, and has limited legal exposure.

He handled this well. Will be interesting to see how many tech CEOs decide to follow the same pattern. https://twitter.com/fintechfrank/status/1311150736516902913

("Limited legal exposure" here means limited as compared to some of the alternatives he avoided, e.g. firing anyone who walked off the job without authorization for cause, or failing to set out a policy and allowing a hostile work environment.)

Incidentally, awhile ago I wrote an article about how to impose a culture war circuit breaker in employment contracts. An alternative way to partially implement is simply to do what Armstrong did - and say "no external politics allowed on company time." https://prestonbyrne.com/2020/06/18/anticancel/