AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Fires Employee in Front of 1000 Workers for Taking Photo

Tim Armstrong lashed out at an employee and fired him in the middle of an all-hands conference call Friday with 1,000 people listening in. Armstrong was on the call with employees of AOL's hyper-local news service, Patch, to discuss severe cutbacks that would shutter as many as 400 websites. In the middle of his remarks, Armstrong abruptly stopped to address someone in the room with him who was taking pictures. 'Abel, put that camera down right now. Abel, you're fired. Out,' he says, according to a recording of the call obtained by media reporter Jim Romanesko. Armstrong is then silent for about 10 seconds before he resumes talking about the cutbacks without explaining the firing. The employee that Armstrong fired is Abel Lenz, Patch's creative director, according to Romanesko, who broke news of the call. When Romenesko tweeted at Lenz on Saturday for a comment on the firing, Lenz replied: 'I appreciate the interest Jim, but I have nothing to share. Go Patch!' Several hours later, Lenz tweeted to no one in particular, 'No comment,' and attached a photo from inside Old Town Bar in Manhattan. According to Patch employees, Lenz often snapped pictures during conference calls and staff meetings and would later post them to the company's internal website. The conference call, held one day after AOL announced major cutbacks at Patch, was meant to boost morale for the employees remaining with the news organization. Lenz assured the employees on the call that AOL is still committed to Patch's success and asked anyone who does not believe him to leave their jobs. 'If you don't use Patch as a product and you're not invested in Patch, you owe it to everybody else at Patch to leave,' he said. 'If you think what's going on right now is a joke, and you want to joke around about it, you should pick your stuff up and leave Patch today.' He also complained about leaks to the press, saying they won't change the direction that Patch is going. 'I don't care what the press says, I don't care if people leak information... I also want to clear up the fact that leaking information or anything around Patch isn't going to bother me, doesn't bother me. I'm not changing direction. 'When you hear about what we're doing at Patch it's very serious and it's very forward-thinking and anything that happens around Patch isn't going to change that direction.' Several minutes after firing Lenz, however, Armstrong indicated that he does, indeed, care about leaks. He said leaks were making Patch seem like 'loser-ville' in the press, according to Business Insider. He said, 'That's why Abel was fired.' 'We can't have people that are in the locker room giving the game plan away.' Below is an excerpt of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's call with employees: 'There's a couple of things I want you guys to realize and really think about and sink in, and if it doesn't sink in and you don't believe what I'm about to say, I'm going to ask you to leave Patch. And I don't mean that in a harsh way; I mean that in the way of we have to get Patch into a place where it's going to be successful and it's going to be successful for a long time. There's a whole bunch of towns that are going to be successful but we need the whole enterprise to be successful. 'The first one is, I will take full credit and full responsibility for anything that's not right at Patch. If the coffee machine doesn't work, or a town doesn't work — anything that's going wrong at Patch you can blame me for it. I founded Patch, we brought it into AOL, we've been very busy turning around AOL overall. 'I don't care what the press says, I don't care if people leak information. I've already lived through that at AOL — when I took over AOL — so if you need somebody to blame for why we're making changes at Patch you can blame me. I take full responsibility. ... 'I also want to clear up the fact that leaking information or anything around Patch isn't going to bother me, doesn't bother me. I'm not changing direction. When you hear about what we're doing at Patch it's very serious and it's very forward-thinking and anything that happens around Patch isn't going to change that direction. 'Third thing is if you don't use Patch as a product and you're not invested in Patch, you owe it to everybody else at Patch to leave. If you think what's going on right now is a joke, and you want to joke around about it, you should pick your stuff up and leave Patch today, and the reason is, and I'm going to be very specific about this, is Patch from an experience — Abel, put that camera down right now. Abel, you're fired. Out! [10-second pause]. If you guys think that AOL has not been committed to Patch, and won't stay committed to Patch, you're wrong. The company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, the board of directors is committed, I'm committed. ....'

• 2013-08-11T15:08:52+00:00
• Duration: 02:12

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