Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> It's active voice, no?

Yes, it is — at least in the first sentence.

> How is it different than we fired, except that firing sounds more tied employee performance, no longer needed more seems like employer fault.

I think this is GP’s issue with the phrasing here. Passive or not, it sounds like it’s deflecting focus away from something — as they said, ‘It implies there was nothing that could be done, that this was just a force of nature’.




"they were impacted", the passive voice, has the actor eliminated. who impacted? yc. yc leadership made a decision which impacted 17 people. that's active voice.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: