I'll grant you that it showed poor judgment if he really thought he could stay anonymous. That said, I disagree with basically everything else. I think you're reading way too much into that.
Where you work will have an impact on your career (I think that's obvious). Part of that is simply the social proof of which company. It helped my career by working for various YC companies, for instance. Were they necessarily better than non-YC companies? No, of course not, but people put stock in it anyway.
The first company you work for may very well have an outsized impact on your career compared to subsequent positions. You should make that decision carefully.
Most importantly, when I go to work somewhere, they shouldn't expect that I will work there the rest of my life. Staying at a company 2-5 years is pretty normal. That's a short enough timespan that you should be thinking about how the company will impact your career after your time with them is done. Furthermore, part of the behavior of a good manager and company is to encourage and facilitate your career growth, even though they realize that doing so may very well cause you to grow out of your position at that company.
He's also a kid, looking at his first career out of college. Did you know the right things to look for immediately and inherently? Do you now? Did some of the things you looked for then end up getting discounted as you got more experience? Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything?
So no, I wouldn't say that that kid was wrong for thinking about several different aspects of the opportunities he was presented, name-recognition amongst them, even if I would contend that he should maybe put less of an emphasis on it, but that's just the thing he might have heard when he asked the question. Nor do I think that he's more likely to up and leave the company when the going gets rough.
> Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything?
The problem isn't that he doesn't understand everything. The problem is that he doesn't seem to understand "discretion".
I'm about to give someone access to very sensitive HR information across multiple companies. Do I really want to do that when he just demonstrated that he can't make a simple job inquiry with enough discretion to not piss the CEO off? Doubly so since it was a GOOD job offer.
Sure, he could certainly say that posting about this was an instance of a lack of discretion (hopefully not on quora itself), but that isn't what he said and what he DID say would certainly be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black with regards to discretion, wouldn't it?
Edit: I still contend you're making a mountain out of a molehill. This kid asked a reasonable questionable in an unreasonable way. He could've avoided a lot by simply redacting the names of the companies; I think we both agree on that. That said, I kind of expect a kid fresh out of college to make a few mistakes with regards to professionalism. An organization hiring those individuals should be set up to mitigate that damage and gently steer them in the right direction, not crucify them publicly. While I expect the occasional flub of professionalism from new employees (and I think on a scale of unprofessionalism, this ranks pretty low), I expect a great deal more from CEOs of corporations with a valuation in the billions. Both messed up with regards to professionalism, but one made a much bigger screw up, and it was the one who I would most expect to behave professionally.
Where you work will have an impact on your career (I think that's obvious). Part of that is simply the social proof of which company. It helped my career by working for various YC companies, for instance. Were they necessarily better than non-YC companies? No, of course not, but people put stock in it anyway.
The first company you work for may very well have an outsized impact on your career compared to subsequent positions. You should make that decision carefully.
Most importantly, when I go to work somewhere, they shouldn't expect that I will work there the rest of my life. Staying at a company 2-5 years is pretty normal. That's a short enough timespan that you should be thinking about how the company will impact your career after your time with them is done. Furthermore, part of the behavior of a good manager and company is to encourage and facilitate your career growth, even though they realize that doing so may very well cause you to grow out of your position at that company.
He's also a kid, looking at his first career out of college. Did you know the right things to look for immediately and inherently? Do you now? Did some of the things you looked for then end up getting discounted as you got more experience? Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything?
So no, I wouldn't say that that kid was wrong for thinking about several different aspects of the opportunities he was presented, name-recognition amongst them, even if I would contend that he should maybe put less of an emphasis on it, but that's just the thing he might have heard when he asked the question. Nor do I think that he's more likely to up and leave the company when the going gets rough.