Whole new world - Anonymous employee Beyond, Inc. Employee Review

I could not agree more. I regret that it stayed as square for as long as it did. Eventually I had to cut a whole wave of people who just did not get the joke: We were looking for people who could move things forward, and Stormy and I did not care if they were gay, minorities, women, didn't come from "the right" schools, etc. Some people had a problem with that. I tried being Mandela for too long, but eventually, decided to end the tug-of-war and move on. I had to cut a bunch of people who could not change, and there was a wave of sourpusses who quit in sympathy (I am told that an entire sub-department quit and made an agreement to come here and trash Stormy). Stormy is the best, however, and an incredibly effective executive. When I funded the fight to overturn the anti-gay Utah Amendment 3, it caused some consternation within the firm. Stormy not only backed me, she (using her powers as an ordained something-or-other) married the first gay couples in her county, and since then married numerous more, including some on the company float in the LGBTQ parade in Salt Lake this Spring. Believe it or not, in the last 18 months we have had dozens of people quit naming as their primary reason Overstock's policy of supporting gay rights. I long ago instructed our HR department to inform anyone who in an exit interview says that to reply, "Patrick says to tell you, 'Good. Then the policy is working." (I support marriage equality for the same reason I support NORML, and the peace movement, and educational choice: I am pro-freedom. But I had no idea when I began supporting that cause that it would as a side benefit prove to be a good way to scrape out of the company the bigots, the dullards, the can't-think-for-themselves instruction followers, but it has proven to have that additional charm.) Two years ago there were still people here who simply could not grok that a a female had risen all the way from answering telephones to VP, then SVP, then President. They tended to be the kinds of people who had conniptions when we had our first openly-LGBTQ colleagues, too (and at times they seemed intent on filling up the company with fellow-bigots, rather than people who could do their jobs). So either through offense at our LGBTQ support, or from being fired, or from seeing their "protectors" fired, they exited. And made concerted efforts among them to come here and trash Stormy. If I have one regret about my tenure here, it is that I did not notice early on that the people who had a problem with Stormy were invariably bureaucratic low-result dullards who resisted any attempts to measure their performance, without whom we would be better off. On a positive note, what is happening is that we are recruiting and attracting a terrific field of highly qualified candidates. Many powerful female leaders from around the industry are applying here because they see Stormy speak somewhere, and realize what a glass ceiling they face in their own firm. The caliber of talent we are attracting at all levels is amazing: when blended with the crew we have developed who themselves have pioneered many areas of Internet marketing, sourcing, and operations, it is making for a potent combination.