alt Hacker News> Aside from the fact that defending a billion-dollar company is a bit strange
More than a bit strange. This is an HNism that I'll never get. Why would you go to the comment section anywhere to passionately try to defend the honor of a trillion dollar company, unless 1. you're being paid to astroturf or 2. you own that company's stock? Satya Nadella isn't going to read a post here and say, "Gosh, how nice of that commenter! I'm going to send him some Microsoft stock as a show of appreciation for him defending us online!" I don't think I'll ever understand company-fanboys.
1. Telling that you think the only possible motivations are financial (getting paid, stockholder, or foolish expectations of a gift from Satya).
2. Maybe you know a bunch of people who work there, could be ex-colleagues etc. and you think overall it’s mostly good well-intentioned people there. Therefore you want to see them succeed, and also you might disbelieve that the company is deliberately being awful.
I don’t have any specifically warm feelings about a corporate legal entity, but I know people who work at various companies and partly for that reason I am not rooting for those companies to fail and I also don’t believe the least charitable explanations for all their failings.