Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick blasts "fake lawsuits against us and Riot Games", claiming union workers used harassment claims to drum up members
Ex-Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has called a 2021 petition signed by over a thousand Activision Blizzard employees to remove him as CEO "fake", and suggests that harassment claims and legal cases brought against Activision Blizzard were engineered by the Communication Workers of Union in a bid to attract new members. Kotick made the comments during an appearance on Grit, a business podcast by American venture capital company Kleiner Perkins. He appeared on the podcast with former EA CEO Bing Gordon (thanks, Gamespot), to talk about both their company histories.
Kotick's statements reference widely reported incidents alleging a company culture of harassment, intimidation, and pay inequity around the time - coinciding with a lawsuit against the company - and the petition referred to appears to be this one to remove him as CEO, which attracted over a thousand signatures.
That petition followed a report by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) that highlighted several alleged incidents of harassment by Activision staff, alongside reports that Kotick was aware of these allegations but did not inform the company's board of directors, and intervened to prevent the firing of an alleged harasser. It wasn't just Activision workers who found these claims alarming: a group of company shareholders called for Kotick's resignation soon after. Kotick denied any wrongdoing.
After being prompted "2021" by Kotick, the podcast host Joubin Mirzadega says "peak social activism in the workplace," in reference to that time period. "There was a petition. Like, a thousand people signed it."
"That was fake," says Kotick.
"The board. The independent auditors. Everybody was like: this guy's doing nothing wrong," Mirzadega goes on, confirming that a petition against Kotick is the subject of the conversation.
Kotick then expands the discussion to encompass the wider claims of workplace misconduct at Activision Blizzard. Some background on that first: the California Department of Fair
Read more on rockpapershotgun.com
