When things go wrong: 2 CEOs + 2 crises = 2 different approaches (Insider Comms™)

🔬 Google and Spotify under the microscope

Hidden patterns emerge when you analyze how the CEOs of Google and Spotify addressed their company crises.

When Google's Gemini AI began generating biased images last year, CEO Sundar Pichai had to explain to employees why their flagship product failed so publicly.

• What happened? Google was criticized when Gemini, its gen AI product, depicted inaccurate scenes when prompted to create images of people. The company stopped accepting prompts for people in the image generator while it tried to fix the problem.

Pichai’s memo invites comparison to another response to a recent crisis: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's emotive message to employees during the Joe Rogan controversy.

• Remind me: Since Spotify signed a deal in 2020 to be the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the company has had to defend the controversial host. That came to a head in 2022 when Spotify employees loudly expressed their anger at Rogan’s transphobic comments, his promotion of vaccine misinformation, and his use of racial slurs.

While Google faced a technical failure and Spotify a values-based challenge, both CEOs had to address angry customers and concerned employees—all while the media had a field day.

What's revealing is how these leaders approached their respective crises. Both had to acknowledge failure swiftly and chart a path forward—but their strategies differed in telling ways.

---

👉 Dig comparative case studies like this? Check out this analysis of how Meta and Amazon managed comms around rolling back their DEI programs. Their drastically different communication approaches reveal how to tiptoe through a tense political environment.

📝 4 comms lessons (and templates) from 2 DEI rollback memos (Insider Comms™)

---

In this edition of Insider Comms™, I provide an in-depth analysis of how two tech giants handled vastly different controversies, including:

• ☑️ Why Pichai and Ek took opposite approaches in tone (and why they were right in doing so)

• ☑️ The strategy behind each memo's structure

• ☑️ How the CEOs position themselves within the crisis (personal vs. institutional)

• ☑️ 4 lessons comms pros can draw from these exec comms

• ☑️ The full text of both memos

🔬 Let's inspect Google’s and Spotify’s differing approaches to crisis comms and see what we can learn.

---