‘Crying CEO’ says he loves his employees—even those he laid off

Prarthana Prakash

Bloomberg

There’s a new way to cope with the guilt of firing your employees &#8212; a LinkedIn post letting your network know you feel miserable about it.<div class="paywall-selector"></div><div class="paywall">



Braden Wallake, the chief executive officer of a Columbus, Ohio-based marketing agency called HyperSocial, wrote a guilt-filled post Tuesday about laying off employees that concluded with a teary-eyed selfie. After the post went viral, he declared himself “the crying CEO.”



Wallake’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bradenwallake_this-will-be-the-most-vulnerable-thing-ill-activity-6962886723617910784-_L4w?utm_source=linkedin_share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop_web" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">original post</a>&nbsp;has more than 30,000 likes and 5,300 comments. In it, he said he loves all of his employees, acknowledged how his own decisions led to the dismissals and said it was the “hardest thing” he has ever had to do.



“Days like today, I wish I was a business owner that was only money driven and didn’t care about who he hurt along the way” wrote Wallake, 32. “But I’m not.”



Comments criticized Wallake’s post, calling it a PR stunt and saying he was fishing for sympathy. Some expressed support for the move and suggested he shouldn’t be a victim of “cancel culture.”



“There’s been a lot of backlash, but there’s also been a lot of support,” Wallake said in a phone interview. “What no one sees is all the direct messages this has started, of CEOs reaching out saying they are in a similar place. And that to me is what matters.”



Wallake’s company, HyperSocial, focuses heavily on LinkedIn marketing and outreach strategies for its clients. The company is small; it has 15 employees, two fewer than before the layoffs. Wallake is an influencer of sorts, with over 30,000 followers on the <a href="https://fortune.com/company/microsoft/" target="_blank">Microsoft</a> Corp.-owned social network for professionals.



In an attempt to quell the debate, Wallake wrote a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bradenwallake_hey-everyone-yes-i-am-the-crying-ceo-no-activity-6963185324143390721-7pDH?utm_source=linkedin_share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop_web" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">follow-up post</a>&nbsp;Wednesday seeking to help people in need of a job. “What I want to do now is try to make better of this situation and start a thread for people looking for work,” he wrote. “I’m not sorry for the post. But I’d at least like to use that post for the benefit of others that may need it.”</div>

The CEO of a marketing agency wrote a guilt-filled post about laying off employees that concluded with a teary-eyed selfie.

Sign up for the <a href="https://mynewsletters.fortune.com/fortune-features">Fortune Features</a> email list so you don’t miss our biggest features, exclusive interviews, and investigations.

F-Wire

Layoffs

Leadership

‘Crying CEO’ says he loves his employees—even those he laid off | Fortune

Ian King

Intel’s new CEO gets pay package valued at about $69 million

/2025/03/15/intel-new-ceo-lip-bu-tan-pay-package-stock-options-bonus-69-million/

Alice Barlow

Founder Jim Koch poses by cases of Samuel Adams.

The founder behind $3 billion beer giant Samuel Adams dropped out of Harvard because the school of life taught him more about entrepreneurialism

/2025/03/15/sam-adams-origin-founder-success-harvard/

Sharon Goldman

Inside the AI talent wars where research scientists get multimillion-dollar stock grants and wooed by Mark Zuckerberg

/2025/03/15/ai-talent-wars-startups-google-meta-openai-hiring-scientists-stock-salaries/

Cailley LaPara

American postmaster wants Elon Musk’s DOGE to save ‘broken’ USPS

/2025/03/14/american-postmaster-wants-elon-musks-doge-to-save-broken-usps/

Fortune Editors

Fortune 500 Power Moves: Which executives gained and lost power this week

/2025/03/14/fortune-500-power-moves-march-8-14/

Brit Morse

A federal worker protesting the firing of government employees, holding a sign saying "public services, strong communities."

A judge ordered federal agencies to stop terminating probationary workers, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be safe for long

/2025/03/14/judge-ordered-federal-agencies-stop-terminating-probationary-workers-doesnt-mean-safe-for-long/

Eleanor Pringle

If you think the current outlook is bad, just wait until the White House can't find anyone to buy its debt, warns Ray Dalio

https://fortune.com/2025/03/12/national-debt-burden-ray-dalio-foreign-government-pressure/?itm_source=parsely-api

Sasha Rogelberg

After repeated claims of taking over Greenland, the Trump administration is now asking Denmark for extra eggs amid shortage

https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/egg-supply-denmark-exports-usda-trump-adminstration-greenland-annex-threats/?itm_source=parsely-api

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

Tesla is getting pummeled in the stock market, but Elon Musk's other companies are having a field day in the secondary market—especially xAI

https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/elon-musk-private-company-valuations-soar-tesla-stock-falls/?itm_source=parsely-api

The Associated Press

She became a billionaire overnight after years as a hospice nurse. Now a philanthropist, she is challenging America’s richest 'to redistribute’ their wealth

https://fortune.com/article/billionaire-overnight-philanthropist-challenging-america-richest-redistribute-wealth/?itm_source=parsely-api

Beth Greenfield

Dr. Oz says probiotic supplements have wide-ranging health benefits. Here's what science says

https://fortune.com/well/2025/03/14/dr-oz-probiotic-supplements-health-benefits-science/?itm_source=parsely-api

Christiaan Hetzner

Elon Musk's Tesla reportedly halts Cybertruck deliveries as owners complain of metal sides falling off

https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/elon-musk-tesla-cybertruck-delivery-halt-owners-complain-of-metal-sides-falling-off/?itm_source=parsely-api