This time, on the Plutopia podcast, blogger and author Susan McCarthy, a noted authority on apologies, helps us perform a verbal autopsy on the worldwide CrowdStrike security meltdown. Unlike most large outages, the CrowdStrike outage impacted individual workstations, Microsoft Windows workstations. In the aftermath, CrowdStrike apologized and even offered a $10 Uber Eats voucher. Susan found the CrowdStrike apology somewhat lacking.

Our discussion centers around the global impact of the outage, which caused thousands of Microsoft Windows workstations to crash, leading to significant financial losses for companies like Delta Airlines. McCarthy critiques CrowdStrike’s apology, noting its inadequacies, particularly the company’s decision to offer those Uber Eats vouchers, which she argues were both insufficient and potentially damaging to the company’s reputation. The conversation explores the broader implications of corporate apologies in the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of taking full responsibility and making meaningful reparations to restore trust.