I hope this fellow Ross does not become suicidal or otherwise depressed when he sees the weight of the internet coming down on him for this faux pas. Ross, none of this wil matter in a year. Or 5 years.
Sorry, but this sort of attack is not ok on HN and I've banned the account. It's entirely possible to post substantive critique without stooping to this—as many HN users have demonstrated in this very thread.
Fortunately there are a lot of other more-senior leaders in larger companies and longer-lasting non-profits who believe people can learn from their mistakes and there is no magical class of people who never make mistakes. Obviously mistakes were made here, and obviously at least the PIs should have known better - but deciding that you're going to keep the student on some mental blacklist forever, and instead find people who haven't yet had the chance to learn from their mistakes, is short-sighted.
You've probably heard the story of IBM's Thomas Watson being asked if he was going to fire someone who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000 in lost sales. No, he said - I just spent $600,000 training you! Why would I want someone else to benefit from that training?
(Also, the fact that you are aware there might be enduring consequences to this comment if you associated it with your name, and are therefore keeping your name off of it, is ... interesting. My advice to Ross Texiera is that, until proven otherwise, the commenter above is some random troll in high school who doesn't know how the real world works. If they wanted the threat to be taken seriously, they'd post it on LinkedIn.)
