Now I’ve mentioned Calacanis in this blog before, and actually stated that while he may not be my cup of tea, I did find his “never-say-die” approach was better than a negative one. However, all that has changed and for the award for the human version of the Twitter fail whale, Jason Calacanis takes first place.

Why? Simple – his recent actions have shown him to be a pretty shallow creature.

Never one to back off from blowing his own horn, Calacanis recently had to let 10% of his employees go due to the current lack of advertising in the online market. Calacanis is the CEO of Mahalo, a “human powered search engine” that needs advertising income.

At the time, Calacanis stated, “It’s my responsibility to make this hard decision and I don’t take it lightly.” He also mentioned, “We’ve got a significant amount of cash on hand… The net result of this effort is we are giving Mahalo another year…”.

Reading that, you may feel that this is the difficult and upsetting decisions that many CEO’s have to make when times are tough – to keep the company going, sometimes people have to be sacrificed. It’s not pleasant, particularly for those let go, but then if the company can survive and then re-employ at a later date, it’s a decision that has to be made.

You would have thought that. Until you learn that Jason Calacanis is picking up a new $109,000 Tesla Roadster this weekend. Until you learn that Jason Calacanis is boasting about picking up his car and asking his Twitter followers if they know any media types that would be interested in going along to record the pick-up.

If Calacanis was really interested in the best interests of his company and his employees, then he wouldn’t be wasting $109,000 on a frivolous purchase. Yes, even in times of difficulty businesses still need to spend money to try and keep the business going. Yet this is normally for new IT systems that can improve performance, or core company-specific needs.

A $109,000 sports car? I don’t think so.

So enjoy your new car, Jason. Enjoy the “fresh from the showroom” smell and the adoring looks in the mirror. For when your company goes through even tougher times and you have to lay off more employees – the people who really make your business – at least you’ll have a nice car to drive to your computer to send out another sob story.

So, congratulations. For the inaugural Twitter Fail Whale Award – Jason Calacanis, come on down.

Why Jason Calacanis is the Ultimate Twitter Fail Whale originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.