That would mean admitting you were wrong. Better to blame it on others, blame it on bad technology, blame it on your programmers and blame it on your VP of Engineering. That is the way Kevin Rose chose to play it.
I think it is reasonable to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that Kevin Rose badly misplayed the situation.
Kevin tried to place a lot of the blame on Cassandra, saying the technology was not read for prime time, but the community pushed back in a big way and insisted that Cassandra was not the problem with Digg. If Cassandra had been the real problem, then Digg would have given up on it, but they did not:
I think it is reasonable to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that Kevin Rose badly misplayed the situation.
Please read:
As Digg Struggles, VP Of Engineering Is Shown The Door http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/07/digg-struggles-vp-engineeri...
This manages to be defensive and offensive and stupidly self-centered:
Kevin Rose Responds To Digg Criticism On Diggnation, Mostly Tells Users To Chill http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/07/kevin-rose-responds-to-digg...
Kevin tried to place a lot of the blame on Cassandra, saying the technology was not read for prime time, but the community pushed back in a big way and insisted that Cassandra was not the problem with Digg. If Cassandra had been the real problem, then Digg would have given up on it, but they did not:
http://gigaom.com/2010/09/08/digg-not-likely-to-give-up-on-c...
http://www.quora.com/Is-Cassandra-to-blame-for-Digg-v4s-tech...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669645