You can't have radical transparency without a blameless culture. Calling someone out in the open is in bad taste anywhere. It's also common sense. As Omar says, "If you come at the king, you best not miss." It's possible that the author really did just write an innocuous post criticizing recruiting practices, but I don't see why their the manager would single out the boss if that were the case.

The negative thing being described was the inability of 95% of the engineers to use the 20% time which was being described by the company as a general perk.

"The company is deceiving people and should reconsider messaging to reflect reality" is not a personal attack; even in a "blameless" culture, you are expected to note that the causal chain includes "Dave hit the wrong button, which should not have happened because we should have safeguards on the button and reviews to make sure we have safeguards on all the expensive/dangerous buttons." Sorry, Dave.

20% time was always for the high performers who can do 100% of their work in 80% of the time.

That's what she portrayed it as, but it doesn't pass the smell test. Why would a manager be yelled at for company wide statistics? This and all the other aggressive framing suggests to me that she's not a reliable narrator. If everywhere you go smells like shit, maybe it’s time to check your shoes.

I believe what he likely meant (though not what he said), was that radical transparency shouldn’t be taken as a license to be an asshole.

I say that as a manager of narcissistic assholes who are always “brutally honest” and feel that their honesty excuses their brutality.