Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thank u, next

words.steveklabnik.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 182 posts

Re: Thank u, next

#31

Post by gavingmiller »

> Why’d he quit? ... he told me this: at each stage of a company’s growth, they have different needs. Those needs generally require different skills. What he enjoyed, and what he had the skills to do, was to take a tiny company and make it medium sized. Once a company was at that stage of growth, he was less interested and less good at taking them from there.

This is an aspect that gets overlooked in many businesses & careers. I've heard it phrased that companies go through 3 stages: Startup, Scale Up, Optimize. The above quote is a sub-stage of Scale Up. Some people are built for just a single stage and knowing how and where your skillset fits in is crucial to career happiness. As well as knowing when to encourage employees to move on.

Great post and I wish @steveklabnik continued success in his career!

Re: Thank u, next

#33

Post by steveklabnik »

yanslookup wrote: post #26

This surprises me on so many different levels. To me, Rust is nearly the same thing as steveklabnik. Considering his level of engagement and enthusiasm I figured he was one of those people making easy SV money. Between this and Jess Frazelle (another household name) never getting a promotion shows how wrong this industry is.

Mozilla is actually the best-paying job I've ever had, if that tells you anything. And it was an okay salary. I've never been more financially secure. But I'd like some of that "easy SV money" :)

Re: Thank u, next

#34

Post by codezero »

dao- wrote: post #22
steveklabnik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's particularly professional to get into more detail than I did in my post, as much as I'd like to. As the saying goes, there are three sides to every story. I'd rather focus on the future.

Why hint at it at all then? Without details it won't satisfy the curious nor help fix whatever problems there might be. As someone who still works for Mozilla out of conviction, this feels like an unnecessary low blow.

I can’t speak for steve, but having been in a similar position, hinting at it signals to peers that if they are feeling similar things, they aren’t alone. It’s easy for a lot of toxic culture to go unspoken, and to be gaslighted into thinking things are great, a post like this helps reinforce that stuff (yes vague) is not great and maybe it will lead more folks within Mozilla to pull off the rose colored glasses.

Basically: it’s not for the general reader, but a specific subset of them, if I were to take a guess.

Re: Thank u, next

#35

Post by vnw »

Proponents of the open web should be very, very worried about the terrible mismanagement of Mozilla.

Re: Thank u, next

#36

Post by AceJohnny2 »

Steve, thank you for your work on Rust. I can honestly say that your writing was the most important factor in getting me excited and into Rust. Your book is a pleasure to read, it's a gold standard. Overall, the quality of Rust's documentation is a beacon in the field, and I understand you've contributed much there.

I'm sad (and a bit angry at Mozilla) that you didn't get the career recognition you deserved at Mozilla. I look forward to seeing what you work on next.

Re: Thank u, next

#37

Post by Jare »

steveklabnik wrote: post #18
blub wrote: post #5

Mozilla sounds like your average PHB-led corporation. This is also one of the reasons I'm skeptical about Rust, since Mozilla is the backbone of Rust development. They don't strike me as an organisation that can shepherd a programming language long term and with their market share taking a nose dive they're bound to get even more desperate and cut non-essential projects or make new data-sharing partnerships. Anyways,…

Mozilla doesn't really "shepherd" Rust development. We've constructed the Rust project so that Mozilla cannot control it; decisions are made via consensus, and Mozilla employees make up ~10% of the overall Rust team. There's never been some sort of mandate to do something specific with Rust from upon high, and I don't expect there to ever be. If they tried, it wouldn't work!

The big concern is not that it wouldn't work, it is that they might try, and that you may have been one of the things preventing that from happening.

All the best luck going forward, because you absolutely deserve it.

Re: Thank u, next

#38

Post by chii »

lbotos wrote: post #32

For those that missed it, this is a subtle nod to Ariana Grande's "Thank u, next" song/tweet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1aHhXnN1k https://twitter.com/arianagrande/status/1058888117808070656?... Never did I ever expect to see that on HN. 2019 culture clash is already wild.

It's not really subtle thb.

Re: Thank u, next

#39

Post by Phlarp »

Why is it that nonprofit tech organizations see such value in maintaining a San Francisco office location (looking at you Mozilla and EFF) only to lowball employees on compensation?

Surely the perception of having a trendy location can't be worth more than market salaries in the pursuit of talent? Are there other benefits to the location besides perception?

Re: Thank u, next

#40

Post by pcwalton »

blub wrote: post #5

Mozilla sounds like your average PHB-led corporation. This is also one of the reasons I'm skeptical about Rust, since Mozilla is the backbone of Rust development. They don't strike me as an organisation that can shepherd a programming language long term and with their market share taking a nose dive they're bound to get even more desperate and cut non-essential projects or make new data-sharing partnerships. Anyways,…

> This is also one of the reasons I'm skeptical about Rust, since Mozilla is the backbone of Rust development.

The most important thing is that Mozilla's management has never tried to control the direction of Rust. That's more than can be said for most other languages with corporate backing.

Post reply on HN