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Thank u, next

words.steveklabnik.com

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Re: Thank u, next

#51

Post by jcranmer »

thanatropism wrote: post #27
codezero wrote: post #21

This is a bummer on many levels, but also personally, a bit of a relief. For a while I was considering going all-in to try to get a role at Mozilla. I really believe in their mission, and I drink the kool-aid when it comes to the browser market getting gobbled up. What held me back at the time were the company reviews. The culture sounds toxic, and the management sounds incompetent, and there's no force of change tha…

> culture sounds toxic Is this an indirect reference to Brendan Eich's sacking or is it even worse?

Brendan Eich was never sacked by Mozilla (the company or the foundation). That said, it was the strong backlash from the community that impelled him to quit.

Re: Thank u, next

#52

Post by nicoburns »

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,…

What does "PHB" mean? (Google isn't giving me any answers)

Re: Thank u, next

#53

Post by miloignis »

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!

Which is fantastic - I'm very glad that the people of the Rust project were so forward thinking. Thanks for all of your work so far - I know it's helped me and so many others get started using Rust, which I managed to be able to use for a new project at work, where it has been a joy.

All the best, and I hope an even better opportunity comes your way!

Re: Thank u, next

#54

Post by codezero »

gavingmiller wrote: post #31

> 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…

In my current role, I've seen the company go from 6 to 120 people, and it's absolutely true that there are some people that are really amazing at a 6 person company who can be extremely counter-productive in a company of even 30 or 40.

Also, startups, since they are often run by people new at running companies, are often slow to respond to these kinds of folks. It's also rare that folks recognize this in themselves. I very nearly quit my job when going through a bunch of rough patches, because I thought, maybe the company finally scaled past me. I'm glad I didn't because it's smooth sailing again, but it's always important to reflect on yourself and ask if you are really doing the best you can. It's really hard to quit a role that is going poorly, let alone going passably well.

Re: Thank u, next

#55

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Thank u, next

#56

Post by miloignis »

nicoburns wrote: post #52
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,…

What does "PHB" mean? (Google isn't giving me any answers)

Pointy Haired Boss, from Dilbert (https://dilbert.com/)

Re: Thank u, next

#57

Post by weinzierl »

> What I saw in Rust was something that the world really needed. And I wanted to help it get there. Beyond that, the only real way to get a job working on Rust was to work at Mozilla. And independently of Rust, that was something I’m really excited about.

A big part of what drew me into Rust is that the people behind it have reasonable ideas which are very well documented. I know this doesn't sound terribly exciting but the older I grow the more I appreciate that as something very valuable - and amiss in many projects.

Besides other things Steve contributed a lot to these values by writing documentation and first and foremost by being there and answering questions - online and at the conferences.

> Well, the first thing is that I don’t plan to stop working on Rust. How much I’ll be able to depends on what’s next, but that’s the great part about open source; I can continue to help the thing I love, even if it might not be full-time anymore.

Glad to hear that he continues working on Rust. I really hope he will find a job that allows him to work on Rust full-time though. Having to split ones attention isn't often going well. Maybe this is kind of litmus test for Rust even: As much as it hurts me to write this but if there isn't a well paying full-time opportunity in the Rust space for someone like Steve then maybe Rust isn't going anywhere.

Re: Thank u, next

#58

Post by codezero »

thanatropism wrote: post #48
codezero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse. I think the Brendan Eich sacking falls more in line with the management being incompetent.

I thought Brendan Eich /was/ management at the time of his defenestration.

Yeah, what I mean by this is that after his exit, management hasn't done much to help Mozilla, not that the act of his exit was a result of incompetent management.

Re: Thank u, next

#59

Post by ksec »

1. What happen to the Ruby and Rails part of the History?

2. How on earth did you came from Pizza to Tech?

3. I read it as if you were working on Firefox Pre 1.0 and Rust in Mozilla. And I don't think that is the case?

4. Finally someone pointing out the problem with Mozilla. ( Far to often they want to play themselves as the Saint or as David vs Goliath )

5. Have you thought about doing something with Rust and BlockChain?

Anyway Best of Luck.

Re: Thank u, next

#60

Post by codezero »

nicoburns wrote: post #49
thanatropism wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> culture sounds toxic Is this an indirect reference to Brendan Eich's sacking or is it even worse?

Not the OP, but I don't have a problem with the Brendan Eich incident (if a CEO doesn't have the confidence of their employees, then they shouldn't be CEO), but I still have a bad impression of Mozilla culture. To me the clearest sign is their product decisions. They just haven't made a lot of sense recently.

I agree with you. I assume you are being downvoted because there is a lot of polarity around the Eich exit at Mozilla from ... both sides ... here on HN :)

I find it quite disappointing that drive-by downvotes are what happen, rather than more discussion, but that's life I guess.

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