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Thank you, GitHub

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Re: Thank you, GitHub

#121

Post by 1123581321 »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #99
stelonix wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree we're living an eternal september for the past months and comment quality has gone down to reddit-level, but I also agree with the commenter about this specific post from GH's founder.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 From the HN guidelines.

Reddit-level is a moving target. Both are trending in the same direction, one faster and earlier than the other.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#122

Post by ksec »

ferdowsi wrote: post #18
scrubs wrote: post #11

If I read another piece of American corporate crap --- plastic, formulaic, always-be-selling --- I'm gonna throw up on my keyboard. The write-up is rife with stock phrases, and vapid emotionalism. Somewhere when the rest of us are busy there's a room somewhere where people get the cheat-sheet, fill-in-the-blank training that produces this junk. Look the guy probably had some success and met some great people. So why…

When you are a company leader, your words can have a material effect on your business. This is doubly so true at a disruptive point like leadership exits. Of course words are going to be delicately chosen? That being said I didn't notice anything particularly offensive about this letter. He describes the accomplishments under his watch, expresses gratitude for employees, and expresses confidence in his successor.

Mostly started by Google as "Do No Evil" PR, and later by Apple's creating products that “enrich people's lives.”

I dont think it is this letter in particular. So may be it is not fair to criticise it. But my guess is that the accumulation of these cooperate speaks, PR, and the past 10 years of main stream media riding along these PR to new height, just happen to tricker OP this time around.

And it doesn't seems to be an American things either, I read a lot of Fortune 500 post, somehow these over the top PR speak are mostly related to tech only.

However, I still think Github and Nat deserve a lot of praise for what they have done. Lots of changes and improvement happened after the acquisition. And not only credit to Nat but also to Microsoft.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#123

Post by onion2k »

I like and respect nat because he never seemed afraid of engaging directly with customers (here on HN, on Twitter, etc). You need to talk to customers at the start of founding any startup, but to carry on doing that long past the point of being able to have a team to do it for you is pretty awesome. I hope the next CEO is equally open to listening to us.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#124

Post by nine_k »

fishtacos wrote: post #114
_vertigo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what’s bad about that?

Reading up higher will inform you of context, but to reiterate: OP: "Look the guy probably had some success and met some great people. So why in the hell can't you say that in your own words?" My comment: "Not even Clark Kent could be this braggadocios." There are better way of expressing one's (dis)satisfaction in the workplace. Starting with, perhaps, whittling down one's pride in accomplishing what tens of thousan…

He cannot say it in his own words because it's a ritual. All formulae here are ritualistic, following a corporate protocol for such speeches. The speaker's agency is,limited to choosing which formulae to choose, and filling in the predefined slots in them.

The point of the ritual is to signal the world that all goes as planned, while giving away as few salient details as possible.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#125

Post by haliskerbas »

systemvoltage wrote: post #83
ferdowsi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are a company leader, your words can have a material effect on your business. This is doubly so true at a disruptive point like leadership exits. Of course words are going to be delicately chosen? That being said I didn't notice anything particularly offensive about this letter. He describes the accomplishments under his watch, expresses gratitude for employees, and expresses confidence in his successor.

There is one particular corporate leader who speaks their mind and has made a tremendous impact on the world. So, it's not clear if it has anything to do with polished big-corp language. I'd rather listen to someone who is straightforward than Sundar Pichai speaking entirely in corporate-speak while saying absolutely nothing of value or substance. Completely uninspiring. All corporate speak is rather an invention of…

Ah yes Elon Musk also tweets about “TITS university”. I’m sure there’s no one that finds issue with that, but doesn’t have the power to speak against it.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#126

Post by BoorishBears »

junon wrote: post #107
BoorishBears wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read enough to be sick to realize what it is. In part because even the title is clickbait. Even the tl;dr manages to inject some platitudes before getting to the point. - And you're arguing a strawman. The comment you replied to never implied he shouldn't say farewell. They're complaining about how utterly insincere it comes across being blasted full of every trite corporate saying in existence If anythin…

> I wonder why it upsets you that someone would complain about this though, do you have a personal attachment to Nat? Please point to where I implied I was at all upset.

That last sentence alone "if it's so bad why read it?" is clearly something an upset person would say.

-

But this is HN where inferring tone is apparently a step too far in terms of speculation, so here.

Have an ML model tell you how upset you sound: https://i.imgur.com/nztQgdY.jpg

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#127

Post by Taywee »

bpodgursky wrote: post #22
scrubs wrote: post #11

If I read another piece of American corporate crap --- plastic, formulaic, always-be-selling --- I'm gonna throw up on my keyboard. The write-up is rife with stock phrases, and vapid emotionalism. Somewhere when the rest of us are busy there's a room somewhere where people get the cheat-sheet, fill-in-the-blank training that produces this junk. Look the guy probably had some success and met some great people. So why…

Then don't read it. I'm more tired of the whining.

Fewer people probably would have read it if the title said what it actually was.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#128

Post by fishtacos »

afarrell wrote: post #104
_vertigo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what’s bad about that?

If you start from the assumption that it is meaningless and insincere, then it is eye-rollingly vapid. If you start from the assumption that it is a genuine attempt to put messy feelings into concise words, then it is a bit lacks vividness but is nonetheless heartfelt. When you choose not to trust someone, you make them untrustworthy.

Is that why we make judgement calls on this case? No one can know the intent or original thoughts of the author, but we can certainly ascribe qualities to their product based on our experience...

The fun exercise here is not that this is yet another vapid post on HN, but that people are defending it.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#129

Post by sktrdie »

I should say that back in the day Nat was one that got me into coding. His nat.org blog (unfortunately cannot find it anymore on archive) was such an authentic piece of writing with his Xamarin and GNOME adventures along with posts and great photography on his general coding life working for OSS and other smallerish companies such as Novell. It was truly inspiration and made me want to live that life - building cool things with great people - but more importantly enjoying the whole human side around it where your colleagues become your friends and coding is just something that gets you closer to one another - similar to "playing guitar" or "cycling around town" or "going snowboarding together".

Of course his corporate persona is a bit different, but his work is still inspiring. Best of luck with your next adventure Nat! Cheers.

Re: Thank you, GitHub

#130

Post by zerkten »

jrockway wrote: post #38

Good data. We have learned that if your company ever gets bought by Microsoft, you have to wait about three years to be fully vested. (The acquisition was in June 2018, but I guess it must have been finalized on November 3rd ;)

Why is that a surprise? All of the top tech companies have many public acquisitions and all of the leader info is available from multiple sources. In fact, you could use that leader info from LinkedIn to understand that Nat was already at MS from the Xamarin acquisition to know that his tenure at GitHub wouldn't be a good data point.
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