141–150 of 460 posts
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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.
It's quite plausible that the simple truth of the matter is that some people commenting here, defending the post, may feel that HN shouldn't be so very frequently cynical, negative, mean, quick to jump to assuming the worst about intentions, and so on. The Guidelines - for good reason - even go out of the way to try to drive users away from behaving that way.
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I read this as a tongue in cheek joke?
I read as dumb. It doesn't give any value to the piece, very akin to virtue signaling.
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He had to stay on until he was free to leave under the microsoft acquisition contract. 2 years sound about right.
That's not what happened here. Nat founded Xamarin which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016. Github was acquired in 2018 and Nat was already an Microsoft employee at time. So Nat departing now is actually 5 years post the Xamarin acquisition (when he joined Microsoft). https://www.linkedin.com/in/natfriedman/ EDIT: what's also interesting is that Thomas Dohmke joined Microsoft in 2015, moved to the Github division aro…
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…
Being authentic as a leader is impossible. Your thoughts, desires, core beliefs, etc are going to be offensive to someone -- even if those disagreeable things made agreeable outcomes for people mad at your words. I mean offensive in the broadest possible definition here; more plainly, they'll be perceived negatively by someone with enough motivation to be nasty and often it's not worth the trouble of dealing with someone who woke up feeling nasty. We live in a world where people think it's okay to read into the words (and lives) of others, try to derive deep meaning out of simple actions (even if there is none), and where people believe you're lying by default (as a leader). The fact is, as time has gone on confirmation of these things in various people and businesses builds, so they're hard assuations to just toss aside. Therefore, it is most safe to type a paragraph giving direction, listing accomplishments, and thanking entities that helped you along the way in the most taste-free way one can, while saying absolutely nothing at all.
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Are you kidding? Even the title is intentionally uninformative clickbait.
How so? My first thought when reading the title and seeing it was a GitHub blog was that someone was probably leaving the company. Do you expect someone leaving their company to title their goodbye blog post like "John Doe leaving GitHub"?
Heh, heh. Wonder what Microsoft did to piss him off.
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.
that question mark at the end of a non-question. Nothing personal, just critique on a larger trend, but IMO upspeak and vocal fry are more annoying than corporate speak.
But I agree about these exit letter being more delicate. The more intimate notes are fine internally.
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…
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