Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

twitter.com

181–190 of 219 posts

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#181

I have a question. A person of such incompetence could have achieved such great success, how is that possible? In addition to being technically incompetent, he seems to be incompetent when it comes to managing people and running a business.

We all conflate success with merit and competence but in reality is much more complex than that. Having the means (cash) and insight or luck to make a bet at the right time gets you most of the way there. For the rest, you don't have to be that competent, just not completely incompetent.

Elons biggest virtue is his stubbornness on two very successful bets, those two finance and cover all of his other failures (and successes) and character flaws. For now, at least.

He's always been a shitty boss and terrible people manager. But where are you going to work if you want to be around the sexiest rockets ever made? Or even the new hotness all electric vehicle? At least for Tesla, the appeal is diminishing but the market for hardware engineers and embedded is much different than general software and there is plenty of dumb people who think is cool to work under him, he has infinite cannon fodder to burn.

His biggest mistake with twitter is to buy a company where revenue is tied to public relations and being a person who despises public relations with a passion. There is no product to sell and optimize, he didn't get a good idea that needs polishing and perfecting, he has to come up with one. That is much, much harder.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#182

He fired another one: https://twitter.com/sachee/status/1592308273071681536?s=46&t... If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude it’ll just be the product managers left.

>If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude

Where I work it's in the contract that you don't talk shit about the company on social media. I think that's common sense too. I'm sure Elon is an irritating piece of shit, especially as a superior, but shit-flinging online like this is just not something I'd want in my company either.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#183

I find it annoying that the greatest source of information regarding the ongoing implosion of Twitter seems to be Twitter itself. I'm eager to watch it die but I'm still unwilling to load their horrendously slow and visually offensive web interface.

I work around this by using the "Privacy redirect" browser addon, or sometimes manually by using Nitter.net or the Threader app.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#184

I feel like engineers behaved like a jerk in this case. Maybe Elon's tweet about 1000 RPC calls were wrong, but they could politely point it out, try to help to the company by joining internal discussions about what's going on. But no, instead they started attacking the current owner of company publicly (good or bad, doesn't matter, he is now owner of company, if you don't like it just resign professionally).

I think you're right. Elon was a jerk, then the employees were jerks, and then Elon retaliated from his position of power. Was it fair? Absolutely not. Publicly humiliating someone is horrible, especially so from a position of power. But fairness doesn't come into play, when people are playing dirty like this. The original jerk couldn't win their original battle, so they escalated. Since they've thrown fair play away already, what remains is the legality, and legally this is all okay, I'm sure of it. And that's all there is to it.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#185

He fired another one: https://twitter.com/sachee/status/1592308273071681536?s=46&t... If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude it’ll just be the product managers left.

>If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude Where I work it's in the contract that you don't talk shit about the company on social media. I think that's common sense too. I'm sure Elon is an irritating piece of shit, especially as a superior, but shit-flinging online like this is just not something I'd want in my company either.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there’s a severance package for that. Employment suicide by cop.

Dangerous gamble for just a couple months of severance. Would make me hesitant to hire that person knowing they have such bad judgement as to publicly badmouth the CEO of their company on Twitter. Even hiring managers who personally hate Elon have to understand that this developer could easily turn the same energy on their own company at some point in the future and make them look terrible. Definitely a career limiti…

Seems from my outsider perspective that this kind of hyper-aggressive and combative tone is like a currency on Twitter… There seem to be those for whom the Twitter bubble is _everything_ (which would include Elon), and then you have the other 99.9% of humanity who look on with confusion. And the 0.1% of the super engaged don't seem to be able to fathom that the Twitter bubble still exists _within_ reality, where actions can have consequences

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Did he stop her from saying it?)

He literally cancelled her. Got her fired from her own job because of a tweet. It's exactly the intolerance he complains of.

No, actions have consequences but he has not prevented her from saying what she wanted to say.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#188

Free speech man insta-fires employee for contradicting him.

His posts and account are still up. Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences

So a dictator jailing a dissident because what he said in social media is still considered a Free speech act?

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#189

He fired another one: https://twitter.com/sachee/status/1592308273071681536?s=46&t... If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude it’ll just be the product managers left.

>If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude Where I work it's in the contract that you don't talk shit about the company on social media. I think that's common sense too. I'm sure Elon is an irritating piece of shit, especially as a superior, but shit-flinging online like this is just not something I'd want in my company either.

Well, Elon is the one talking shit about the company. She was, on the other hand, praising the infra, and talking shit only about the CEO.

Re: Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.

#190
post #40

After seeing Elon mixing up all async services that happen in backend with Android client making as many requests, I wonder if I thought this guy is smart because I know nothing about building cars or launching space rockets. Edit: "guy is smart" probably should be "guy is technically competent". I am sure Elon is smart, I think he is being Phony while acting technically competent in every area.

he doesn't need to be smart, if you are building something yourself, then you should be smart about that stuff, but if you are managing people to build, then it is enough if you can manage the execution well (including hiring, funding and everything else)

Of course. A CEO can just be an excellent manager and be successful. But Elon is taking big action based on his two-week understanding of technical infrastructure within Twitter. If you are going to decide "wait, the architecture is all wrong" after a brief glance, you better also have technical chops.
Post reply on HN