641–650 of 683 posts
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Changes to a system can come in many ways, e.g. we had a noticeable increase in our db size because of a new customer data, what was ok. before wasn't after. Of course it's different for twitter. And what about security? Update to libraries, dependencies...?
Of course but this is also twitter, not a startup in its infancy. I'm not saying new stuff won't happen (etc), but they have a very mature infra org.
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I am lost. Where did Musk say anything about fanciness of the code? Or is it your interpretation of what he said?
The linked article quotes a mail where Musk asks to see "the most salient lines of code".
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> Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain ... I think the fact that this is happening to every coder at twitter in a few hours' span, coupled with the fact that thus far, the firings have been capricious, hasty, and based on apparently very little data. Nothing about these exercises seems to be "measured" in the "carefully considered" sense. If you're thinking of these in contrast to stand…
Of course nobody is excited to explain what value they provide on short notice to keep their job. Nobody likes getting fired either. I agree that these exercises are neither measured, careful, or well coached. It is a blunt and imperfect way to see who codes at all, who can articulate their job, who can handle uncertainty and pressure, and also who will follow orders. Taking a screenshot and explaining your code is n…
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from this whole debacle, it’s that US employment law is fucked. I can’t believe worker protections are so poor in such a forward thinking, modern country. The things he’s getting away with sound like something out of a Victorian factory.
Hiring people is ridiculously expensive (their salary and even health care/benefits are a small fraction of the total cost), and the last thing small businesses need is even more expense to hire. Large companies can amortize with economies of scale (e.g. HR departments).
You could try to play a cat-and-mouse game (e.g., make laws that apply only to companies with more than X employees, so companies restructure so it applies to them), which then leads to laws so complicated that only large companies with dedicated lawyers could afford to navigate.
And here we are now. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" combined with "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from this whole debacle, it’s that US employment law is fucked. I can’t believe worker protections are so poor in such a forward thinking, modern country. The things he’s getting away with sound like something out of a Victorian factory.
"Worker protections" generally means "small business deterrents". Worker protections are great if you want a small number of large corporations to rule everything. Hiring people is ridiculously expensive (their salary and even health care/benefits are a small fraction of the total cost), and the last thing small businesses need is even more expense to hire. Large companies can amortize with economies of scale (e.g. H…
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I think what happens is his strange behavior is proportional to how little he sleeps. He has a spectrum between mildly unusual to full Kanye. While I'm usually not in favor of professional unions for programmers, I think that's the only option at Twitter at this point unless people are ready to quit en mass.
It would actually be really interesting if the remaining staff at Twitter tried forming a union at this juncture. How many more of his employees would Musk be willing to fire or make enemies over this without completely ruining the shell of a company he still owns?
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And the new boss has enough time to throughly review the contributions of every employee in the company? To be fair is the number of engineers left in Twitter falls to double digits this just might become possible...
Twitter has like less than 1000 employees. If half are getting this review for 10 minutes each that's 83 hours. A team of 8 that he trusts can do that in a day. No it's not thorough, but it's a start and you can schedule more thorough reviews as needed.
A more reasonable explanation is that he just wants the employees to self select. (Sane) People who are unwilling to take this process seriously will just leave and only those who'd fit in the environment he's creating would stay.
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I would fine it hard to make this assumption based on how he's behaving. Also does he really have that many at Twitter people whom he trusts? And are there many who trust him?
I think he’s brought in buddies, and heads of engineering from tesla and spacex.
To be fair I can't tell if your post is sarcasm or not.
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OK, so how do I square that up with a request to document programming prowess with screenshots ?
That he doesn't have any other way to look at any code because he doesn't have a Phabricator account
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There's some willful denial here on HN and in other places that 1) twitter is being punished because it seems its role as supporting free speech rather than policing misinformation, 2) Elon Musk, as founder of Paypal and CEO of Starlink, has more than enough Internet / technical knowledge to run a site like twitter, 3) twitter itself is just not all that complicated and was probably due for an overhaul / rewrite anyw…
Regarding your first point, I'm not sure why this sentiment exists. Twitter isn't any more free-speech than it was before. We've seen some accounts un-banned, like Babylon Bee but not Donald Trump. We've seen plenty other accounts newly banned as well for what is clearly parody. Feels like a wash on that front. I'm relying on hearsay now, but if some employees were really let go for bad-mouthing Elon in the company s…