This guy is incredible, I've been following him on Twitter since his Ueno days. An amazing designer and leader. One of my favorite projects he worked on was to literally build ramps all around Iceland: https://rampur.super.site/
Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
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Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Here's the saga: https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1632843191773716481 https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1632947160416149504 https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1633082707835080705
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Twitter acquired his company and kept him on as an employee. A lot of times founders end up having to coast because the buyer is still trying to sort out how to merge the tech. The founder is basically on garden leave/on-call tech support until a strategy is in place. Some never get there, vest a few years, and start a new company.
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#23Beautiful website. I also think this is the same guy who had to ask Musk if he was fired because HR couldn't confirm it. Maybe it was a mistake to let him ago, he seems to be pretty talented actually.
It’s one thing to decide that someone’s role is no longer necessary at a company. It’s business, things change, no role is guaranteed to exist forever. But firing someone without communication and with HR unable to confirm it is just low. Mocking them on Twitter for their well-documented physical disability is just abhorrent. This could have been a completely different exchange if the response was a simple “Sorry for…
It feels like the head of HR is asking elon for confirmation rather than having the information. In a well run company, you have institutional knowledge. In a dictatorship, all institutions are the dictator.
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#24Beautiful website. I also think this is the same guy who had to ask Musk if he was fired because HR couldn't confirm it. Maybe it was a mistake to let him ago, he seems to be pretty talented actually.
It’s one thing to decide that someone’s role is no longer necessary at a company. It’s business, things change, no role is guaranteed to exist forever. But firing someone without communication and with HR unable to confirm it is just low. Mocking them on Twitter for their well-documented physical disability is just abhorrent. This could have been a completely different exchange if the response was a simple “Sorry for…
> Mocking them on Twitter for their well-documented physical disability is just abhorrent.
I agree, but we've allowed our upper class to do this since November 26, 2015.
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#25Beautiful website. I also think this is the same guy who had to ask Musk if he was fired because HR couldn't confirm it. Maybe it was a mistake to let him ago, he seems to be pretty talented actually.
It’s one thing to decide that someone’s role is no longer necessary at a company. It’s business, things change, no role is guaranteed to exist forever. But firing someone without communication and with HR unable to confirm it is just low. Mocking them on Twitter for their well-documented physical disability is just abhorrent. This could have been a completely different exchange if the response was a simple “Sorry for…
An interesting detail with this is that the purchase of Haraldur's design agency was structured as part of his salary at Twitter
> In early 2021, Haraldur sold Ueno to Twitter. In an agreement between him and Twitter, most of the purchase price was paid as salary to maximize the tax he would pay for the sale in Iceland, he chose to pay for tax out of respect to Iceland for the disability benefits he received. Per the agreement, he paid the second highest tax of an individual in Iceland in 2021.
Elon's focus on the work he was or wasn't doing is almost beside the point, because much of his salary was simply to pay off this debt. Now that he's been fired they'll either have to keep paying his salary anyway, or pay out the probably substantial amount he's owed as a lump sum. Haraldur has alluded to this in his tweets about getting "what he's owed" per his contract.
Allegedly he was on a do-not-fire list for this reason, but it's unclear if Elon knew about any of this before jumping on the opportunity to punch down at a subordinate.
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s one thing to decide that someone’s role is no longer necessary at a company. It’s business, things change, no role is guaranteed to exist forever. But firing someone without communication and with HR unable to confirm it is just low. Mocking them on Twitter for their well-documented physical disability is just abhorrent. This could have been a completely different exchange if the response was a simple “Sorry for…
An interesting detail with this is that the purchase of Haraldur's design agency was structured as part of his salary at Twitter > In early 2021, Haraldur sold Ueno to Twitter. In an agreement between him and Twitter, most of the purchase price was paid as salary to maximize the tax he would pay for the sale in Iceland, he chose to pay for tax out of respect to Iceland for the disability benefits he received. Per the…
what's the source you're quoting here?
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
An interesting detail with this is that the purchase of Haraldur's design agency was structured as part of his salary at Twitter > In early 2021, Haraldur sold Ueno to Twitter. In an agreement between him and Twitter, most of the purchase price was paid as salary to maximize the tax he would pay for the sale in Iceland, he chose to pay for tax out of respect to Iceland for the disability benefits he received. Per the…
what's the source you're quoting here?
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#28Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#29It's insane how bad Elon stepped in it with this guy. While I'm sure there were many people at Twitter doing mostly nothing, he happens to publicly pick on a guy who single-handedly built one of the most well-respected branding agencies in the tech industry, and who also has debilitating muscular dystrophy.
The optics could not be worse. I mean this guy is literally in a wheel chair.
If you were a well-funded tech company looking for design help from say 2014-2020, Ueno was probably on your shortlist (they're basically the reason most company landing pages look the way they do today). The fact that twitter could not find something valuable for this guy to do reflects more on the current state of Twitter management than it does on him.
Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
#30Anyone surprised at this and changing their opinion about Elon now because of Halli, should know that this is how every single employee has been treated at Twitter since the acquisition. Doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are. Doesn’t matter if you’re resentful at employees at Twitter for apparent coasting at high salaries. Worker mistreatment at Twitter is some of the worst in the modern workplace.