Live data from Hacker News

Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

esthercrawford.medium.com

71–80 of 149 posts

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#71

> Colleagues openly talked about how Twitter was being sold because leadership didn’t have conviction in their own plan or ability to fix longstanding problems. I think, in this case, the colleagues were wrong. Twitter was sold because an idiot offered far more money than it was worth. If I have a coffee shop that earns me $100,000 in profit per year, and somebody offers to buy it from me for $10 million, I'm going t…

The company was virtually static for a decade. It was a long running joke that they weren't able to ship and the article does a good job of explaining why.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#72
post #30

>A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. I doubt that. Not the opposite part but the high performance one. Sounds like a road to burn out and depression.

I have never been more burned out and depressed than when I was in a low performance culture. Completely wore me out.

Same. Possibly personality styles. When low performance, gap between personal identity of skill and output causes me pain. Prefer high-speed cultures. Feel accelerated by peers. In moments of doubt, feel invigorated by peers. Good feeling.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#73
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

musk has a vast amount of power and influence due to his wealth, links to several corporations, links to other rich people, and his control of a social media site. I believe that someone with that much power has an obligation, a responsibility to improve the world for humanity. Whether elected or not. he instead chooses to do what he does. That is why I dislike him. he could offer so much more but messes around "trol…

Literally who has improved humanity more this century? I ask with all seriousness. Electric cars and rockets would not be where they are if he had chosen a different and much less difficult path.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Google (made near-infinite knowledge reachable), Chrome/Chromium, GMail, YouTube, Android (powers billions of handsets), Google Maps …

If you credit Musk directly for all the aforementioned things, why not them? And yes, Google bought some of those properties, but so did Musk. What’s the difference? Marketing?

(I don’t actually think Larry and Sergey “most benefitted humanity” or deserve a bunch of humanitarian awards, but I’m curious why they’re not credited with Google’s achievements in the way Musk is with his companies.)

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#74
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

musk has a vast amount of power and influence due to his wealth, links to several corporations, links to other rich people, and his control of a social media site. I believe that someone with that much power has an obligation, a responsibility to improve the world for humanity. Whether elected or not. he instead chooses to do what he does. That is why I dislike him. he could offer so much more but messes around "trol…

Literally who has improved humanity more this century? I ask with all seriousness. Electric cars and rockets would not be where they are if he had chosen a different and much less difficult path.

I was going to say Norman Borlaug, but then I remembered we’re actually a quarter-century out from the twentieth century…

Still, I guess he’d get my vote if the relevant window was the last 100 years.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#76
post #30

>A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. I doubt that. Not the opposite part but the high performance one. Sounds like a road to burn out and depression.

I have never been more burned out and depressed than when I was in a low performance culture. Completely wore me out.

I feel like both ends of it can be exhausting. Dealing with other people just not caring or executing poorly can easily burn you out or make you lose faith in your coworkers, but so can having everyone else working late hours and feeling the social and perhaps practical pressure to keep up. They're different flavors of exhaustion and burnout, but both can be dangerous.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#77
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rolling waves of drama around Musk's latest "idea" eventually got more annoying to read on my Following feed so I left Twitter.

Understood. I have no doubt it would become exhausting to follow people who are distracted by such meta-topics. I take some joy out of unfollowing people who are overly obsessed with topics I find uninteresting.

It doesn’t take someone being overly obsessed but merely reposting once in a blue moon.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#78
post #30

>A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. I doubt that. Not the opposite part but the high performance one. Sounds like a road to burn out and depression.

Why depression?

It's easy for a high performance culture to lead to a lot of people posturing or over-working themselves. It can be for developer productivity what browsing Instagram can be for your self-image.

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#79
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally who has improved humanity more this century? I ask with all seriousness. Electric cars and rockets would not be where they are if he had chosen a different and much less difficult path.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Google (made near-infinite knowledge reachable), Chrome/Chromium, GMail, YouTube, Android (powers billions of handsets), Google Maps … If you credit Musk directly for all the aforementioned things, why not them? And yes, Google bought some of those properties, but so did Musk. What’s the difference? Marketing? (I don’t actually think Larry and Sergey “most benefitted humanity” or deserve a…

[deleted]

Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter

#80
post #30

>A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. I doubt that. Not the opposite part but the high performance one. Sounds like a road to burn out and depression.

There's sustainable and unsustainable work practices, which are separate.

People thrive when high performing sustainably and don't thrive when low performing, but unsustainable is unsustainable.

Post reply on HN