[deleted]
Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
101–110 of 149 posts
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#102My TLDR reading this: - everyone working in big tech is so so lucky. millions of people would do anything for these jobs. - contrary to what the narrative is set, the kitchen is dirty, shit is on fire, and barring a few no one has a clue. - recruiters perpetuate the candidate bias manifold. “Get me a dropbox PM” or “Get me a a google ML person” sheer laziness as talent is all around.
Also, weirdly, she references twitter's customers as being distinct group from their advertisers. The fact that she does not mention who those customers might be however is not surprising.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that logic, why couldn’t someone have done the same with electric cars and rockets? Were we never going to go into space again? Did the Nissan Leaf not already exist?
As I mentioned; they lacked the scale and scope required to be successful.
I disagree and here’s an example I would use.
In the 20+ years Google has dominated search, who has come along and iterated a “better” version? Bing? Is the capital and scope required not approachable, as you suggest?
Similarly, since Tesla helped demonstrate a valid market for electric cars, how many automakers have released competitive (and to some, better) EVs? If the capital requirements and scope were too large, where did Rivian and Polestar and numerous other upstarts come from?
I won’t disagree re: SpaceX.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#104Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior.
This is the first post I've seen that shows concern for the mental health of our leaders. I share that same concern for our elected officials, as they've been in survival mode since their popularity peaked on 9/11, just as I've run myself ragged to make rent. Political polarization has been on a steady upward climb since WWII. Now they spend so much time fundraising for reelection that they've all but abdicated their personal responsibility to do the right thing for the public. Regardless of what millionaires, billionaires and politicians say, it must be hard for them to look themselves in the mirror after doing so much for so long against the best interests of people and planet.
I view the Twitter > X situation as the cherry on top of wealth inequality. Where most of us were probably inspired to disrupt the status quo in the 90s and 2000s, now it's become just another game of survival. Whatever work I do today will just get diluted and corrupted by the status quo. It's not any one thing like the loss of Twitter driving that, but the rampant replacement of real tech by phantom tech, and more importantly the loss of our enterprising spirit as seen by the disappearance of affordable college and our industry getting replaced by finance and other rent-seeking ventures.
Understanding why wealthy and powerful people do the wrong things with their money may be one of the great problems of our time. On the other side of that is a world where tech does the work that people are forced to do today to survive, and we all begin to self-actualize and come full circle to a human being.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#105> 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.
Might be true, I have no idea, but it seems irrelevant when discussing Twitter: they were a public company being offered a generous premium.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#106I appreciate this considerably more nuanced and thoughtful view of the modern history of Twitter. So much coverage of Twitter since the Musk acquisition is entangled with partisan politics, ultimately in part thanks to Musk provoking such a reaction. That makes this post feel ever more illuminating and thoughtful—it avoids the partisan pitfalls and irrational extremism seen in virtually every other article on the top…
As if Musk doesn't encourage the vitriol. He's banned antifascists and unbanned right wing trolls, and he's a right wing troll himself. This is what he created, and maybe it makes business sense, polarization and anger generates engagement. But it doesn't make sense to blame the users, thats just what the platform is now.
[deleted]
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned; they lacked the scale and scope required to be successful.
I disagree and here’s an example I would use. In the 20+ years Google has dominated search, who has come along and iterated a “better” version? Bing? Is the capital and scope required not approachable, as you suggest? Similarly, since Tesla helped demonstrate a valid market for electric cars, how many automakers have released competitive (and to some, better) EVs? If the capital requirements and scope were too large,…
That is first movers advantage that gives rise to a network effect which acts as a powerful moat for a natural monopoly. Another search company could have been google without the need of a crazy person. Which is to say a google like company was probability inevitable, if not google then something like it.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#108I appreciate this considerably more nuanced and thoughtful view of the modern history of Twitter. So much coverage of Twitter since the Musk acquisition is entangled with partisan politics, ultimately in part thanks to Musk provoking such a reaction. That makes this post feel ever more illuminating and thoughtful—it avoids the partisan pitfalls and irrational extremism seen in virtually every other article on the top…
Your casual use of unhinged vitriol indicates you haven't been paying attention.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree and here’s an example I would use. In the 20+ years Google has dominated search, who has come along and iterated a “better” version? Bing? Is the capital and scope required not approachable, as you suggest? Similarly, since Tesla helped demonstrate a valid market for electric cars, how many automakers have released competitive (and to some, better) EVs? If the capital requirements and scope were too large,…
That is first movers advantage that gives rise to a network effect which acts as a powerful moat for a natural monopoly. Another search company could have been google without the need of a crazy person. Which is to say a google like company was probability inevitable, if not google then something like it.
Google was not the first search engine, nor the 6th.
Re: Epilogue of my time working at Twitter
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is first movers advantage that gives rise to a network effect which acts as a powerful moat for a natural monopoly. Another search company could have been google without the need of a crazy person. Which is to say a google like company was probability inevitable, if not google then something like it.
Google was not the first search engine, nor the 6th.
They were the first movers on a particular and very effective way of doing search.