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Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

haraldurthorleifsson.com

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Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#131

Post by wpietri »

pembrook wrote: post #29

It'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 co…

> while I'm sure there were many people at Twitter doing mostly nothing

As somebody who was a manager at Twitter (briefly; laid off in 2017 after 7 months) I want to say that this is very much a management problem, not a worker problem.

When I started there, in my initial 1:1s with my team, each told me their story of their time at Twitter. Every single one had worked on at least one project that they were excited about and made great progress on but that at the last minute got canceled by senior execs. At least one; some had more.

So I believe that the main reason Twitter had a justified reputation for low feature velocity was executive-level chaos. Dorsey was the half-time CEO from 2015-2022. When I was there, the VP Product position was jokingly called "defense against the dark arts teacher", as a new person swapped in every year or so. I'm sure it's possible to have a half-time CEO, but for that to work you need a very clear vision and an excellent executive team that is actually working as a team, neither of which I saw during my time there.

It would not surprise me at all that Twitter ,ended up with some people who became discouraged and were just biding their time. However, during my time there I never met anybody like that. Twitter was full of smart, passionate people who loved the product.

That said, if Twitter, months after Musk's takeover and after massive layoffs still has do nothing people, that is 100% Musk's fault. All the people there have passed multiple selection filters by Musk and his goons. Musk has had months to change the culture, share his vision, and build a sense of mission. In my view, he's failed comprehensively. At this point, him publicly shitting on his workers is just him displaying his lack of basic competence as a manager.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#133

Post by gooseus »

pembrook wrote: post #29

It'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 co…

Unfortunately it doesn't matter, the market has decided that a company led by a person like this is worth many multiples of a similar company led by a regular person who would never consider doing something like this.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#134

Post by ROTMetro »

eric4smith wrote: post #61

Yeah it’s sucks how he was let go. But he will get paid. But for the first time I’m using Twitter more than HN , which has jumped the shark. Elon’s accomplishments? - helped start openai - runs the biggest rocket company that makes a new raptor engine every day. - runs one of the biggest car companies. - just eliminated rare earth metals for new generation of motors. - runs Twitter which is undeniably more active and…

Old boy's company was acquired by Twitter, with a contract where he was retained. If it's the standard deal, he only gets paid out if he stays the term in the contract (because old boy was a huge part of the 'assets' that were acquired). Now, instead of explicitly firing old boy (which would then require Musk fulfill the acquisition contract and pay dude) Musk/HR get super squishy. Real men keep their promises and fulfill contracts that they have made. It's not just that Musk is a dick, it's that we're seeing he's not a man of his word but a creature of convenience to himself.

The fact the he's screwing someone who instead of letting the fact they were dealt a bad hand stop them but instead pushed to be the top and what they could do (so like the highest idea of a man and what is impressive in a person) makes the contrast even sharper.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#135

Post by yamtaddle »

finikytou wrote: post #113
jklinger410 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean this guy is literally in a wheel chair. I didn't know being paralyzed made you immune to criticism.

[flagged]

> the issue here is not his handicap why are we even discussing it? Elon main argument is that he did not do any work.

Elon is the one who brought up the disability.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#136

Post by toss1 »

davidw wrote: post #98
1-more wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot understand the Stan culture for Elon. I get it for the military guys who tell you to lift and make your bed. I get it for Joe Rogan. I get it for the MMA masculinity influencers. I get it for Trump and DeSantis. I do not get it for Elon.

He was involved in companies that built real things like rockets. That's pretty cool! I was willing to cut him some slack in the past... ok, he's quirky, whatever. But now he just looks like a petty, nasty person and I think he threw away the good will people had for him, even if they weren't in the 'adore' category.

Similar here. I used to cut him quite a bit of slack, and have posted several defenses of him on here several years ago, primarily for having actual accomplishments.

At this point, I'm embarrassed to have done so, and seriously doubt even those accomplishments, which I now credit far more to the people around him accomplishing despite Elon rather than due to his influence (not that he deserves zero credit, but far less than he gets or wants).

Aside from the kind of recent entitled asshattery and actively promoting authoritarian propaganda while claiming it's all "centrist" (perhaps it is from an apartheid point of view..., what undid it for me was his public exchanges with Twitter engineers in late '22, just displaying brazed BS and ignorance while trying to belittle everyone. What a smug, ignorant, blustering, asshat, wasting everyone's time, all for his own inadequate ego.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#137

Post by porker »

pembrook wrote: post #29

It'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 co…

> If you were a well-funded tech company looking for design help from say 2014-2020, Ueno was probably on your shortlist

What was it about Ueno's work that made it so good? I've admired it from the first time I saw Halli & Ueno's portfolio, but I've never been able to identify what it was.

Clean and bold?

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#138

Post by [deleted] »

jklinger410 wrote: post #77
pembrook wrote: post #29

It'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 co…

> I mean this guy is literally in a wheel chair. I didn't know being paralyzed made you immune to criticism.

[deleted]

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#139

Post by wpietri »

enragedcacti wrote: post #89
ryanSrich wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Haraldur intended to bait him, it was a near-flawless execution. I'm sure there are countless labor, disability, and health info privacy lawyers lining up in Halli's DMs. Considering there were entire articles by news outlets like the BBC just queued up and ready to go. My sense is this was premeditated. Elon is such an easy target.

> considering there were entire articles by news outlets like the BBC just queued up and ready to go. My sense is this was premeditated. Excessively conspiratorial imo, it isn't difficult to slap together an article about a series of tweets and the BBC article wasn't posted until about 8 hours after the first tweet and 3.5 hours after the last tweet from Elon in the original thread. http://web.archive.org/web/2023000…

Exactly. I have no idea how an HN user can see this site, which is filled with rapid-response prose to emerging events, and imagine that it's impossible for a professional journalist to quickly write a 600-word summary of a Twitter discussion.

Re: Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site

#140

Post by Orangeair »

Surreal to me to see how many people in this thread and trying to steer the conversation towards whether or not the firing was justified based on his job performance. What the actual fuck does it matter? In what world is it okay to fire someone without communication and then publically mock them like Elon did here? I'm truly unable understand the willingness some people have to jump to the defense of billionaires.
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