Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 458 posts

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#351

Post by dougSF70 »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #67
dougSF70 wrote: post #40

He is ingeniously driving up engagement with Twitter by using Twitter itself. Many people want him to fail, expect him to fail, are willing him to fail. Past evidence of his failures had yet to be found.

> past evidence of his failures have yet to be found It’s right there on his Wikipedia page, he was fired from the CEO job at x.com and again after it became PayPal. Not to mention the boring company, hyperloop, that time he called a hero cave diver a pedo for no reason, his relationship with his many children, etc.

Being fired isn't failing.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#352

Post by exmadscientist »

danudey wrote: post #306
paxys wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don’t think people realize that a below average software engineer or product manager at Twitter has way better career prospects than a top rocket scientist at SpaceX.

Eh, I'd be willing to wager that a skilled and experienced physicist at SpaceX could probably leave whenever they wanted and go to any other space rocketry company owned and run by an insecure, egotistical, self-centred, human-exploiting, planet-destroying billionaire.

Sadly, Blue Origin is also a dystopian meat grinder... who don't seem to be all that good at launching rockets either.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#353

Post by dougSF70 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #51
dougSF70 wrote: post #40

He is ingeniously driving up engagement with Twitter by using Twitter itself. Many people want him to fail, expect him to fail, are willing him to fail. Past evidence of his failures had yet to be found.

I haven't seen any indicators of Twitter failing besides 2FA failures; but every time I read anything on HN, it is doomed to fail. I feel like some of the resentful people here will try to hack into Twitter possibly get caught and see jail time? May be they will do something bad because this kind kind of irrational hate for a billionaire is not normal. Hell, even Peter Thiel doesn't get this vitroil. It reminds me of…

It's the tall poppy syndrome. Truth is, all we know about Elon is his public persona and he uses that to talk up his own book. Much like a16z invest in Adam Neumann's latest venture, not because they think it is a good idea but because their investment will get so much publicity that it might give enough momentum to a bad idea and turn it into a good idea. Most forums have become conformist around a specific set of values, whether they are right-leaning or left-leaning. As soon as you present a different opinion you face the wrath of the community. The net-net is that people coalesce around like minded people. This leads to the creation of echo-chambers comprised of people who won't change their mind. Conversations would never get as heated or barbed in person.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#354

Post by starik36 »

te_2343343 wrote: post #325
starik36 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could upvote you twice. Totally incompetent fraud. I mean SpaceX was a total stroke of luck. Sometimes you just get the right mixture of methane and oxygen by accident and the rocket just blasts off by itself. And we definitely wouldn't have to go grovel to the Russians had SpaceX not been the only company in US capable of delivering astronauts to ISS. Same with Tesla and his other previous companies - just…

From my perspective, something seemed to happen with Musk roughly around 2015 or so. It seems like prior to that time, Musk was really indeed investing in some visionary tech that actually injected a kick in the pants to some industries (electric cars, space). Nothing wrong IMHO with Tesla and SpaceX. I think the super-detractors miss just what an out-of-nowhere big deal the Roadster was. Since then, though, Musk has…

> over-promised and/or undelivered

How so? If anything, things that he promised had an over-optimistic timeline. He promised a reusable rocket that can land itself - and it did, late, but so far it's the only one that can do so.

> his Hyperloop concept

It's a concept - something he specifically said none of his companies would be implementing.

> current overpromise of AI, with self-driving cars still way far out

I was quite skeptical, however, the current state of self-driving is quite good. The vehicle requires practically no intervention. Still a long way to go, but I am super impressed by how far they've come. Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbYuuu0G9Ko

> Tesla could use some care to iron out the QC issues

I am sure, there is always room for improvement. So far, my wife's 2020 Model 3 has been reliable. No issues as yet.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#355

Post by r00fus »

Moctogo wrote: post #72

Wild prediction: Twitter will continue to work as it did even after that ~80% workforce haircut. Make of that what you will.

My timeline has radically changed - like 80% of the tweet volume is gone since last night.

People are leaving or algorithms are failing to promote tweets.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#356

Post by dougSF70 »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #327
systemvoltage wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are billionaires immoral? That seems completely backwards. They created value not by coercion, but by commerce and improved the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJwAYJ9B08 The whole pie has gotten larger since the industrial revolution and has lifted people out of poverty at an unprecendented rate through Capitalism. The current zeitgeist in places like HN and in progressive circles is worrying. There was…

I am pro capitalism and I don't think that the creation of value by billionaires is immoral. The immoral part comes after that when they sit on their horde of money, far too much for anyone to spend in 10 lifetimes, while they should be giving it to people and causes that need it. The only one of the "mainstream", household name billionaires that gets it seems to be MacKenzie Scott.

He hasn't not given it away yet...and since most of it is tied up in illiquid stock (space x, twitter) and liquid stock (tesla) he probably can't do so easily. When you and me are billionaires we might have a different perspective.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#357

Post by wilsonnb3 »

dougSF70 wrote: post #351
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> past evidence of his failures have yet to be found It’s right there on his Wikipedia page, he was fired from the CEO job at x.com and again after it became PayPal. Not to mention the boring company, hyperloop, that time he called a hero cave diver a pedo for no reason, his relationship with his many children, etc.

Being fired isn't failing.

Unless your goal was to be unemployed, I think it is.

It's not like he was laid off or the company floundered afterwards, they fired him because they thought he was incompetent and then the company was acquired for $1.5 billion like 1.5 years later.

Of course, he still netted like $175 million or something from his stock so I don't think he cares much that he failed.

If only all failure was so lucrative.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#358

Post by norwalkbear »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #267
Moctogo wrote: post #72

Wild prediction: Twitter will continue to work as it did even after that ~80% workforce haircut. Make of that what you will.

If George Hotz joins Twitter, as he recently offered [1], you may be right. I think people may be underestimating Elon's ability to bring in folks from the "secret guild of silicon valley" [2] to help him in this task. Of course, some of the Twitter employees who left are probably already part of it, but George coming on, even temporarily, might help bring in replacements. [1]: https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/stat…

Holy shit, yea that's a good point. Elon could get a dream team to rebuild the fundamentals, and switch over to a maintenance team later.

Often done in the game dev world.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#359

Post by diob »

Yoofie wrote: post #322
diob wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that we're spoiled, it's that other folks are abused. I would say Elon is spoiled though, in thinking he can treat folks as fungible.

This is a weird take. No, alot SW devs (the type that work at FAANG-like companies) are actually spoiled, relative to most other industries of the world. Perhaps, they have gotten so used to is that they don't recognize it. You can absolutely make an argument that the rest of the world's workforce is being abused, but that is speaking from place of privilege and its easy to be a "champion for the worker" from your iv…

If you want to debate, define spoiled, we can start from there.

Re: Twitter in chaos as employees accept Musk’s invitation to quit their jobs

#360

Post by wilsonnb3 »

dougSF70 wrote: post #356
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pro capitalism and I don't think that the creation of value by billionaires is immoral. The immoral part comes after that when they sit on their horde of money, far too much for anyone to spend in 10 lifetimes, while they should be giving it to people and causes that need it. The only one of the "mainstream", household name billionaires that gets it seems to be MacKenzie Scott.

He hasn't not given it away yet...and since most of it is tied up in illiquid stock (space x, twitter) and liquid stock (tesla) he probably can't do so easily. When you and me are billionaires we might have a different perspective.

This is true, it is not liquid, but some basic googling shows me that he donated $6 billion in stock and sold $10-12 billion so far in 2022.

I commend him for donating $6 billion, that is an objectively good thing, but what the hell is he going to do with $10 billion in cash? He can live a life of lavish luxury with 1% of that.

Post reply on HN