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Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

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Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#421

Post by lostjohnny »

piva00 wrote: post #404
pelario wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't what you are describing the de-facto use case of email?

No, on Slack (or any other similar chat) I can jump in and answer a co-worker that had a question when I'm available, if they are also available they reply and we have a short convo that takes much less time than e-mailing back and forth which usually ends with a "let's talk this in person". Having realtime chat has saved me countless hours of participating in e-mail threads that end nowhere, at the same time as help…

> I can jump in and answer a co-worker that had a question when I'm available

Isn't what you are describing the de-facto use case of a mailing list?

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#422

Post by zubspace »

warp_factor wrote: post #351

Congratulation to them. I think what they did is absolutely amazing and will be seen retrospectively as one of the biggest fads of history. - They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. - They managed to change chat from a set of open protocols to a single closed app terribly written in JS. - They managed to make a lo…

We're a small team of a bit more than 10 people and slack has definitely improved our lifes. It's easy to use, has lots of integrations, looks good, is free to use without the unlimited archiving of messages and works on desktop an mobile. Everyone can use it, developers, marketeers and managers alike.

Before there was always someone moving around to talk to someone else or internal E-Mails which are bad, too.

We use slack sparingly and only have a few channels with many people. Most things happen in private channels. We always "idle-ping" other team members first and do not expect an immediate response.

The result is a much calmer office. People move around less and there is less chatter. And we still have the option to use group chat if required.

We even added a channel where new commit messages are automatically posted. A wonderful thing to keep informed about what's going on and you can take immediate action if you see something strange.

I think this all falls apart if our team size would increase. But I believe for teams with less than 25 people slack is perfectly fine. Above that size notifications probably start to be annoying.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#423

Post by TeMPOraL »

coldtea wrote: post #414
gexla wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication tools don't create this issue, they only bring it closer to the surface. You have to learn to manage your emotions. If you don't then it's always going to something which holds you back. If it affects younger workers more than others, then that's because they haven't learned this skill yet. It's one of many things which people new to the workplace have to manage. Some of the other more obvious emotional…

> Communication tools don't create this issue, they only bring it closer to the surface. You have to learn to manage your emotions. If you don't then it's always going to something which holds you back. That's close to saying "bullets don't kill people, the hole in their vital organs does". The thing is, text-based communication tools are problematic compared to face-to-face communication, even in people who know how…

Unlike being poked in a vital organ, communication is a repeatable exercise, so reasonable people can keep communicating over the lower-fidelity medium until problem is resolved.

Face-to-face communication may be ideal, but it has huge overhead and limits. Compared to the scale of communication text (especially one over the wire) enabled, I think the world is much better off with the tech than it would be without it.

Now Slack per se, that's another story...

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#424

Post by lostjohnny »

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #354
warp_factor wrote: post #351

Congratulation to them. I think what they did is absolutely amazing and will be seen retrospectively as one of the biggest fads of history. - They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. - They managed to change chat from a set of open protocols to a single closed app terribly written in JS. - They managed to make a lo…

> So yeah I don't blame them but I blame every company that falls for this. While I understand where your complaints are coming from, I encourage you to think about the fact that so many companies are "falling" for them. You and I might care about disturbances, "attention driven" work culture, open protocols, etc., but not everyone is a software engineer. The world is bigger than that. Clearly, some people quite enjo…

> I encourage you to think about the fact that so many companies are "falling" for them.

People also love cocaine.

If many companies are falling for this, it actually means it is not good for workers, only for the company.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#425

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pelario wrote: post #391
dtech wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. I experience quite the opposite. With in-person communication, people barge in, demand you drop what you're doing now and answer their question/conversation. With slack, you can answer them when you need a break or have finished something up.

Isn't what you are describing the de-facto use case of email?

Yes and no, but the problem with (and benefit of) email is that it's a bit more formal. It's like writing a letter vs calling people.

Email threads tend to become illegible messes too, at least in the circles I'm in. Different formatting, different quote styles, and there's one email chain nowadays where the background color turned black so I can't read it without highlighting the text. There's also the thing where it's far too easy to CC people, which, granted, is a thing in Slack as well possibly but it's not yet ingrained in Slack culture in most places to make big group chats with all kinds of managers and only tangentially involved people. A lot of email is written in cover-your-ass mode with excessive formality and CCing a lot of people.

I'll take a direct message anyday when it comes to day to day stuff. I prefer important announcements, events, etc to still be in email though.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#426

Post by [deleted] »

warp_factor wrote: post #351

Congratulation to them. I think what they did is absolutely amazing and will be seen retrospectively as one of the biggest fads of history. - They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. - They managed to change chat from a set of open protocols to a single closed app terribly written in JS. - They managed to make a lo…

[deleted]

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#427

Post by drawnwren »

raldi wrote: post #364
emtel wrote: post #295

Anybody who thinks they know for sure that slack can't possibly be worth $16B should go back and read some threads from around the Facebook IPO (like this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4320585 ). It's very easy to write reasonable sounding things - making accurate predictions about the future is much harder.

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture a guess that Slack is going to do very well for itself, though it may dip and swoon over the next couple years before it reaches that point. An even more applicable comparison is the HN thread about the Dropbox announcement. "What? This is just [IRC|rsync] with gimmicky bells and whistles."

I think it's telling that I've seen that Dropbox comment mentioned (and here distorted to the whole thread) probably >100 times yet can't remember the threads it was mentioned in.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#428

Post by hn23 »

warp_factor wrote: post #351

Congratulation to them. I think what they did is absolutely amazing and will be seen retrospectively as one of the biggest fads of history. - They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. - They managed to change chat from a set of open protocols to a single closed app terribly written in JS. - They managed to make a lo…

So what is the difference to Skype for Business?

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#429

Post by lostjohnny »

avip wrote: post #389
warp_factor wrote: post #351

Congratulation to them. I think what they did is absolutely amazing and will be seen retrospectively as one of the biggest fads of history. - They managed to disturb millions of worker to an attention-driven work culture in which everything needs to always be synchronous and immediate. - They managed to change chat from a set of open protocols to a single closed app terribly written in JS. - They managed to make a lo…

>They managed to make a lot of people absolute convinced advocate of Slack That's interesting. Any idea how could they possibly do that?

using addiction techniques

do I absolutely really need to know that a Docker build has completed on the project channel?

Do I really care?

But it gets rewards points to those involved in that build: "Look! I did something good! I deserve a treat"

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#430

Post by lostjohnny »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #423
coldtea wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communication tools don't create this issue, they only bring it closer to the surface. You have to learn to manage your emotions. If you don't then it's always going to something which holds you back. That's close to saying "bullets don't kill people, the hole in their vital organs does". The thing is, text-based communication tools are problematic compared to face-to-face communication, even in people who know how…

Unlike being poked in a vital organ, communication is a repeatable exercise, so reasonable people can keep communicating over the lower-fidelity medium until problem is resolved. Face-to-face communication may be ideal, but it has huge overhead and limits. Compared to the scale of communication text (especially one over the wire) enabled, I think the world is much better off with the tech than it would be without it.…

> reasonable people can keep communicating over the lower-fidelity medium until problem is resolved.

That's a very high expectation.

In reality the opposite is true, the less human interaction there is, the more people polarize around their ideas.

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