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How I Failed to Change Wasmer

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Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#61

Post by iammisc »

laszlo_kovacs wrote: post #18

I interviewed with Wasmer a few weeks ago. It wasn't enough time to get a real inner view into the company but I saw enough to give me pause. They set up an interview for 3 hours, which stretched into 4 hours. During this interview both interviewers had to leave at points to attend other meetings. After this, they wanted another interview. Sure, I guess one 3 hour interview isn't enough. They first scheduled it in th…

That sounds grueling (and stupid) , but I don't think you need a PhD in math to be a mathematician. Presumably, if you make your income doing mathematics, then you are a mathematician. Many professionals with bachelor's degrees sometimes publish in academic journals.

For example, many amateur haskellers have published in academic journals (oftentime in mathematics). I myself have been cited in academic publications despite not having ever gotten a PhD (again related to functional programming). Presumably, someone (And his peer reviewers) thought a blog post I had written about various things in pure FP land was academic enough to qualify for inclusion in a journal.

However, based on my reading of the CEO's profile, blog, etc, it doesn't seem like he fits that definition. In fact, he claims to be a mathematician without as much as one serious blog post or any published content remotely related to mathematics of any kind. I'm not an elitist by any stretch. But to claim to be a mathematician without publishing or speaking on anything related to mathematics, despite being seemingly outspoken on several publishing platforms is incredibly disingenuous

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#62

Post by mst »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12
andrewingram wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of the article suggest the "co-founder" title was a late addition to the author's responsibilities, and not a co-founder in the "starting a company together" sense.

Regardless, he identifies himself as a co-founder and took the co-founder responsibilities during the time period this article describes.

He was still on a freelance contract.

He was given the title but not a real co-founder position, which frankly was a giant red flag itself.

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#63

Post by nyanpasu64 »

aazaa wrote: post #39

> I’ve joined the Wasmer company at its early beginning, in March 2019. The company was 3 months old. I had no idea that Wasmer, Inc. was a company. The home page, wasmer.io, says nothing about a company and reads like an open source project landing page. Way at the bottom is a banana button to "Contact Sales" that's just an email address. What's the product Wasmer is selling? Clicking through to "about," I see nothi…

My previous knowledge of Wasmer is a "Wasmer vs. Wasmtime" comparison they published, which looks heavily biased and more like marketing or a hit piece than a good-faith comparison: https://wasmer.io/wasmer-vs-wasmtime

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#64

Post by mst »

patrec wrote: post #55

Wonder how his wife and children are feeling about him severely burning himself out on a quixotic mission to "save" a company with a CEO whom he paints in the most damning light. On a precarious freelance contract, after 85% of engineering talent bailed out.

I don't honestly feel this is appropriate or any of our business.

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#65

Post by iammisc »

mst wrote: post #64
patrec wrote: post #55

Wonder how his wife and children are feeling about him severely burning himself out on a quixotic mission to "save" a company with a CEO whom he paints in the most damning light. On a precarious freelance contract, after 85% of engineering talent bailed out.

I don't honestly feel this is appropriate or any of our business.

On an individual level it's really not. On a macro level, given the comments I frequently read on HN, I think it is. Lots of engineers seem overly devoted to their employers. Personally, I believe it's because many engineers were not the most popular kids in high school, thus constantly seek other's approval, but that's my armchair psychology.

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#66

Post by yebyen »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12
andrewingram wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of the article suggest the "co-founder" title was a late addition to the author's responsibilities, and not a co-founder in the "starting a company together" sense.

Regardless, he identifies himself as a co-founder and took the co-founder responsibilities during the time period this article describes.

If 85% of the company has left suddenly and your tenure predates the exodus and you are still there in anything remotely close to a leadership position, it's "congrats you are now a late co-founder."

You are reading too much into the title.

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#67

Post by morder »

aazaa wrote: post #39

> I’ve joined the Wasmer company at its early beginning, in March 2019. The company was 3 months old. I had no idea that Wasmer, Inc. was a company. The home page, wasmer.io, says nothing about a company and reads like an open source project landing page. Way at the bottom is a banana button to "Contact Sales" that's just an email address. What's the product Wasmer is selling? Clicking through to "about," I see nothi…

Forgive my ignorance, please, but what is a `banana button`? I tried to search duckgo/google and the results are... interesting but probably not what you meant. Thanks!

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#68

Post by mst »

iammisc wrote: post #65
mst wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't honestly feel this is appropriate or any of our business.

On an individual level it's really not. On a macro level, given the comments I frequently read on HN, I think it is. Lots of engineers seem overly devoted to their employers. Personally, I believe it's because many engineers were not the most popular kids in high school, thus constantly seek other's approval, but that's my armchair psychology.

I think that there's absolutely a point there, though I don't have anything substatntive to add beyond that about the actual point.

I do however think that to have that discussion, it would've been much better form to start with the macro level point rather than mentioning his individual family first.

(I know you're not the person I initially replied to)

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#69

Post by justusw »

It's not worth it to sacrifice everything over a WASM runtime. I hope the author takes more than just a couple of months to gain some perspective on what is important and get out of his burnout. I've been in a similar situation and burnout really sucks. Hope you get better!

Re: How I Failed to Change Wasmer

#70

Post by [deleted] »

sushisource wrote: post #51
mmmpop wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a funny standard, and not that I disagree--quite the contrary--but once you get an undergrad in engineering you're an engineer right? Sure, there is an expectation to pass the FE exam but is being employed as an engineer a requirement to "be an engineer"? I hear a lot of people with a BS in Comp Science that call themselves computer scientists which seems mostly inaccurate too. It's just odd, these titles and…

It's just about how it's colloquially used. Even in industry we mostly call ourselves software engineers / developers, but if people say "Computer Scientist", especially in the context, it's generally understood you didn't mean PhD level research. Mathematician, OTOH, does kinda usually imply that, or at least implies you do something that likely requires beyond undergrad level education.

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