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Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

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Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#821

Post by ethanbond »

chris_wot wrote: post #815
alfor wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of cross pollination between his companies, that’s is fine: - new materials from SpaceX make it into Tesla cars - productions techniques from Tesla goes into SpaceX rockets - Semiconductor teams from Starlink probably connected to Tesla It mean the best engineers get even more opportunities. win-win Less red tape, more work get done. I think we should all embrace that. Our goal should be to make things…

Imagine the possibilities of Twitter to help improve SpaceX. No, I mean really, if you have that broad an imagination then I consider you to be the next Edward de Bono.

Well it can amplify praise and neuter criticism, of course.

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#822

Post by codegladiator »

vore wrote: post #790
TheChaplain wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this makes me lose faith i humanity. If I were a engineer at Twitter, I'd do my absolute best up to the minute I have to leave the premises. Because I would care about the company, my colleagues and most importantly for the >200m people who use Twitter for fun, educational, business and those who depend on it. But it's probably because I'm an old beard, who value being honest and ethical, to be the bett…

What is the point of this self-imposed honor when the person at the top is more than happy to play you as the fool? Musk certainly didn’t act with much honesty or ethics in this deal, do you think he’s done an abrupt about face to suddenly be upstanding? And knowing that, being willingly taken advantage of only enables this poor behavior. I can see your point if it was some kind of critical infrastructure like a hosp…

Reminds me of Michael Scott in the analysis of The Office in The Gervais Principle [1]

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#823

Post by [deleted] »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #75
ipqk wrote: post #65

I'd be pissed off if I were a TSLA stock owner. Is Twitter paying Tesla to contract out these employees for their work? Otherwise, it's tons of thousands of dollars Tesla is pissing away on behalf of the CEO's side-hustle.

You'd arguably have a case that Musk is not acting in the interest of Tesla and is using his Tesla position to enrich himself rather than the Tesla company. Exactly what the "CEO is supposed to serve shareholders" is all about.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#824

Post by smk_ »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #203

I don't at all object to code reviews/evaluation, but the thing I wonder about is this: I rarely open an empty file and write some big block of code. 98% of the time I'm fixing bugs in legacy code or shimming in some new feature. It would be trivial to produce the diffs I generated in the past 30 or 60 days, but the volume of code isn't really a great metric for my productivity. There may be some three line change th…

I would imagine this fact is obvious to any Tesla engineers reviewing code. I would imagine they look at more factors than simply lines of code.

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#825

Post by smk_ »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #46

I dunno why any Twitter engineers would be really trying that hard right now. Passively destroying Twitter from within by not trying, and trying to make a billionare lose 44 billion dollars is a significantly more fun and interesting challenge than making Twitter a better product.

You are a psychopath.

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#826

Post by mrweasel »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #814

I have no insight into the Twitter codebase, but I presume it is vast. I would think so just based on how many programmers they employ. I wonder if their auto moderation system has a larger code base than the main product. I dont see how programmers can audit / evaluate / review the code in what the article seems to me to state it was done / will be done fast.

It doesn't seem like a review, and certainly not an audit. My guess would be that it's to get a sense of what is being worked on. If the Tesla engineers have been brief of the plan for Twitter in the future, then they could mostly just sit back and assess if the projects and code presented is relevant to that future.

It is a little weird to not just use the version control, if the plan is to fire the least productive members of the staff, so it's my guess that the plan slightly different. Those who are on their way out are the least talented and those working on project that Elon Musk deems irrelevant. That also explains not using version control, maybe those project still only exist on the developers laptops.

Musk may have the exact same questions that many on HN have had: What are Twitter doing with 7500 employees? Still I don't see them reviewing every single developer, that would be a vast of time. Part of it is most likely just a power move, staged to show that "Musk is taking charge of Twitter".

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#827

Post by [deleted] »

spaceywilly wrote: post #7

This is pretty standard procedure when a company gets bought. The new owners will conduct a review and decide who to keep and who to get rid of. They have probably been given a target of how many people they want to lay off and are evaluating who is worth keeping. It’s not worth staying at a company that gets acquired, you’ll either get laid off or be asked to do the same work with less people, and awful morale.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#828

Post by andyjohnson0 »

TheChaplain wrote: post #783
Tiktaalik wrote: post #46

I dunno why any Twitter engineers would be really trying that hard right now. Passively destroying Twitter from within by not trying, and trying to make a billionare lose 44 billion dollars is a significantly more fun and interesting challenge than making Twitter a better product.

Comments like this makes me lose faith i humanity. If I were a engineer at Twitter, I'd do my absolute best up to the minute I have to leave the premises. Because I would care about the company, my colleagues and most importantly for the >200m people who use Twitter for fun, educational, business and those who depend on it. But it's probably because I'm an old beard, who value being honest and ethical, to be the bett…

> If I were a engineer at Twitter, I'd do my absolute best up to the minute I have to leave the premises. Because I would care about the company, my colleagues and most importantly for the >200m people who use Twitter for fun, educational, business and those who depend on it.

I'm an old beard too and this seems (sorry) borderline delusional to me. Even in normal circumstances that kind of devotion to an employer never pays off - financially or emotionally. Companies the size of Twitter do not "care" and the product certainly doesn't. Caring back just sets you up for an inevitable, brusing collision with reality.

In twitter's present situation, and given the well-known personality traits of its new owner, I'd argue that exit planning is the only sane thing for an employee to be doing with their time right now.

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#829

Post by chris_wot »

elcritch wrote: post #214
atrettel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has referred to this concept as "epistemic arrogance". In "The Black Swan", Taleb defines it the following way: > Epistemic arrogance: Measure the difference between what someone actually knows and how much he thinks he knows. An excess will imply arrogance, a deficit humility. An epistemocrat is someone of epistemic humility, who holds his own knowledge in greatest suspicion.

I don’t know if that quote makes sense. ;)

So you are an epistemocrat?

Re: Tesla engineers were on-site to evaluate the Twitter staff’s code, workers said

#830

Post by pyrale »

segmondy wrote: post #529
tasty_freeze wrote: post #203

I don't at all object to code reviews/evaluation, but the thing I wonder about is this: I rarely open an empty file and write some big block of code. 98% of the time I'm fixing bugs in legacy code or shimming in some new feature. It would be trivial to produce the diffs I generated in the past 30 or 60 days, but the volume of code isn't really a great metric for my productivity. There may be some three line change th…

I once reviewed code for a company that got purchased. I took less than a few hours to reach conclusion. There were 7 developers and in 2 months only one was writing code. The entire team but that one developer was fired. Twitter has grown a reputation for being slow and a rest and vest haven. Won't be surprised if they are looking for people not writing code. On a different note, If you're in a large org and all you…

I guess we then have to trash every profitable system when original authors leave now...
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