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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

#891

Post by mousetree »

trashtester wrote: post #864
pavlov wrote: post #853

I worked at Facebook and remember what it was like to first face the total complexity of the system. It’s really hard for me to imagine myself working at a company that deals almost exclusively with machine-generated data (as Tesla does) and being assigned to judge a social platform’s engineering qualify in one day . Cars and spaceships on a closed network are fundamentally “clean” compared to having hundreds of mill…

My guess is that at least part of the reason to bring in these devs, is to make sure none of the code or git histories (or their backups) are tampered with.

Why would they be tampering with code and git histories?

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

#892

Post by qull »

mousetree wrote: post #891
trashtester wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that at least part of the reason to bring in these devs, is to make sure none of the code or git histories (or their backups) are tampered with.

Why would they be tampering with code and git histories?

Many twitter staffers seem willing and motivated to sabatouge the new owner over purely political issues. A few have even suggested it on their own twitter accounts. Elon is polarizing and that leads to both more challenges and more opprotunities.

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

#893

Post by gaze »

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…

The site has been flooded with 4chan users saying the n-word, and there are no attempts to stop this. This is the new Twitter. This means it’s trashed. It’s like trying to save a piece of raw meat left out in the sun. Why put a single shred of effort into this?

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

#894

Post by mousetree »

snotrockets wrote: post #49
8cmj7A wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were asked to print their code and typically this is done as part of diligence _before_ closing. This is not sop. It’s Elon making a show of things.

Very rarely does due diligence involves actual critique of code on paper. Or code reviews at all, for that matter. Edited: technical review isn’t code review.

In the DD's I have been part of there was always some element of code review.

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

#895

Post by nverno »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #841
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…

Comments like this make me wonder just how divergent peoples outlook on life are. I’m with the guy you responded too, making a billionaire lose money is way funnier and interesting. But even in a normal company, I never really understood this loyalty/ethics thing. To me, it makes sense to do the very, very bear minimum and “steal” as much time as possible. So you can use it for your self. A job is you selling time to…

But you must understand taking pride in your work. I don't know if I'd have called it honorable, but there is certainly no honor in sneakily doing shitty work on purpose. I wouldn't write software if it didn't give me satisfaction, and doing a shitty job is never satisfying.

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

#896

Post by mousetree »

jldugger wrote: post #581
johnnyAghands wrote: post #558

I don't see what the big deal here is. I feel like it's the obvious move. He wants a no nonsense review of the current state of things at Twitter, and isn't wasting time. I'm assuming these engineers he trusts and wants an objective review instead of some bs from folks too removed.

The big deal is that Tesla didnt buy Twitter, Musk did. Based on the Tesla engineers doing due dilligence on a non-Telsa acquisition seems like a conflict of interest.

What exactly is the conflict of interest here?

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

#897

Post by Spivak »

IgorPartola wrote: post #677
uni_rule wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: Tumblr losing Yahoo/Verizon nearly a Billion dollars with it's own implosion.

Oh come now. Tumblr didn’t fail due to engineers sabotaging it. It failed because the new owners decided that they were too squeamish for porn and it turned out that porn was what sustained Tumblr. This was Yahoo simply not understanding what the product actually was.

I mean there is still not porn on Tumblr and Automattic has been a good steward of it. Verizon lost a billion dollars because they bet on a growth play for a mature social network where their new owners are running it like a lifestyle business.

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

#898

Post by imwillofficial »

beachy wrote: post #763
segmondy wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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. Larry Ellison famously once said "if you aren't a developer, and you aren't a salesman, then tell me real slow just what it is you do".

Larry Ellison famously once said "if you aren't a developer, and you aren't a salesman, then tell me real slow just what it is you do".

“IM A PEOPLE PERSON, IM GOOD WITH PEOPLE!”

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

#899

Post by mousetree »

yalogin wrote: post #614

What code is he reviewing? And why is he reviewing it? There must be millions of lines of code. Also, why bring in Tesla employees? Twitter employees are also his own, they could do they review for him. Just shows how musk feels about Twitter and the people there. Such disrespect.

He doesn't know the Twitter employees. Seems reasonable to ask employees you know to give you a technical read on how things stand.

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

#900

Post by pavlov »

cudgy wrote: post #863
pavlov wrote: post #853

I worked at Facebook and remember what it was like to first face the total complexity of the system. It’s really hard for me to imagine myself working at a company that deals almost exclusively with machine-generated data (as Tesla does) and being assigned to judge a social platform’s engineering qualify in one day . Cars and spaceships on a closed network are fundamentally “clean” compared to having hundreds of mill…

Yes, software is typically more complex than a laymen would expect once all of the edge cases and layers of legacy code or “guano” are implemented. However, I doubt that these outside developers are expected to understand everything in a single day. There are legitimate questions regarding how certain sections of the Twitter code operate as it relates to censorship, which is a primary reason Elon purchased Twitter. G…

In a typical acquisition this would have taken place under NDA during due diligence, before closing the deal. But Elon waived it.

Now he’s apparently trying to find this shadowy “fifth column” of engineering over the weekend so they could be fired before RSUs vest on Tuesday. It sounds completely ridiculous but isn’t entirely implausible since, after all, we’re talking about the same person who committed $44 billion without due diligence.

The “censorship” aspect is pretty interesting because nobody seems to care about retaining existing users. HN has much stricter moderation than Twitter. Imagine someone buys this site tomorrow, fires dang and lets conspiracy theories run wild. Would you stay? I wouldn’t. And a social site is only as valuable as its users. If the new owner of HN promised he’s going to make this site into a “super-app”, it wouldn’t make any difference — I wouldn’t come back, just as I’m not going back to MySpace or Twitter.

Nobody in Elon-space seems to be bothered that there’s no undo on alienating a social network’s user base. I guess they expect to get a billion new users somehow (who also want to pay for the service since that’s floated as a business model for Twitter). But to me, this whole deal feels like Tumblr joining Yahoo.

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