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

AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

seuros.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 117 posts

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#91

Post by Planktonne »

frenchtoast8 wrote: post #67
renyicircle wrote: post #19

The way the author thanks the person from AWS who helped him with a human approach is an AI generated article blaming AWS for using AI. Brilliant.

> Not AI-generated. Not everyone is born writing flawless English. If it sounds like an LLM, maybe it is because people like me had to learn how to write clearly from LLMs because English is not our first language. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44774474

The author's voice in that comment doesn't sound like their writing in the article(s).

Maybe they're being sincere, and they just edited it so heavily with AI that it comes out sounding generated, but that's a distinction without a difference.

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#92

Post by [deleted] »

haburka wrote: post #6

I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…

[deleted]

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#93

Post by dogleash »

haburka wrote: post #6

I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…

> overly dramatic writing

I feel like everything posted to HN that talks about technology or the business around it while trying to show personality or make arguments from humanity gets this kind of response. Sure each time the reason is tailored, but they all add up to point the vector in one direction. Unless it's bland buisnessminded blandness, it can't be taken serious. Even the cringe coke-fueled rants about tech are received better because they're in the direction of excitement for building future product.

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#94

Post by mschuster91 »

neutronicus wrote: post #49
haburka wrote: post #6

I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…

> Some switched to farming. Others opened coffee shops. One bakes bread now. That’s the level of abyss we’re talking about. These are people who know they can’t do anything online anymore. Not because they lack the skills. Because their brains were so filled and indoctrinated with complexity that they found decorating a cookie more fulfilling than maintaining 87 files of Kubernetes manifests plus CloudFormation templ…

> This is a very dramatic way to say "because they got so fucking rich they don't have to anymore"

A lot of pretty normal people without much to their name are deciding to call it quits over the AI craze. I'm one of them, I'm heading for electrical engineering - even if the "engineering" part gets replaced by AI sooner than later, I'll still be more qualified running wires than some robot.

Besides, opening up coffee shops and bakeries isn't that capital intensive. Don't need millions for that, there's a reason a lot of non-chain restaurants are founded and operated by immigrants.

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#95

Post by Nevermark »

ablation wrote: post #2

A challenging writing style on a really difficult to read page with a sloppy AI header image means that this article was a not a great experience.

> with a sloppy AI header image

Remember the good old days with real honest CGI?

At some point AI is going to produce realistic situationally-sensible images, with creative restraint. That will unleash another wave of disruption and dissonance.

It throws a different spin on the phrase "living in a simulation".

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#96

Post by minraws »

zzzeek wrote: post #68
mooreds wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that the writing was a bit over the top. But the story, my goodness. Giving a damn is such a rare commodity. It makes me sad when companies throw away people with that quality. I hope that Tarus Balog finds a good spot to land. Here's his LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarusbalog/ if you're in the market for an "Open source wonk. Catalyst. Storyteller. Collector of Memories"

i dont think employees are expected to prioritize one customer of (we would assume) little monetary consequence in this way. amazon would rather everyone keep heads down, dont let the casualties slow down the machine or create exception cases, and definitely dont bother upper management with your personal salvation quests.

Well then you get PR disasters like these, I have moved off of AWS and helped several services that use AWS at atleast 4 companies, who used to pay AWS mid 6 figures, and been paid chump change to do it, but I helped just cause AWS sucks I didn't spend much time really, 1 weekend each.

Was the pay worth yeah, was seeing AWS's revenue hopefully take a minor hit worth it, most definitely would do it again hit me up if you really need help. If you pay Amazon over 10M I am certain we can bring it down below 1M lmao.

AWS is just unhinged in terms of pricing and costs.

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#97

Post by jadar »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #23
jadar wrote: post #13

This piece imputes motives that I feel like is rather impossible to prove. Is it a bad look? Yes. Did it come from malicious intentions / retribution? Unlikely.

I think the lack of motives are part of the argument: that aws management is acting with complete indifference, not out of malice; and that this indifference is leading to the people who actually make a difference being forced out.

But that's a weak argument, an argument from silence. And a pretty lame one at that. "You didn't say it's wrong to kill puppies, therefore you must be indifferent to killing puppies."

Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn

#100

Post by renyicircle »

frenchtoast8 wrote: post #67
renyicircle wrote: post #19

The way the author thanks the person from AWS who helped him with a human approach is an AI generated article blaming AWS for using AI. Brilliant.

> Not AI-generated. Not everyone is born writing flawless English. If it sounds like an LLM, maybe it is because people like me had to learn how to write clearly from LLMs because English is not our first language. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44774474

>writing flawless English

Is there still grammar police on the Internet, calling out people for making grammatical mistakes in their writing? Who is asking for flawless English? Thinking that the LLM style is an example of flawless writing is a common mistake of ESL people. It's not flawless. A single rhythm, structure and flow permeates every piece of LLM writing. There is no variation whatsoever. People have been reading so much of that stuff recently that they don't bother to read the article if they spot one of these patterns. They're so easy to avoid, too.

> Fired. And the part that gutted me: His proudest accomplishment at AWS? Restoring my account.

change to

> I was gutted to read that his proudest accomplishment at AWS was restoring my account.

Is it flawless? Probably not, I'm not a writer, or a native English speaker. However I think it's more sincere, explains the feelings without any fluff, and is just simpler.

If the author's goal is to have people read their article, they should consider that people are tired of reading these patterns over and over again, it's not "flawless English" and it's not "writing clearly" because the patterns are unnecessary and obscure the message.

Post reply on HN