901–910 of 1001 posts
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…
I think their main problem is they thought their role was thought shaping via sneaky algorithms. I think the main thing Elon should be looking to remove is those that fundamentally do not believe in free speech, since the culture of the company has changed so materially.
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What’s more funny is how people commonly believe like this their code is so special or different than everyone else’s. Reverse engineering a large code base is not anywhere as hard as most software engineers somehow believe. I was tasked with analyzing a large code base from a company that my employer had been an investor in and as part of their investment had been given IP rights, the company employees were floored…
The code is almost never special, the business processes are. Everything seems so incredibly trivial until you reach something that isn't.
For example you could look at my team's mobile codebases and probably figure out what was going on, but understanding all the services we consumed, and what they consumed, etc. (given the deep mix of micro services and macroservices) would make understanding the why of the entire system impossible.
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…
There will be a lot of snap judgements made by Musks engineers on who is to be spared and there are two major terms. One is how engaged and interested your current boss is at staying, and the other is what Musk’s technical staff think. Their judgements will be quick and driven by outcomes like broad attrition targets and what is absolutely necessary.
If your on an unnecessary team, but are a rockstar, you might not survive if nobody communicates your value. And it is very likely that entire divisions are on the chopping block. Without an ally on a surviving division that says “I need this guy moved to my team yesterday” it’s unlikely to happen.
Not saying you shouldn’t do the right thing, but try to understand the interests of and see what makes sense for you.
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.
Musk sounds like a nightmare to work for. Why would any self-respecting developer stick around under these conditions? I expect an exodus of talent from Twitter in short order.
For there to be an exodus of talent there must be first be talent. From what I can make out Twitter's workforce are predominantly average at best and I suspect we'll see at least 2,000 or so people cut in the next 6 months.
Losing all your tribal knowledge in any business unit is a mess. That’s the prediction. The talent at Twitter is likely already gone to another company for a raise. I’ve never seen the best engineers stick around after any acquisition.
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Cult of personality. Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates etc. were all a nightmare to work when they were younger.
Well-behaved men rarely make history.
Does Twitter have a large, observable quality problem. If there is one, I never noticed it myself but I’m not a particularly active user. I think their main problem is they thought their role was thought shaping via sneaky algorithms. I think the main thing Elon should be looking to remove is those that fundamentally do not believe in free speech, since the culture of the company has changed so materially.
Jack Dorsey believes in injecting both sides to a conv even when one is fringe intolerant nonsense on something far from the topics a user primarily cares about. See his NPR interview on boosting both sides over in-network moderation in these cases.. which some not so mysterious reason correlates with engagement-boosting algorithms. (Double speak for: trolls drive clicks.) Listening to racist diatribes and being algorithmically nudged to 'engage' with it is ridiculous
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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…
It sounds like your not a fan of Elon and nothing he’ll do can change your opinion. Why not hold back the strong judgements and conclusions for at least a few months? Maybe he will surprise you?