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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

#911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That isn’t what conflict of interest means. It’s a complete non-sequitur in this context.

Elon Musk has an obvious conflict of interest here. As CEO of a publicly traded company he has an obligation to act in the best interest of Tesla's shareholders. By using Tesla's engineers to look at his private company's source code he arguably doesn't act in their best interest, but in his own personal best interest.

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

#912

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…

You don't owe your dignity to your company.

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

#913
post #900
post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If Musk would have announced the details of the layoffs within 24 hours of closing the twitter deal, commentators would have said, “So soon after taking over it is be impossible to make an informed decision about how to restructure and who to keep and who to layoff.

If he uses the best means of making an informed decision (use capable engineers he trusts and that are outsiders to twitter) and takes some time to properly consult, commentators say, “It is complete chaos and an information vacuum. He is just driving fear.”

It is right to closely watch people in power. But it doesn’t absolve each of us of the responsibility to hold us to similar standards when commenting. Most commentators come across as being in a hysterical, and not in a judicious frame of mind.

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

#914
post #763

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".

Funny, since the key job description at oracle is lawyer.

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

#915

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.

I suppose there is a small conflict of interest as Tesla is paying some of its employees to do this work which doesn't benefit Tesla. As long as Twitter compensates them for this in some form however, I think this conflict is eliminated.

It's true though that a Tesla shareholder likely wouldn't want Tesla employee's focus to shift to Twitter too much I don't think.

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

#916

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.

Ex: With all the Kanye meltdown stuff going on, which is "general interest", Twitter has been amplifying the tiny % of antisemitic voices in the black community and mixing them into my feed. That is quite distracting for a site I use for various tech industries' news during breaks. (Common use case of Twitter, and big $ for them.) In contrast, a site like LI will only rarely allow, and more importantly, freely & wide…

I'm hopeful there is a "HN" like mode which is actually heavily moderated where only constructive, non-inflammatory discussion is allowed. I wouldn't use this all the time, but having one button to tune out all of the noise would be cool.

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

#917
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 this would be a very high level look at their architecture and maybe a closer look as some specific portions. Like you said these systems are so complex that you wouldn't be able to figure out what is even happening in a day.

I don't agree that it's to drive feat at Twitter, as just about any engineer will know what I just said. What I think it's about is driving the headlines, "Tesla engineers are doing a code review at twitter" sounds very important to the lay person.

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

#918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That he is using resources of a publicly traded (Tesla) company for personal use. This exercise isn't in the interest of Tesla.

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

#919

This is a very stupid thing to do. First, code is not the issue. Code can be rewritten in not a lot of time, when you have clear what to write. Twitter is not something so complex, in principle, thus it shouldn't be that difficult (a team of 10 good programmers in a month can probably rewrite everything). The thing where is 99% of the complexity and you can't redesign in a month is the infrastructure, how data is sto…

I agree, I made my own google docs implementation using a `` and it was super easy.
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