3 ms·

Amateur Hour At Twitter- Blaine cook out?

29 points by jasonlbaptiste 19y ago

pius 19y ago
Cook was directly responsible for scaling Twitter, and he very much failed in his job. While I agree that Twitter should theoretically have all their scaling problems solved by now, slamming Blaine Cook to that extent seems a bit gratuitous. Cook and his team were among the first to tackle the problem of scaling a Rails application to handle such massive traffic spikes. I don't know that it's fair to discount the level to which their team has solved its architectural problems.
- ojbyrne 19y ago
  The thing about scaling is, if your site is popular, you have to keep doing it - because as you make the site serve more pages, there is unmet demand that suddenly appears and has to be met. So unless you know the traffic trends at twitter, you can't really judge how good a job he has done. It could be that they've scaled to 5x, but the demand has grown 10x.
  - reeses 19y ago
    It's like a CEO. There are a lot of people who can scale a company to $10m, but for each step up, the field of capable candidates gets smaller and smaller.
jasonlbaptiste 19y ago
yeah, hes fucking brilliant. met him at FOWA. keep this in mind: he left right before this weekend. First problems, and the worst ones for a while were this weekend...right AFTER he left.
disgusted 19y ago
MA is basically slamming him because Twitter hired 2 other engineers to help with their scaling issues. but the reason that he left wasn't that he's no good.. according to his blog post about leaving, it's because he had to relocate to UK due to his partner's visa and not able to work in the US
- tptacek 19y ago
  Also noted on the comments: Blaine had no authority over operations, and they spent a good part of the last year on Joyent, which ended ugly. Short of a tell-all from Twitter's side or Blaine, we're never going to know what caused the scalability problems. Arrington sarcastically mocks people who question his journalistic cred, but you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to see their point.
run4yourlives 19y ago
Wow, now techcruch is publicly shunning individuals based on their (perceived) job performance? Given the valley, this probably hurts this guy's future employment prospects enough to be called slander/defamation. Mr. Arrington might want to watch how he uses the term "Amateur Hour". Yet more evidence that TC should be Hacker News worthy.
- antiismist 19y ago
  It is really hard to make libel stick when there is a journalist talking about a public figure like Mr. Cook. Also, defamation is a set that includes libel and slander. Slander is something that is spoken (both start with an s, that helps me to remember it), so it doesn't apply here. I can dig up the legal standard if you are curious.
  - run4yourlives 19y ago
    Hey, thanks for the details. I'm not sure Mr. Cook though is a public figure per se. The average person wouldn't have a clue who he is.
    - antiismist 19y ago
      He would probably be a limited public figure, because he did engage in actions (public speaking, having a blog) that generated publicity within the field of twitter performance. So on the topic of twitter scalability he is a public figure.
- alaskamiller 19y ago
  What Blaine Cook needs to do is to embrace criticism and engage in an active conversation with trolls. Perhaps through increased twitter and blogger use.
  - kirubakaran 19y ago
    For people voting him down: This is a funny reference to what Arrington said in SS.
pius 19y ago
Comment 87 on TC: It’s another nail in the coffin for Rails. Does that even make sense? Man, people are drinking some serious Haterade today.
tptacek 19y ago
This is what you get for deifying TechCrunch.
henning 19y ago
Valleywag is leaking over to TC, I guess.
joao 19y ago
One can ban Valleywag from Hacker News, but one can't ban Valleywag-style articles such as this. Shameless hit job.
- astrec 19y ago
  Arrington took Techcrunch to a place so mean that I doubt even Valleywag would go there. If you're going to single out one of only ten staff at least make it the CEO. Arrington played the man, not the ball, and did himself a great disservice in doing so. Vale TechCrunch.
  - astrec 19y ago
    I don't want to violate the VW embargo, so seek out VW's coverage in your own time, but by comparison it's cheeky and dare I say affectionate.
gojomo 19y ago
MA@TC made an appeal at SS08 for less snark and critical sniping in comments. Maybe he could start with his headlines and articles?
- gruseom 19y ago
  MA@TC made an appeal at SS08 for less snark and critical sniping I remember thinking that was weird. He spent several minutes asking the audience not to troll his site. Apart from being off-topic and self-involved, it seems unlikely that there would be very many TC trolls in that audience .
mmmurf 19y ago
This is a pure publicity stunt by Arrington. He was probably suffering from a lull in traffic...
jamespitts 19y ago
Arlington should apologize to Cook for this disparaging post. Downtime is obviously a serious issue, but implying that Cook is an amateur is as irresponsible as it is false. Are we supposed to believe that, while Twitter became a rock star application - literally the crack cocaine of conference attendees - Cook's primary role was help it go down from time to time? TC is a powerful voice and really should not be engaging in the sorts of personal attacks that one would not even furl in a private setting. Thankfully, many people have come to Cook's defense here and in the comments of Arlington's nuclear-powered trolling.
- michaelneale 19y ago
  "literally the crack cocaine of conference attendees" How does that work ? Some new twitter feature? ;)
nadim 19y ago
At SS08, MA@TC quoted "Man in the Arena" [1]. An excerpt from the same work by Roosevelt: "Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater force to the orator's latter-day and more influential brother, the journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offences against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations." It is nearly impossible to take MA seriously after he uses terms like "Amatuer Hour at Twitter" for one of the most influential technical individuals in our community right now. Blaine Cook is a Man in the Arena, MA is a slandering journalist. MA should apologize and hold the same standards to himself that he asks of his readers. That is, if he was ever serious at SS08, something which I must now question. [1] - http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3745/tr.html http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3745/tr.html
menloparkbum 19y ago
Arrington is just pissed because Cook sent the scoop of his departure to Silicon Alley Insider instead of TechCrunch.

pius 19y ago

Cook was directly responsible for scaling Twitter, and he very much failed in his job. While I agree that Twitter should theoretically have all their scaling problems solved by now, slamming Blaine Cook to that extent seems a bit gratuitous. Cook and his team were among the first to tackle the problem of scaling a Rails application to handle such massive traffic spikes. I don't know that it's fair to discount the level to which their team has solved its architectural problems.

ojbyrne 19y ago
The thing about scaling is, if your site is popular, you have to keep doing it - because as you make the site serve more pages, there is unmet demand that suddenly appears and has to be met. So unless you know the traffic trends at twitter, you can't really judge how good a job he has done. It could be that they've scaled to 5x, but the demand has grown 10x.
- reeses 19y ago
  It's like a CEO. There are a lot of people who can scale a company to $10m, but for each step up, the field of capable candidates gets smaller and smaller.

jasonlbaptiste 19y ago

yeah, hes fucking brilliant. met him at FOWA. keep this in mind: he left right before this weekend. First problems, and the worst ones for a while were this weekend...right AFTER he left.

disgusted 19y ago

MA is basically slamming him because Twitter hired 2 other engineers to help with their scaling issues. but the reason that he left wasn't that he's no good.. according to his blog post about leaving, it's because he had to relocate to UK due to his partner's visa and not able to work in the US

tptacek 19y ago
Also noted on the comments: Blaine had no authority over operations, and they spent a good part of the last year on Joyent, which ended ugly. Short of a tell-all from Twitter's side or Blaine, we're never going to know what caused the scalability problems. Arrington sarcastically mocks people who question his journalistic cred, but you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to see their point.

run4yourlives 19y ago

Wow, now techcruch is publicly shunning individuals based on their (perceived) job performance? Given the valley, this probably hurts this guy's future employment prospects enough to be called slander/defamation. Mr. Arrington might want to watch how he uses the term "Amateur Hour". Yet more evidence that TC should be Hacker News worthy.

antiismist 19y ago
It is really hard to make libel stick when there is a journalist talking about a public figure like Mr. Cook. Also, defamation is a set that includes libel and slander. Slander is something that is spoken (both start with an s, that helps me to remember it), so it doesn't apply here. I can dig up the legal standard if you are curious.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  Hey, thanks for the details. I'm not sure Mr. Cook though is a public figure per se. The average person wouldn't have a clue who he is.
  - antiismist 19y ago
    He would probably be a limited public figure, because he did engage in actions (public speaking, having a blog) that generated publicity within the field of twitter performance. So on the topic of twitter scalability he is a public figure.
alaskamiller 19y ago
What Blaine Cook needs to do is to embrace criticism and engage in an active conversation with trolls. Perhaps through increased twitter and blogger use.
- kirubakaran 19y ago
  For people voting him down: This is a funny reference to what Arrington said in SS.

pius 19y ago

Comment 87 on TC: It’s another nail in the coffin for Rails. Does that even make sense? Man, people are drinking some serious Haterade today.

tptacek 19y ago

This is what you get for deifying TechCrunch.

henning 19y ago

Valleywag is leaking over to TC, I guess.

joao 19y ago

One can ban Valleywag from Hacker News, but one can't ban Valleywag-style articles such as this. Shameless hit job.

astrec 19y ago
Arrington took Techcrunch to a place so mean that I doubt even Valleywag would go there. If you're going to single out one of only ten staff at least make it the CEO. Arrington played the man, not the ball, and did himself a great disservice in doing so. Vale TechCrunch.
- astrec 19y ago
  I don't want to violate the VW embargo, so seek out VW's coverage in your own time, but by comparison it's cheeky and dare I say affectionate.

gojomo 19y ago

MA@TC made an appeal at SS08 for less snark and critical sniping in comments. Maybe he could start with his headlines and articles?

gruseom 19y ago
MA@TC made an appeal at SS08 for less snark and critical sniping I remember thinking that was weird. He spent several minutes asking the audience not to troll his site. Apart from being off-topic and self-involved, it seems unlikely that there would be very many TC trolls in that audience .

mmmurf 19y ago

This is a pure publicity stunt by Arrington. He was probably suffering from a lull in traffic...

jamespitts 19y ago

Arlington should apologize to Cook for this disparaging post. Downtime is obviously a serious issue, but implying that Cook is an amateur is as irresponsible as it is false. Are we supposed to believe that, while Twitter became a rock star application - literally the crack cocaine of conference attendees - Cook's primary role was help it go down from time to time? TC is a powerful voice and really should not be engaging in the sorts of personal attacks that one would not even furl in a private setting. Thankfully, many people have come to Cook's defense here and in the comments of Arlington's nuclear-powered trolling.

michaelneale 19y ago
"literally the crack cocaine of conference attendees" How does that work ? Some new twitter feature? ;)

nadim 19y ago

At SS08, MA@TC quoted "Man in the Arena" [1]. An excerpt from the same work by Roosevelt: "Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater force to the orator's latter-day and more influential brother, the journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offences against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations." It is nearly impossible to take MA seriously after he uses terms like "Amatuer Hour at Twitter" for one of the most influential technical individuals in our community right now. Blaine Cook is a Man in the Arena, MA is a slandering journalist. MA should apologize and hold the same standards to himself that he asks of his readers. That is, if he was ever serious at SS08, something which I must now question. [1] - http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3745/tr.html http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3745/tr.html

menloparkbum 19y ago

Arrington is just pissed because Cook sent the scoop of his departure to Silicon Alley Insider instead of TechCrunch.