7 ms·

The sources here appear to be leaks from a group that is the internal equivalent of 4chan and former employees who have an axe to grind. The portrait painted fr

The sources here appear to be leaks from a group that is the internal equivalent of 4chan and former employees who have an axe to grind. The portrait painted from them does not match the reality I experience day to day in any meaningful way.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dawhizkid 8y ago
Reality is most people work where they work because of the money...few are thinking philosophically about the moral/ethical implications of their work. The only reason stories like these might be interesting is because tech had up until now been perceived as this anti-Wall Street destination for smart people with a conscious. Now, it's clear people who choose to work at FB and other tech giants are not necessarily any nobler, and just as greedy, as those who choose to work at Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater.
marricks 8y ago
What is your experience of how employees are handling the barrage of major public scandals then? Big tech company surveillance culture is well documented[1] and the outside pressure against FB seems INTENSE. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-valley-internal-work-spying-surveillance-leakers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v...
- madhadron 8y ago
  > What is your experience of how employees are handling the barrage of major public scandals then? For real problems, like Cambridge Analytica or the recent API token breach, by trying to fix whatever is broken. A lot of the other scandals honestly don't seem to have any basis in reality that we can discern, so we spend a fair amount of time looking puzzled, then shrugging and getting back to work.
pavlov 8y ago
The media portrayal of Facebook feels roughly equivalent of how Microsoft was seen ten years ago. The tech industry seems to live on these ten-year rollercoaster cycles in perception. (Zuckerberg isn't Ballmer though – I don't think he's going anywhere. Besides, although the tech press likes to credit Nadella for everything because it makes for a convenient rags-to-riches, Ballmer laid the foundation for Microsoft's present success.)
Despegar 8y ago
The reality is that the tech industry, specifically the ad-tech industry, has had its Lehman moment and now the bloom is off the rose. Facebook and Google are increasingly going to be regulated and subject to more scrutiny going forward. That's just the reality of it. You're not going through anything unique. There were plenty of bankers that felt that politicians, the press and the public were being unfair to them.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  That's what Jim Sterling keeps telling the game industry: regulate yourself (e.g. loot boxes), or you will get regulated sooner or later.
- solveit 8y ago
  > There were plenty of bankers that felt that politicians, the press and the public were being unfair to them. Weren't they? One rule that pretty much seems to be a law of the universe is that popular sentiment will be completely wrong on almost every particular point even when its conclusions are completely right.
snowwrestler 8y ago
How does a company have an "internal equivalent of 4chan"? I want to hear more about that. Like, I want to meet the person who said “you know what this successful publicly traded company needs? More 4chan.”
- pavlov 8y ago
  Look up Blind. It's a gossip app where you need to sign up with a corporate email, thus creating verified but anonymous chat rooms for employees.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    Wow. People actually trust those kinds of systems? No way I'd give my corporate email to give blithe and scathing criticisms. What's their data (in)security like? Do they sell that data off? Blackmail your job if they got desperate? Yipes.
coryfklein 8y ago
Surely one should take anonymous sources with a grain of salt until they have multiple confirmations from other news sources, but I think your jump from "anonymous" straight to "4chan" is unwarranted here.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dawhizkid 8y ago

Reality is most people work where they work because of the money...few are thinking philosophically about the moral/ethical implications of their work. The only reason stories like these might be interesting is because tech had up until now been perceived as this anti-Wall Street destination for smart people with a conscious. Now, it's clear people who choose to work at FB and other tech giants are not necessarily any nobler, and just as greedy, as those who choose to work at Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater.

marricks 8y ago

What is your experience of how employees are handling the barrage of major public scandals then? Big tech company surveillance culture is well documented[1] and the outside pressure against FB seems INTENSE. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-valley-internal-work-spying-surveillance-leakers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v...

madhadron 8y ago
> What is your experience of how employees are handling the barrage of major public scandals then? For real problems, like Cambridge Analytica or the recent API token breach, by trying to fix whatever is broken. A lot of the other scandals honestly don't seem to have any basis in reality that we can discern, so we spend a fair amount of time looking puzzled, then shrugging and getting back to work.

pavlov 8y ago

The media portrayal of Facebook feels roughly equivalent of how Microsoft was seen ten years ago. The tech industry seems to live on these ten-year rollercoaster cycles in perception. (Zuckerberg isn't Ballmer though – I don't think he's going anywhere. Besides, although the tech press likes to credit Nadella for everything because it makes for a convenient rags-to-riches, Ballmer laid the foundation for Microsoft's present success.)

Despegar 8y ago

The reality is that the tech industry, specifically the ad-tech industry, has had its Lehman moment and now the bloom is off the rose. Facebook and Google are increasingly going to be regulated and subject to more scrutiny going forward. That's just the reality of it. You're not going through anything unique. There were plenty of bankers that felt that politicians, the press and the public were being unfair to them.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
That's what Jim Sterling keeps telling the game industry: regulate yourself (e.g. loot boxes), or you will get regulated sooner or later.
solveit 8y ago
> There were plenty of bankers that felt that politicians, the press and the public were being unfair to them. Weren't they? One rule that pretty much seems to be a law of the universe is that popular sentiment will be completely wrong on almost every particular point even when its conclusions are completely right.

snowwrestler 8y ago

How does a company have an "internal equivalent of 4chan"? I want to hear more about that. Like, I want to meet the person who said “you know what this successful publicly traded company needs? More 4chan.”

pavlov 8y ago
Look up Blind. It's a gossip app where you need to sign up with a corporate email, thus creating verified but anonymous chat rooms for employees.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Wow. People actually trust those kinds of systems? No way I'd give my corporate email to give blithe and scathing criticisms. What's their data (in)security like? Do they sell that data off? Blackmail your job if they got desperate? Yipes.

coryfklein 8y ago

Surely one should take anonymous sources with a grain of salt until they have multiple confirmations from other news sources, but I think your jump from "anonymous" straight to "4chan" is unwarranted here.