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Why did you feel compelled to disclose on HR where you work at all? I work at a large tech firm with a household name. I’ve never disclosed that here (and many

Why did you feel compelled to disclose on HR where you work at all? I work at a large tech firm with a household name. I’ve never disclosed that here (and many other places). And I say what I want without any need for disclosure.

scarface74 5y ago
It’s more honest. When I got into discussions about “cloud” and specifically AWS before I started working at AWS two years ago, I was just telling my opinions. But it’s different now, I have a vested interest in AWS succeeding. Wouldn’t you think it was kind of dishonest if I said “I think everyone should move to the cloud” (I wouldn’t say that) and not disclose my biases? Most of my arguments are much more subtle. But I would rather err on the side of disclosing than people think I’m astroturfing. There are lots of people on HN that work at companies that get discussed all of the time. It would be dishonest if we didn’t say where we worked when talking about them.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Everyone has biases about all kinds of things. Perhaps you take your comments on HN too seriously.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    So do you think that yev also shouldn’t say he works for Backblaze when he posts here frequently answering questions or discussing something company related? It’s considered the honest thing to do as you’ve seen many of us do when we talk about the company we work for. We all have biases. I was biased toward cloud computing when I worked for a 60 person startup. But if AWS had gone belly up then, I would shrugged and start working with Azure. Now I have a financial interest. Of course I’m going to be more biased.
exikyut 5y ago
Since you've never disclosed where, that makes it possible for me to ask: what's the tech firm's policy - or, to reduce the number of bits of entropy in your answer, does it at least stipulate that you should disclose that your opinions are your own, or specify that you need to clear things with HR? If there's no actual policy for these sorts of things, that flips the coin and makes it very unfair that I don't know where you work, sounds like an interesting place :P

scarface74 5y ago

It’s more honest. When I got into discussions about “cloud” and specifically AWS before I started working at AWS two years ago, I was just telling my opinions. But it’s different now, I have a vested interest in AWS succeeding. Wouldn’t you think it was kind of dishonest if I said “I think everyone should move to the cloud” (I wouldn’t say that) and not disclose my biases? Most of my arguments are much more subtle. But I would rather err on the side of disclosing than people think I’m astroturfing. There are lots of people on HN that work at companies that get discussed all of the time. It would be dishonest if we didn’t say where we worked when talking about them.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Everyone has biases about all kinds of things. Perhaps you take your comments on HN too seriously.
- scarface74 5y ago
  So do you think that yev also shouldn’t say he works for Backblaze when he posts here frequently answering questions or discussing something company related? It’s considered the honest thing to do as you’ve seen many of us do when we talk about the company we work for. We all have biases. I was biased toward cloud computing when I worked for a 60 person startup. But if AWS had gone belly up then, I would shrugged and start working with Azure. Now I have a financial interest. Of course I’m going to be more biased.

exikyut 5y ago

Since you've never disclosed where, that makes it possible for me to ask: what's the tech firm's policy - or, to reduce the number of bits of entropy in your answer, does it at least stipulate that you should disclose that your opinions are your own, or specify that you need to clear things with HR? If there's no actual policy for these sorts of things, that flips the coin and makes it very unfair that I don't know where you work, sounds like an interesting place :P