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> Distributed systems, the large-scale and spread-out network that Twitter is composed of, are not the automaker’s specialty, the person said. You can giggle a

> Distributed systems, the large-scale and spread-out network that Twitter is composed of, are not the automaker’s specialty, the person said. You can giggle along with the anonymous source who wasn't involved if you wish but Tesla collects a rather large amount of telemetry and has all manner of micro services crap internally just like Twitter. I imagine the Twitter codebase itself is a farcical Rube Goldberg machine. Insert your own how many engineers does it take to change lightbulb jokes. As part of that process, some engineers received a calendar invite Friday, telling them: “Stop printing, please be ready to show your recent code,” a reference to engineers being asked to show the code they had written in the last 30 to 60 days on their computers. Sounds like he knows exactly what he is doing. I'd do just that. For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code.

the_sleaze_ 4y ago
> the answer will be zero lines of code. Ugh, I bet you're exactly right..
CogitoCogito 4y ago
> I imagine the Twitter codebase itself is a farcical Rube Goldberg machine. I'd presume Tesla's codebase is exactly the same.
- recuter 4y ago
  Absolutely correct. :)
thepasswordis 4y ago
> For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. And what’s the average salary of these people? $15k/mo? $20k/mo?
throwup 4y ago
> For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. True, but an accusatory calendar invite still isn't a good way to do this. He could find out himself from the commit history/JIRA tickets, with the additional benefit of not putting people on the defensive and making a poor first impression. Then again, relationship building isn't really his style, so this doesn't surprise me.
- recuter 4y ago
  Heaven forbid the people who show up with blank printed pages be made to feel defensive. Relationship might suffer so much they might just have to break up permanently.
  - throwup 4y ago
    The problem of course is not annoying the underperformers, but you want to avoid annoying the valuable engineers who get things done and keep the company running. There's plenty of demand for engineers -- if they want, they could find another job in a week where they don't have to deal with hostile management. Treat people well. Assume the best and let them prove you right, rather than assuming the worst and making them prove you wrong.
    - Nathanba 4y ago
      Trust me, the absolute last thing a valuable engineer is annoyed about is to finally have some time to show off some of the things he did.
- adventured 4y ago
  Musk clearly dislikes fragile corporate cultures. He's going to destroy and rebuild Twitter's culture, that is very clearly his intent. I don't know how much more obvious it could be. He'll rebuild it in a way that he prefers companies to operate, staffed with the kind of people he prefers (whether anyone else likes that or not).
  - xeromal 4y ago
    Exactly this.
  - throwup 4y ago
    I mean, you're not wrong, but I was more replying to the "I'd do just that" sentence which seems to imply the scorched earth approach is a good thing. We don't need people going around emulating Musk.
saagarjha 4y ago
> You can giggle along with the anonymous source who wasn't involved if you wish but Tesla collects a rather large amount of telemetry and has all manner of micro services crap internally just like Twitter. Yes, collecting telemetry is quite equivalent to making a globally-distributed, many-to-many messaging platform available to everyone in real time. > For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. One of our most productive engineers left the company with negative several hundred thousand lines of code impact over his career. What would he print out?
- edflsafoiewq 4y ago
  > What would he print out? Diffs.
- recuter 4y ago
  Is the globally-distributed many-to-many messaging platform web scale? > One of our most productive engineers left the company with negative several hundred thousand lines of code impact over his career. What would he print out? Certainly deleting twitter code is even better than writing twitter code. Zen like nothingness is really neither here nor there, now is it?
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Depends. I haven’t written a line of code in a month either. That’s because I’m planning what code needs to be written in the next five years. I’ve found a lot of good engineers spend more of their time in Google Docs than they might in their IDE.
    - recuter 4y ago
      The really bad ones spend all their time there.
- Gustomaximus 4y ago
  The old and the new.

the_sleaze_ 4y ago

> the answer will be zero lines of code. Ugh, I bet you're exactly right..

CogitoCogito 4y ago

> I imagine the Twitter codebase itself is a farcical Rube Goldberg machine. I'd presume Tesla's codebase is exactly the same.

recuter 4y ago
Absolutely correct. :)

thepasswordis 4y ago

> For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. And what’s the average salary of these people? $15k/mo? $20k/mo?

throwup 4y ago

> For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. True, but an accusatory calendar invite still isn't a good way to do this. He could find out himself from the commit history/JIRA tickets, with the additional benefit of not putting people on the defensive and making a poor first impression. Then again, relationship building isn't really his style, so this doesn't surprise me.

recuter 4y ago
Heaven forbid the people who show up with blank printed pages be made to feel defensive. Relationship might suffer so much they might just have to break up permanently.
- throwup 4y ago
  The problem of course is not annoying the underperformers, but you want to avoid annoying the valuable engineers who get things done and keep the company running. There's plenty of demand for engineers -- if they want, they could find another job in a week where they don't have to deal with hostile management. Treat people well. Assume the best and let them prove you right, rather than assuming the worst and making them prove you wrong.
  - Nathanba 4y ago
    Trust me, the absolute last thing a valuable engineer is annoyed about is to finally have some time to show off some of the things he did.
adventured 4y ago
Musk clearly dislikes fragile corporate cultures. He's going to destroy and rebuild Twitter's culture, that is very clearly his intent. I don't know how much more obvious it could be. He'll rebuild it in a way that he prefers companies to operate, staffed with the kind of people he prefers (whether anyone else likes that or not).
- xeromal 4y ago
  Exactly this.
- throwup 4y ago
  I mean, you're not wrong, but I was more replying to the "I'd do just that" sentence which seems to imply the scorched earth approach is a good thing. We don't need people going around emulating Musk.

saagarjha 4y ago

> You can giggle along with the anonymous source who wasn't involved if you wish but Tesla collects a rather large amount of telemetry and has all manner of micro services crap internally just like Twitter. Yes, collecting telemetry is quite equivalent to making a globally-distributed, many-to-many messaging platform available to everyone in real time. > For an unfathomable amount of the people working at twitter the answer will be zero lines of code. One of our most productive engineers left the company with negative several hundred thousand lines of code impact over his career. What would he print out?

edflsafoiewq 4y ago
> What would he print out? Diffs.
recuter 4y ago
Is the globally-distributed many-to-many messaging platform web scale? > One of our most productive engineers left the company with negative several hundred thousand lines of code impact over his career. What would he print out? Certainly deleting twitter code is even better than writing twitter code. Zen like nothingness is really neither here nor there, now is it?
- saagarjha 4y ago
  Depends. I haven’t written a line of code in a month either. That’s because I’m planning what code needs to be written in the next five years. I’ve found a lot of good engineers spend more of their time in Google Docs than they might in their IDE.
  - recuter 4y ago
    The really bad ones spend all their time there.
Gustomaximus 4y ago
The old and the new.