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This is a great way to drive away your best talent and ensure those who stay are more tired, frustrated, and stressed.

SillyUsername 4y ago
It also leads to more mistakes and cutting corners (usually hidden), so in the long term as they accumulate this will bite him in the ass when a particularly bad one gets out in the wild unnoticed. And I thought this guy had a high IQ, clearly he's not that bright after all.
- tjpnz 4y ago
  Having a high IQ doesn't make you immune from cockups.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    These are not complicated decisions to navigate.
  - SillyUsername 4y ago
    No I guess not. His rants on social media have cost him in the past. I believe he may have psychopathic tendencies because he appears to be attempting to project his own work ethic (long hours etc) onto staff but cannot emphasize with them, or understand they aren't him/have his circumstances/have his ability. His goals are great and have certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction, but he really doesn't have the social and people skills, which is ironic given he's bought Twitter. If there was one thing I could tell him, it's that he should engage his brain before his mouth, a little (benevolent) social manipulation to get what he wants will be more successful before he barks orders for long hours or sacks people at short notice. Carrot before the stick.
    - shadowfox 4y ago
      I generally agree with what you are saying. But: > certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction That bit seems a bit of an exaggeration to me.
      - SillyUsername 4y ago
        The reasoning: - Boeing laughed at SpaceX and their proposed rocket re-use and cheap(er) space flight. Now Boeing is the no.3 supplier to NASA, SpaceX at 2 and playing catch up. - Self driving cars were not an industry until Tesla pushed it, it is still the pioneer in this respect as no other car make has the same level of self driving features. How cool is a car that drives to you on button click? :) - No other US company has announced humanoid robots aside from Boston Dynamics, which are not for the general public. - Tesla has pushed for secondary industries such battery invovation and solar roof tiles (not regular panels on roofs). This in itself is not new but is a future green environment goal. - The Boring company goals may be a pipe dream (har har) but the intent is there to provide hyper transportation, akin to 50s trashy comic ideals. - How many non governmental industries can offer Ukraine help with something like Starlink? Can't be many... (honestly don't know but initially seems altruistic).
        stefan_ 4y ago
        I'm afraid you have drunk the kool aid. Self-driving cars are an idea as old as the car itself, and many companies are much further along than Tesla who are stuck on their "no LIDAR" stance when LIDAR is rapidly becoming cheaper and more available. Almost ironic from the company that bet on lithium batteries for cars. The robots are a demo gag (much like the smart summon, or the cybertruck, or the semi, or ..). The "solar tiles" are a fire hazard and the Tesla solar business a total shambles, which makes sense since it was just a nepotistic bailout of Solarcity. Hyperloop is dead and so is the Boring company.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        SpaceX alone succeeding is a once in a century event. Tesla kicking off EV for the world as well.
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    Sometimes it makes you less self aware that you might be wrong.
omega3 4y ago
Twitter doesn't need "best people" - it's not innovating and hasn't been for a very long time.
- crotho 4y ago
  Have you any idea what it takes simply to maintain a machine such as twitter, let alone make even minor alterations? There was a recent telling interview by someone who used to work there who thought it wouldn't be long until the whole thing collapses on its own because there were huge teams dedicated to simply keeping the thing running.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Back of the envelope calculation: A billion users, each tweeting once an hour with 140 characters. That's 38.147 Megabytes/s. My laptop could handle that raw volume. Increase it by an order of magnitude for all the network nonsense and it can still run on my 4 year old desktop. Twitter is not some hypertech company, it shouldn't need more than a hundred engineers to run. I imagine that's the bet Musk is making too.
    - cristiancavalli 4y ago
      What a terribly dishonest and overly-simplistic way of modeling of a distributed system much less a simple web service. found the engineer who, in their own words, “couldn’t code their way out of paper bag.”
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        If you're serving 40mb a second you don't _need_ a distributed system. Twitter isn't Netflix.
        cristiancavalli 4y ago
        It’s pretty laughable you believe your own “math.” I guess even serving an actual front end doesn’t factor into your calculations. Hey go build something and you might find out what it actually takes to build/maintain a system of any real consequence instead of doing leet code exercises and smelling your own brain farts.
_fat_santa 4y ago
It's fun to read about this stuff in the news and comment on it here and on Twitter but the reality couldn't be more different. If you're qualified enough to be in the running to work at Twitter, you likely have many options available to you (employment wise). None of those people are trying to go work at Twitter because there's just too much BS flying around over there. If this keeps up the only way Twitter is going to be able to attract talent IMO is by offering massive comp packages, because that's the only way you're going to get people that aren't die hard Twitter/Elon Musk fans to want to come there.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  All tech companies have been hiring bottom of the barrel engineers who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. This is just a realignment where where knowing how to put the lego pieces together isn't enough any more.

It also leads to more mistakes and cutting corners (usually hidden), so in the long term as they accumulate this will bite him in the ass when a particularly bad one gets out in the wild unnoticed. And I thought this guy had a high IQ, clearly he's not that bright after all.

tjpnz 4y ago
Having a high IQ doesn't make you immune from cockups.
- blitzar 4y ago
  These are not complicated decisions to navigate.
- SillyUsername 4y ago
  No I guess not. His rants on social media have cost him in the past. I believe he may have psychopathic tendencies because he appears to be attempting to project his own work ethic (long hours etc) onto staff but cannot emphasize with them, or understand they aren't him/have his circumstances/have his ability. His goals are great and have certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction, but he really doesn't have the social and people skills, which is ironic given he's bought Twitter. If there was one thing I could tell him, it's that he should engage his brain before his mouth, a little (benevolent) social manipulation to get what he wants will be more successful before he barks orders for long hours or sacks people at short notice. Carrot before the stick.
  - shadowfox 4y ago
    I generally agree with what you are saying. But: > certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction That bit seems a bit of an exaggeration to me.
    - SillyUsername 4y ago
      The reasoning: - Boeing laughed at SpaceX and their proposed rocket re-use and cheap(er) space flight. Now Boeing is the no.3 supplier to NASA, SpaceX at 2 and playing catch up. - Self driving cars were not an industry until Tesla pushed it, it is still the pioneer in this respect as no other car make has the same level of self driving features. How cool is a car that drives to you on button click? :) - No other US company has announced humanoid robots aside from Boston Dynamics, which are not for the general public. - Tesla has pushed for secondary industries such battery invovation and solar roof tiles (not regular panels on roofs). This in itself is not new but is a future green environment goal. - The Boring company goals may be a pipe dream (har har) but the intent is there to provide hyper transportation, akin to 50s trashy comic ideals. - How many non governmental industries can offer Ukraine help with something like Starlink? Can't be many... (honestly don't know but initially seems altruistic).
      - stefan_ 4y ago
        I'm afraid you have drunk the kool aid. Self-driving cars are an idea as old as the car itself, and many companies are much further along than Tesla who are stuck on their "no LIDAR" stance when LIDAR is rapidly becoming cheaper and more available. Almost ironic from the company that bet on lithium batteries for cars. The robots are a demo gag (much like the smart summon, or the cybertruck, or the semi, or ..). The "solar tiles" are a fire hazard and the Tesla solar business a total shambles, which makes sense since it was just a nepotistic bailout of Solarcity. Hyperloop is dead and so is the Boring company.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        SpaceX alone succeeding is a once in a century event. Tesla kicking off EV for the world as well.
- fortuna86 4y ago
  Sometimes it makes you less self aware that you might be wrong.

omega3 4y ago

Twitter doesn't need "best people" - it's not innovating and hasn't been for a very long time.

crotho 4y ago
Have you any idea what it takes simply to maintain a machine such as twitter, let alone make even minor alterations? There was a recent telling interview by someone who used to work there who thought it wouldn't be long until the whole thing collapses on its own because there were huge teams dedicated to simply keeping the thing running.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Back of the envelope calculation: A billion users, each tweeting once an hour with 140 characters. That's 38.147 Megabytes/s. My laptop could handle that raw volume. Increase it by an order of magnitude for all the network nonsense and it can still run on my 4 year old desktop. Twitter is not some hypertech company, it shouldn't need more than a hundred engineers to run. I imagine that's the bet Musk is making too.
  - cristiancavalli 4y ago
    What a terribly dishonest and overly-simplistic way of modeling of a distributed system much less a simple web service. found the engineer who, in their own words, “couldn’t code their way out of paper bag.”
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      If you're serving 40mb a second you don't _need_ a distributed system. Twitter isn't Netflix.
      - cristiancavalli 4y ago
        It’s pretty laughable you believe your own “math.” I guess even serving an actual front end doesn’t factor into your calculations. Hey go build something and you might find out what it actually takes to build/maintain a system of any real consequence instead of doing leet code exercises and smelling your own brain farts.

_fat_santa 4y ago

It's fun to read about this stuff in the news and comment on it here and on Twitter but the reality couldn't be more different. If you're qualified enough to be in the running to work at Twitter, you likely have many options available to you (employment wise). None of those people are trying to go work at Twitter because there's just too much BS flying around over there. If this keeps up the only way Twitter is going to be able to attract talent IMO is by offering massive comp packages, because that's the only way you're going to get people that aren't die hard Twitter/Elon Musk fans to want to come there.

thrown_22 4y ago
All tech companies have been hiring bottom of the barrel engineers who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. This is just a realignment where where knowing how to put the lego pieces together isn't enough any more.