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I've been reading the left and the right sides on this whole thing... and I kinda agree with this one: https://www.newsweek.com/tantrum-twitter-reveals-how-pri

I've been reading the left and the right sides on this whole thing... and I kinda agree with this one: https://www.newsweek.com/tantrum-twitter-reveals-how-privileged-liberal-laptop-class-really-opinion-1760629 https://www.newsweek.com/tantrum-twitter-reveals-how-privile... We're pretty damn spoiled.

paxys 4y ago
Just weeks ago these few thousand employees collectively generated $44 billion worth of value for their shareholders, but now suddenly they are all useless and spoiled and don’t deserve a penny. Funny how that works.
- spoils19 4y ago
  Actually HN has taught me that CEOs generate the value for shareholders.
  - rhacker 4y ago
    Well if you were to diagnose most companies there are probably 30-40 engineers that make the most value, like billions of dollars each. From there it starts dropping off like a long tail in search results. There's value, but a lot less than others. Cutting the long tail may still break huge areas of functionality - but the rest will patch and fix it over time. Heck there might be a team of 50 that has the sole responsibility to figure out the code/algorithms that puts something on the main page automatically. Instead that can temporarily be a small team of 3 people that rotate news articles or tweets. We tend to think "each employee generates $44B / 14000" but that's far from the truth.
    - mustacheemperor 4y ago
      Following along your theory, do you expect that Twitter will achieve meteoric profit successes once this damage is patched, and that there will be an epic staffing contraction across tech afterwards? If you are correct then Twitter is about to demonstrate to the entire tech market that their staff headcounts are factors of ten beyond what is necessary to achieve equal success, and we should expect a massive course correction in the industry as a result. >there are probably 30-40 engineers that make the most value, like billions of dollars each. From there it starts dropping off like a long tail in search results. There's value, but a lot less than others. Cutting the long tail may still break huge areas of functionality - but the rest will patch and fix it over time. If this is true, then have companies like Microsoft, Apple, all just missed the big insight Elon has caught onto first? If the best engineers are generating a few billion in value each and can completely patch up the long tail, then Microsoft ought to be able to cut its staff down to about 200 such engineers, 300 if they want a lot of extra margin. 1.8T / 3bn per high performer. There's over 100k SWEs currently employed there, needless to say that's a big reduction in salary overhead.
      - rhacker 4y ago
        I do believe the theory. Most people working are head nodders and fix some widget. It only takes them 10 minutes a week to fix or tweak. The only reason the widget exists is so that the company can claim X feature exists in their portfolio. The fear of firing them is that the feature will eventually break and that person is no longer there. But at some point they'll realize it's super simple and can fix it. - But the fear of cutting endless departments like that is so powerful. Any yes, the top performers don't want to work on widget X even if it's 10 minutes of their day. Here's the analogy - lots of startups with 50 employees have sold for billions right. Once the company sells the payout potential is OVER which at that point those 30 of those 50 leave (within a year) and are replaced with 1000 people to take over and slowly add new features. Now remember the codebase still exists that has revenue potential that can feed 1000 or more people, but they did it with 50. So the code is paying for the product, it's just stable and maybe making a little profit per year. That's enough to justify it. But startups prove all the value is in those 50 people. The other 1000? they're all replaceable but in a union. The union is that idea that ANY headcount reduction is bad press. Why'd you fire Zak, I'm leaving too! rant over
diob 4y ago
It's not that we're spoiled, it's that other folks are abused. I would say Elon is spoiled though, in thinking he can treat folks as fungible.
- Yoofie 4y ago
  This is a weird take. No, alot SW devs (the type that work at FAANG-like companies) are actually spoiled, relative to most other industries of the world. Perhaps, they have gotten so used to is that they don't recognize it. You can absolutely make an argument that the rest of the world's workforce is being abused, but that is speaking from place of privilege and its easy to be a "champion for the worker" from your ivory tower. > Elon is spoiled though, in thinking he can treat folks as fungible. That is because they are fungible, though. Twitter is not some paragon of technical excellence and innovation. Its a website.
  - diob 4y ago
    If you want to debate, define spoiled, we can start from there.
    - rhacker 4y ago
      Well let's imagine that programming was like railroad work. Hammering in railroad spikes, getting called at 3am to prevent a possible collision. But it's not. I can't believe we need someone to define spoiled in this context.
      - mustacheemperor 4y ago
        Railroad work is destructive to the human body and the industry is constantly developing new machines and techniques to reduce the amount of human involvement. Why would hammering rail spikes be the yardstick for defining work by the non-spoiled? Should we have some puritan aspiration to that kind of work? >Hammering in railroad spikes Today hammering in railroad spikes is typically done by big machines like this one made by Unimog.[0] So do you think the SWEs are generating less value than the people operating the Unimog machines? And/Or that SWE jobs rely on less skill and effort than operating the Unimog machine? Should SWEs unionize like railroad workers so that a leader like Elon couldn't unilaterally declare changes to their working condition requirements and tell them to hit the curb if they disagree? Are the Unimog operators too lazy and cozy in the machines? Should they be paid less than they would be to hammer the spikes, because hammering the spikes is harder work? >I can't believe we need someone to define spoiled Well, we do. I've walked through my attempt to grok your point above, and I can't. So if you can overcome your disbelief and post that definition, it might clarify what you are trying to say. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_fastening_system#/media/File:Total_reconstruction_of_Neunkirchen_station_(254).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_fastening_system#/media/F...
landryraccoon 4y ago
I can't disagree more with this take. The benefits and salaries that Twitter employees get are just the free market at work. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple don't pay big bucks and give huge perks because they're liberal, they do it because it's the only way to retain talented employees. The take is hypocritical at it's core. Musk himself is an extremely privileged billionaire. Under the same principle that Musk deserves his wealth, Twitter employees deserve every penny of compensation and every hour of time off that they get. Musk doesn't get that. He's going to utterly fail because the engineers at Twitter have other options. They don't have to work there. They worked there because they were getting competitive benefits and salary. Musk is cutting that just because he doesn't like the rate. Ok, fine, but don't be surprised when your company falls apart and you can't hire anyone as a result.

paxys 4y ago

Just weeks ago these few thousand employees collectively generated $44 billion worth of value for their shareholders, but now suddenly they are all useless and spoiled and don’t deserve a penny. Funny how that works.

spoils19 4y ago
Actually HN has taught me that CEOs generate the value for shareholders.
- rhacker 4y ago
  Well if you were to diagnose most companies there are probably 30-40 engineers that make the most value, like billions of dollars each. From there it starts dropping off like a long tail in search results. There's value, but a lot less than others. Cutting the long tail may still break huge areas of functionality - but the rest will patch and fix it over time. Heck there might be a team of 50 that has the sole responsibility to figure out the code/algorithms that puts something on the main page automatically. Instead that can temporarily be a small team of 3 people that rotate news articles or tweets. We tend to think "each employee generates $44B / 14000" but that's far from the truth.
  - mustacheemperor 4y ago
    Following along your theory, do you expect that Twitter will achieve meteoric profit successes once this damage is patched, and that there will be an epic staffing contraction across tech afterwards? If you are correct then Twitter is about to demonstrate to the entire tech market that their staff headcounts are factors of ten beyond what is necessary to achieve equal success, and we should expect a massive course correction in the industry as a result. >there are probably 30-40 engineers that make the most value, like billions of dollars each. From there it starts dropping off like a long tail in search results. There's value, but a lot less than others. Cutting the long tail may still break huge areas of functionality - but the rest will patch and fix it over time. If this is true, then have companies like Microsoft, Apple, all just missed the big insight Elon has caught onto first? If the best engineers are generating a few billion in value each and can completely patch up the long tail, then Microsoft ought to be able to cut its staff down to about 200 such engineers, 300 if they want a lot of extra margin. 1.8T / 3bn per high performer. There's over 100k SWEs currently employed there, needless to say that's a big reduction in salary overhead.
    - rhacker 4y ago
      I do believe the theory. Most people working are head nodders and fix some widget. It only takes them 10 minutes a week to fix or tweak. The only reason the widget exists is so that the company can claim X feature exists in their portfolio. The fear of firing them is that the feature will eventually break and that person is no longer there. But at some point they'll realize it's super simple and can fix it. - But the fear of cutting endless departments like that is so powerful. Any yes, the top performers don't want to work on widget X even if it's 10 minutes of their day. Here's the analogy - lots of startups with 50 employees have sold for billions right. Once the company sells the payout potential is OVER which at that point those 30 of those 50 leave (within a year) and are replaced with 1000 people to take over and slowly add new features. Now remember the codebase still exists that has revenue potential that can feed 1000 or more people, but they did it with 50. So the code is paying for the product, it's just stable and maybe making a little profit per year. That's enough to justify it. But startups prove all the value is in those 50 people. The other 1000? they're all replaceable but in a union. The union is that idea that ANY headcount reduction is bad press. Why'd you fire Zak, I'm leaving too! rant over

diob 4y ago

It's not that we're spoiled, it's that other folks are abused. I would say Elon is spoiled though, in thinking he can treat folks as fungible.

Yoofie 4y ago
This is a weird take. No, alot SW devs (the type that work at FAANG-like companies) are actually spoiled, relative to most other industries of the world. Perhaps, they have gotten so used to is that they don't recognize it. You can absolutely make an argument that the rest of the world's workforce is being abused, but that is speaking from place of privilege and its easy to be a "champion for the worker" from your ivory tower. > Elon is spoiled though, in thinking he can treat folks as fungible. That is because they are fungible, though. Twitter is not some paragon of technical excellence and innovation. Its a website.
- diob 4y ago
  If you want to debate, define spoiled, we can start from there.
  - rhacker 4y ago
    Well let's imagine that programming was like railroad work. Hammering in railroad spikes, getting called at 3am to prevent a possible collision. But it's not. I can't believe we need someone to define spoiled in this context.
    - mustacheemperor 4y ago
      Railroad work is destructive to the human body and the industry is constantly developing new machines and techniques to reduce the amount of human involvement. Why would hammering rail spikes be the yardstick for defining work by the non-spoiled? Should we have some puritan aspiration to that kind of work? >Hammering in railroad spikes Today hammering in railroad spikes is typically done by big machines like this one made by Unimog.[0] So do you think the SWEs are generating less value than the people operating the Unimog machines? And/Or that SWE jobs rely on less skill and effort than operating the Unimog machine? Should SWEs unionize like railroad workers so that a leader like Elon couldn't unilaterally declare changes to their working condition requirements and tell them to hit the curb if they disagree? Are the Unimog operators too lazy and cozy in the machines? Should they be paid less than they would be to hammer the spikes, because hammering the spikes is harder work? >I can't believe we need someone to define spoiled Well, we do. I've walked through my attempt to grok your point above, and I can't. So if you can overcome your disbelief and post that definition, it might clarify what you are trying to say. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_fastening_system#/media/File:Total_reconstruction_of_Neunkirchen_station_(254).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_fastening_system#/media/F...

landryraccoon 4y ago

I can't disagree more with this take. The benefits and salaries that Twitter employees get are just the free market at work. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple don't pay big bucks and give huge perks because they're liberal, they do it because it's the only way to retain talented employees. The take is hypocritical at it's core. Musk himself is an extremely privileged billionaire. Under the same principle that Musk deserves his wealth, Twitter employees deserve every penny of compensation and every hour of time off that they get. Musk doesn't get that. He's going to utterly fail because the engineers at Twitter have other options. They don't have to work there. They worked there because they were getting competitive benefits and salary. Musk is cutting that just because he doesn't like the rate. Ok, fine, but don't be surprised when your company falls apart and you can't hire anyone as a result.