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>The people at Twitter who understood the system and could predict the side effects were all fired or left Not necessarily. I’ve predicted bad outcomes for dec

>The people at Twitter who understood the system and could predict the side effects were all fired or left Not necessarily. I’ve predicted bad outcomes for decisions in a few cases and been ignored but stuck around regardless. Mostly because I like my job and the goals of my organization even if it makes bad decisions. Of course to remain productive and improve my influence in future decision making it is absolutely critical that when predictions come true, I do not go anywhere near an “I told you so mentality.” Instead I do what I can to clean up the mess with a “how can I help?” attitude. And increasingly over time people take my opinions and analysis much much more seriously. I wouldn’t say that’s the path everyone should take, especially because some work environments are just too toxic for any progress at all (I ran away, fast, from two jobs like that). And some people cherish having an entirely new type of challenge every few years instead of shepherding something through longer periods of time. All valid paths.

lolinder 3y ago
> Mostly because I like my job and the goals of my organization even if it makes bad decisions. Keep in mind that Musk intentionally turned Twitter completely upside down. Anything that people there liked about it before Musk is likely gone—coworkers, WFH, perks.
scott_w 3y ago
People didn’t leave because of the bad decisions. They left because Musk said he wanted “hardcore” people who’d work 80 hour weeks. Turns out masochism isn’t correlated with great engineering.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  I think there may be a disconnect between what Musk says and the reality on the ground. Enough so that I, given such a situation, would wait around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship. But as I said in my original comment, I’ve sprinted away from toxicity before, and will do so again if it becomes obvious.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    If it was only that Elon had said it, I might agree. But he also had multiple rounds of layoffs (after lying every time and saying "this was the last!"). He had multiple horrible mandatory meetings forcing people to drop everything and fly over the country. He forced people to print out their code so he could review their work. Nobody good stays during ALL of this.
    - drzaiusx11 3y ago
      I wouldn't say nobody, there's likely folks held captive by H1B visas with limited options/mobility
      - Timon3 3y ago
        If you really want I can qualify my earlier statement, I thought it was obvious: GP wrote: > Enough so that I, given such a situation, would wait around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship. That means "nobody" is talking about the group of people who have the option of "waiting around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship". H1B visa holders aren't included in that earlier group, so I didn't think a further qualification is necessary.
      - Retric 3y ago
        H1B people can and do jump ship. The bigger issue was Twitter laid off so many people it was a poor time to look for a new job.
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    > I think there may be a disconnect between what Musk says and the reality on the ground. Which runs against every good piece of advice that has ever been uttered about leadership. Musk far overpaid for twitter because he wanted to be the center of attention and what better way to do that than to buy the network which gets the most attention from "important" people? He then took the Michael Jordan trope of "I never asked anyone to do anything I was unwilling to do" and tried to turn that into reality by sleeping in his office every once in a while. The problem with this sentiment is that the only employees who are going to stick around long-term in such a ridiculous working arrangement are those who either can't find jobs elsewhere or are terrified that they won't be able to find jobs elsewhere. So now you've got a highly toxic work environment full of people who are unconfident in their own abilities to get the work done, and Elon constantly pretend like he's some sort of business genius from the movies who just walks into a meeting, throws a bunch of turds on top of the agenda without having a firm grasp of anything, and storms off to light the next fire. It's fucking insane.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  yeah its correlated with getting deported from the US if you lose your employer
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    I bet that most, if not all, H1B visa holders working for Twitter, would be able to land a job pretty quickly if they wanted to.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      Individually yes. It's less clear what happens if Twitter is shedding hundreds of engineers at the same time many other companies are freezing hiring or letting people go.
  - BurningFrog 3y ago
    H1Bs don't actually get deported for that.
    - habinero 3y ago
      Yes, they absolutely do. There are some serious penalties if you overstay your visa.
      - BurningFrog 3y ago
        In theory, yes. In practice, the immigration authorities have enforcement priorities, and deporting overstating H1B is very far from being one. As long as you don't cross a border, no one will come looking for you. Source, my immigration lawyer when I was in danger of overstaying my H1B.
    - Analemma_ 3y ago
      They absolutely do. I’m not sure why you’re posting this; it’s just demonstrably wrong.
      - 3y ago
rkagerer 3y ago
Thanks for your good work.
laserlight 3y ago
> goals of my organization What do you think they are?
- ineedasername 3y ago
  The organization’s stated mission, inherent not just to it but to all places of its sort, is <X>, even though, unfortunately, we often end up chasing <Y> instead. It’s a difficult balance: <Y> is in fact necessary to continually achieve <X> but there are times where decisions focus exclusively, or at least too much, on <Y>. But we live in the real world, and sometimes that’s necessary. (<Y> is not money though it has an impact on our financials) And also sometime people with a broader view see further than I do and those choices that seem wrong come around a few years later and it turns out <X> is actually better off for it. It keeps me humble, skeptical of my own certainty even when it seems faultless. But I’m also at a point now where people who pop up and start shouting <r>! or <f>! or something completely random like “Well how about <~€€€~>?” I can easily deal with: I go back, do a bit of the work I do, show it to the right people, and those shouts -disappear. Sometimes one gets through and it’s annoying, but whatever, nothing is perfects. Of course the above vastly oversimplifies things. There are many, many more variables to juggle along the way. But I hope it gives a reasonable sense of things. And I’m sure the “<X>” style notation of things in my explanation makes it harder understand what I mean, but I value my privacy, hence the abstractions of the factors involved.
  - fho 3y ago
    > but I value my privacy I guess the way you abstracted will probably reduce your privacy (a tiny bit). At least I have not seen anybody write "<X>" instead of just X in this usecase. So either this is very specific to you, or is very common in your circles so you do it too. Both of which reduce the number of potential candidate if somebody tries to doxx you. Additional you (or your editor) uses “” over " which also reduces the number of candidates. (Not trying to attack you here, just thought it was notable)
    - ineedasername 3y ago
nathas 3y ago
Tell me you're in your 4th year at a BigCo without telling me you're in your 4th year at a BigCo. The goals of the organization are mostly a facade. The people running the organization, and their actions, are what the goals of the organization actually are.
- nomel 3y ago
  > The people running the organization, and their actions, are what the goals of the organization actually are. Obviously. Are you suggesting that one can’t appreciate those? Or that this is some secret? Maybe the communication in the orgs you’ve been with has been poor?
- Frondo 3y ago
  Or as the great Stafford Beer put it, the purpose of a system is what it does.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  No, I’m not at BigCo, at least not in anything at all close to the scale of of FAANG. But I do work in an industry where even the C-level people usually (not always) have at least a little interest in truly pursuing mission <X> I know this for a fact because even though I am not at all C-level or even the manager of a large team, I often have a seat of the table in the meetings where such people come together. Those meeting can be ugly, they can reveal how the sausage is made, to borrow that analogy. And I’ve seen how many (not all) truly are trying to get <X> done but doing so may require a bit of ugly sausage making to get there. And I’m not a wide eyed 4th year either. I’m a grizzled and usually cynical veteran in my field. My job is often to put out fires, or produce analytical tools or output of strategic importance, and also to sometimes to plug a major gap in operational capabilities. I’m not really a manger but I’ve earned a seat at the table when the highest people get together as well as when they interface with counterparts at other organizations. Don’t take that that to mean too much though: I may have a voice, but it is by far, very far, the smallest voice in the room.
midasuni 3y ago
What do you do when people decide to make the exact ama E mistake again? If you can’t refer to “last time this was disaster” (aka “I told you so”) how do you prevent it.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Avoiding the mentality isn't the same as referring to the past. With most people, It's perfectly fine to bring up the past in a matter of fact and dispassionate way, so long as it's constructive and not meant to shove "see I was right" in their faces.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  I can share a post-mortem in a non-confrontational way and have a discussion about it. Even if it often results in an “Oh well, I guess it won’t work”, sometimes it’s a highly productive conversation on how things could have been done better, and the person or team goes off to execute some new variation to great success. And sometimes the variation fails as well, but such is life. I try to engage with people in a way where even if failure is highly likely, we go in eyes open knowing the risk is worth it. Sometime we’re wrong (or I’m wrong, it’s my fault) but such is life. Not all shiny ideas keep their shine once they’re unpacked into an attempted implementation.

lolinder 3y ago

> Mostly because I like my job and the goals of my organization even if it makes bad decisions. Keep in mind that Musk intentionally turned Twitter completely upside down. Anything that people there liked about it before Musk is likely gone—coworkers, WFH, perks.

scott_w 3y ago

People didn’t leave because of the bad decisions. They left because Musk said he wanted “hardcore” people who’d work 80 hour weeks. Turns out masochism isn’t correlated with great engineering.

ineedasername 3y ago
I think there may be a disconnect between what Musk says and the reality on the ground. Enough so that I, given such a situation, would wait around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship. But as I said in my original comment, I’ve sprinted away from toxicity before, and will do so again if it becomes obvious.
- Timon3 3y ago
  If it was only that Elon had said it, I might agree. But he also had multiple rounds of layoffs (after lying every time and saying "this was the last!"). He had multiple horrible mandatory meetings forcing people to drop everything and fly over the country. He forced people to print out their code so he could review their work. Nobody good stays during ALL of this.
  - drzaiusx11 3y ago
    I wouldn't say nobody, there's likely folks held captive by H1B visas with limited options/mobility
    - Timon3 3y ago
      If you really want I can qualify my earlier statement, I thought it was obvious: GP wrote: > Enough so that I, given such a situation, would wait around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship. That means "nobody" is talking about the group of people who have the option of "waiting around a little bit to see how things played out before jumping ship". H1B visa holders aren't included in that earlier group, so I didn't think a further qualification is necessary.
    - Retric 3y ago
      H1B people can and do jump ship. The bigger issue was Twitter laid off so many people it was a poor time to look for a new job.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  > I think there may be a disconnect between what Musk says and the reality on the ground. Which runs against every good piece of advice that has ever been uttered about leadership. Musk far overpaid for twitter because he wanted to be the center of attention and what better way to do that than to buy the network which gets the most attention from "important" people? He then took the Michael Jordan trope of "I never asked anyone to do anything I was unwilling to do" and tried to turn that into reality by sleeping in his office every once in a while. The problem with this sentiment is that the only employees who are going to stick around long-term in such a ridiculous working arrangement are those who either can't find jobs elsewhere or are terrified that they won't be able to find jobs elsewhere. So now you've got a highly toxic work environment full of people who are unconfident in their own abilities to get the work done, and Elon constantly pretend like he's some sort of business genius from the movies who just walks into a meeting, throws a bunch of turds on top of the agenda without having a firm grasp of anything, and storms off to light the next fire. It's fucking insane.
yieldcrv 3y ago
yeah its correlated with getting deported from the US if you lose your employer
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  I bet that most, if not all, H1B visa holders working for Twitter, would be able to land a job pretty quickly if they wanted to.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    Individually yes. It's less clear what happens if Twitter is shedding hundreds of engineers at the same time many other companies are freezing hiring or letting people go.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  H1Bs don't actually get deported for that.
  - habinero 3y ago
    Yes, they absolutely do. There are some serious penalties if you overstay your visa.
    - BurningFrog 3y ago
      In theory, yes. In practice, the immigration authorities have enforcement priorities, and deporting overstating H1B is very far from being one. As long as you don't cross a border, no one will come looking for you. Source, my immigration lawyer when I was in danger of overstaying my H1B.
  - Analemma_ 3y ago
    They absolutely do. I’m not sure why you’re posting this; it’s just demonstrably wrong.
    - 3y ago

rkagerer 3y ago

Thanks for your good work.

laserlight 3y ago

> goals of my organization What do you think they are?

ineedasername 3y ago
The organization’s stated mission, inherent not just to it but to all places of its sort, is <X>, even though, unfortunately, we often end up chasing <Y> instead. It’s a difficult balance: <Y> is in fact necessary to continually achieve <X> but there are times where decisions focus exclusively, or at least too much, on <Y>. But we live in the real world, and sometimes that’s necessary. (<Y> is not money though it has an impact on our financials) And also sometime people with a broader view see further than I do and those choices that seem wrong come around a few years later and it turns out <X> is actually better off for it. It keeps me humble, skeptical of my own certainty even when it seems faultless. But I’m also at a point now where people who pop up and start shouting <r>! or <f>! or something completely random like “Well how about <~€€€~>?” I can easily deal with: I go back, do a bit of the work I do, show it to the right people, and those shouts -disappear. Sometimes one gets through and it’s annoying, but whatever, nothing is perfects. Of course the above vastly oversimplifies things. There are many, many more variables to juggle along the way. But I hope it gives a reasonable sense of things. And I’m sure the “<X>” style notation of things in my explanation makes it harder understand what I mean, but I value my privacy, hence the abstractions of the factors involved.
- fho 3y ago
  > but I value my privacy I guess the way you abstracted will probably reduce your privacy (a tiny bit). At least I have not seen anybody write "<X>" instead of just X in this usecase. So either this is very specific to you, or is very common in your circles so you do it too. Both of which reduce the number of potential candidate if somebody tries to doxx you. Additional you (or your editor) uses “” over " which also reduces the number of candidates. (Not trying to attack you here, just thought it was notable)
  - ineedasername 3y ago

nathas 3y ago

Tell me you're in your 4th year at a BigCo without telling me you're in your 4th year at a BigCo. The goals of the organization are mostly a facade. The people running the organization, and their actions, are what the goals of the organization actually are.

nomel 3y ago
> The people running the organization, and their actions, are what the goals of the organization actually are. Obviously. Are you suggesting that one can’t appreciate those? Or that this is some secret? Maybe the communication in the orgs you’ve been with has been poor?
Frondo 3y ago
Or as the great Stafford Beer put it, the purpose of a system is what it does.
ineedasername 3y ago
No, I’m not at BigCo, at least not in anything at all close to the scale of of FAANG. But I do work in an industry where even the C-level people usually (not always) have at least a little interest in truly pursuing mission <X> I know this for a fact because even though I am not at all C-level or even the manager of a large team, I often have a seat of the table in the meetings where such people come together. Those meeting can be ugly, they can reveal how the sausage is made, to borrow that analogy. And I’ve seen how many (not all) truly are trying to get <X> done but doing so may require a bit of ugly sausage making to get there. And I’m not a wide eyed 4th year either. I’m a grizzled and usually cynical veteran in my field. My job is often to put out fires, or produce analytical tools or output of strategic importance, and also to sometimes to plug a major gap in operational capabilities. I’m not really a manger but I’ve earned a seat at the table when the highest people get together as well as when they interface with counterparts at other organizations. Don’t take that that to mean too much though: I may have a voice, but it is by far, very far, the smallest voice in the room.

midasuni 3y ago

What do you do when people decide to make the exact ama E mistake again? If you can’t refer to “last time this was disaster” (aka “I told you so”) how do you prevent it.

freedomben 3y ago
Avoiding the mentality isn't the same as referring to the past. With most people, It's perfectly fine to bring up the past in a matter of fact and dispassionate way, so long as it's constructive and not meant to shove "see I was right" in their faces.
ineedasername 3y ago
I can share a post-mortem in a non-confrontational way and have a discussion about it. Even if it often results in an “Oh well, I guess it won’t work”, sometimes it’s a highly productive conversation on how things could have been done better, and the person or team goes off to execute some new variation to great success. And sometimes the variation fails as well, but such is life. I try to engage with people in a way where even if failure is highly likely, we go in eyes open knowing the risk is worth it. Sometime we’re wrong (or I’m wrong, it’s my fault) but such is life. Not all shiny ideas keep their shine once they’re unpacked into an attempted implementation.