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Honest advice, probably to Kurt rather than you, is you need better processes, accountability and (probably) communication in your company. The tone of your rep

Honest advice, probably to Kurt rather than you, is you need better processes, accountability and (probably) communication in your company. The tone of your reply (and other communications from fly.io) is reflective of the lack of those things given the public sentiment regarding fly.io. At 60+ employees and so many issues that tone goes from humanly endearing to indicative of a non-scaling business. Other replies indicate you don't want the things (process, oversight, etc.) that a growing B2B business needs to really succeed which is not a good sign. Sure there's a cost to that corporate-ness and you want to minimize that cost but it's also a necessary evil for the business you're in at the scale you're at. If something breaks once it's an accident, if it breaks twice it's bad luck but if it breaks down three times it's broken processes. Based on the comment here things break at fly.io a lot more often than three times.

tptacek 3y ago
I'm just a person on Hacker News that happens to be at Fly.io; as I've said before, it's probably reasonable to think of me as an HN person first, and a Fly.io person second. My tone is my tone, and has been for the many years I've participated in this community. I got back from an evening out, saw that we were on the front page, poked around a little to find out what the hell was going on, and did my best to add some context. That's all. If you're reading my comments on HN as some kind of official response from the company, you've misconstrued them.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  > If you're reading my comments on HN as some kind of official response from the company, you've misconstrued them. For what it’s worth, this is the reason most companies eventually restrict their employees from making statements about the company; It doesn’t matter if you thought it was clear that is was unofficial, any statement from an employee in a position of power (such as someone with access to the control panel) will be perceived as a communication from the company. You may have intended it to be a personal remark about your job, but there are a lot of people in this thread looking for any communication they can get about the company. When you step in to fill that void as a person who appears to have access and power within the company, you are the official communication whether you intend to be or not.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Maybe I'll get restricted someday!
    - urduntupu 3y ago
      For the sake of fly.io, you should either restrict yourself and not respond or, if you can't resist, make it crystal clear, that you DO NOT represent fly.io. Your first message can and will be misunderstood and it DOES throw a poor light on fly.io. I am a paying customer of fly.io, on the Scale plan.
      - tptacek 3y ago
        Please feel free to reach out directly with your concerns. I'll certainly read any email you send me.
- fdsadsaf 3y ago
  TBH I thought you were replying as the CEO of fly.io since 1) I've seen them post here before, 2) I have no idea how big fly.io's staff is and 3) your post didn't otherwise describe who you were. It doesn't look like I was the only one to be confused. If you had said "thoughts are my own; I just work there" or something I think it would have been more clear.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  It seems you took my comment personally but it was about not just your comments but the overall tone of the fly.io communication (see recent blog post regarding funding) and approach to issues (three days of silence on a dead instance). You view processes and guidelines as chains versus as a ladder to help you climb a cliff. If the processes and communication was good then you'd know when you should self-restrict and when you shouldn't. You'd be empowered to make decisions within a framework that benefits fly.io the most versus being left to guess yourself. You'd understand why you should do that sometimes and why it's a better option for everyone.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I don't, but that's fine: it's not important that we understand each other all that clearly here, since all I'm talking about is how our public forum works.
camgunz 3y ago
For an opposing viewpoint: I don't want HN to become the place where corporate comms comes to bullshit us. I want engineers who work there to talk to us as peers, which seems like what's happening here. I get candor and humility (and playfulness, sure) from Fly's tone, which I appreciate. I get stuff like this is frustrating. But I bet Fly staff are pretty frustrated too.

tptacek 3y ago

I'm just a person on Hacker News that happens to be at Fly.io; as I've said before, it's probably reasonable to think of me as an HN person first, and a Fly.io person second. My tone is my tone, and has been for the many years I've participated in this community. I got back from an evening out, saw that we were on the front page, poked around a little to find out what the hell was going on, and did my best to add some context. That's all. If you're reading my comments on HN as some kind of official response from the company, you've misconstrued them.

Aurornis 3y ago
> If you're reading my comments on HN as some kind of official response from the company, you've misconstrued them. For what it’s worth, this is the reason most companies eventually restrict their employees from making statements about the company; It doesn’t matter if you thought it was clear that is was unofficial, any statement from an employee in a position of power (such as someone with access to the control panel) will be perceived as a communication from the company. You may have intended it to be a personal remark about your job, but there are a lot of people in this thread looking for any communication they can get about the company. When you step in to fill that void as a person who appears to have access and power within the company, you are the official communication whether you intend to be or not.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Maybe I'll get restricted someday!
  - urduntupu 3y ago
    For the sake of fly.io, you should either restrict yourself and not respond or, if you can't resist, make it crystal clear, that you DO NOT represent fly.io. Your first message can and will be misunderstood and it DOES throw a poor light on fly.io. I am a paying customer of fly.io, on the Scale plan.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Please feel free to reach out directly with your concerns. I'll certainly read any email you send me.
fdsadsaf 3y ago
TBH I thought you were replying as the CEO of fly.io since 1) I've seen them post here before, 2) I have no idea how big fly.io's staff is and 3) your post didn't otherwise describe who you were. It doesn't look like I was the only one to be confused. If you had said "thoughts are my own; I just work there" or something I think it would have been more clear.
marcinzm 3y ago
It seems you took my comment personally but it was about not just your comments but the overall tone of the fly.io communication (see recent blog post regarding funding) and approach to issues (three days of silence on a dead instance). You view processes and guidelines as chains versus as a ladder to help you climb a cliff. If the processes and communication was good then you'd know when you should self-restrict and when you shouldn't. You'd be empowered to make decisions within a framework that benefits fly.io the most versus being left to guess yourself. You'd understand why you should do that sometimes and why it's a better option for everyone.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I don't, but that's fine: it's not important that we understand each other all that clearly here, since all I'm talking about is how our public forum works.

camgunz 3y ago

For an opposing viewpoint: I don't want HN to become the place where corporate comms comes to bullshit us. I want engineers who work there to talk to us as peers, which seems like what's happening here. I get candor and humility (and playfulness, sure) from Fly's tone, which I appreciate. I get stuff like this is frustrating. But I bet Fly staff are pretty frustrated too.