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I'm developing concern for Steve. He's been a well known developer and writer in the industry for years now (See his popular 'Google Platforms Rant' essay from

I'm developing concern for Steve. He's been a well known developer and writer in the industry for years now (See his popular 'Google Platforms Rant' essay from years ago) [0]. Now, Yegge's writing tilts towards the grandoise... see his writing when joining Grab [1] and Sourcegraph [2] respectively versus how things actually played out. I prefer optimism and I'm not anti AI by any means, but given his observed behavior and how AI can't exacerbate certain pathologies... not great. Adding the recent crypto activities on top and all that entails is the ingredients for a powder keg. Hope someone is looking out for him. [0] https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers/yegge-platform-rant.html https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers... [1] https://steve-yegge.medium.com/why-i-left-google-to-join-grab-86dfffc0be84 https://steve-yegge.medium.com/why-i-left-google-to-join-gra... [2] https://sourcegraph.com/blog/introducing-steve-yegge https://sourcegraph.com/blog/introducing-steve-yegge

driverdan 9mo ago
The Gas Town post reads like some type of manic psychosis. I hope he snaps out of it and gets help.
- dang 9mo ago
  Please don't do internet psychiatric diagnosis on HN. I know that often the intention is good, but it leads to bad places. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22internet%20psychiatric%20diagnosis%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... (and I realize the GP was the place the line started getting crossed)
  - nahaaaa 9mo ago
    [dead]
refulgentis 9mo ago
He was right about Google in [1] when I was still drinking the Kool-Aid, in big and tangible ways that aren't discussed publicly. [2] is 100% accurate, Grok was the backbone / glue of Google's internal developer tools. I don't disagree on the current situation, and I'm uncomfortable sticking my neck out on this because I'm basically saying "the guy who kinda seems out of it, totally wasn't out of it, when you think he was", but [1] and [2] definitely aren't grandiose, the claims he makes re: Google and his work there are accurate. A small piece of why I feel comfortable in this, is that both of these were public blogs his employer was 100% happy about when hiring him to top positions.
- Cedricgc 9mo ago
  I should be specific. I think the technical analysis is reasonable and I actually enjoy someone staking on a big vision, which is why I saved these pieces. An example: "I’ve seen Grab’s hunger. I’ve felt it. I have it. This space is win or die. They will fight to the death, and I am with them. This company, with some 3000 employees I think, is more unified than I’ve seen with most 5-person companies. This is the kind of focused camaraderie, cooperation and discipline that you typically only see in the military, in times of war. Which should hardly surprise you, because that’s exactly what this is. This is war. I am giving everything I’ve got to help Grab win. I am all in. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish when you’re all in." This is the writing of someone planning to make a capstone career move instead of leaving in 18 months. It's not the worst thing to do (He says he left b/c the time difference to support a team in SE Asia was hard physically, and he's getting older) and I support taking big swings. I'm just saying Yegge's writing has a pattern. Crypto and what Yegge is doing with $GAS is dangerous because if the token price crashes and people betting their life savings think he didn't deliver on his promises... I like Steve personally which is why I'm saying anything.
  - tom_ 9mo ago
    This appears to be the coin in question: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ - up 222,513.21% in the past week! (And down 25.26% in the last 24 hours. But... suppose it goes back up again?!)
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 9mo ago
      4 hours later, the 24h change is down just shy of 90%. To me this looks like a classic shitcoin pump and dump.
      - tom_ 9mo ago
        Not a good look. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878
draw_down 9mo ago
I didn’t see the source graph thing, but the Grab episode always seemed odd to me. He wrote these breathless rants about how epic it all was, then quit after a year or so. I just figured the long hours eventually stopped being awesome.

driverdan 9mo ago

The Gas Town post reads like some type of manic psychosis. I hope he snaps out of it and gets help.

dang 9mo ago
Please don't do internet psychiatric diagnosis on HN. I know that often the intention is good, but it leads to bad places. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22internet%20psychiatric%20diagnosis%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... (and I realize the GP was the place the line started getting crossed)
- nahaaaa 9mo ago
  [dead]

refulgentis 9mo ago

He was right about Google in [1] when I was still drinking the Kool-Aid, in big and tangible ways that aren't discussed publicly. [2] is 100% accurate, Grok was the backbone / glue of Google's internal developer tools. I don't disagree on the current situation, and I'm uncomfortable sticking my neck out on this because I'm basically saying "the guy who kinda seems out of it, totally wasn't out of it, when you think he was", but [1] and [2] definitely aren't grandiose, the claims he makes re: Google and his work there are accurate. A small piece of why I feel comfortable in this, is that both of these were public blogs his employer was 100% happy about when hiring him to top positions.

Cedricgc 9mo ago
I should be specific. I think the technical analysis is reasonable and I actually enjoy someone staking on a big vision, which is why I saved these pieces. An example: "I’ve seen Grab’s hunger. I’ve felt it. I have it. This space is win or die. They will fight to the death, and I am with them. This company, with some 3000 employees I think, is more unified than I’ve seen with most 5-person companies. This is the kind of focused camaraderie, cooperation and discipline that you typically only see in the military, in times of war. Which should hardly surprise you, because that’s exactly what this is. This is war. I am giving everything I’ve got to help Grab win. I am all in. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish when you’re all in." This is the writing of someone planning to make a capstone career move instead of leaving in 18 months. It's not the worst thing to do (He says he left b/c the time difference to support a team in SE Asia was hard physically, and he's getting older) and I support taking big swings. I'm just saying Yegge's writing has a pattern. Crypto and what Yegge is doing with $GAS is dangerous because if the token price crashes and people betting their life savings think he didn't deliver on his promises... I like Steve personally which is why I'm saying anything.
- tom_ 9mo ago
  This appears to be the coin in question: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ - up 222,513.21% in the past week! (And down 25.26% in the last 24 hours. But... suppose it goes back up again?!)
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 9mo ago
    4 hours later, the 24h change is down just shy of 90%. To me this looks like a classic shitcoin pump and dump.
    - tom_ 9mo ago
      Not a good look. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878

draw_down 9mo ago

I didn’t see the source graph thing, but the Grab episode always seemed odd to me. He wrote these breathless rants about how epic it all was, then quit after a year or so. I just figured the long hours eventually stopped being awesome.