4 ms·

Unlike when he very publicly fired an employee in the heat of the moment after his company was being DDoS'ed. I think the fact that Paul Graham, after applying

by mtrimpe 14y ago

Unlike when he very publicly fired an employee in the heat of the moment after his company was being DDoS'ed. I think the fact that Paul Graham, after applying Occam's razor, preferred to think it was done from a compromised account speaks volumes here.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Yver 14y ago
Occam's razor doesn't point towards the hypothesis of all of the corporate accounts being hacked and none of the employees reporting it. I don't know why anyone would believe it could be a hack hours after it was posted and nobody in the company reacted to it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
mathrawka 14y ago
Put yourself in his shoes for a moment though... your developer advocate brought on a DDoS. Whether it was deserved or not is an entirely separate discussion. It comes down to the person who is supposed to be helping get customers and grow your company did something that is bringing lots of harm. With that said... a "heat of the moment" firing does nobody any good, but I haven't seen evidence of the manner of the firing (perhaps I missed some articles that talked about it).
- bmelton 14y ago
  That brings about something interesting. While I completely believe that what SendGrid did was justified, what if it had occurred as a result of some other, more nuanced statement than the accusation in question? For example, I believe that the second amendment allows Americans ownership of AR-15s, which some people refer to as 'assault rifles'. This is a hot button issue right now, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the debate. If I posted something that somehow offended approximately half of our customers (assuming approximately half of the people fall on either side of the debate) would that be terminable? Where is the threshold? If I post it from a company Twitter feed? What is the right recourse if I said something that isn't particularly offensive to my employer, but harvests bad will from potential or current customers? Is "Developer Evangelist" a 'star-like' job position where I lose my right to privacy as a result of it? Note, all these questions are hypothetical, but I'm curious as to exactly what degree of nonsense a company might be expected to put up with.
  - enneff 14y ago
    > Is "Developer Evangelist" a 'star-like' job position where I lose my right to privacy as a result of it? I don't know what this has to do with privacy. Adria made her comments in the public sphere, seemingly to deliberately solicit attention. If you take on a role in the public sphere, you should expect scrutiny. I am a public representative of a software company in a similar role to the one Adria had. I regularly refrain from commenting on a range of socio-political issues to avoid alienating my developer community. It just goes with the territory. If you don't like it, don't get into Developer Relations.
    - bmelton 14y ago
      That's a very fair answer, and I thank you for it. I suppose, in regards to 'privacy', I mention it because at least early on, Adria was commenting on her 'personal' Twitter feed. Understandably that Twitter account is public, I'm sure at least in part because of her role, but at the same time, I routinely make comments on socio-political issues on Facebook or Google Plus which thankfully have better privacy filters (to my knowledge at least, I don't use Twitter for much of anything). Do you consider your role as an 'always-on' sort of position? If you're at a dinner party that consists almost entirely of close personal friends, do you still monitor your actions on the chance that the one person there you don't know might be a potential customer?
      - enneff 14y ago
        I watch myself whenever I say anything in public. That includes Twitter, as my Twitter feed is publicly accessible and I clearly identify myself as affiliated with my employer. The same goes for my Google+ feed, to which I pretty-much exclusively post public content. If someone were to trawl through my Twitter feed to make light of something offensive I once said, that's fair game. If I didn't want the world to see it, I wouldn't have put it out there. When communicating in private, personal settings - and this includes IRC channels populated by friends, dinner parties, and so on - I am unrestrained. If someone were to publicly call me out on something I said personally to a friend in a private venue, I would consider that a breach my privacy.
donohoe 14y ago
{{citation needed}} or put it another way - you're making a very reaching unsupported statement. You have no idea what they were thinking.
- rdl 14y ago
  pg actually did point out that he thought the initial statement was fake, and that maybe someone had hacked multiple channels. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 His sin there is having higher expectations of people than are justified by reality, which is hardly the worst thing to be guilty of.
- BlackJack 14y ago
  We're assuming these are fake, and that someone just got hold of their Facebook and Twitter passwords. pg posted that earlier. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- rosser 14y ago
  Downvoters, I think the "citation needed" was in reference to SendGrid's firing Adria in response to the DDoS, not to pg's take on the subject. And he's right; [citation needed] on the DDoS being the motivating factor in her firing, as opposed, say, to her dragging her employer into the internet shitstorm that she started.
mpclark 14y ago
Well, speaking as a publisher, I would also want to confirm this sort of thing with the company before disseminating it widely. Companies and livelihoods are at stake in situations like this.

by mtrimpe 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Yver 14y ago

Occam's razor doesn't point towards the hypothesis of all of the corporate accounts being hacked and none of the employees reporting it. I don't know why anyone would believe it could be a hack hours after it was posted and nobody in the company reacted to it.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

mathrawka 14y ago

Put yourself in his shoes for a moment though... your developer advocate brought on a DDoS. Whether it was deserved or not is an entirely separate discussion. It comes down to the person who is supposed to be helping get customers and grow your company did something that is bringing lots of harm. With that said... a "heat of the moment" firing does nobody any good, but I haven't seen evidence of the manner of the firing (perhaps I missed some articles that talked about it).

bmelton 14y ago
That brings about something interesting. While I completely believe that what SendGrid did was justified, what if it had occurred as a result of some other, more nuanced statement than the accusation in question? For example, I believe that the second amendment allows Americans ownership of AR-15s, which some people refer to as 'assault rifles'. This is a hot button issue right now, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the debate. If I posted something that somehow offended approximately half of our customers (assuming approximately half of the people fall on either side of the debate) would that be terminable? Where is the threshold? If I post it from a company Twitter feed? What is the right recourse if I said something that isn't particularly offensive to my employer, but harvests bad will from potential or current customers? Is "Developer Evangelist" a 'star-like' job position where I lose my right to privacy as a result of it? Note, all these questions are hypothetical, but I'm curious as to exactly what degree of nonsense a company might be expected to put up with.
- enneff 14y ago
  > Is "Developer Evangelist" a 'star-like' job position where I lose my right to privacy as a result of it? I don't know what this has to do with privacy. Adria made her comments in the public sphere, seemingly to deliberately solicit attention. If you take on a role in the public sphere, you should expect scrutiny. I am a public representative of a software company in a similar role to the one Adria had. I regularly refrain from commenting on a range of socio-political issues to avoid alienating my developer community. It just goes with the territory. If you don't like it, don't get into Developer Relations.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    That's a very fair answer, and I thank you for it. I suppose, in regards to 'privacy', I mention it because at least early on, Adria was commenting on her 'personal' Twitter feed. Understandably that Twitter account is public, I'm sure at least in part because of her role, but at the same time, I routinely make comments on socio-political issues on Facebook or Google Plus which thankfully have better privacy filters (to my knowledge at least, I don't use Twitter for much of anything). Do you consider your role as an 'always-on' sort of position? If you're at a dinner party that consists almost entirely of close personal friends, do you still monitor your actions on the chance that the one person there you don't know might be a potential customer?
    - enneff 14y ago
      I watch myself whenever I say anything in public. That includes Twitter, as my Twitter feed is publicly accessible and I clearly identify myself as affiliated with my employer. The same goes for my Google+ feed, to which I pretty-much exclusively post public content. If someone were to trawl through my Twitter feed to make light of something offensive I once said, that's fair game. If I didn't want the world to see it, I wouldn't have put it out there. When communicating in private, personal settings - and this includes IRC channels populated by friends, dinner parties, and so on - I am unrestrained. If someone were to publicly call me out on something I said personally to a friend in a private venue, I would consider that a breach my privacy.

donohoe 14y ago

{{citation needed}} or put it another way - you're making a very reaching unsupported statement. You have no idea what they were thinking.

rdl 14y ago
pg actually did point out that he thought the initial statement was fake, and that maybe someone had hacked multiple channels. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 His sin there is having higher expectations of people than are justified by reality, which is hardly the worst thing to be guilty of.
BlackJack 14y ago
We're assuming these are fake, and that someone just got hold of their Facebook and Twitter passwords. pg posted that earlier. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
rosser 14y ago
Downvoters, I think the "citation needed" was in reference to SendGrid's firing Adria in response to the DDoS, not to pg's take on the subject. And he's right; [citation needed] on the DDoS being the motivating factor in her firing, as opposed, say, to her dragging her employer into the internet shitstorm that she started.

mpclark 14y ago

Well, speaking as a publisher, I would also want to confirm this sort of thing with the company before disseminating it widely. Companies and livelihoods are at stake in situations like this.