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I've said it before on HN (and was attacked for it), but I will say it again. LinkedIn is not a tech company, it is a bunch of business people who hired techno

by dsl 13y ago

I've said it before on HN (and was attacked for it), but I will say it again. LinkedIn is not a tech company, it is a bunch of business people who hired technologists to build a website. Sure, lots of good tech has been open sourced by LinkedIn employees, but none of them sit in decision making capacities (or Intro would not exist). THAT is the culture problem.

PakG1 13y ago
You seem to be implying that tech companies can have a higher moral ground. They're still run by people. Technologists can still be culpable even if they're in positions of authority precisely because they are people. Any other way of thinking is a gross over-generalization of people's ability and desire to do the right thing. Besides, even if they aren't in the positions of authority, technologists can still be culpable. I thought we already had enough examples in history of culpable people who were "simply following orders" to render such types of discussions moot.
jmduke 13y ago
The implication here is that tech people are inherently more moral than business people, which I find more worthy of attack than any derivation from that premise.
leoedin 13y ago
The premise behind intro isn't a bad one. The employees (technical) who built it were excited about finding a way round Apple's very limiting system. I don't think subscribing to a particular view of corporate ethics is related to your technical skills. The scores of highly technical people working in the defense and finance industries is testament to that. As a fairly technical person, I think Intro is a fairly neat product. There's definitely some implementation issues that mean that I'm not going to use it (I don't really want a linkedin advert in all my outgoing email), but I'd imagine it'd be pretty useful for some people. I already trust one large corporation with my email despite the fact I know they don't have my best interests at heart. Adding another one wouldn't be a deal breaker.
- rahulvohra 13y ago
  Thanks for the level headed comment! The LI signature is totally optional by the way: you can turn it off.
  - leoedin 13y ago
    No problem! I'd imagine it's frustrating to see something you've worked on be attacked for having an agenda that you don't actually have. As far as I can see, the approach you took is the only reasonable one you could have taken to provide a service like Intro. Hopefully you can deal with problems like the one outlined in the article!

by dsl 13y ago

PakG1 13y ago

You seem to be implying that tech companies can have a higher moral ground. They're still run by people. Technologists can still be culpable even if they're in positions of authority precisely because they are people. Any other way of thinking is a gross over-generalization of people's ability and desire to do the right thing. Besides, even if they aren't in the positions of authority, technologists can still be culpable. I thought we already had enough examples in history of culpable people who were "simply following orders" to render such types of discussions moot.

jmduke 13y ago

The implication here is that tech people are inherently more moral than business people, which I find more worthy of attack than any derivation from that premise.

leoedin 13y ago

The premise behind intro isn't a bad one. The employees (technical) who built it were excited about finding a way round Apple's very limiting system. I don't think subscribing to a particular view of corporate ethics is related to your technical skills. The scores of highly technical people working in the defense and finance industries is testament to that. As a fairly technical person, I think Intro is a fairly neat product. There's definitely some implementation issues that mean that I'm not going to use it (I don't really want a linkedin advert in all my outgoing email), but I'd imagine it'd be pretty useful for some people. I already trust one large corporation with my email despite the fact I know they don't have my best interests at heart. Adding another one wouldn't be a deal breaker.

rahulvohra 13y ago
Thanks for the level headed comment! The LI signature is totally optional by the way: you can turn it off.
- leoedin 13y ago
  No problem! I'd imagine it's frustrating to see something you've worked on be attacked for having an agenda that you don't actually have. As far as I can see, the approach you took is the only reasonable one you could have taken to provide a service like Intro. Hopefully you can deal with problems like the one outlined in the article!