And the day before another day I post an ask on HN, and talk about 996 in China too, someone replays me that the reason people got 996 jobs in China is that they are low-level developers, and after twitter announce the 'hardcore', I don't know will this change his mind
It seems like a total farce. Accordingly, it seems like he’s being a complete asshole to thousands of people while making a spectacle of himself.
It means vanishingly little but this was what made me leave Twitter. His ineptitude around software engineering has made me wonder… If I knew anything about space or cars, would I similarly think he’s totally full of it?
The situation is grim. I don’t think his strategy will influence many other leaders, either.
It appears to me that Musk believes (or needs to believe) that Twitter has only failed due to incompetence. I don’t think it’s that simple though, and I don’t see any evidence that he has the competence to turn it around yet.
True words. Also, let me add: can we stop worrying about social media for a while? If it magically disappeared overnight, no lives will be lost and our existence would be the same, if not better.
I realized a large part of why I was using it recently was to follow my municipality’s elections, and I would have been far better served simply attending meetings and speaking directly with candidates. I did this a bit, but spent far too much time soaking in second hand information from Twitter. Why?! It feels kind of crazy in retrospect.
It doesn’t. Twitter’s product is not an engineering one of software or servers. And any revenue or cost improvements that are a result of engineering won’t be improved by sleeping on the floor.
It’s such a preposterous idea on its face. I’m open to being ignorant and naive, but as it stands, I find the entire picture totally repulsive and incoherent.
Even in the current market there are surely going to be more attractive options for most or all of the good technical staff at Twitter than taking Musk's new deal. After recent events I doubt there will be much loyalty keeping anyone there either. A mass exodus seems inevitable.
I wonder if Twitter will even exist as a business in anything like its current form a year from now. Maybe Musk has a bet with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to see if he can beat their record for causing billions in economic damage in the shortest time possible.
It's not even clear that the developers were falling short in any real way. The service has been working fine for years, invisibly rolling out features.
Just keeping things running requires a certain amount of knowledge and effort. F.Elon wants to do that with an absolute minimum headcount (or more precisely a minimum wage expenditure). That means actively driving away the most talented, in favor of those willing to flirt with burnout and deliver the most work per dollar. The model is basically a high-tech sweatshop.
Old, failing companies, with a crippling debt and leadership without any clue? Even if Twitter were to succeed, financials won’t work for people.
It doesn't even make sense in a startup. If you're not a founder with significant control and a big share of the equity then your chances of a FIRE exit are slim to none and it makes no sense to sacrifice your personal life like that for someone else's business. If you are a founder with a big stake then you need to be showing good judgement and making sensible decisions and the chances that you are doing that if you're putting in 72+ hours/week are also slim to none. Workaholics tend to be terrible managers and even worse executives and not just because they assume it's OK to abuse other employees by expecting them to be workaholics too.
I suspect it's worse for companies to do 996 and turn their employees one-dimensional, but Twitter will fail mainly because the CEO is mindlessly pulling levers, laying off staff, and throwing away its main revenue source, rather than just because he is making it hell to work there.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-March-2nd-Edward-Yourdon/dp/013...
Where is the financial payoff? Is there a real possibility of a life changing exit? You need to actually believe in leadership's vision. Is the effort worth it? Do they even have a workable plan or are they just doing random things?
A social media is not a car or a rocket. People went to Twitter for its freedom. And now that freedom is migrating in flocks to Mastodon.
So no, US won't be China 2.0 They have already been.
Someone who works for him will hopefully provide objective insight.
