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Comment by productceo | Hacker News Reader

Must feel crushing for Twitter employees.

I am amazed Jack Dorsey is arrogant enough to "regret" the enterprise. He must be under a delusion that "he" built Twitter. He's completely ignoring the fact that "his" enterprise was paid for with money, time, and skills of other people. I feel sorry for anyone who trusted him and gave him their time and skills, for the years of their life, which they invested in him and now they can never get back, have been wasted on creating merely a regrettable impact.

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Why would you feel sorry for people making a ton of money working for a tech corporation? They know what they sign up for. Like, don't feel bad for Meta employees either or employees of weapons manufacturers either.

They are fellow human beings, and I wish for them to be both prosperous and fulfilled. That we have rewarded them with cash is no excuse for us to condone abuse.

So what if some Twitter employees feel bad?

I feel like you are ignoring the content of the argument here's which is about the drawbacks of a centralized web, and deflecting by talking about people's feelings.

There are absolutely drawbacks to a centralized web. And we can talk about those drawbacks without worrying about if peoples feelings get hurt.

Words of a leader, or a symbolic representative in this case since Jack Dorsey has left Twitter, weighs more heavily than words of other people.

You don't have to convince me to see the way you do, since I have no interest in blocking your discussion for merits and demerits of decentralized web. I also don't intend to convince anyone to see the way I do. This is just a reaction and a note for myself to never fail my people this way.

> This is just a reaction and a note for myself to never fail my people this way.

Yeah, no. It is not a failure to anyone, to point out the very real and valid criticisms of the centralized web.

Instead, I would argue that people like you would be failing yourself, your people, and everyone else, by ignoring very real and valid problems with the centralized web, to avoid people's feelings from being hurt.

> weighs more heavily than words of other people.

And if the criticisms are valid, then that is a good thing, and you are the one failing your people by being silent.

This is an incorrect interpretation of what I pointed out. I pointed out that Jack Dorsey worded his tweet in a way that invalidates work of his former team and brings their morale down. You are either following a slippery slope or setting up a straw man in characterizing my comment as suggesting that Jack Dorsey, or any other leaders, should have remained silent.

An effective leader of an organization will find and fix problems.

Managers far less experienced than Jack Dorsey, in companies larger and smaller than Twitter, are effectively performing this today without hurting morale of the organizations.

I hope you don't feel defensive in response to my comments. I wish to make a more accurate understanding available for you to grab. Whether you grab it is your choice and affects me in no ways.

> in a way that invalidates work of his former team

But if the problems are real, then it is good to point out those problems. You cannot just ignore problems, because it hurts people's feelings.

If people are doing bad things, that cause problems, then yes their work should be invalidated, on the basis of the problems that they cause.

If you do bad things, then yes you should feel bad about the bad things that you did. Because bad things are bad, and you should feel bad about them.

And you are letting everyone else down, if you refuse to condemn bad things that are happening.

You absolutely should feel bad about doing bad things, and you should feel like you let everyone else down, because you did those bad things.

> without hurting morale of the organizations.

If you hurt other people, and do bad things, then you absolutely should feel bad and you absolutely should have your morale hurt. Because you did a bad thing. It is good for you to feel bad about doing bad things.

And if you don't then you are letting everyone else down.

You are citing words from my comment, but you are debating against imaginary comments which you invented. I already clarified in my previous comment that what you are debating against is unrelated to my comments, and I have no further clarifications I can add to help.

You objected to people's work being "invalidated".

But you did not respond to the idea that if someone's work caused bad things to happen, then it should be invalidated.

That is directly related to your objection of work being invalided, which is actually not a problem because bad things should be invalidated.

Companies fix past mistakes all the time without publicly denouncing the team's previous work.

Apple brought back several ports in the new MacBook Pro series after killing them several years ago. This was done in a confident manner under excellent management and public communication.

> without publicly denouncing the team's previous work.

But I don't see a problem with denouncing bad things that companies have done in the past. If a company caused lots of problems, then it should deserve the condemnation for the bad things that it caused.

It deserves the condemnation because it caused bad things to happen.

I disagree that merits outweighed the demerits in the case we are discussing here, but I respect your viewpoint.

This is framing the act of lying or concealment in order to protect ones own brand/image as a favor to those being lied to, who would obviously be crushed if dear leader turned out to be imperfect.

I believe your comment is a straw man argument.

I did not ask Jack Dorsey or any other leaders to lie. The idea of 'promoting deceptive behaviors' is a concept that you introduced in this conversation, not me.

Let me know if I misunderstood.

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