Twitter Android app dev fired: Guess it's official now.
twitter.com
twitter.com
It’s like purposely designed so you can take anything out of context, zap it to everyone worldwide, get angry at people you agree with, pile on, bully people. It’s so bad!
There's a number of subtle but vast pro-Elon takes subtly woven in, which I generally don't agree with.
But also, it loathes what I loath, which is that we're going to be hearing about this shit for a long long long long time, and the bias will be immensely one directionally negative. Which is almost certainly true. And, probably, for a long time, incredibly fantastically well deserved. But more so: this post questions the value of these proceedings. With that, I think there is truth... although it lends upon a pro-Fog-of-War notion, it leans upon apathy, which I think are weak responses, not good reasons for de-escallating one's popcorn munching tendencies.
I'd like to find a more general way to issue a call for moderation, or just a warning. The news is not bad, not slanted, but just attending to it regularly & dutifully makes us trapped in the cycle of news. There's drama here, a perpetual cliff hanger, and obvious damage & loss & redemption seems improbable (managing the world's most connected network is vastly more intricate & complicated than the much more directed & clear tasks of blasting shit into space). But most of this isn't really that important, doesn't really impact the long fate, even the dumb shit, and letting it take-over too much head-space is dangerous.
What I like about this post is that it talks about the long drama. This is going to be a semi-perpetual fixture of the news cycle. I disagree with a core point which is that the SnR will be low: I think a lot of the leaks & revelations & events will be very telling, very revealing.
But I'm not sure how significant or interesting or useful, as salacious & dirty as they are.
But there is enormous human resilience, & our ability to account for "will it matter" varies, and this is indeed a long game. This is the most inter-connected social network on the planet, by far. Short of real collapse or major fuckery, there's probably just not much that will in fact really change, for those on the network. For all the sound and thunder, storm and stress, it's enormously questionable whether there's any power here. The only noticable change most people can even imagine is ruin, is the end, and that's enormously telling, and also semi-unlikely. What has higher likeliness to change is what part of the vast capitalist system holds the reigns, who is "in charge," but this is a story of powerlessness. All this storm & stress is mostly, for the long forseeable, kind of pointless. This post, although pro-Elon, holds some hint of that perspective. How much attention we give, how readily we strap ourselves in for the ride, & bother with this long act of determining whether anything significant at all will happen, is the realest question. It's the ultimate social question. Does it matter?
I do think it's fair enough to read it as a pro-Elon take, to some degree. I find him to be a fascinating person, because I think there are many useful things to learn about building successful and important companies like Tesla or SpaceX, and I think most of his intentions are genuine (and good and correct). I think there's a lot of cynicism and misinformation and such around his companies that is mostly noise. I don't think it's true that he is dumb or incompetent, or obsessed with money, etc. If you watch a video of him talking about rocket engine design, you can definitely tell that he knows this stuff in great enough detail to be making low-level design decisions – he's always deeply involved, so much so that it's a difficult environment for many people to work in I think.
Now I also have lots of things where I disagree with him – I think he has lots of blind spots and is clearly in a right-wing info bubble (probably because of Twitter!), and I'm not sure I would try to emulate many parts of his workaholic management style, etc.
But also, I don't care as much about offering a moral judgement on him as a person, I can't change him. What's interesting to me is what can be learned. What things he does that are remarkably effective, and why. And conversely, what he does that really pisses people off in such a way that they are likely to ignore those things because they were upset by unrelated things he's said. It's okay to write him off, I understand why people do that, but I want to learn from it!
I would say that I have no idea whether he will be successful with Twitter, but I think he has a decent enough track record with his other companies. But that may not be enough, they are very different companies. And he really has put himself in a pickle, since he's not really acquired a company in the same way, let alone one that has such mindshare. He's certainly dragging his reputation and Twitter's reputation through the mud. But my take is also that Twitter has always been a product that is particularly well-designed to make useful discourse difficult or impossible, and to amplify drama and misinformation. And despite being a platform most people seem to dislike and doesn't have tons of users, it's currently locked in a negative-feedback loop with the news media, and disproportionately influential on the world. I think that's a really bad thing. I would be happy enough if Elon craters it, but I suppose it's also good if he fixes it somehow. It seems ultimately quite important that there is some way for society to have discussions at civilization-scale about what is important to us. Pre-Elon Twitter was not the right platform for that, so destroying it or replacing it is absolutely fine with me.
The most we can do is enjoy the comedic content while it lasts, I personally had a really great time reading these: r/RealTwitterAccounts
So Musk then fired him with a Tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592186302379982849
2 - no matter what, as a manager you are the "face" of the team and while internally you are in charge of letting people know what's wrong in their code etc ... It is extremly bad form to push the problem down to the members of your team when talking in a public facing situation. You're the manager, it's your team, you're the face, and you're also the face of the problems. No matter how deep down or high up in the chain you are, if you manage a team and behave like what Elon did in the original tweet this guy answers to, I guarantee you no one on your team respects you.
3 - the guy is in a firing spree to try and justify his overpriced unwanted purchase, and then goes on to take a dump on the work of this engineer in public with a factually wrong comment. No matter if you're my employer, you have no right to damage my reputation based on false allegations in public just to help your ego.
Pretty much seems to be a universally bad idea no matter who your boss is, but if your boss is Elon Musk…there is literally no other outcome to that action. He damn sure isn’t going to thank you for setting him straight and promote you.
This dude had to know and expect these consequences and this was an intentional publicity grab/hero syndrome deal. If not, he is just a moron (which kind of underscores Elon’s POV to be honest).
but then if you don't try to push for anything at work (aka doing anything more than what's expected of your role) that's quiet quitting
you just can't win
also elon musk owned twitter for like 3 weeks how the hell was that guy supposed to know that as a mere mortal you're supposed to just let elon musk shit on your work and ruin your reputation in public then fire you anyway after you stay silent
if every choice makes you bad then it's at least nice to get fired publicly so you can line up a new job in replies to the tweet that got you fired
Those employees don’t get to take their contribution out of the source when they leave—so while they might feel a sense of ownership, their contributions belong to Elon the minute they transfer them from their brain to the company property they are using.
I am pretty confident that publicly criticizing your boss and getting fired might appeal to a lot of folks on HN, but it’s not going to be looked at very favorably by most hiring managers out there.
if the "boss is always right or quit" thing is right then wouldn't hiring managers also have a problem if your boss publicly insults your work? you're doomed either way, self-defense or not! but so far what you're saying does not seem to hold true - replies to fired engineers are full of kindness and job offers.
First, I made no such claim about coding, work, art, capitalism, or otherwise so lets not try and put words into my mouth that was never said, or even implied.
Second, if you are an artist and someone has paid and is continuing to pay you to generate more art…if you cannot handle their criticism (valid or not) of that art, you have the choice to leave and go elsewhere to create art on your own, or find another benefactor that appreciates you.
My criticism is not of these two engineers, they did what they did and I frankly don’t care. Their actions resulted in an obvious and expected consequence that would have happened anywhere and for any other boss. My criticism is for the people here on HN who feel that they should not have been fired. That is frankly ridiculous.
Edit: "guy is smart" probably should be "guy is technically competent". I am sure Elon is smart, I think he is being Phony while acting technically competent in every area.
At that point, you can either (A) stop selling models that you actually make a profit from and risk your top spot on Forbe's billionaires list or (B) claim that "full self driving" really meant "driver assistance" this whole time [2] and cut whatever hardware isn't absolutely necessary to meet your lowered standard.
Elon chose option B - I suspect through some mix of self-delusion about the capabilities of automated statistics and knowing that he can continue to push the deadline for "full self driving" back another decade and pivot after his competitors have pushed the cost of radar/LIDAR down far enough.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12040753
[2]: https://www.insidehook.com/article/vehicles/controversy-tesl...
Which is why Tesla Autopilot struggles with left turns and has been stuck at SAE level two after a decade of work. Hell, Tesla Inc failed to automate their factories much beyond what other automakers already accomplished and that is for single-purpose robots in fixed operating environments. Yet Elon is busy selling shareholders on humanoid Tesla Bots that will be capable of running to the grocery store and getting items off the shelf ... someday.
People with a background in the hard sciences just don't do well when grappling with the soft sciences .
https://twitter.com/sachee/status/1592308273071681536?s=46&t...
If he fires all the engineers with a bad attitude it’ll just be the product managers left.
> i said it before and i'll say it again
> kiss my ass elon
Speaking of horse, remember when he told an employee he'd buy her a horse if she fucked him?
Literally the exact thing Elon Musks complains about except it's when someone on his side of the culture war that becomes a victim.
Would make me hesitant to hire that person knowing they have such bad judgement as to publicly badmouth the CEO of their company on Twitter. Even hiring managers who personally hate Elon have to understand that this developer could easily turn the same energy on their own company at some point in the future and make them look terrible.
Definitely a career limiting move, if not potentially career ending.
Unless you're in a financial FU position, and this is your grand FU moment on your way out the door, it seems like a bad move.
She is already receiving job offers, so how could you possibly come to that ridiculous conclusion?
I’m not in a hiring position but if I were I’d avoid her because I don’t want to import drama into my environment.
> lol just got fired for shitposting
I think it's okay to say "kiss my ass" after being fired. Especially if you think doing so sends the right signal.
She's been publicly criticising Elon for a few days now, and not in a constructive manner like the Android dev. I can understand why she'd be let go.
This seems to be the fireable shitpost:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922...
This is like his open door policy - go through it, for you will leave your job behind it.
Well, judging from the recent stories about Twitter’s internal environment and the public examples of criticism at Twitter, privately in an organization with no viable upstream internal communication and a culture of fear and retaliation is both impossible and likely to get you fired (immediately or on a list of targets by management) without your message getting to the top, whereas publicly your message is at least more likely to get to the top before you get fired, plus you are likely to have job offers in the thread, so, its clearly the preferred strategy.
Only one of them is wildly inappropriate.
> you did not just layoff almost all of infra and then make some sassy remark about how we do batching
>like did you bother to even learn how graphql works
>you don’t get to shit on our infra if you don’t know what the fuck it does while you’re also scrambling to rehire folks you laid off
Her background: https://sashatsolomon.com/
>I'm a Staff Software engineer and co-Tech Lead of the Core API Platform Team at Twitter helping build the next generation API with GraphQL and Scala. I currently serve on the GraphQL Governing Board as a representative of Twitter, as well as on the Technical Steering Committee for GraphQL.
Where I work it's in the contract that you don't talk shit about the company on social media. I think that's common sense too. I'm sure Elon is an irritating piece of shit, especially as a superior, but shit-flinging online like this is just not something I'd want in my company either.
Like I'm not surprised that they got fired because Elon behaves like a toddler but god damn if your response isn't to salute two people who got axed for speaking the truth then you have your priorities ass backwards.
Seems like many are going out of the way to frame it as nonsense.
It's dubious that this only affects some countries. Is it likely that there are some extra pieces of logic for some parts of the world and not others? My guess is yes, although it seems unlikely that the impact would be so high.
As for this specific issue only affecting Android - that was never the claim. Instead he asked an entirely separate question about Android performance to this developer who replied to the tweet with the original claim.
Overall, aside from this specific incident - his attitude towards the way the company way being run is extremely hostile, and has naturally upset a lot of folks at the company who were happy with what they were doing.
Personally, my view would be that if this happens and it bothers someone a lot, the honorable thing to do is to quit or sit back and watch the company fall apart and own their bet that the new direction will be a disaster.
If one is not on board with the vision and direction of the company from new leadership, quit instead of getting in the way.
Actively sabotaging the company's new direction is not only immoral but also reflects a mean-spirited attitude towards one's fellow co-workers who don't share that view. I have seen tweets from current employees calling their fellow team members bootlickers, etc. which I find to be quite vile.
Seems like some folks are likening the whole thing to a Cardassian occupation.
Now that Twitter is private the stock is going to be a lot less volatile. Work hard. Acquire users. Enter new markets. Valuation improves (once or twice a year). Cash out during a purchase offer.
If I were Elon, I'd be drowning the remaining loyal employees with RSUs.
There's no doubt, executed correctly, Twitter could be a $200 billion company or more. It's really an opportunity for the employees to make that a reality. Elon (like his other companies) is going to put the engineers in control.
Please, consider investing in some real estate. I have a fantastic property in Brooklyn and it is a deal that you would not believe!
Or a less sarcastic response... You mean he'll put them in charge after firing them? Twitter literally barely works right now. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusions you have, but they are unreasonable on their face.
Twitter was already losing hundreds of millions per year. They now have another $1.2-1.5 billion per year due in loan payments. Interest rates are rising. Advertising revenue is going down due to the recession and companies cutting Twitter spend due to the toxicity. And his big new subscription idea is already on hold due to impersonation and scams. If employees can see a way out of this, they must really be believers.
The fact is it's a team. Twitter has more than enough runway to get through this transition and turn things around. It's up to the team to execute effectively.
As for runway – that's public information as well. Twitter had $6B in cash and securities as of the last financial statement release. That has likely gone down a fair amount due to acquisition-related costs as well as severance payments. Keeping up with the ~$2B/yr burn rate, unless Twitter can turn things around fast (or get another cash infusion), it has about 2-3 years left in the tank.
They…don’t. Their last quarterly numbers had a hair over $1B in advertising revenue, and that was both a quarterly and year-over-year increase, so they weren’t making more than $4B/year from advertising before Musk took over. Their advance sales were bad for next year because of the potential of the Musk takeover, and big accounts have backed out, and big agencies publicly advised clients to back out of the platform, based on what has gone on since the takeover.
It wasn't. He structured the acquisition such that Twitter took on substantial new debt rather than providing the funds himself.
Was it a good move? Honestly I'm not savvy's enough about this kind of thing to say, but it definitely wasn't the only move.
A substantial part of Twitter's net loss is because he chose to saddle it with new debt.
That's a peculiar use of the word.
In what? I'm not sure I'd value private RSUs in current-Twitter _particularly_ highly, myself.
SpaceX is also now buying ads on Twitter, in something close to a direct cash transfer from the other minority investors in SpaceX to a business owned on leverage.
When SolarCity was on the verge of bankruptcy, owing SpaceX billions in credits, he arranged for Tesla to buy SolarCity and essentially bail out SpaceX. And yes of course Elon owned all 3 companies.
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592177471654604800 [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592178814993383425 [3] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1591853644944932865
Definitely had issues with abandoned / zombie services, but nothing that ever actually got in my way.
see also https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastruc...
https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastruc... "Structure of AdServer Microservices"
Many of these capabilities have their own “gateway” that defines an API for inter-capability communication.
Many of the modern features rely heavily on async messages and consumers that process those messages and events.
Some of these capabilities already existed as modules in a monolith desktop application from the 90s that has 1000s of “screens”.
If the only consequence for saying something reasonable but contentious is unpopularity then you have free speech, but if you can be punished (banned from a public platform, or fired from a job) then you don’t.
Freedom doesn’t mean “the right to” (that’s “liberty”) - freedom has to be “effectively exercisable”, and that requires limitation on any unjust consequences.
The contract Elon signed to acquire TWitter included promises on layoffs and the treatment of employees. This makes the employees what are called "third-party beneficiaries to the contract".
This is to say that in addition to legal restrictions on firings and layoffs these people can potentially sue under Elon's own acquisition contract.
What specific metric is being referenced here?
That may have been the case six months ago, but those “better jobs” are drying up and there is now I think around 20k recently released FAANG level SWEs walking around without gigs. Once the severance payout is gone and the COBRA starts demanding $1500/mo…there will be all sorts of SWEs willing to stretch their anti-Elon morality for a decent paycheck again.
Which is it? Can you run Twitter or an alternative basically for free? Or do you need thousands of employees?
I think it is becoming pretty clear pretty quickly that the alternative being run and developed for free doesn’t scale to anywhere near Twitter size at all, that’s one thing that’s for sure.
Musk also fired Twitter Infrastructure Engineer Sachee today for “shitposting”
“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”
— Abraham Lincoln
how much does it cost to run some microservices, what a tool
It's like the Emperors new clothes, we're all trying to see some kind of genius that just isn't there.
Here's some details: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/technology/twitter-musk-b.... Later when Elon sought to pull out of the deal, Twitter threatened to go to court to enforce that $1B fee, which led to the buyout proceeding.
Twitter did not sue for the $1b, but for specific perfomance, i.e. closing the deal.
I knew Twitter sought to close the deal, but most of the analysis I read claimed they could have chosen the $1B instead, as if both were viable legal paths. It appears that is incorrect.
I think you are victim to reading headlines and not understanding what Twitter went to court over. Elon paying the $1B wouldn’t have gotten him out of having to complete the deal.
Here’s some details: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/13/elon-musk-cant-just-walk-awa...
For example, Dan Ives, who is often quoted in articles about this deal, had this to tweet: https://twitter.com/DivesTech/status/1545527442491822089?s=2...
It appears that is incorrect.
Thank you for replying earnestly and humbly. I wish more did that!
AFAICT, it was very nebulous at the time that it ever would be a common holding company for those (and Musk’s other companies), and very good reasons were cited for being skeptical that that would be workable. And, to my knowledge, none of the other companies has been put under X Holdings.
Watching a jackass fuck up this bad is entertaining...
https://twitter.com/SixTwoPoo/status/1592202267977191425?s=2...
He decided to buy Twitter after his girlfriend left him and one of his children sued to never have anything to do with him again. He has blamed both of these things on "wokeness" rather than his history of broken relationships and his child's assertion of him being a shitty parent. This was apparently enough for him to pledge $44 billion to "own the libs".
He is absolutely this stupid.
The idea that having lots of money on the line prevents bad decision making, when in fact it can just as easily be evidence of bad decision making, is silly.
Elons biggest virtue is his stubbornness on two very successful bets, those two finance and cover all of his other failures (and successes) and character flaws. For now, at least.
He's always been a shitty boss and terrible people manager. But where are you going to work if you want to be around the sexiest rockets ever made? Or even the new hotness all electric vehicle? At least for Tesla, the appeal is diminishing but the market for hardware engineers and embedded is much different than general software and there is plenty of dumb people who think is cool to work under him, he has infinite cannon fodder to burn.
His biggest mistake with twitter is to buy a company where revenue is tied to public relations and being a person who despises public relations with a passion. There is no product to sell and optimize, he didn't get a good idea that needs polishing and perfecting, he has to come up with one. That is much, much harder.
Elon is not entirely marketing dude but also not really technically skilled. He is on a different dimension.
Does a person who invested 44B get away with minimal consequences if he brings the company down, files for bankruptcy? I am trying to understand the financial risks at play here.
But no, instead they started attacking the current owner of company publicly (good or bad, doesn't matter, he is now owner of company, if you don't like it just resign professionally).
Its been widely reported that internal communication is ineffective since the takeover, even before the mass firings which drove the expectations to managers have a expected span of 20 professional direct reports (exceeded wildly in some cases) and expected to also be actively coding themselves.
Musk could deal with that breakdown that he caused responsibly, or he could shoot the messenger and reinforce the thermocline of truth effect isolating him from knowledge of what is going on in the company he owns.
Imagined another way, if your manager went to Twitter to announce to 1,000 followers how bad a snippet of your code was, he'd be a jerk.
When your boss is abusive towards you like this, it's a good thing to stand up for yourself and/or your peers. I imagine each Twitter engineer responding knew there was a good chance they'd be fired for it.
Now if they handled it the "professional" route you mentioned, that's fine, too. But when Elon started the mudslinging with a lie, I'm not going to begrudge someone telling the truth with some sass.