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Comment by defen | Hacker News Reader

> Then said Jesus unto him, "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".

I'm a big fan of Eric Lippert's work, but this blog post comes across as whiny and evinces a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement. This is a person who voluntarily chose to get paid (I can only assume) a very large amount of money to work on something that he found to be exciting and fulfilling. The only catch: it all belonged to Mark Zuckerberg.

Why does Mark Zuckerberg owe him an explanation for why his services are no longer needed? Why does he think that the decision process should be visible and rational (cost vs benefit) to him? It suggests that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Instead of being "vexed" that he was fired instead of the people building toys for Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps he should be thankful for the two years he spent working on the PPL team.

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Have you ever been laid off?

Me neither until about a month ago. Let me tell you - it's awful. I've watched myself and many coworkers go through the process of emotionally accepting it.

Some people want to know what algorithm or decision-making picked them for the chopping block. Some out of a desire to know that it wasn't performance-related, others to know the mechanics because maybe it feels like you'll be able to avoid it next time, or at least see it coming.

Some are just mad. Mad that their hard work went unappreciated, mad that their lives have been upended at the whims of a handful of rich people (who take full responsibility of course), mad that they have to change life plans and go through our industry's stupid interviewing process.

Some are very sad - it's deflating and depressing to be plugged into the fast-paced, high pressure environments these places cultivate and then just be told the next day you'll be doing... nothing. (Not here, anyway!) And pulling yourself out of the rut means going over the bed of nails that is job-seeking.

I was personally mostly in the first group. I think I'm mostly accepted it now. Except for while I'm in the shower - then I'm just mad at it all.

Anyway, my point is, everyone deserves the space to emotionally process this stuff, and I don't think you should look down on his own version of the process.

No, because I've deliberately chosen to accept a lower salary (by working for myself) in exchange for greater personal autonomy, owning my work output, and the freedom to talk about whatever I want.

I've been laid off with a week's notice. 4 years of my work very likely thrown away (including the part that I'd always been told would be open-sourced Real Soon Now). Pretty sure I got less notice and less severance than this guy. I agree with GP that complaining about it publicly feels whiny and entitled.

This comment conveys to me Asperger's levels of superrational thinking and lack of empathy. "How could someone be resentful at losing their job to a nonsensical decision making process? How could someone possibly be frustrated to be shown zero gratitude for their very profitable work for someone else? I simply don't understand, on paper it is the logical outcome." Okay spock.

He can feel however he likes; nothing compelled him to post it publicly for all the world to read and comment.

> How could someone be resentful at losing their job to a nonsensical decision making process? How could someone possibly be frustrated to be shown zero gratitude for their very profitable work for someone else?

He chose to work for Mark Zuckerberg. He wishes he could continue working for Mark Zuckerberg, in order to make Mark Zuckerberg richer. Perhaps you can understand why I don't have a lot of empathy.

> He wishes he could continue working for Mark Zuckerberg, in order to make Mark Zuckerberg richer.

He never said that this is why he wants to continue working at Meta. People do have other reasons for wanting to work there.

> He can feel however he likes; nothing compelled him to post it publicly for all the world to read and comment.

He has a blog. He can post any thing he likes, any time he likes. As can anyone here who can manage to put together a blog.

Nor did anything compel you to read it, or post whiny comments here!

I did choose to work for Facebook. The pitch I was given seven years ago was that (1) the mission of the company is to lower costs of building community and connecting people; running an ad-funded social media platform is the means to that end. That's not a mission that is super important to me, but I can respect it. And (2) FB is the company that is investing heavily in advancing modern developer tools outside of the Microsoft ecosystem. That is a mission that is important to me.

Your statement that I wish I could continue to work for and enrich Zuck is false. I was regretted attrition.

Your lack of empathy is clear.

I don't think my comments are particularly whiny; that comes across as a "no, you" response. I'll accept callous but I don't wish you harm, in fact I hope you find success and fulfillment in your post-Facebook career.

> Your statement that I wish I could continue to work for and enrich Zuck is false. I was regretted attrition.

Perhaps you should make it more clear in the blog post that you left of your own accord. People who are not familiar with the Facebook org chart might not understand that when you say "My team — Probabilistic Programming Languages — and indeed entire “Probability” division were laid off a couple weeks ago" that you yourself are not included in that set of people who were laid off.

Perhaps you should make it more clear in the blog post that you left of your own accord.

No kidding. I just spent 30 minutes reading both Eric's blog post and this HN thread with a (very) wrong idea in mind.

I think the distinction is between 'feels bad' and 'makes this post'. I totally get why someone would feel bad about this, even despite the upfront agreement and the paycheck. I don't really get the post, especially if this can impact future career prospects (I've seen people judged for less). I've had negative emotional reactions to things that were entirely my fault and acted irrationally to them, but only privately. I think the distinction here is not in his negative feelings, those are easily to empathize with, but in the post itself and how it publicly portrays those feelings.

I appreciate the sentiment behind your post, but in the future could we all please not conflate "neurodivergent people's difficulties in expressing empathy" with "being a jerk on the internet"?

I've had many gentle, kind, thoughtful and loving friends, classmates and coworkers who have lived with autism, and it's unfair and unkind to compare them to internet trolls. Thanks!

> his blog post comes across as whiny and evinces a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement.

You see, most of us actually care about our work and hate to see it thrown away.

> Instead of being "vexed" that he was fired instead of the people building toys for Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps he should be thankful for the two years he spent working on the PPL team.

Again, you don't understand how normal people work.

Normal people would be sad to see work they cared about passionately and had sunk thousands of hours into being thrown away, particularly when it's being done for no good reason.

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Your post comes off as callous. You claim to be a "big fan" of this guy's work, and yet you mock him repeatedly for caring when that very same work is thrown into the garbage.

I suggest cultivating compassion for others, particularly people you are big fans of.

I am very thankful for that opportunity. I learned so much from my colleagues! And they were genuinely great people to work with.

I was well compensated, it's true. It's also true that for every $1000 I was paid, I lowered FB's costs by about $4000. The argument that I should be eternally grateful to Zuck for allowing me to keep a quarter -- before taxes! -- of the profit that accrued to him for writing zero lines of compiler code while he keeps the other three quarters is maybe not the strong argument you think it is.

Why did you work for him if you weren't happy with the arrangement? Surely you had other options. You're one of the most talented people in one of the most highly-paid/profitable fields, one with very few institutional barriers to advancement (licensing, accreditation, educational requirements, etc). You made a bad deal with the devil, and now you're upset about it? You were either willfully ignorant of, or did not care, about the ill effects Facebook has on the world. You just wanted to work on cool tech shit and get paid a lot of money. Why should anyone look at your experience as anything other than a cautionary tale?

I am guilty of that as well.

I somehow value my time more than the money. I think that I have some kind of stake/interest in things I dedicated my time to.

Though I am always thankful (as Eric is in this post) for the people and the income. I can't help but feel regretful as the product of my time and dedication is discarded.

>Why does he think that the decision process should be visible and rational (cost vs benefit) to him?

Good leaders spell out the why. For one, it’s just decency. Secondly, if you care even a little about a subordinate, you want them to succeed after leaving. This feedback helps them understand any missteps they can avoid later. Thirdly, removing uncertainty reduces stress. It reminds me of the study about mice and electric shocks. The mice who were randomly shocked with no rhyme or reason became helpless because of the uncertainty in their life.

Nobody is entitled to good leadership, but most can understand why it’s necessary.

I don't think that top-tier academic talent thinks like that. Yes, there is usually a conscious element of "I am grateful to the people who have supported my work", but the obsequious mentality you're describing is one that I've never, ever observed in high-performing academic leaders working in corporations. Please provide counter-examples if any come to mind!

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