Comment by choppaface | Hacker News Reader

Comment by choppaface | Hacker News Reader

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Well "forced to execute" is somewhat subjective. If you are convinced leadership is doing the "wrong thing," then best to either leave or accept that you're just collecting your paycheck.

In the case of Twitter, the new owner has thoroughly broken the advertising business and is trying to aggressively pursue a new version of the data business Twitter once had-- E.g. Google's Caffeine, which Twitter also eventually lost https://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-change-... ... The statements about "too many scrapers" are almost certainly as illegitimate as the previous pre-acquisition statements about "too many bots."

The nature of business is that there's no judiciary or referee... the purpose of a business is to make money. Tech businesses just happen to hire lots of academically-oriented engineers who developed their skills in a different environment. It's possible to build a culture of "fairness" in a business, but at the end of the day even Google dropped "don't be evil."

> Well "forced to execute" is somewhat subjective. If you are convinced leadership is doing the "wrong thing," then best to either leave or accept that you're just collecting your paycheck.

Я, Unless your visa is sponsored by your employer.

And you have a young family.

And it's a tough market where 5% of IT engineers across the board have recently been let go.

Even non visa holders at Twitter have had to wait it out, sometimes months, until a suitable job was found.

Cry me a river, IT workers especially the ones working for SV companies are one of the most privileged people out there.

Everybody has an opportunity cost against losing their job. And employees do have Rights but the right to have technical initiatives adjudicated against stupidity is not one of them.

The OP is fundamentally wrestling with an issue of justice, but the bottom line is that in business there is no punishment for stupid. There is only reward for profit.

If your visa is sponsored, you should be especially prepared to execute even if the leadership is doing the wrong thing, at least until you have an alternative. Being hired on visa means having less contractual power, and there's no way around it.

I don't understand why anyone, at any job that is not C-level, has an attitude of anything other than collecting your paycheck. I care about my professional reputation and my career, but I don't care at all about the well-being of the company that has hired me to perform some task. I will advise to the best of my ability, but if they blow themselves up, why should I lose any sleep? That's their problem, not mine.

Detaching myself emotionally from my employer was one of the best things I've ever done for my mental health. When I was young I got upset when "the company" made bad decisions. Now I feel no negative emotion about it, sometimes I laugh at them.

This is healthy but some of us find themselves in a position where caring about the company has tangential benefits like bonuses, stock options, que promotions and other objectives with a well defined incentive for you to personally care about it.

In my experience the difference between the average bonus you get by plodding along and the amazing bonus is either your boss likes you on a personal level or you killed yourself to get it. I have never seen a case where the $ difference between the average bonus and amazing bonus is worth the metaphorical "killing yourself" to earn it.

My recommendation is to recognize the stock options, bonuses, etc. as the emotional manipulations they are. Either perform the tasks or don't, but try to avoid getting emotionally bogged down in it. Instead, lift your head up and look around at the broader economy and make your decision based on that. Most of the time the fastest path to a promotion, higher income, etc. is to leave.

The better place to seek emotional fulfillment and validation is at home with your family.

Even one of the first 10 employees with single percentage digit options?

Buy a lottery ticket instead. Same result and less cost to you.

Wouldn't it be more efficient if Twitter just served as a broker for connecting scrapers directly to bots, so they didn't have to pay the bandwidth charges?

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