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Comment by alchemist1e9 | Hacker News Reader

No layoffs! You’re conditioned by mainstream tech euphemisms to think that from this post. geohot is straightforward type.

> We’re growing the team by ~5 people to help solve autonomy, improve the product, and scale up production. You’ll hear more about each team in the following posts from the head of each team.

> Check out our new leaderboard and jobs page. It’s got some fun programming challenges that also happen to be hiring challenges.

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> You’re conditioned by mainstream tech euphemisms to think that from this post.

In other words, mainstream usage would suggest the interpretation that these are layoffs but comma.ai is either ignorant of this, doesn't care, or deliberately used the language as clickbait.

When it comes to language you don't get to blame "mainstream euphemisms" for your own failure to communicate—you work with the language that people actually speak or you risk miscommunication.

I completely agree. Communicating in this way is definitely not being "straightforward". It's either ignorant and tone deaf or just snarky.

OK, this thread has generally been shitting on comma, but this comment broke the camel's back for me. Is your line of reasoning seriously "other companies misuse words to cushion their shittiness" -> "Comma used the words as they are meant, and didn't have any shittiness to need to hide" -> "we're used to everyone misleading us with those words and Comma didn't" -> "Comma is misleading us by not misleading us"?

That's... an amazing syllogism.

I frankly don't care about Comma at all, I care about language. When most people reading a bit of writing interpret it one way, they're right and the author is wrong. That's all.

For you

most people = people in the corporate tech bubble

That’s the issue.

Yes, if most of the people who will be reading your press release will misinterpret it you have a problem. Audience matters, and if you dismiss your audience as a "bubble" you will fail to communicate with them.

Maybe consider the possibility it’s intentional. Basically by writing this way he got rid of all the annoying people! It’s a filter to only get the attention of beyond the surface thinkers.

The way I see it, "the language that people actually speak" didn't include refactoring as a euphemism for firing people; it's something corporations came up with. Now we have someone who tries to eschew this euphemism. I think it's a good thing. Using words in their plain meaning makes for a clear communication.

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