> Fixes CSS to use non-bastardised spellings
The last thing I need a tool to do is to spread divisiveness.
126 karma · joined August 5, 2024
The last thing I need a tool to do is to spread divisiveness.
If you've actually read the whole article you'd realize that it's not an elitist take on what a strong engineer is. The opinions are quite reasonable and if you ask anyone you genuinely respect as good engineers you'll probably get similar opinions about strong, regular, and weak engineers.
From my experience, the more problematic ones are the weak _senior_ engineers and the tactics described in the article only scratch the surface of the kind of the tactics they use to keep that senior title and looking good in the eyes of clueless management. If your company is _keeping_ one of those as a mangers, you have basically screwed up the entire subtree from that node.
It's a pretty good article. My only criticism is that the author is too kind and too generous to the weak senior engineers.
I agree that after or during isn't a meaningful distinction. I honestly don't understand how anyone characterise that as "personal attack" and link it to "extortion".
> 89. Defendants’ extortion campaign included levying personal attacks against the CEO of WPE for not capitulating to his demands. For instance, on September 26, 2024, Mullenweg gave an interview on the X platform during which he gave the CEO’s personal cell phone number to the interviewer and encouraged him to contact her. She was in fact contacted by the interviewer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUJgahHjAKU
[Edit: Ignore this paragraph, see JimDabell and lolinder comments below] I watched the whole interview they linked to and don't recall that happening, ChatGPT also doesn't seem to think so based on its transcript. During the interview Matt did ask at one point if Theo would talk to Lee and Heather on stream, it was about giving everyone a fair chance to tell the story and I doubt that anyone can characterise it as extortional in nature.
Even it was Matt who gave the number away during stream (if it was cut out of the YouTube version) or off stream, it's a huge stretch to claim that as "personal attacks" as part of an "extortion campaign"...
> 90. Defendants’ attacks against WPE’s CEO have also continued in private. First, on September 28, 2024, Mullenweg attempted to poach her to come and work for Automattic, and falsely suggested that WPE’s investor was making her do something she did not want to do.
They screen capped just Matt's message without any context about what was said prior to that message? By September 28, 2024 they have already met many times in-person, too. I think it's just insane for Matt to send a text like but that just seems very out of context in isolation. If absolutely nothing compelled Matt to send that message then I guess it's possible that he's either extremely naive or he is a psychopath.
> 91. After WPE’s CEO did not immediately respond, Mullenweg threatened her the following day. Specifically, on September 29, 2024 Mullenweg gave her until midnight that day to “accept” his job “offer” with Automattic. If she did not accede to his demand, Mullenweg threatened to tell the press, and WPE’s investor, that she had interviewed with Automattic:
> 93. WPE’s CEO did not respond to Mullenweg’s September 29 threat
91 has very interesting wording: "After WPE's CEO did not *immediately* respond". In contrast to 93, they also don't claim that Heather didn't respond to the messages on September 28.
The screenshot of Matt's message on September 29 begins with this:
> Heather, after our extensive discussions about you joining Automattic, the offer you negotiated with me is still on the table.
So... there was definitely a conversation between the screenshots on September 28 and September 29 that lead Matt to think that they presumably didn't include?
> 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined.
92 feels like an assertion that's deliberately placed between 90, 91 and 93 to potentially make their claim seem more valid? I suppose "had never interviewed" depends what kind of evidence Matt can produce at this point if he's not lying; if it's all in-person and there are no records at all, which he pointed out in the interview with Theo, then it's unfortunate.
The "[had never] negotiated" part doesn't make sense at all if something was indeed discussed between September 28 and September 29.
> If you decline, on Monday morning, I tell Greg Mondres: > - Lee's refusal to negotiate terms to resolve our conflict > - your interviewing with Automattic over the past year > - I will possibly tell the press all of the above
I feel like the minority on HN that wants to give Matt the benefit of the doubt. Even so, that's a sure-fire way to get someone who may have been listening to you to turn on you.
If you're not going to call your lawyers, at least call Theo since he offered.
I can understand why comments are mostly negative given recent events, but I don't think it's fair to cherry-pick bits and pieces from a 2-hour interview with the aim to portrait someone in a worse light than he had already done for himself.
I personally don't think what Matt did was fair and I still don't think that after watching the video, but the additional context he gave certainly makes me a lot more sympathetic towards the complexity behind the situation for what we only saw the outcomes for.
If you don't have time to watch the whole thing but going to do it anyway, I recommend starting from 1:51:51 to set the tone for yourself.
The blog post happens to miss a few of the points in the original document that would raise a lot of eyebrows and I'm not sure that it's a fair take on "what it takes to run a massive scale viral YouTube operation" if it lands you in all sorts of management trouble and potentially criminal allegations.
Generalisations aren't inherently bad, thinking that generalisations are absolute truths is probably what you think is bad.
Some super minor feedback appended. All the best with InstantDB!
There is a missing word in the message that appears after clicking on the "Create an app" button:
> With that one-click you’ve claimed an id that you can use for storing your data. Now we'll show you [how] to wire up your db to an app and start adding data. Check out the walkthrough below on your left with the full code and preview on the right.
Also on smaller screen sizes there is no left and right. :)
I can see where that's coming from but that statement conflates many problems into one and sounds like the author has the opposite problem of just wanting mostly credit and not accountability?
- Many people who ask for permissions are genuinely asking for permissions to be given the chance to _try_ something that they believe may be the correct solution. You'd only be in the position to say now if you have the authority to do so: if you say yes, then you'd better be comfortable with being accountable for saying yes because... they trust your opinion enough to ask you in the first place? If you say no, chances are they will respect your opinion and suddenly it's no longer about permission because chances are, in a professional setting, they just won't do it because they trust your experience.
- If you work with people who only blame you for failures and don't acknowledge you for success, then it's a different problem? Anecdotal: the last job I had people rarely say "I asked [someone] and they said it was fine” — even if it's said exactly like that it's rarely about blaming someone else but more about adding context so that we can all come together to find a better solution (a lot of things get lost in translation especially when people with less experienced but well-meaning are involved). I do feel sorry for anyone who works in an environment where everyone is just trying to offload responsibilities onto someone else.
- If you're in a position to give permissions, then shouldn't you do that _and_ take some responsibilities for it even when the person asking don't expect you to do so? I don't think it's right for people asking for permissions use that as a means to offload responsibilities, but I also don't think it's right for people who are in the position to authorise someone asking for permission to do something to not hold themselves accountable?
- Following from the above, if someone is asking you for advice, then chances are you are not one to give them permission to do something but they respect your opinions, or they want to draw that boundary extra clear (again, just because someone is asking for permission doesn't mean they want to hold you accountable): shouldn't any reasonable person giving advice still hold themselves accountable for the advice they give?
- There is nothing stopping people who ask for advice from you offloading just as much responsibilities onto you than if they were to ask for permission. People who want to offload responsibilities will always find a way to do that — and it doesn't matter whether they asked for permission or advice.
- If it's not something that someone can just go ahead and do, even if they ask you for advice instead of permission, they still have to ask for permission elsewhere?
It's great if you are in a position of power where people come to you for both advice and permissions. If you're someone's manager then you'd better be prepared to give permissions and hold yourself accountable; otherwise, you'd still better be prepared to hold yourself accountable to the advice you give.
So I think it's important to figure out why the idea of doing that is daunting to you. Some common "reasons" are:
- People you interact with frequently tell you to not to do it.
- Not having all the skills to execute what you want to do well.
- Asking people for help feels embarrassing and/or is annoying to them.
- The fear of having your work judged by others.
- Losing the "safety" that part of, or all of, your current income offers; especially if you have dependents.
For most people (in the context of what you said), those aren't really good reasons—it's just because it's difficult to leave the comfort zone (nothing wrong with that) because that will require at least some degree of readjustment that seem "risky". With that mindset it's actually very difficult to ever find a good time to do what you _want_ to do because all opportunities appear to be risks instead.
On a somewhat related note, I think it's important to just do what you think is fun and show it to the world, but turning that into something that you can make a living with is an entirely different challenge.
Most people don't actually get to do what they love doing for a living; even if you do, having the pressure that is the expectations of paying customers and/or maintaining revenue could take that love away from you. That's absolutely not to say that you shouldn't—it's just something that's good to be aware of before you jump into it.