A lot of these "effective jerks" like Musk and Jobs are successful because they count on a lot of people "driven by the mission" in detriment of self-respect
The man is a billionaire. Toilet paper should have been way down on the list to cut.
Not everyone is leaving because these stories are greatly exaggerated and the experience of working there doesn’t feel anything like they write in the press
I see bugs I did not seen before. Mute function is working on and ofd. The new video feature has quite annoying usability bugs atypical for twitter. Threading is broken, so whenever someone makes long thread (and people I follow do them), my timeliness is cluttered with out of context thread tweets.
Ukraine was removed from list of countries for like a day or so, making it impossible for Ukrainians to even login if they had 2 factor authentication. Specifically their Twitter was malfunctioning for multiple days.
Some Asian countries had 2FA also disabled for few days. Their phone providers were cut off entirely.
The harassment on platform went super up, it not that discourse there would be super great before, but it became much much worst.
He didn't cut toilet paper per se, he just fired the janitorial staff which is responsible for replacing it in the restrooms. And then never got a replacement janitorial staff.
I would not want to see what state those bathrooms are in at this point.
Or you could just quit and keep your social network and business value intact.
Spreading poo-poo in the walls is for flat-squirrel eaters. Somebody will need to clean it and will not be Musk itself, so why would you want to made the morning of a coworker harder (and risk to be tagged as mentally unstable)?
Have you ever tried to make a squirrel sandwich? They don't particularly like being grabbed off a tree and squeezed between bread. The mayo gets all over their fur and they often bite. Much safer to run them over first and pre spread them.
What lesson would a business school teach? Don't make any spur of the moment decisions to buy a large public company while you're going through a divorce from your slightly age inappropriate C-list (nothing against her but she wouldn't be as famous as she is without Musk) electronic music artist wife/whatever (I don't know if they were actually married).
To me the real lesson has been one that's repeatedly been driven home over the last 7 or 8 years - rich people are just regular people with more money. They like to push some myths about ability or some other moral justification about why they deserve more toys than the other boys and girls. The reality is they might have a bit more ability than most, but not 100X+ more.
And they are really needy. They need people to pay attention to them and include them in all the controversies. If they start to feel irrelevant they get a divorce or go on an authoritarian bender. Failing to grovel before a powerful person is the greatest affront.
Whoever played Miles Bron would be good enough. He was not playing Musk by all accounts in that movie, but I have full confidence he would succeed perfectly.
One does not simply become a citizen, most have to convert from a work visa to a permanent visa (requires wait time + process), and then more wait time before being allowed to apply for citizenship. So there’s workers at twitter who can’t merely say “the boss is crazy, I’m out of here”. They have to line up another job and get their visa in order before they can go. No one is asking you to care or treat people differently, though people might judge you based on the thoroughness of your understanding & compassion for the situation.
Because a tech worker is highly skilled labor that would leave the country and therefore henceforth would not be available to the labor pool of said country, which arguably will have negative long term economic effects.
This problem occurs precisely because foreign tech workers are being treated differently. You are also glossing over the fact that those tech workers are on their path to become citizens.
Pay a lawyer $7-$14k, maintain residency on work visa for 7 years (for which you have to fight 5 other qualified candidates for a slot). Wait months for responses from an overwhelmed government service for each phase of an overly complicated process.
You’re right they shouldn’t be treated differently. Everyone should be treated better than that.
Because the USA isn't a "foreign country". Its my country.
1. We have a worker shortage.
2. Immigrants are the kinds of people who drive new businesses. They're innately calculated risk-takers, as they've already passed the gauntlet of "Leave everyone I know to live somewhere else", and on the average benefit our economy greatly.
3. Sending these people home not only is terrible for their lives, its terrible for the USA. We have these visa processes because we've all agreed its better for us _AND_ them for them to stay around.
4. I'm sure the Twitter H1B workers were productive before this asshole bought out the company. I don't think our visa system / H1B system was designed for this scenario.
Do you know how long it takes to become a citizen?
I worked with a guy who came over to the US when he was just out of college. He went through the process as quickly as he could, and yet he was still in his late forties by the time he finally managed to become a citizen. A decade or two is not at all uncommon. And that's for in-high-demand professions where we desperately need to import that talent.
The "why can't you just" answer is almost always a big red flag that the speaker knows nothing about the actual problem or how hard it is to solve.
Of course, given Stephenson's ideology, it was a government agency doing this in the book, whereas in real life it turned out to be a large profit-seeking corporation.
If I was paying my engineers a lot of money, I'd want them focused on higher level issues than how to clean their asses after using the facilities. And I think the whole free food thing verges on exploitative/paternalistic, but this swings the pendulum a bit too far in the other direction for my taste.
Not a bad point. On the other hand, If somebody is being paid solid money for coding around complex logistics problems should be able to solve this simple logistic problem really fast and cheaply, and move on with their lives.
Is a transition period for the company. Not all must be perfect. Leaving a well paid job because toilet paper seems very poor capability to deal with frustration in a reasonable way.
>Leaving a well paid job because toilet paper seems very poor capability to deal with frustration in a reasonable way.
The toilet paper thing would be anecdotical taken in isolation but the reasonable thing at this point is to leave as soon as you secure another similar paying job, even if it's 1/3 less of salary.
Contrary to a lot of people I truly think that Musk has quite a lot of merit in the things he has accomplished. Just the fact of trying hard things should be acknowledged. But he has been unstable for a while, in a very obvious way. Who knows if there is some kind of medical condition behind. I know first hand of similar cases were erratic behavior was later found to be caused by some illness. Maybe it's just pressure or whatever.
Anyway, my bet is that most people that remain at Twitter are interviewing like crazy.
> Leaving a well paid job because toilet paper seems very poor capability to deal with frustration in a reasonable way.
Why? It is not like Twitter was paying significantly more then others. If you can get job somewhere where management dmxarws about working conditions and pays for clean offices or hygienic supplies, why would it be bad to go there?
This idea that employees with choice need to put up with management that don't care about normal office standards, else someone twists it into "poor capability to deal with frustration" or some other nonsense just don't make sense.
There's an article that gets thrown around here a lot I believe titled "The Elves Leave Middle-Earth" that I think is quite good, and a good analogy. Basically, it says that when the neat perks of working in a tech company start getting taken away by the bean counters, it's a sign of trouble on the horizon, and the Elves, the top talent, understand the signals and quickly move on. As I've said, I have some issues with the perk culture too, but when the TP is taken away, I think even the Orcs and Trolls can take a hint.
I was on team Elon, I wanted to see him being free speech to Twitter. First he started banning users who talked about Mastodon. After this post I consider him unfit.
You’re the richest man and you are cutting something as basic as toilet paper, you are a bimbo.
These are peoples lives and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, he’s a degenerate.
"Freedom of speech[2] is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction."
TP is much lower down on Maslow's Hierarchy than caffeine, of course. Tying up people with such basic requirements takes a lot of time away from 'hardcore' mode.
But, I get away from myself. This is all looking at Elon decisions through logic; something we know is not there.
I learned (the hard way), early in my 20s, to visit the facilities of every prospective employer and more than once I've declined to continue forward with interviews based on what I found. If they're not getting the fundamental basics of the office space right I don't have much hope for anything else.
I work at Twitter and this article is nonsense. Yes, he is cutting costs, but there is no problem with the bathrooms that I've ever seen. Can't believe no one here is questioning this. I thought people on HN were smarter than this. Disappointing.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadA lot of these "effective jerks" like Musk and Jobs are successful because they count on a lot of people "driven by the mission" in detriment of self-respect
The man is a billionaire. Toilet paper should have been way down on the list to cut.
Has Twitter services actually deteriorated? I don’t spend much time there
People on H1-B visas can only remain in the US for a very period if they're out of a job.
Ukraine was removed from list of countries for like a day or so, making it impossible for Ukrainians to even login if they had 2 factor authentication. Specifically their Twitter was malfunctioning for multiple days.
Some Asian countries had 2FA also disabled for few days. Their phone providers were cut off entirely.
The harassment on platform went super up, it not that discourse there would be super great before, but it became much much worst.
I would not want to see what state those bathrooms are in at this point.
Spreading poo-poo in the walls is for flat-squirrel eaters. Somebody will need to clean it and will not be Musk itself, so why would you want to made the morning of a coworker harder (and risk to be tagged as mentally unstable)?
If not, you will need to use that bathroom again. Why make it a mess for yourself and co-workers who did you no harm?
I wonder if any books or research will be done with it couple years... Seems like there is lot to unravel here.
To me the real lesson has been one that's repeatedly been driven home over the last 7 or 8 years - rich people are just regular people with more money. They like to push some myths about ability or some other moral justification about why they deserve more toys than the other boys and girls. The reality is they might have a bit more ability than most, but not 100X+ more.
Quite looking forward to them, to be honest.
Should they be treated differently than everyone else?
This problem occurs precisely because foreign tech workers are being treated differently. You are also glossing over the fact that those tech workers are on their path to become citizens.
You’re right they shouldn’t be treated differently. Everyone should be treated better than that.
1. We have a worker shortage.
2. Immigrants are the kinds of people who drive new businesses. They're innately calculated risk-takers, as they've already passed the gauntlet of "Leave everyone I know to live somewhere else", and on the average benefit our economy greatly.
3. Sending these people home not only is terrible for their lives, its terrible for the USA. We have these visa processes because we've all agreed its better for us _AND_ them for them to stay around.
4. I'm sure the Twitter H1B workers were productive before this asshole bought out the company. I don't think our visa system / H1B system was designed for this scenario.
I worked with a guy who came over to the US when he was just out of college. He went through the process as quickly as he could, and yet he was still in his late forties by the time he finally managed to become a citizen. A decade or two is not at all uncommon. And that's for in-high-demand professions where we desperately need to import that talent.
The "why can't you just" answer is almost always a big red flag that the speaker knows nothing about the actual problem or how hard it is to solve.
http://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/03/memo-from-fedland.html
Pay me lotta money more and I will care also of buying my own toilet paper
Is a transition period for the company. Not all must be perfect. Leaving a well paid job because toilet paper seems very poor capability to deal with frustration in a reasonable way.
The toilet paper thing would be anecdotical taken in isolation but the reasonable thing at this point is to leave as soon as you secure another similar paying job, even if it's 1/3 less of salary.
Contrary to a lot of people I truly think that Musk has quite a lot of merit in the things he has accomplished. Just the fact of trying hard things should be acknowledged. But he has been unstable for a while, in a very obvious way. Who knows if there is some kind of medical condition behind. I know first hand of similar cases were erratic behavior was later found to be caused by some illness. Maybe it's just pressure or whatever.
Anyway, my bet is that most people that remain at Twitter are interviewing like crazy.
Why? It is not like Twitter was paying significantly more then others. If you can get job somewhere where management dmxarws about working conditions and pays for clean offices or hygienic supplies, why would it be bad to go there?
This idea that employees with choice need to put up with management that don't care about normal office standards, else someone twists it into "poor capability to deal with frustration" or some other nonsense just don't make sense.
It's a pretty good illustration of knock on effects.
Pretty sure buying Twitter hasn't turned out to be the nerdy equivalent of a billionaire buying a NBA team he was hoping.
He paid 44b just to get rid of the government agencies controlling the news.
It's more likely someone cancelled it.
I don’t think this is true
Not true. Some people get diarrhea when stressed. Like me.
You’re the richest man and you are cutting something as basic as toilet paper, you are a bimbo.
These are peoples lives and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, he’s a degenerate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
TP is much lower down on Maslow's Hierarchy than caffeine, of course. Tying up people with such basic requirements takes a lot of time away from 'hardcore' mode.
But, I get away from myself. This is all looking at Elon decisions through logic; something we know is not there.
And why would believing a random comment from someone who doesn’t even share which office they’re talking about be smarter?
Especially when we know for a fact that Twitternisnt paying its office rent and has fired its janitorial staff in at least 1 office?