Probably because there is no worthwhile business model. Selling single chips doesn’t work. And they tried bundling with cloud services to get it and that probably didn’t work. And by “work” I mean: Generate the levels of business required for Google cloud to care.
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rexstjohn commented on List of inventors killed by their own invention en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis... · Posted by u/craigkerstiens
This list is missing Guillotine from the extended “legend” section.
He wasn’t himself guillotined but for awhile there was confusion that he was: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Ignace_Guillotin
It’s locked otherwise I’d add it.
Another good one is the Soviet botanists who collected seeds and then starved to death refusing to eat them. I could see that can count: https://www.opindia.com/2022/01/the-siege-of-leningrad-russi...
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rexstjohn commented on Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/minimaxir
> I don't think that they can cut 75% at once, just the severance payment will be huge and they may not have the money for that.
What if the plan is just to scare away as many current employees as possible now, before the deal is completed, thereby minimizing layoffs?
I know a lot of engineers who have already left, but the prospect of a 75% cut may inspire more.
Heading into a possible/probable recession, it may be wise to secure one's next job immediately rather than waiting for the axe to fall.
You are correct.
If you lay them off there are lots of expenses. If you scare them off then they will leave for free.
He is attempting to shake the tree before taking over on purpose.
rexstjohn commented on Did this email cost Mailchimp's billionaire CEO his job? platformer.news/p/did-thi... · Posted by u/astorsnk
They probably have a layoff coming which is closer to 50% than to 10%. Does he want to be the one who does it? Probably not. Does Intuit need another CEO floating around? Probably not. He pretty clearly feels not much meaningful work is happening if everyone is focused on politics.
Does a mail platform need that many people? Look at the economy. It is related to this email sure, specifically it is related to his opinion on how engaged and productive staff are being.
This may or may not be your situation. He was one of the happiest people I have ever met.
I think you are feeling the default urge to look and feel productive all the time. I know exactly the feeling. It often looks bad and feels bad not to be hyper coding all the time.
The reality is that you may be, many many times, running some system which is mostly complete and your job is more of an insurance policy against the ultra bad things that happen if that system goes down.
And hyper coding is simply not required. And dealing with the psychological and social effects of knowing you are running at 10% capacity is overwhelming and hard to deal with.
It may be the case that this system may realistically involve very little work. Bug fixes and code enhancements. And that is actually fine as far as everyone around you is concerned, they may not even care. At all. As long as that system runs and you seem to be working.
So back to my friend who is now retired.
He had this down to a science. He focused on organizing discussions. So he would ask you to come to a meeting and ask you about some small detail of whatever he is doing. Then he would go: “wow, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s really something. Really great, let me think about that more.”
He would make everyone feel like a genius. Or host a group discussion with similar theme.
Then he would find some way to give you credit for your idea or suggestion. Everyone loved him.
After watching him operate for awhile it made me realize how much most engineers overvalue “genius intelligence” and being hyper industrious versus … seemingly very simple human to human interactions and the reality of how people think and work.
The reality is that the true performance criteria for you in the majority of environments is how much everyone around you likes you and thinks you are great. I realized that’s what this guy was doing after having +30 years of experience on me. And I assumed he knew something I didn’t about doing “deep career time.”
So if seeming more busy is your root problem, just realize that people:
1. Probably don’t care about what you are doing 2. Want to feel smart and consulted for their genius opinions 3. Given credit for something you are doing
If you do those three things, with the right people, your report is kind of irrelevant.
Does anyone care about this system? How does this system result in other people getting a promotion? If you figure that out, everyone will love you.
Your reports will read like; “had a discussion about best approach to unit tests with James and he suggested some important optimizations which I have made.”
You have scoped your problem as an “engineering” problem when it is realistically More of a “peer psychology management” problem.
As long as you are likeable, that’s what really matters imo. If I understand the situation correctly.
Elon musk would probably hate this answer. He probably realistically has a ton of people doing exactly this working for him. And they are his favorite people because they want to hear his genius ideas.