Twitter at 1am on a Friday

https://www.teamblind.com/post/This-is-twitter-at-1am-on-a-Friday-ux2hFbon

96 204 4 years ago

Looking at that diagram, and thinking the person who needed it just bought the company for 44 billion dollars, is bewildering.

wskish20• 4 years ago

I see that whiteboard as a mechanism to help build a shared mental model for all assembled. Everyone there has seen some previous unknown revision of architectural diagrams, and has their own partial model of the system. Due to the urgency at hand, they all need to have a crisp shared model of the important parts, down to the naming of things.

HaZeust• 4 years ago

That's a hell of a hand-wave. But for Twitter's sake, I hope you're right.

mhh__• 4 years ago

If you need a shared mental model diagram at the 1am pseudo-crunch-a-thon then you're doing something wrong.

Identifying what you want to fix should be written down but the structure of the app should not be what is being discussed at 1am

tomlockwood3• 4 years ago

Imagine you're thinking about buying a 44B business and want to radically change its business model, and potentially, plan to fire a lot of technical people. What are the things you need to know to achieve this?

divbzero• 4 years ago

What puzzles me is that Twitter’s greatest challenges in recent years have not been technical. There shouldn’t be a technical emergency that requires an urgent call for all software engineers.

berkut2• 4 years ago

What diagram / whiteboard are people talking about? Is there more than one photo?

The only whiteboard I see is on the right hand side at the back, mostly obscured by people, and I certainly can't make out what's on it.

tomlockwood3• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593899029531803649/phot...

sdwr• 4 years ago

Been reading a lot of hate on twitter, reddit, and here about how elon is handling twitter. Personally, I love the energy in this picture, want to work at twitter more now than before, and believe they have a good chance of doing great work.

What I see in the picture is organic connection. It's really easy in tech for everyone to get siloed, working on assigned tasks without communication. Greatness comes from the shared spark <and then> head down focus.

I bet elon is trying to recreate the environment that worked at paypal and tesla and spacex. Scrappy, energetic, get shit done, not 100 managers with 100 tiny fiefdoms.

Kye• 4 years ago

This is after he fired over half the company and threatened the rest with unemployment if they didn't come in. This is not organic. This is coercion.

kcplate15• 4 years ago

Or…it’s separating the wheat from the chaff

thebigjewbowski• 4 years ago

I was also thinking that now would be a fun time to work at Twitter.

It would seemingly be a huge gamble as to whether it is disorganized with constantly shifting priorities or increased operations overhead but if there is a vision and the plan is to go balls to the wall to get it done, that’s awesome.

alphabettsy• 4 years ago

Does your last name perchance rhyme with Tusk?

memish5• 4 years ago

Er. How many of them are H-1Bs?

toomuchtodo2• 4 years ago

Per US. Citizenship and Immigration Services, around 300 employees at Twitter are working under the H-1B visa.

My note: I am aware of someone at Meta attempting to reach out to these folks to interview for offers to transfer their visas. Very kind of folks willing to do so.

Source: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...

yftsui• 4 years ago

This data apparently is not complete, if you search Amazon it returns 646 employees, a random Amazon high rise building has more H1-B workers than that count.

throw_m239339• 4 years ago

I am aware of someone at Meta attempting to reach out to these folks to interview for offers to transfer their visas. Very kind of folks willing to do so.

Meta is firing 11K people and freezing hiring right now.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/meta-to-lay-off-more-than-11...

Twitter will bounce back. For the people who are staying, this is a giant career opportunity to get a good executive job as the result. I'd stay in a heartbeat, even if it means spending one terrible year or two there.

user_named• 4 years ago

All but one or two

memish5• 4 years ago

How do you know?

rawgabbit2• 4 years ago

Looks like a death march to the bitter end. A suicide pact.

papito• 4 years ago

You do a Death March project once in your career, as a lesson. Just so that the next time you see it coming from 100 miles away, you run, run hard.

Like in this case.

Those who peaced out made the right decision. This is beyond office heroics or hustle porn - this is just a rich, long-time former coder, way out of his depth, trying to relive the former glory of the mad days of the Internet boom, abusing people because he is having fun with this.

pleb_nz2• 4 years ago

Why are they at work at 1am?

dragontamer2• 4 years ago

Musk called them in at 2pm on Friday for a code review.

pleb_nz2• 4 years ago

That's at 2pm. 11 hours before 1am. What is so critical that they still need be there at 1am? Whose going to die?

octopolus4• 4 years ago

to let that sink in

wskish20• 4 years ago

I like to turn it around an ask what opportunity I would show up for at 1am.

jsnell2• 4 years ago

It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Even given Musk's erratic behavior in the previous weeks, it would have been hard to predict something like this.

At a short notice summon the handful of engineers who survived the purges to the office at 2pm on a Friday and to bring 10 screenshots of code they've written "for review". With that implicit threat, have them wait until 6pm. Then keep them around until 1am to give a tutorial level introduction to the Twitter infrastructure to Musk (who could have gotten this months ago). There's just no legit justification for it; it's pure bullying and a loyalty test.

And then to top it off, have your pet venture capitalists post fawning tweets about how this really shows the classic SV energy.

bogomipz3• 4 years ago

"At a short notice summon the handful of engineers who survived the purges to the office at 2pm on a Friday and to bring 10 screenshots of code they've written "for review".

I wasn't able to read many of the collapsed comments since I don't have a teamblind account. Is that actually the context of this picture then?

jsnell2• 4 years ago

Yes.

https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593649356661436417

sys_647384• 4 years ago

Some people have families and a life outside of work. We sure as heck ain't staying until 1am for anybody.

kcplate15• 4 years ago

I have a family and a life outside of work, and I can’t count how many all nighters I have pulled in 35+ years of my career. Sometimes you need to do them. Of course I was raised in a generation that believed it was in our best interest that our company’s were successful…

sys_647384• 4 years ago

I've never done an "all nighter" in 30+ years and never will. I value my time and if a company is expecting such a commitment then they're taking liberties with understaffing projects.

lotsofpulp• 4 years ago

I was raised in a generation that believed it was in our best interest that our company’s were successful…

Unless I was given a ton of liquid equity for it, I would not assume it was in my best interest.

stouset3• 4 years ago

I have 20 years in startups and this is not normal.

rektide• 4 years ago

What was the crisis this time? There was zero mission or purpose here. Bow down and kiss the liege's ring. Thats all that this was. There was not one iota of reason for this forced display of loyalty, nothing pressing that couldnt have been done like a reasonable part of business. The jerking people is the point.

Imnimo2• 4 years ago

It's interesting that you naturally attribute this belief to upbringing rather than an actual justification.

UniverseHacker2• 4 years ago

I used to love all nighters but as a single dad of a young child, either I leave for school pickup or the police pick me up. If an employer did this to me, I’d be out of a job, and they’d be looking to hire someone else, that will likely cost them more and deliver less…

koonsolo3• 4 years ago

our company

So you are the owner of the company? I was raised to put "our family" as a priority, and that means working for money, but doesn't include working like crazy and not getting compensated for it because it's in the best interest of "our company".

treeman79• 4 years ago

Got put on corrective action for refusing to stay until 1am . For the second night in a row. Company was in a bad part of town. Most of the people were just goofing off anyway. Wiped computer. Went home and emailed that I quit.

I’m not giving up time with kids and getting shot so boss can meet a deadline.

sys_647384• 4 years ago

Most of the people were just goofing off anyway.

This ^ or the fact that such hours usually yield low productivity so are a waste of time. Working long hours just because is not my thing.

gorgoiler2• 4 years ago

Other ways of saying the same thing:

”I can’t do this because I have to be with my family in the evenings.”

”This sort of thing wouldn’t work for me due to commitments I’ve made outside work.”

”I personally wouldn’t do this.”

What you said instead is pretty packed in terms of a guns-blazin’ take which, while understandable here, reminds me of something much less constructive: how often I encounter people who share your sentiment at my current workplace.

Specifically, the tone with which you say it is what rings true. “We” instead of “I”, refuse-to instead of decline-to, poking at a lack of family or social life, and the need to tell everyone about a personal preference — reasonable in your case, in the context of a discussion, although I note yours is a top level comment so not exactly a reply to anything anyone here has said.

I think I understand the anger. Some people can’t take part in extra curricular work stuff, or want to express solidarity that would normally be expressed through a union, or feel that an employer who tolerates and even encourages work-outside-of-work is immoral and must be challenged.

These are valid feelings. They probably indicate being in the wrong field (bleeding edge knowledge work) or the wrong sized company (small, highly remunerated, with high growth expectations.) Neither of these apply to Twitter.

gitgud• 4 years ago

Some people have families and a life outside of work. We sure as heck ain't staying until 1am for anybody.

I agree, I wouldn't stay till 1am for anybody... but if the world's richest man just bought the company I worked for, then personally came to work with us through the night... I would definitely consider it (also not an Elon fan btw)

mike503• 4 years ago

As the comment says, it would be interesting to interact with the richest person on earth. Short of that, I have no idea why anyone would think it's fun or anything to be in that atmosphere. He could change direction on a whim and make you redundant in a second.

octopolus4• 4 years ago

I’ve stayed up for hackathons and stayed out late for meetups, this seems way more fun. Who cares if you’re redundant? Not everything is about status.

jmull• 4 years ago

In this context being made redundant means losing your job.

(Just not sure if you’re aware.)

scarab922• 4 years ago

I guess different people want different things, but I would have flown across the country to be in that room at 1am.

A startup sized team working on a platform with twitters scale for a boss with capital and a willingness to consider new ideas? Once in a lifetime opportunity.

bradleybuda• 4 years ago

It’s startup cosplay, made for public consumption and Elon ego boosting.

yongjik2• 4 years ago

A startup sized team working on a platform with twitters scale for a boss with capital and a willingness to consider new ideas?

Willingness to consider his new ideas. Not your new ideas. He's the idea man, your job is to implement it. And if you tell him why the idea may not work as intended, you're fired.

mlindner6• 4 years ago

I completely agree. This is the kind of luck that money can't buy that you can use to catapult yourself to new areas of a career.

jjtheblunt• 4 years ago

I'd like to assert this richest person holds no real sway over you unless threatening your life, which is a far cry from possibly just being a nuisance narcissistic character at worst introducing a discontinuity in your employment.

You're as important as him, regardless of your bank account.

dannyw2• 4 years ago

At best you might follow him to the next business venture that everyone is talking about in 2030.

UniverseHacker2• 4 years ago

If you want to know why the people look like they’re having a fun time, watch The Death of Stalin

Volundr• 4 years ago

To be honest, they don't look like they are having fun to me. Most of the people I can see in that photo read as exhausted to me (which makes sense, 1 am and all). Even the group photo Elon tweeted looks pretty forced to my eyes.

mlindner6• 4 years ago

America doesn't have the culture of Russians of continuous lying. That doesn't apply.

dmitrybrant2• 4 years ago

Exactly. I can admit that it would be sort of cool to be around Elon for a bit, just to have a good story for parties, even if it means staying past 1am at the office. But let's not pretend they're building something earth-shattering that actually merits being there at 1am. They're there to feed Elon's ego and make him believe he understands the inner workings of twitter, which for some reason would help him make executive decisions that are less arbitrary than he's already made?

hotpotamus• 4 years ago

Honestly, I like the picture of the new owner coming in and having engineers whiteboard the systems out to him and start getting up to speed with the company. It does have a nice feeling of espirit de corps to it. If he had started with that instead of fire and fury and a lame sink joke, he wouldn't have tarnished his image and the company so much.

whateveracct• 4 years ago

But doing it at 1am is asinine

dragontamer2• 4 years ago

Doing it after losing ~80%+ of the staff is also asinine.

At a minimum, Musk should have done this _before_ deciding which 50% of the company to lay off, and then scaring the majority of the remainder with an ultimatum.

giraffe_lady3• 4 years ago

Twitter is a mature tech platform that routinely onboards people at all levels of technical experience into every part of itself. There's no way they don't have probably several entire programs for getting people up to speed on how it all works. Possibly even a few full time dedicated people working only on that, actually. At least before he fired them anyway.

This is nothing but ego and hubris still.

cmh892• 4 years ago

Its wild how many people believe this dumb "pull up of your sleeves" photo op bullshit. Musk doesn't even have a B.S., dude couldn't understand how to build a barn door much more something like Twitter.

wskish20• 4 years ago

I am amazed by how polarizing this seems to be. Some of my best memories are from previous startups with this exact 1am energy. This is how shared mental models are built, shit gets done, and shared suffering cements lifelong bonds.

wawayanda• 4 years ago

Twitter isn't a startup. The folks in this picture don't have the same risk/reward as their counterparts at a startup would.

wskish20• 4 years ago

They are going "hardcore" with EM at a critical time. You could be looking at the "twitter mafia" of 2030 something.

rdtwo• 4 years ago

Their risk reward is show up or get kicked out of their homes and country. Real shitty.

mlindner6• 4 years ago

Elon has alluded to several times that he thinks software teams should have startup energy and intentionally keeps them small. Both at Tesla and SpaceX the software teams are small and likely assumes he can do the same at Twitter.

beebmam• 4 years ago

I'm kind of amazed there isn't an immediate union drive right now.

mlindner6• 4 years ago

Why would you stick around to form a union when you could take 3 months of severance? What would you get out of a union hostile to leadership by staying at Twitter versus the 3 months pay and going somewhere else?

happytoexplain3• 4 years ago

I believe that those memories are of times that share some factual similarities to the pictured scene, but it seems pretty presumptuous to assert that the energy is the same.

wskish20• 4 years ago

I am curious about what you think could be the most relevant differences.

esoterica2• 4 years ago

shared suffering cements lifelong bonds.

I'm sorry, is this a cult or a workplace? Why is this a good thing?

This is how shared mental models are built, shit gets done

I get why Elon wants people to work until 1am, but what's in it for the employees? Why work 2x as hard and 2x as long and get 2x shit done if you're not getting paid 2x as much?

wskish20• 4 years ago

> shared suffering cements lifelong bonds. I'm sorry, is this a cult or a workplace? Why is this a good thing?

There are many contexts where some amount of suffering is a prerequisite for achieving great things. For example, from personal experience, both startups and mountaineering require some amount of suffering to achieve great things. The bonds formed from shared suffering are like top 25th percentile.

mygentys• 4 years ago

Yes wskish exactly!

Shared mental models are built in tough times in the trenches,

The engineers chosen to be there! It’s not a slavery,

It’s like you said People just dont grasp Elon’s vision. I’m glad there’s someone who understands innately

gilbetron2• 4 years ago

Try doing it during the middle of the day, it ends up working out much better thaw way.

bern4444• 4 years ago

Lots of comments on how hackathons and late night sessions were fond memories for people.

The difference is those events were chosen. If you are forced to remain at your company (due to visa issues for example) being forced by your CEO to stay at work until 1am is atrocious.

This is not a profession where being at the office this late is the norm and it's not typical for the environment.

Twitter is not a startup in any way shape or form. It was clearly just valued at 44 billion dollars, no startup is worth that much ;).

This is an executive abusing his power, forcing individuals to do as they say. There is little choice and free will being exercised.

Maybe some of the people do want to be there and are happy to do so; I don't believe this is the case. It is naive to think it would be.

Hackathons, staying up late working on a passion or hobby by choice can be fun. Being forced to for your profession and by the new CEO who has fired and caused over 70% of the company to leave doesn't fall under that category.

nathanaldensr• 4 years ago

The fact that so many people so willingly give in to it is why sociopaths rule us all.

philosopher12344• 4 years ago

We are born dependent and vulnerable. If our parents are cruel we contort ourselves to love them anyways, so that they will keep feeding us. Then we go into the world and find we are still contorted.

The world seems to be full of these people. It’s hard to see a way out.

techolic• 4 years ago

Just an example: if you hold an L visa, your only other option is packing your stuff and going back to your home country.

wskish20• 4 years ago

I didn't quite follow, what are folks giving into?

wskish20• 4 years ago

There is a more simple explanation: that these are the folks who actually want to go "hardcore" and build to some actual vision.

memish5• 4 years ago

That's not an acceptable explanation. They need to be assigned an acceptable one. As you can see, there are many volunteers assigning them.

dmitrybrant2• 4 years ago

And what exactly is the vision? Elon keeps changing it by the day.

Twitter itself has already been built. What new thing would they be building? A slightly different content moderation system? Slightly tweaked steps for verifying accounts? I'm not sure I see anything hardcore about any of this.

phendrenad2• 4 years ago

I've never seen an optional hackathon that didn't come with serious "contribute or else" vibes.

gizmo385• 4 years ago

I’m the exact opposite. I’ve never seen a hackathon with that mentality and you should avoid hackathons that guilt you into working beyond your limits

spoils192• 4 years ago

It's fairly common, actually, to have completely optional hackathons. I guess it would depend on the social circles you hang around, or if you falsely believe that there is actually an "or else" consequence.

RickJWagner2• 4 years ago

Yeah, true.

All-hands-on-deck after hours work is ALWAYS done under duress.

mlindner6• 4 years ago

I really don't agree with what you're saying here. Why do you automatically assume that every single one of these people is there unwillingly? Why would they pose for the camera with Elon with smiles on their faces? You want to claim that not only are they there unwillingly that they're lying to everyone about their emotions as well. They had the option of leaving the company with a 3 month severance pay.

And no H-1B is not the reason. You can find new jobs under an H-1B. You're not restricted to a single company and can change companies.

memish5• 4 years ago

And why are they assuming they are H-1Bs in the first place, based on the photo? They can tell immigration status based on what exactly?

big_red4• 4 years ago

Are you kidding me? Those guys are living the dream! Chilling out with Elon Musk on a Friday night. I’d go there to make the coffee and clean the dishes so I could overhear in the next room. No seriously

x1282• 4 years ago

Oof. That boot.

big_red4• 4 years ago

He’s only the most successful entrepreneur alive. But sure visa holders need their beauty sleep. Seriously you can’t stay up to 1am to have the company of the worlds richest person? What an opportunity to learn. This thread is totally nuts

justahuman74• 4 years ago

I wonder what twitter new-hire TC offers are going to look like going forward.

I can't imagine there would be a large funnel looking to work there after this.

deanCommie• 4 years ago

Of all the scenarios with Twitter in the last several months where people talk past each other, this is the one I am most confused by.

You got startup CEOs (not just Elon Musk brownnosers) talking about how some of the most innovative things get built at startups.

Which is true! Big, world-changing ideas, don't get built 9-5. And especially if you have some competitive advantage, you need to rush to market, to beat the others.

But Twitter is (was) a 40+ Billion dollar company. None of the people in this photo have any reasonable equity (the kind that makes people work nights and weekends in the hope that an IPO makes them a millionaire). And Twitter has a massive network effect of the kind meaning that if you don't screw it up (and god is Elon trying), none of these people are going anywhere.

I can understand that it's in Musk's interest to create a reality distortion field and convince the employees that they need to stay and go Hardcore so that he can create the American Weechat, or whatever he's got in mind.

But what do the other CEOs that are swooning over this have to gain except a dry run for also starting to treat their employees like garbage...

wskish20• 4 years ago

so that he can create the American Weechat, or whatever he's got in mind.

What if what he has in mind is attempting to undo the negative effects that social networks have had on our society and democracy and instead attempt to rebuild this particular network in a way that can have a positive effect on society? It seems like that is a technological possibility and also something he could plausibly be interested in.

pasttense01• 4 years ago

Elon believes in "free speech" and these unmoderated free speech networks rapidly become filled with toxic garbage.

nickthegreek• 4 years ago

Pretty sure he has stated he wants an American WeChat.

giraffe_lady3• 4 years ago

What if what if what if. What about his actions leads you to believe he's more capable of that than the thousands of people who were already working on it? If that were easy to do it would have been done, social media companies are full of people who care very deeply about this exact issue and who are also not absolute fucking neophytes at understanding and managing the constraints of a large social media network.

And what about the positive effects that twitter was already having? I'm part of something adjacent to and with overlap into the canadian disability rights movements; they are devastated by what's happening with twitter and widely considered it to be a unique and unprecedentedly powerful space for community and organization for them. It's not all shitposts and fascism you know.

MiguelX4133• 4 years ago

It's still centralized, proprietary, and going to have the harmful business model of advertising, no?

SanjayMehta• 4 years ago

As opposed to:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/twitter-day-in-life-video

Having worked in both types of environments, I can tell you only the 1am types survive and become profitable.

csande17• 4 years ago

Some of the criticisms of the video are a bit unfair.

She pans the camera to three women in a meeting room. She also shows several bookshelves filled with books, but otherwise shows nothing about the meetings they held or the "projects" they may or may not have been able "to knock out."

I mean, of course someone's not going to record an internal company meeting and post it on TikTok!

galoisscobi• 4 years ago

What sample sizes are we talking?

MiguelX4133• 4 years ago

Was it not surviving and extremely profitable?

inawarminister• 4 years ago

Twitter? It was not profitable in 2020 and 2021. Jack did do good in 2018 & 2019 though

password4321• 4 years ago

AFAIK Tesla & SpaceX aren't known for great work/life balance.

memish5• 4 years ago

Right, they are known for changing the world.

bleah1000• 4 years ago

It's kind of sad to see so many people just take this story at face value. Is it really 1am? I could certainly believe it, but some random picture doesn't make it true. Also, even it is 1am, it's possible that work ended hours ago, and that some people are staying late to talk to Musk. Who knows, but to assume that everyone is being forced to stay, maybe, maybe not. I guess I'd like a little evidence.

The number of people saying all of these completely unsubstantiated things about Twitter, and everyone believing them without any questions is weird.

In addition, how could this person know if mostly H1-B workers are present. I certainly can't tell who is and isn't on a H1-B. Or is it because the bulk of the people are not white that this person assumed they were? That seems like an immensely racist assumption.

happytoexplain3• 4 years ago

Why should people automatically disbelieve word-of-mouth any more or less than they should believe it, as long as they are not making it into some kind of conviction from which they base significant material action?

Also, is nobody asking questions? I've seen multiple people doing so, including you.

Also, in your accusation of racism, you are making assumptions about assumptions.

Also, is positing that there are H1Bs among non-white tech workers "immensely racist", or is that dramatic?

polished85• 4 years ago

This is like a sociological experiment where they show different people the same picture and ask "what do you see"? The results are heavily influenced by your previous perception of Elon. The results vary from "abuse and modern slavery" to "I'd fly halfway across the country to be there." I don't really have an opinion here as I don't know what is actually happening and assume the original poster intentionally framed it in a specific way. As humans we are very predictable, and even in a high IQ place such as HN, mostly everyone used the photo as validation of their existing position.

happytoexplain3• 4 years ago

I mostly agree, but you're kind of implying that the photo exists in a vacuum. People are reasonably using context. Yes, they cherry-pick the context a bit and perhaps overextend it, but they're not just making up a story from whole cloth.

ncann• 4 years ago

The "modern slavery" comment made me chuckle. Seriously...

paul7986• 4 years ago

I see it says there's a lot of H1 work are still there…

Musk has said Americans are lazy compared to those not in the US… Maybe that picture shows it… Work balance over changing the world type of work or your stuck cause no job your out of the country. Maybe it's a mix of both

Maybe musk could force more truth on the Internet, somehow through the blue checkmark and verification of each user… Create a reputation system, or may be crazy if you're going to spread lies how much of your own money you gonna back up that silly political lie with (so much drama in politics it driven by emotions more then logic).

wdr1• 4 years ago

How is this not overtly racist?

mlindner6• 4 years ago

When he posted it I thought it was pretty cool that he's sitting down with the team and discussing things. This is how Elon learns in an organization. He needs to do this kind of thing and do it a lot more.

I don't think the time of day matters much. I've been in the office at that time of the day a number of times. As long as it's only an occasional thing it's fine.

alkonaut• 4 years ago

I hope those people are paid in lots of equity in this startup…

gilbetron2• 4 years ago

I have to say, if I was in different circumstances, I would love to go to work at Twitter right now.

But that's because I really enjoy watching weird shit happen, and there's so much weird shit happening there right now. It would be a win-win for me, odds are I'd emerge in a few months, maybe a year, with some great stories about watching a bizarre implosion of a foundational tech company as well as experience a billionaire self destructing. Or, way less likely, but possible I suppose, I would help that crazy billionaire reinvent the tech company and walk away pretty rich.

koonsolo3• 4 years ago

Why would that make you rich? You would just be an employee, no?

RickJWagner2• 4 years ago

Love him or hate him, Elon Musk makes things happen.

Electric cars, space travel, large-scale drilling, Twitter 2.0, etc. This is a man history will remember.

brokenmachine2• 4 years ago

PT Barnum with memes.

Twitter at 1am on a Friday

Related Stories