The "hacking" hook is simply that their Macbook went into MDM lockdown mode. That's completely normal for companies at-scale, and I can understand why they'd want to lock the devices before laying people off. If the opposite had happened, they'd be writing an article about how Twitter failed to protect their files and angle it as a "they're running out of staff" article.
I still don't really understand what there is worth talking about here. Twitter is notoriously overstaffed, and any new management would start by cutting non-essential engineer positions.
Normal according to who, exactly? Like where is your reference point for 'normal'? I've worked for companies at scale and have never dealt with these sort of problems before because usually there's an understanding that employees when laid off aren't going to do anything bad (unless you're perhaps cutting them out of severance and spiting them, which...).
Do you have any reference points or reasons why you believe this is normal contrary to my own professional experience?
> don't really understand what there is worth talking about here.
Elon Musk, previously adored by many for futurist technology advocacy and largely forgiven for quirky-billionaire-behavior is now on the "bad guy list". This is "public opinion", from my perspective. It is now common to hear people saying: "He didn't really build that" "His family had money" "His family had a mine" "He's a fascist" "He's a racist because of where/when he was born"
Any and every attempt to report on the fallout from Musk buying twitter will command the headlines. Doesn't matter if it's the same strategy any other takeover management would employ. That's irrelevant. Musk? Bad Guy.
So: "Elon Bad. Twitter suffer. Here's an example..."
Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being drama generating entertainment machines.
This is why I tell everyone I ever work with: "Don't have any personal document on your work laptop that isn't backed somewhere personal"
You never know when that bank statement, or rent agreement or whatever will suddenly become inaccessible.
Edit: I know we're not supposed to mix personal data with work. But who hasn't downloaded some docs because you need them filled or printed or something.
I don't mix personal data and work but they sure can present enough gray areas. Things like digital copies of paystubs, ESPP details, and W4 can only be accessed while employed and on the company network. I leaned that one the hard way a year later when doing taxes.
I wiped the computer they gave me and installed my own OS. If I quit or they fire me there is a three month period where I have to work for them anyway.
It would be ideal to have two computers, but I don’t feel like committing to such an expense (it would have to be about equally powerful) in this economy and all that.
> One day I created a tool that made it faster to download things from your work email that you might need if you were looking for a job: performance evaluations and that sort of thing.
> I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
Gosh, I wonder these two incidents are related?
PROTIP: Don't distribute tools to facilitate the exfiltration of company property and expect to keep your job.
Oh, come on, "exfiltration of company property" when we're talking about personal performance evaluations is a pretty huge stretch. I'd characterize this as "Don't make cheeky slack posts alluding to the fact that you're looking for a new job and helping others do the same."
Do employees have the right to access past performance reviews manually? If so, it's not "exfiltrating company property". Do you draw the line at automation?
these comparisons to whatsapp are really tiring, twitter is a totally different product. twitter is more similar to facebook than whatsapp from an engineering requirement's perspective, messaging is a minor feature of twitter's. even from a non-tech perspective, the presence of public data & the moderation requirements that entails alone makes it operationally different enough to not be a good comparison...
It seems many commenters in several threads are making the same point. I'll summarize it here:
> Creating an excessively competitive environment by working longer hours because of an ability and desire to do so is bad civic hygiene.
I can say I understand the sentiment. I personally very much dislike the bind someone puts me in if they do my job for cheaper. I dislike it _more_ when I see them suffering because of the choice they made. I think of the implications, and see a path toward everyone suffering. I want to hold that other individual responsible for increasing suffering in the world.
I take a beat. They've made a poor decision. Or maybe they haven't. Maybe they are suffering in ways I see, but not suffering in ways I don't see. Maybe they seem to be suffering more than they are. Can I do something else about my suffering _other_ than hold them responsible?
Example: are they _really_ normalizing mandated weekend work by voluntarily working weekends.
No? Then I think we can start talking about civic hygiene. I think civic hygiene is too complicated of a subject to shoot from the gut about. It is too complicated to reason about from a foundation of resentment.
It's the human equivalent of the race to the bottom. A company with deep pockets (or VC funding) might sell a product at or below cost to try to muscle out competitors. The end result is either a monopoly (where the company can then raise prices up to whatever profitable levels they want) or long-term lower prices and weak margins.
In the same way, an individual worker might want to work longer hours in order to be more attractive as a candidate for raises or promotions. But often management sees a small number of employees willing to do this, and then starts to expect all employees to do it. In the absence of unions or other collective action, the other employees are forced to keep up. They've raced their labor price to the bottom.
I agree with the "civic hygiene" angle: it's much healthier for people not to do this, and provide better working conditions for themselves and others. But that requires everyone to do the right thing all the time. There will always be enough people who want to get ahead, and are willing to make themselves miserable to do it. I don't think most are being malicious: they don't realize the societal effects of their actions. But those effects happen regardless.
The difficulty of collective action is really the heart of this. If every employee just up and decided one day that the standard would be a 32-hour work week, and people would only work Monday through Thursday, it would... actually happen. Companies would complain, threaten to fire people, fire some people after all. But if everyone could actually stick together for the greater good, it would work. But people can't do that, not 100%. Some can't for legitimate reasons ("I can't risk getting fired or I won't be able to pay rent / buy food / stay in the country"), and some won't for selfish reasons ("If I break ranks and lick the company's boots, I'll be rewarded").
> One day I created a tool that made it faster to download things from your work email that you might need if you were looking for a job: performance evaluations and that sort of thing.
> I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
---
Seems straightforward, isn't it? Why would a company tolerate such a tool and a toolmaker?
> One day I created a tool that made it faster to download things from your work email that you might need if you were looking for a job: performance evaluations and that sort of thing.
> I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
"I built a tool to allow people to copy corporate data so they could find a job easier."
To be fair, it seems like something you should only do if you don't care about getting fired and if you're already on the way out the door. Unless you're migrating from one email provider to another and your company isn't migrating all the data, most companies are going to take offence to that.
He is suing Twitter, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost because Twitter will successfully claim he wrote a tool to bypass security and allow people to steal trade secrets.
This has roughly happened to me many times. It gives you a bit of trauma, and now every time anything ecen vaguely off happens, I think I've been fired. Lots of people don't know what it's like, welcome to the club.
To add to the sibling post: 5^5 is around 3000. So 5 engineers have a team leader, 5 of them are under a director, etc... So 5 layers sounds about right for a Twitter sized company.
It's fascinating how Elon Musk supporters on Twitter cheered, almost like a sports team, when the Twitter employees got fired in such inhumane ways by Elon Musk. Don't his supporters realize that Elon would do the same thing to them if they worked at Twitter? The stereotype about conservatives ring true - they don't care about others until it affects them personally.
> One day I created a tool that made it faster to download things from your work email that you might need if you were looking for a job: performance evaluations and that sort of thing. I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night.
It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a good thing, and we need to be more vocal about this. It's great the author is fine wasting his weekend working on changes to a verification system that was launched for only a few days, but some of us have family and friends we like to spend time with. Hobbies and other things outside of work that give our lives meaning. Generations of workers fought hard for things like weekends and we shouldn't just glibly throw them away just because we're paid well.
It's kind of a weird situation. As told, this person enjoyed what they were doing and hanging out with their friends, and that happened to be on a project that benefited their employer. This sounds like it's not your problem.
Except you're troubled by it because you're competing with them. You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos but you're competing for the same salaries and promotions as people that do. Them glibly throwing away their weekends does affect you because you're in the same competition space as them.
I dunno, I have some dissonance here. I've been young and had fun on a work project and did unpaid overtime because I just really enjoyed it, and I'd have been rightly pretty pissy about it if you unrelated unaffected person on the internet told me to stop. I still do sometimes. But now that I'm older if I were laid off in favour of all-nighter people I'd also be pretty pissy about that.
Especially if those terms changed after I chose an employer based on the stated hours and felt like I met them. The way you "solve" this in a market way is by putting it in the employment terms. I take a job knowing the terms, and maybe I take a pay cut for choosing the non-all-nighters job, fine. But then a Musk can come along and ignore all of that. The protectionist way is regulating the all-nighter folk away but younger me would have absolutely ignored it and a Musk event would have rewarded it in exactly the way you're unhappy about.
It's not only that it's "not cool," but the outcomes of long hours don't match the expectations. The concept of "more person-hours in, more productivity out" heralds from the days of Ford, and strictly applies to individuals performing rote jobs on a factory floor (to a certain degree): tightening bolt after bolt, painting the car hoods as they roll by, nailing two pieces of wood together, etc. Human biology is adept at building up physical stamina when exposed to continued physical stress. During the alleged information age we have seen (time and time again) that our biology is woefully inadequate at building up mental stamina: we just get mentally exhausted (i.e. stupid).
Ultimately, if you pour more person-hours into software (or other "mind jobs") you should expect to get an inferior end product and/or diminished productivity.
Just look at Musk himself: sending out completely idiotic emails at 2AM. At least a portion of his behavior could be attributed to having completely diminished his mental faculties due to overworking himself.
Not just that, but every employee who wants to work nights and weekends puts pressures on those who don't to catch up or be cut. It's a race to the bottom that leads to people who do have things they need to do scheduling emails to go out late at night, changing the times on their commits, etc to look like they are as "committed" as the rest of the team. It's harmful and damaging and I'm not at all surprised that people here support it.
A user on HN, kamaal, posted something that many on this site agree with:
> Let's be honest this is far from what people call slavery. They are being paid multiples of six digit salaries, RSUs and work in one of the most happening tech ecosystems of the world.
> I would love to be a part of something like this. Heck most of us would love to be a part of something like.
> I kind of envy those guys working on these projects. I hope I was the one there.
Generations of workers fought for the _choice_ to not work weekends. Some people, including myself, are happy to work weekends and long hours if its worth it. The point is, it should be the workers choice and if they don't like it, they should be able to leave and find something better. There are clearly still plenty of engineers at Twitter who have done the cost-benefit analysis and decided staying was right for them.
Here's my hypothesis as to why people are so glib about throwing away their lives for their employer:
People depend on their employer for their entire livelyhood. This day and age, without a pay check, you can't have any basic needs: Shelter, food or water and you'd be out on the street or worse: the average homeless person (it's shocking) lives 30 years less than a housed one.
So, it's no surprise that a large segement of people end up with stockholm's syndrom from their employer. they begin to identify with their captor and even take on their values and their beliefs. If you're kidnapped, at least you have some hope of escape. but when you're employed, you are the prison guard who holds the key. so you have no hope of escape, this amplifies the stockholm's syndrom.
People might try another perspective. Does $200k a year sound good? How about $100k a year?
How many say "yes" to the first, but "no" to the second? While still working weekends and staying late -- that's lying to yourself.
Working unpaid overtime, devaluates the employee. If it comes from more senior colleagues or managers, then it's at risk of creating an implicit culture. One not suitable for people with responsibilities outside the work place.
> Hobbies and other things outside of work that give our lives meaning. Generations of workers fought hard for things like weekends and we shouldn't just glibly throw them away just because we're paid well.
One of my big hobbies was doing everything I could on a computer way before I got paid to program. I doubt the author considered what they did a waste since they were doing something they enjoyed.
> It's great the author is fine wasting his weekend working on changes to a verification system that was launched for only a few days, but some of us have family and friends we like to spend time with.
No, it's great that the author helped out a colleague. The fact that it benefited Twitter is secondary.
Helping out your colleagues (who are now all over new companies as they've all been fired from Twitter) is how you build your network, get your next job, get people to give you nice recommendations, etc.
Corporations are amoral and greedy and should not be helped unless they are helping you, but that doesn't mean you should piss on everything and everyone around you either.
"Hey, boss. I'm going to need you to go ahead and pay me twice as much this week. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to work any extra. But just think of the sense of accomplishment you'll have seeing me drive into the parking lot in the new car that you helped make happen! High five!"
I thought about commenting on this. But I figured that people would just take the argument down the path of indirectly competing about who the most passionate hacker (tm) is.
[+] [-] KindAndFriendly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoldesu|3 years ago|reply
I still don't really understand what there is worth talking about here. Twitter is notoriously overstaffed, and any new management would start by cutting non-essential engineer positions.
[+] [-] themitigating|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coffeeblack|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fzeroracer|3 years ago|reply
Do you have any reference points or reasons why you believe this is normal contrary to my own professional experience?
[+] [-] reaperducer|3 years ago|reply
Elon? Is that you?
[+] [-] cuttysnark|3 years ago|reply
Elon Musk, previously adored by many for futurist technology advocacy and largely forgiven for quirky-billionaire-behavior is now on the "bad guy list". This is "public opinion", from my perspective. It is now common to hear people saying: "He didn't really build that" "His family had money" "His family had a mine" "He's a fascist" "He's a racist because of where/when he was born"
Any and every attempt to report on the fallout from Musk buying twitter will command the headlines. Doesn't matter if it's the same strategy any other takeover management would employ. That's irrelevant. Musk? Bad Guy.
So: "Elon Bad. Twitter suffer. Here's an example..."
[+] [-] infamouscow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Raed667|3 years ago|reply
You never know when that bank statement, or rent agreement or whatever will suddenly become inaccessible.
Edit: I know we're not supposed to mix personal data with work. But who hasn't downloaded some docs because you need them filled or printed or something.
[+] [-] kadoban|3 years ago|reply
Putting that kind of stuff on your work laptop is just unthinkably weird to me. Why would anyone do that?
[+] [-] GloriousKoji|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civopsec|3 years ago|reply
It would be ideal to have two computers, but I don’t feel like committing to such an expense (it would have to be about equally powerful) in this economy and all that.
[+] [-] EarlKing|3 years ago|reply
> I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
Gosh, I wonder these two incidents are related?
PROTIP: Don't distribute tools to facilitate the exfiltration of company property and expect to keep your job.
[+] [-] heleninboodler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sangnoir|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] factsarelolz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toto|3 years ago|reply
https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-us....
[+] [-] omeze|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amrocha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azanar|3 years ago|reply
> Creating an excessively competitive environment by working longer hours because of an ability and desire to do so is bad civic hygiene.
I can say I understand the sentiment. I personally very much dislike the bind someone puts me in if they do my job for cheaper. I dislike it _more_ when I see them suffering because of the choice they made. I think of the implications, and see a path toward everyone suffering. I want to hold that other individual responsible for increasing suffering in the world.
I take a beat. They've made a poor decision. Or maybe they haven't. Maybe they are suffering in ways I see, but not suffering in ways I don't see. Maybe they seem to be suffering more than they are. Can I do something else about my suffering _other_ than hold them responsible?
Example: are they _really_ normalizing mandated weekend work by voluntarily working weekends.
No? Then I think we can start talking about civic hygiene. I think civic hygiene is too complicated of a subject to shoot from the gut about. It is too complicated to reason about from a foundation of resentment.
[+] [-] kelnos|3 years ago|reply
In the same way, an individual worker might want to work longer hours in order to be more attractive as a candidate for raises or promotions. But often management sees a small number of employees willing to do this, and then starts to expect all employees to do it. In the absence of unions or other collective action, the other employees are forced to keep up. They've raced their labor price to the bottom.
I agree with the "civic hygiene" angle: it's much healthier for people not to do this, and provide better working conditions for themselves and others. But that requires everyone to do the right thing all the time. There will always be enough people who want to get ahead, and are willing to make themselves miserable to do it. I don't think most are being malicious: they don't realize the societal effects of their actions. But those effects happen regardless.
The difficulty of collective action is really the heart of this. If every employee just up and decided one day that the standard would be a 32-hour work week, and people would only work Monday through Thursday, it would... actually happen. Companies would complain, threaten to fire people, fire some people after all. But if everyone could actually stick together for the greater good, it would work. But people can't do that, not 100%. Some can't for legitimate reasons ("I can't risk getting fired or I won't be able to pay rent / buy food / stay in the country"), and some won't for selfish reasons ("If I break ranks and lick the company's boots, I'll be rewarded").
[+] [-] orsenthil|3 years ago|reply
> I posted the tool on Slack so that my colleagues could also benefit from it if they needed to. One hour and four minutes later I was fired.
---
Seems straightforward, isn't it? Why would a company tolerate such a tool and a toolmaker?
[+] [-] that_guy_iain|3 years ago|reply
"I built a tool to allow people to copy corporate data so they could find a job easier."
To be fair, it seems like something you should only do if you don't care about getting fired and if you're already on the way out the door. Unless you're migrating from one email provider to another and your company isn't migrating all the data, most companies are going to take offence to that.
He is suing Twitter, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost because Twitter will successfully claim he wrote a tool to bypass security and allow people to steal trade secrets.
[+] [-] amrocha|3 years ago|reply
He wrote a JS script that clicks a a button in your inbox. That's not "bypassing security" in any way.
[+] [-] brailsafe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beau_g|3 years ago|reply
At least 5 direct reports between a talented engineer working on a critical feature with huge media attention and the leadership? Seems like a lot.
[+] [-] amrocha|3 years ago|reply
Engineer -> team leader -> director -> VP -> CXO
[+] [-] buzzdenver|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] retskrad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ElijahLynn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spaced-out|3 years ago|reply
It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a good thing, and we need to be more vocal about this. It's great the author is fine wasting his weekend working on changes to a verification system that was launched for only a few days, but some of us have family and friends we like to spend time with. Hobbies and other things outside of work that give our lives meaning. Generations of workers fought hard for things like weekends and we shouldn't just glibly throw them away just because we're paid well.
[+] [-] ketralnis|3 years ago|reply
Except you're troubled by it because you're competing with them. You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos but you're competing for the same salaries and promotions as people that do. Them glibly throwing away their weekends does affect you because you're in the same competition space as them.
I dunno, I have some dissonance here. I've been young and had fun on a work project and did unpaid overtime because I just really enjoyed it, and I'd have been rightly pretty pissy about it if you unrelated unaffected person on the internet told me to stop. I still do sometimes. But now that I'm older if I were laid off in favour of all-nighter people I'd also be pretty pissy about that.
Especially if those terms changed after I chose an employer based on the stated hours and felt like I met them. The way you "solve" this in a market way is by putting it in the employment terms. I take a job knowing the terms, and maybe I take a pay cut for choosing the non-all-nighters job, fine. But then a Musk can come along and ignore all of that. The protectionist way is regulating the all-nighter folk away but younger me would have absolutely ignored it and a Musk event would have rewarded it in exactly the way you're unhappy about.
[+] [-] zamalek|3 years ago|reply
Ultimately, if you pour more person-hours into software (or other "mind jobs") you should expect to get an inferior end product and/or diminished productivity.
Just look at Musk himself: sending out completely idiotic emails at 2AM. At least a portion of his behavior could be attributed to having completely diminished his mental faculties due to overworking himself.
[+] [-] fnimick|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spoils19|3 years ago|reply
> Let's be honest this is far from what people call slavery. They are being paid multiples of six digit salaries, RSUs and work in one of the most happening tech ecosystems of the world.
> I would love to be a part of something like this. Heck most of us would love to be a part of something like.
> I kind of envy those guys working on these projects. I hope I was the one there.
[+] [-] joshuamcginnis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw8383833jj|3 years ago|reply
Here's my hypothesis as to why people are so glib about throwing away their lives for their employer:
People depend on their employer for their entire livelyhood. This day and age, without a pay check, you can't have any basic needs: Shelter, food or water and you'd be out on the street or worse: the average homeless person (it's shocking) lives 30 years less than a housed one.
So, it's no surprise that a large segement of people end up with stockholm's syndrom from their employer. they begin to identify with their captor and even take on their values and their beliefs. If you're kidnapped, at least you have some hope of escape. but when you're employed, you are the prison guard who holds the key. so you have no hope of escape, this amplifies the stockholm's syndrom.
[+] [-] mrazomor|3 years ago|reply
> just because we're paid well.
People might try another perspective. Does $200k a year sound good? How about $100k a year?
How many say "yes" to the first, but "no" to the second? While still working weekends and staying late -- that's lying to yourself.
Working unpaid overtime, devaluates the employee. If it comes from more senior colleagues or managers, then it's at risk of creating an implicit culture. One not suitable for people with responsibilities outside the work place.
[+] [-] matwood|3 years ago|reply
One of my big hobbies was doing everything I could on a computer way before I got paid to program. I doubt the author considered what they did a waste since they were doing something they enjoyed.
[+] [-] octopolus|3 years ago|reply
Just stop, please. There's nothing wrong with working long hours and people enjoy it, let them live in peace.
[+] [-] bsder|3 years ago|reply
No, it's great that the author helped out a colleague. The fact that it benefited Twitter is secondary.
Helping out your colleagues (who are now all over new companies as they've all been fired from Twitter) is how you build your network, get your next job, get people to give you nice recommendations, etc.
Corporations are amoral and greedy and should not be helped unless they are helping you, but that doesn't mean you should piss on everything and everyone around you either.
[+] [-] chasing|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civopsec|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newaccount2021|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] usedtoprog|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heywherelogingo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NaturalPhallacy|3 years ago|reply