An old friend of mine went to work at a similar company, seemingly with no qualms. He praised how “nice” the ceo was. It was a sad and eye-opening experience of losing respect for someone.
The thing is, a lot of ordinary people in tech are naive, gullible, more intelligent than wise, easily flattered, limited to first-order thinking socially-speaking, and obsessed with rules and systems. Then there’s another stratum of actors on top who are all of the above, and sociopathic to boot.
I don’t know, I think it’s just the way it is. I’ve become very disillusioned with the ability of ‘tech people’ as a class to work for good.
Right, yeah, it’s a funny piece of terminology! The sense in which a ‘variable’ ‘varies’ isn’t that its value changes in time, but that its value is context-dependent. This is the same sense of the word as used in math!
people are so scared of losing market share because of art choice they make all of their products smooth dark grey rectangles with no features.
ugly.
at least this one has some sense of beauty, the courage to make a decision about what looks good to them and act on it. they'll probably have to change the heptagon shape because no way that becomes a standard
it costs so little to add artistic flair to a product, its really a shame fewer companies do
When I was a child, I was so enchanted by the look of the Cray supercomputers of old with their in-built furniture and great open arrays of status indicators. There is really something to making a machine show you the wonder of creation it unlocks
It looks super cool. I feel like I'm watching cyberpunk come to life with the way we're talking about technology these days, but this also looks straight out of the Neuromancer of my imagination.
An older CS professor (whose book, I’m guessing, about half of HN posters have read) told me essentially the same thing.
He’s one of the best people to talk to in the department. Kind, passionate and compassionate, interested first and foremost in ideas and people. No ego, doesn’t care about telling anyone he’s smarter than them (he is though), just wants to figure things out together.
I agree that this is very important. The flip side of that you will also have entrenched lazies who refuse to keep up with new knowledge, get comfy in their chair, plus grow a big ego etc. It's a tradeoff.
You have to give breathing room for creativity to unfold, but the breathing room can also be taken advantage of.
Also, it used to be more accepted to play elite inside baseball, hiring based on prestige, gut feel and recommendation. Today it's not too different in reality, but today we expect more egalitarianism and objectivity, and do literature metrics become emphasized. And therefore those must be chased.
Similar to test prep grind more broadly. More egalitarianism and accountability lead to tougher competition but more justice but less breathing room and more grind and less time for creative freedom.
The thing is, a lot of ordinary people in tech are naive, gullible, more intelligent than wise, easily flattered, limited to first-order thinking socially-speaking, and obsessed with rules and systems. Then there’s another stratum of actors on top who are all of the above, and sociopathic to boot.
I don’t know, I think it’s just the way it is. I’ve become very disillusioned with the ability of ‘tech people’ as a class to work for good.
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