That’s not gonna happen with Twitter, because it is now a private company.
But arguably just that should be happening with Tesla. Musk is not only neglecting his duties as Telsa CEO: he’s raiding the company and pressuring Tesla employees to “volunteer” to help at Twitter. If Telsla stock tanks, it seems like a juicy potential case.
Is it really this binary? If I am unwilling to criticize management in a public forum it means I’m getting down on my knees to regularly fellate them? This doesn’t seem the least bit ridiculous to you?
I’m hiring and I have a dozen compelling resumes in front of me. One is from someone who made a slam on his company in a public forum that got viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, and I can’t weigh that in my hiring process? Maybe I think that’s great and this person is a hero and goes to the top of the pile, but maybe I’m cautious and it worries me that this person will do the same to my company and I’m the one who recommended him/her and this person slips down the list, because I don’t want to risk the blowback when I have other good candidates to promote.
CraigM
2878
Context my dude.
I think one can adopt a general stance that a public disagreement with your company owner is poor form, while acknowledging the specifics and nature of this unique situation and recognize that the owners behavior and actions led directly to this outcome, and the disagreement in question was by all accounts a reasonable response to the insane circus.
I don’t think anyone disagrees with the general notion, its the people tut tutting about the specifics here that we take issue with.
And, hey, if Twitter engineer who publicly explained, in a reasonable manner, why the owners derogatory comments about the system design teams work were incorrect on the facts and what the actual root causes were applies and you pass on him because of that? Well that’s your prerogative.
Just like it would be ours to find extreme deference to ownership and capital classes to be disappointing.
CraigM
2879
Basically in general that behavior may be a poor idea, but in the specifics it is at worst neutral, and can even be a net good.
Just think, those who worked under him know he had their back to the last, and did what a good manager should, look after the interests of his team.
LockerK
2880
There’s also a very real possibility that on Twitter, in public is the only way most employees can communicate with him. And the argument that the conversation should be held in public maybe falls flat there.
We will have to disagree then. Even if Musk is doing something criminal, I expect a good employee to quit (after reporting criminal activities to relevant authorities) as opposed to having some public fight with an exec in order to get fired. That’s just not professional. Corporate mismanagement is not unique to Musk, it’s just that Musk is doing it so very publicly. I don’t condemn anyone who leaves, or anyone who stays for that matter since people have families to feed. But people who want to throw public tantrums and get fired are unprofessional in my book. I’d be skeptical about ever hiring such a person for a future role, because who knows what they might decide to throw another public tantrum about down the road?
So if you hire him is he going to go public on social media every time there’s a system design decision he disagrees with? That’s the worry. He’s done it once. Will he do it again? Can he assure you he wont?
And I get it, Musk’s takeover of Twitter is an extreme example. Still, hiring people can be conservative.
And to be clear, I don’t think it’s a terrible thing these people have aired their discontent and disagreement online. That’s fine. I think the discussion here is that a wise move for future hiring or not?
I’m not following this. Do you think it’s normal for line employees in big tech companies to be able to have private dialogue with the CEO and Twitter is somehow different?
He’s definitely being a shit leader, but two wrongs don’t make a right. The proper recourse for an employee of a company that has been taken over by shit management is to quit.
KevinC
2885
He didn’t get into a fight! He said it was not correct and when pressed for details he provided them.
CraigM
2886
Keep in mind he wasn’t the one who started it in public.
Its not like this guy started this in public ‘man today Elon just clowned himself because he doesn’t understand why the Android platform makes all the calls it does. Here’s why he has no clue what he is talking about’
No. The owner of the company started off by dragging this team _on Twitter_z He made factually wrong statements blaming his team without understanding what the real issue was. It is possible, indeed highly probable, that had Musk not made these comments in public like that, he never responds.
That is the fundamental fact you are missing. This engineer didn’t take it public, Musk did, and therefore in that context a public reply, especially one that has a very real chance of having meaningful implications for the job security of his team, is a justifiable course of action.
Because otherwise Musks clingers on may just ramp him up and cause Musk to fire the whole team based on wrong information anyhow.
Also this guy didn’t pick a fight. He explained, with receipts, why the software did not work the way Musk thought it did and what the real causes were.
LockerK
2887
I don’t know the guy’s (previous) role to know how far up or down the hierarchy was. If the CEO specifically called out his work and asked for details then… yes, I would expect them to be able to communicate. And if the one party spends a majority of his day shitposting on Twitter, well…
This is where you lose me. It’s not a yelling match or a post with a bunch of curse words, but correcting the CEO/President of the company, when he specifically did not invite the exchange, is unprofessional. If Musk had started by posting something like, “Any of my X dept engineers wanna explain why blah blah isn’t working?” then I’d agree that the employee didn’t do anything to invite a pink slip, but the guy’s response was unsolicited. I would hope that there’s an internal hierarchy and a process for communication at the business that isn’t “put your boss on blast when he’s wrong.”
I fully acknowledge that this person in particular likely knew they were giving a parting shot out the door by engaging publicly. That’s fine, and in this case, my feeling is more power to them.
Edit: Just to refresh, this is the initial exchange we’re talking about, right?
KevinC
2889
Yep, that’s the exchange.
You may think it’s unprofessional and unsolicited but it’s hardly a fight. He publicly disagreed with an incorrect statement and the only reason it’s public is because Musk made it so.
I just don’t agree with characterizations like:
A massive fight? Come on.
antlers
2890
I kind of hate to defend Elon on this, but Frohnhoefer I think was wrong technically. Fronhoefer later said that the Android app only makes a few network calls, but the critical point is that it spends most of its time waiting for those network calls. And when Musk was referring to the 1000 RPCs, he wasn’t referring only to the calls from the client, but also calls between the services in the back end.
The conversation about hiring and/or professionalism of these candidates is basically confirming that a lot of us here are simply from a different generation/mindset than the young workers who are shaking things up when it comes to modern workplace and hiring practices.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/11/gen-z-workforce-hybrid
A big part is that Gen Z tend to place an importance in working for someone that aligns with their values and they aren’t afraid of pushing back, which goes against older/more traditional workplace dynamics.
Hilariously enough, I just updated the Twitter app on my Android, and now it’s unusable (it crashes to the point where my phone is like “this app keeps crashing, do you want to keep trying to use it or just close it?”). This has happened before and a subsequent update usually fixes it, but it’s hilarious timing that the first app update I’ve had since Elon took over and the app already shits the bed.
CraigM
2892
there is one last wrinkle to this too. We know Elon has been making firing decisions based on the things he and others tweet. That is to say such a statement could easily be used by his Twitter habit to lead to Elon firing the whole team anyhow. If this is the case, and how Elon spitballs and listens to the replies, then it is mot inconceivable to think that, uncorrected, this would lead to the team losing h to eir jobs anyhow.
And if that is the case, then public replies like that may be the best way to protect your job, or at least some members of your team.
Its not like its been a stable position there the last few weeks. Every day is a new opportunity to randomly get fired for no particular reason.
Did Musk repost a DM? Because to me it looks like the employee publicly posted the the unsolicited tweet response.
It is possible to both like the guy for speaking out, and not feeling comfortable hiring somebody with that personality/past behavior, independently of what I personally think of the exchange or the other party in it, except for very specific roles (employee advocate, for example). I do not consider whether I personally like somebody when valuing hiring except for positions where there’s going to be a very close working relationship, where maybe that’s valuable (depends). While perhaps I’m less likely to hire somebody I dislike, I tend to prefer people that I feel neutral about, so the process and evaluation on how a candidate fits in the role and within the team can be more objective. I’ve been in the position of me knowing somebody from a previous job, and being friendly towards them, if not exactly friends, being something I held against the candidate during the hiring process (ended up hiring, but just because it was the obvious best candidate). Hiring is not a popularity contest.
And something like this is certainly it’s not something I’d value positively on an engineer, and the small pause this exchange (specifically this one, not in general terms) would give me means other candidates with the same skills otherwise would likely be my preference. If the candidate is exceptional beyond comparison to the role? Well that’s a different story. I haven’t seen any such candidate yet, so I don’t know how I would weight the scales.
Again, it’s not because some sort of deference to ownership and capital classes. It’s because it’s a potential liability and an unprofessional way to finding a way out of a position, and you do have many conflicting responsibilities when going through the hiring process.
I think it entirely depends on the culture of the organisation that is thinking about hiring him. Some organisations value that kind of push back and encourage it, wanting an open and honest exchange of views particularly from their technical staff. Other organisations would view that behaviour as outright insubordination and worthy of a “meeting without coffee” in a quiet room away from the office.
