Maybe I didn’t make my point clear. My daughter was with a bad startup with poor leadership, after 8-9 months. Every time she talked to the founder, she had to spend time refocus herself because of what he said. These are all Ivy leagues people who came from Google. She’s now with a non startup and he’s reputation as a good leader on Wall Street. In fact, we can’t find anything bad written about him in the press.
My startup was not with poor leadership, they all were pretty good leaders, all came from Cisco, which the star in my days. But the atmosphere was toxic, lots of backstabbing and jealousy resulting in bad morale. I left after a year, but at the time I was counting on making lots of money from this startup due to its reputation and the people who backed them.
So my point is, finding a good startup with the things you mention in your post is like finding a needle in a haystack. Go back and read what Bill Gates was like with Paul Allen back in the startup days.
I see 80 hours work week reference everywhere but we all know how easy it is so spread misinformation by news sources and social media. Some sources I read mentioned mandatory return to office and nothing about 80 hours work week. Is there any links to reliable information on what actually was in that demand he sent out?
You said he started successful businesses. that’s not genius. It’s not like he’s the one inventing the cars and the rockets, etc. Facilitating them is business. He’s (mostly) good at that.
Let’s not equate Twitter with a startup. A startup is a company that is trying to make a product from an idea. Twitter is an established company that was making $$ yet bleeding cash so arguably was in need of restructuring. A whole different ball of wax.
Quite a few people in my profession use Twitter accounts (including me), usually with their real names. They get a lot of value out of this for straightforward professional reasons (sharing their work, seeing other people’s work, announcing job openings), and for more holistic and social reasons.
Most everyone in my Twitter circle is kind of freaking out now. Some people are waiting to see what happens, and others are spinning up their presence at other venues. The less tech-savvy are intimidated by Mastodon, which is why I think there aren’t more people over there yet. That seems to be the place where the Twitter exodus is going, for now.
I waited until a few people started making accounts at Mastodon, and now I’ve done the same. I don’t tweet much, but I read a lot to keep my finger on the pulse. I don’t want to be cut off of that information flow, as it’s been valuable to me.
I made my Twitter account 10 years ago, anonymously. That’s because there was a bit of a blog implosion in my field at the time (sigh, I kind of miss the days of blogs and Google Reader). I started using it non-anonymously a few years ago. That’s put me in the position of feeling constrained with what I do on the account. I’d been wanting to make a different anonymous account and split who I’m following accordingly. This gives me a great opportunity to do that without the awkwardness of unfollowing people. I’m in no hurry to make my anon account because I don’t need it for my work – it’s just for fun.
I’ll be interested to see what happens. I’ll use both Twitter and Mastodon for a while until things shake out.
Oh, and FWIW, most actual neuroscientists really dislike Musk.
That’s a very good point. I think that many tech companies are finding out that once they get to a certain size they need to be run differently. Startups are small and everyone is singularly focused on the same goal. After achieving success many of these now large companies fail to pivot to their new reality - not everyone is aligned and some have their own agendas. Companies like Google, and Twitter IMO are great examples of this - internal identity groups, employees who feel that a company is democracy and that they should be able to set strategy. If the pandemic saw the “great resignation” the recession will bring about the “great cleansing”.
Ya, I’m not a software engineer, but the meaning looks exactly the same to me, except you have to “prove your worth” first in order to get into the office on the 10th floor.
BofA should get an asterisk on that deal. They were strong-armed by the Treasury Dept to pick up Countrywide (for the good of the economic system) with a handshake deal that the Feds would help protect any big losses. The Feds then reneged.
He will be left with those on H1B visas, not the most talented/engaged employees. Last I saw, this is about 700. If they took the departure option, they would have, iirc, 60 days to find another employer to sponsor their visa or leave the country.
Musk’s talent in other businesses has mostly been in hiring very talented people to actually run them.
