However, we all have our moments where we do dumb things. If you expect anyone to be perfect, you're in for a rude surprise. One has to look at the whole picture, and that incident was an anomaly.
I've noticed a tendency for people to jump on one thing someone says or does and try to ruin them over it and de-platform them, as if that one mistake defines their whole life. I think it's uncharitable, and hypocritical. I don't like that trend.
Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone. I'm not religious, but you have to admit, there's some wisdom in that. To be clear I'm not saying you can't criticize someone, especially a public figure, who does something wrong. I'm saying don't stone them to death over it - there's some proportionality missing in the response of the twitter mob.
> One has to look at the whole picture, and that incident was an anomaly.
My point is that this episode was not an anomaly. There are dozens of examples, where Elon personally tries to "take revenge" on whistleblowers, critics, and journalists.
E.g. Elon called and threatened the boss of the (at the time) anonymous critic Montana Skeptic. He was going through the facebook history of journalist Linnette Lopez and taking screengrabs that he shared on Twitter to defame her. His lawsuit against whistle-blower Skabooshka is currently ongoing.
> However, we all have our moments where we do dumb things. If you expect anyone to be perfect, you're in for a rude surprise. One has to look at the whole picture, and that incident was an anomaly.
"our moments"? Didn't he double down on it? Didn't he offer someone a bet, that it would eventually be discovered that the could was a pedophile?
It's in "these moments" that you can peer inside a person's mind. In normal times, anyone can put up a facade.
It is one thing for a normal person to insult somebody, but someone like Elon has a greater responsibility with his platform.
It is also not OK in general to accuse people of being a pedophile! Not sure why that is controversial.
There are lots of examples of important artists, politicians, scientists, etc, who were total jerks and dirtbags. I think it is fine to recognize them for their talents and achievements but also call out their faults too. It isn't mutually exclusive.
Just don't see how it "breaks the camels back" or in anyway discounts his incredible achievements, any more than Jobs being an asshole to some of his employees makes the iPhone less of a world-changing invention.
He is a manager and a leader, he did not build Tesla and SpaceX by his own, nor he invented those technologies. As a leader, he is responsible to well behave and show example to others. Instead, he looks more like the Trump's type of a guy with narcissistic personality and disrespect to simple people, who can only manipulate them.
"broke the camels back" -- it sounds like this was some binary event, like "once he did this, I discounted everything he done as ruined by his behaviour.
When I say "what do you mean by 'I'm discounting'?", is "What do you mean when you say that I'm regarding a possibility as being unworthy of consideration?" What possibility are you referring to that I'm regarding as being unworthy of consideration?
> When you have millions of followers and billions of airtime on you, it's absolutely inexcusable to call a random guy a pedo.
The comment from Musk was inexcusable but it didn't come out of nowhere. Elon Musk offered help and Mr Unsworth decided not to use it. In a TV interview, he further labelled it a "PR stunt" and suggested that Musk could "stick his submarine where it hurts". That led Musk to respond with the "Pedo guy" comment. Yes, that comment was totally inexcusable and uncalled for but it didn't come out vaccum.
Further, it seemed that Musk was actually talking to other members of the team out there who were more positive about the submarine idea. So it seemed valid to pursue it. And then as you say an argument started and Musk was an asshat. So, he has flaws, he can be an asshat to people.
I have to say, living in Indonesia and seeing the start up scene (and financiers recently not to long ago at Global Venture Summit[which included a big ad from a google presenter, as well as one of their VC firm spawn]), seems like google is share cropping startups into their whole ecosystem.
But who can blame em? The government wants the USD flowing in, and the companies (already strapped for talent and cash to pay for such) get their IaaS for free for decent chunk of time… virtually no push back here like there is in the states to 'some' degree… and it keeps their offices from getting raided again!
This is a person who is only able to entertain themselves by spending money. That doesn't sound educated to me.
"Entertainment", in the sense that it's commonly used, should really be called "paid entertainment". There's plenty of free entertainment. Read a book, good for a walk, or my favourite: learn something new that is complementary to your current skills and that might make you more econmically valuable. But he doesn't like these things, he just likes being with friends in the pub and playing FIFA. I promise you that I know a lot of educated people and their lives look nothing like that.
> We were already working from in open office, but at least I had a desk facing the wall behind me, so there was a modicum of privacy and psychological safety. Then management decided that it would “look better” if we went to circular desks where several of us would be sitting with our backs to the hallway, so everyone walking past would be looking at our screen as they passed.
This seems dishonest to me. Can some body explain if I'm missing something?
I understand the argument that open-plan offices increase distractions in general, and the damage that loud people do in particular. But if you really intend on being super focused and productive, I don't understand why it would bother you that someone would look at your screen.
I have worked in an open-plan office and the only times when I was embarrassed that someone saw my screen was because I was wasting my time on reddit/HN, which I shouldn't because that's not what they're paying me for... Once I managed to force upon myself the discipline of just don't open reddit/HN, I was happy to accept one of the desks with the back to the center of the room, because I no longer cared that someone was looking at my screen.
It's human instinct to be on high alert if you're under scrutiny or observation. There are all sorts of studies indicating people do worse on tasks when they know they're being watched. Part of your brain ends up focused on what other people are thinking of you instead of on the task at hand - even if it's only subconscious.
I can only speak for myself but it makes me unconformable because it makes me feel like I must be super productive for 8 hours straight lest the big boss happen to walk by for the 3 minutes I'm taking a mental break to read something interesting and completely unrelated to work.
If the big boss happens to walk by for the 3 minutes you're taking a mental break and that is a problem, I would say the problem is the boss/culture, not the space.
Think about it. You just said that someone "catching you" taking a break is an issue and that in your mind that is a justification for keeping your screen hidden.
This smacks to me of an "If you have nothing to hide why do you care about your privacy?" argument. Which we should all know is a major fallacy.
There's plenty of reasons to not want others looking over your shoulder that have nothing to do with goofing off. Private emails, even totally business related ones are just that, private. If you're struggling with a problem, having an audience can make it that much worse. Et cetera, et cetera.
The nature of software development makes it hard for a lot of people to do with lots of distractions around them.
- There's also way too much stigma against "time wasting." Your brain needs breaks and distractions to work through problems. Spending some time on a goof off site each day is not a bad thing in and of itself. If your productivity suffers, that's a problem that needs to be addressed. But it can happen via burn out just as easily as via spending too much time reading fan theories on Infinity War Pt. 2.
> This smacks to me of an "If you have nothing to hide why do you care about your privacy?" argument. Which we should all know is a major fallacy.
The fallacy here is conflating the two. To me the most important argument in the usual privacy conversation (i.e. people vs government) is that people defending themselves from government surveillance is a very important part of keeping the balance of power from swinging too much in one direction.
This is nothing of the sort. If you work for a business and you don't like their open-plan offices, find one where they don't have open-plan offices. But saying that you don't like their open-plan offices because you're so productive without distractions, but then you're afraid that people see your screen seems dishonest. Also, if you're super productive but you need to take breaks to look at cat pictures during office hours, why are you afraid that someone will catch you looking at cat pictures? If you actually are as productive as you claim I'm sure people will respect your need for breaks: after all according to you we all need breaks, so "other people" will be doing the same thing. And if they don't respect _your_ need for breaks, then the problem isn't really the office style, but a lack of trust in colleagues. Again, the entire thing seems dishonest.
"with backs to the hallway" - depending on how far away the hallway is this can be distracting. In the past I've sat with my back maybe a 1.5m from a wall, and the space between was used as a standard route by countless people - distracting.
Again, I totally understand the "it's distracting" argument, I have made the same argument myself. I was pointing a finger at the "I don't like it when people can see my screen" argument.
If somebody is looking over my shoulder as I'm trying to work, my productivity goes right to zero. It doesn't matter if I'm writing code or pounding nails - I need people to leave me the hell alone and let me work, without constant feedback and micromanagement.
I worked in advertising and I saw how scared AdSense publishers constantly were of getting banned by Google. I understand that Google has to defend their business, but some times they were really harsh on things that were debatable grey areas. I always thought that Google was just needlessly giving itself a bad reputation as a business partner.
$11M is about 1 hr of Google's revenue (365 x 24 x 11/100000 = 0.96)
EDIT: This actually reminded me of that post a few days ago on HN, about the guy comparing foxes and racoons with some companies in the financial industry, and how some could be winning at the game but losing at the meta-game. Google should be more careful with its meta-game.
Alternative reading: they did you a favor by showing you early on that they could kill your startup at a moments notice. That's a lot better than to have 25 people on the payroll and see your advertising contract go up in smoke (which happened to me).
yeah if someone slips on your property and gets hurt, you're looking at millions potentially
But a $600+ billion dollar company that steals millions of dollars from thousands of publishers? $11 million . It's as if they measured it down to the penny exactly which is rare because often you see these huge settlement numbers like for tobacco companies, where it seems excessive. But the case where there are the most victims and the most hurt victims and victims that are the most innocent gets the most pathetic, most measured payout. It's the exact opposite of the frivolous lawsuit.
So this seems to be a pattern. The link that I posted elsewhere in this thread and the occurrence there was precisely because of poor support. (Again, I'm not affiliated with that guy in any way)
When you have millions of followers and billions of airtime on you, it's absolutely inexcusable to call a random guy a pedo.
When he did that my view of him went from a "fake it till you make it" type, to a dishonest and malicious person.