from Hacker News

Twitter at 1am on a Friday

by Ice_cream_suit on 11/20/22, 2:15 AM with 204 comments

• by bern4444 on 11/20/22, 3:19 AM

  Lots of comments on how hackathons and late night sessions were fond memories for people.

  The difference is those events were chosen. If you are forced to remain at your company (due to visa issues for example) being forced by your CEO to stay at work until 1am is atrocious.

  This is not a profession where being at the office this late is the norm and it's not typical for the environment.

  Twitter is not a startup in any way shape or form. It was clearly just valued at 44 billion dollars, no startup is worth that much ;).

  This is an executive abusing his power, forcing individuals to do as they say. There is little choice and free will being exercised.

  Maybe some of the people do want to be there and are happy to do so; I don't believe this is the case. It is naive to think it would be.

  Hackathons, staying up late working on a passion or hobby by choice can be fun. Being forced to for your profession and by the new CEO who has fired and caused over 70% of the company to leave doesn't fall under that category.

• by mike503 on 11/20/22, 3:03 AM

  As the comment says, it would be interesting to interact with the richest person on earth. Short of that, I have no idea why anyone would think it's fun or anything to be in that atmosphere. He could change direction on a whim and make you redundant in a second.

• by polished85 on 11/20/22, 4:26 AM

  This is like a sociological experiment where they show different people the same picture and ask "what do you see"? The results are heavily influenced by your previous perception of Elon. The results vary from "abuse and modern slavery" to "I'd fly halfway across the country to be there." I don't really have an opinion here as I don't know what is actually happening and assume the original poster intentionally framed it in a specific way. As humans we are very predictable, and even in a high IQ place such as HN, mostly everyone used the photo as validation of their existing position.

• by jsnell on 11/20/22, 2:59 AM

  It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Even given Musk's erratic behavior in the previous weeks, it would have been hard to predict something like this.

  At a short notice summon the handful of engineers who survived the purges to the office at 2pm on a Friday and to bring 10 screenshots of code they've written "for review". With that implicit threat, have them wait until 6pm. Then keep them around until 1am to give a tutorial level introduction to the Twitter infrastructure to Musk (who could have gotten this months ago). There's just no legit justification for it; it's pure bullying and a loyalty test.

  And then to top it off, have your pet venture capitalists post fawning tweets about how this really shows the classic SV energy.

• by deanCommie on 11/20/22, 3:24 AM

  Of all the scenarios with Twitter in the last several months where people talk past each other, this is the one I am most confused by.

  You got startup CEOs (not just Elon Musk brownnosers) talking about how some of the most innovative things get built at startups.

  Which is true! Big, world-changing ideas, don't get built 9-5. And especially if you have some competitive advantage, you need to rush to market, to beat the others.

  But Twitter is (was) a 40+ Billion dollar company. None of the people in this photo have any reasonable equity (the kind that makes people work nights and weekends in the hope that an IPO makes them a millionaire). And Twitter has a massive network effect of the kind meaning that if you don't screw it up (and god is Elon trying), none of these people are going anywhere.

  I can understand that it's in Musk's interest to create a reality distortion field and convince the employees that they need to stay and go Hardcore so that he can create the American Weechat, or whatever he's got in mind.

  But what do the other CEOs that are swooning over this have to gain except a dry run for also starting to treat their employees like garbage...

• by wskish on 11/20/22, 3:10 AM

  I am amazed by how polarizing this seems to be. Some of my best memories are from previous startups with this exact 1am energy. This is how shared mental models are built, shit gets done, and shared suffering cements lifelong bonds.

• by justahuman74 on 11/20/22, 3:21 AM

  I wonder what twitter new-hire TC offers are going to look like going forward.

  I can't imagine there would be a large funnel looking to work there after this.

• by memish on 11/20/22, 2:53 AM

  Er. How many of them are H-1Bs?

• by rawgabbit on 11/20/22, 2:55 AM

  Looks like a death march to the bitter end. A suicide pact.

• by pleb_nz on 11/20/22, 2:57 AM

  Why are they at work at 1am?

• by gilbetron on 11/20/22, 3:03 PM

  I have to say, if I was in different circumstances, I would love to go to work at Twitter right now.

  But that's because I really enjoy watching weird shit happen, and there's so much weird shit happening there right now. It would be a win-win for me, odds are I'd emerge in a few months, maybe a year, with some great stories about watching a bizarre implosion of a foundational tech company as well as experience a billionaire self destructing. Or, way less likely, but possible I suppose, I would help that crazy billionaire reinvent the tech company and walk away pretty rich.

• by mlindner on 11/20/22, 12:03 PM

  When he posted it I thought it was pretty cool that he's sitting down with the team and discussing things. This is how Elon learns in an organization. He needs to do this kind of thing and do it a lot more.

  I don't think the time of day matters much. I've been in the office at that time of the day a number of times. As long as it's only an occasional thing it's fine.

• by hotpotamus on 11/20/22, 3:03 AM

  Honestly, I like the picture of the new owner coming in and having engineers whiteboard the systems out to him and start getting up to speed with the company. It does have a nice feeling of espirit de corps to it. If he had started with that instead of fire and fury and a lame sink joke, he wouldn't have tarnished his image and the company so much.

• by paul7986 on 11/20/22, 5:20 AM

  I see it says there's a lot of H1 work are still there…

  Musk has said Americans are lazy compared to those not in the US… Maybe that picture shows it… Work balance over changing the world type of work or your stuck cause no job your out of the country. Maybe it's a mix of both

  Maybe musk could force more truth on the Internet, somehow through the blue checkmark and verification of each user… Create a reputation system, or may be crazy if you're going to spread lies how much of your own money you gonna back up that silly political lie with (so much drama in politics it driven by emotions more then logic).

• by password4321 on 11/20/22, 3:52 AM

  AFAIK Tesla & SpaceX aren't known for great work/life balance.

• by tomlockwood on 11/20/22, 2:49 AM

  Looking at that diagram, and thinking the person who needed it just bought the company for 44 billion dollars, is bewildering.

• by alkonaut on 11/20/22, 1:03 PM

  I hope those people are paid in lots of equity in this startup…

• by RickJWagner on 11/20/22, 8:07 PM

  Love him or hate him, Elon Musk makes things happen.

  Electric cars, space travel, large-scale drilling, Twitter 2.0, etc. This is a man history will remember.

• by sys_64738 on 11/20/22, 3:02 AM

  Some people have families and a life outside of work. We sure as heck ain't staying until 1am for anybody.

• by wdr1 on 11/20/22, 6:03 AM

  How is this not overtly racist?

• by big_red on 11/20/22, 3:20 AM

  Are you kidding me? Those guys are living the dream! Chilling out with Elon Musk on a Friday night. I’d go there to make the coffee and clean the dishes so I could overhear in the next room. No seriously

• by SanjayMehta on 11/20/22, 3:36 AM

  As opposed to:

  https://www.theblaze.com/news/twitter-day-in-life-video

  Having worked in both types of environments, I can tell you only the 1am types survive and become profitable.

• by bleah1000 on 11/20/22, 3:56 AM

  It's kind of sad to see so many people just take this story at face value. Is it really 1am? I could certainly believe it, but some random picture doesn't make it true. Also, even it is 1am, it's possible that work ended hours ago, and that some people are staying late to talk to Musk. Who knows, but to assume that everyone is being forced to stay, maybe, maybe not. I guess I'd like a little evidence.

  The number of people saying all of these completely unsubstantiated things about Twitter, and everyone believing them without any questions is weird.

  In addition, how could this person know if mostly H1-B workers are present. I certainly can't tell who is and isn't on a H1-B. Or is it because the bulk of the people are not white that this person assumed they were? That seems like an immensely racist assumption.

• by sdwr on 11/20/22, 2:49 AM

  Been reading a lot of hate on twitter, reddit, and here about how elon is handling twitter. Personally, I love the energy in this picture, want to work at twitter more now than before, and believe they have a good chance of doing great work.

  What I see in the picture is organic connection. It's really easy in tech for everyone to get siloed, working on assigned tasks without communication. Greatness comes from the shared spark <and then> head down focus.

  I bet elon is trying to recreate the environment that worked at paypal and tesla and spacex. Scrappy, energetic, get shit done, not 100 managers with 100 tiny fiefdoms.