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Charity Majors @mipsytipsy
, 10 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
it is the sweetest thing ever when one of your coworkers starts privately tripping over themselves with bemusement and joy at just how mindblowingly wonderful their coworkers are. (present *and* past 🐝's)

(hey, I am not breaking confidence bc i count four times this week lol)
what I love much less, is when people follow "They are SO AMAZING" up with ".... I don't think I belong here. with them."

I haven't much moral authority: I've said it too. But listen anyway, because this is proper stupid. We are here. We belong, because it belongs to us.
This isn't because we are the BEST at this or anything, it's because of

a) sheer dumb luck
b) our skills and needs align...for now
c) the opportunities challenge you in the direction you want to grow
d) we like each other, and choose each other again each and every day
Some people think this sounds depressing and transactional, far less glamorous than saying we are superheroes on a mission ordained by God or some shit.

I mean, ok. You're not wrong. We are here to create value and delight our customers, not build a cult. (Boooring.)
I've been pretty damn lucky in my career, in that I've had two 4-5 year jobs where my coworkers became extended family to me. Jobs where I grew technically and interpersonally, had a lot of autonomy, and was fiercely proud of my teams and our mission.
I've had meh jobs too, but these two tether me to a reality where I *know* tech work can be be glorious. And having tasted that, I can't settle for crap now.

Cyen and I always said that even if we crash&burn, it will be OK... if we created space for our team to taste that too.
... dammit I messed up Twitter threading. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

the last thing I wanted to say is how weirdly little influence I feel like I have over the company culture now. As a manager or IC, I felt like I had loads of influence. As CEO it seems easier to harm than help.
I'm very conscious of the way people randomly receive my off the wall speculation or comments as requests or requirements. 😕

So like, I don't suggest we go out for drinks any more. Bc we don't want a "drinking culture". So I can only enthusiastically back others who do.
People create culture, but leaders of a hierarchy can mostly either get out of the way and let them... or they can destroy it. As far as I can tell.
Anyway, I work with sweet people and feel very lucky too. Good night. 💕
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btw ... going from line manager (managing engineers) to director (managing managers) is almost as much of a career change as going from engineer to manager.

you will suck at your job again, and you will have to rewire your brain's reward mechanisms again.
the metaphor i use is, as an engineer you get to use your hands to build a ship. as manager, you walk along the pier coaching and lending a hand.

as a director, you get a mission ("build 2x larger ships!") and a rusty fishing rod to wave at the managers to convey what you want.
almost all line managers rely on their personal charisma or subject authority to get their team to do things in some unique and unreplicable way.

once you become a director, you can't lean on instinct. what worked for you will not work for the managers who report to you.
Read 5 tweets
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this is uncanny since i was JUST WRITING a tweet on questions you should ask when interviewing:

- is there a career ladder? comp bands?
- do managers and engineers get compensated equally by level?
- do you encourage people to move back and forth between IC/mgmt?
the rest of @JeremyMcGee's list:
- is management seen as a promotion?
- how long does it take someone to reach senior engineer out of school?
- is there a terminal level for engineers?
- what is the distribution of engineers over levels? how many principals?
- what are the technical expectations for managers?
Read 6 tweets
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an interesting and subtle point. The team you recruit, hire and retain with a 6 month time horizon is very different than the one you hire with a 2y or 5y horizon.

People *tend* not to think on a long enough time scale. But sometimes too long!
I used to think "not a good fit" was always a bullshit term. After 3 years of running a company, and parting ways with ever so many brilliant, wonderful people for the right reasons which also had absolutely no reflection on their worth -- it's not (always) bullshit. At all.
Sometimes a question of limited resources and changing strategy, interpersonal dynamics and shifting needs, crazy gambles that don't pan out, needs not fully understood, technical affinities and joys and stages of life and personal balance.
Read 9 tweets

Related threads

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All these articles about Netflix seemingly inventing interactive fiction are hysterical jfc

No, netflix didn't invent state machines and no there aren't a trillion paths in the story. All these people tripping over themselves for BM is patronizing and extremely embarrassing.
I'm not trying to crap on people enjoying Black Mirror, but people are giving Netflix undue praise due for a medium that has existed for far longer and has explored the same concepts in far better ways, and more importantly, developed the tech and techniques needed to write them.
Also the interface sucks wtf is that really all that Netflix money could conjure
Read 3 tweets
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1) We are WINNING folks! People are coming off the sidelines to get a piece of the action!

2)
3)
Read 8 tweets
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1) @cvpayne ABSOLUTELY must read article about why the Economists and Doomsday predictions will be wrong once again. All I can say is that once the trade deals with China and the EU are done, we are going to hit GDP numbers that will be out of this world!

2) From the article linked above:

Liberals are tripping over themselves to explain why the economy has performed so much better under Donald Trump than it did under Barack Obama. The economy has grown by nearly 4% over the past six months, and the final number for 2018 is
3) expected to come in at between 3% and 3.5%. The U.S. growth rate has doubled since Mr. Obama’s last year in office.

Mr. Trump’s fiscal policies have produced more growth than Mr. Obama’s because they were designed to incentivize businesses to invest, hire and produce more
Read 4 tweets
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Remember how the Bush administration had these delightfully deceptive names to mask policies that made it easier for corporations to clearcut ("Healthy Forest Initiative") & pollute ("Clear Skies Act")? We should view the "First Step Act" with similar suspicion. Rant follows:
A "First Step" is a beautiful thing: a child or animal learning to walk, someone recovering from an injury. This act? We'll see what's in the final bill, but expect a mix of moderate, overdo reforms with greatly enhanced privatization & e-carceration. 2/
And here's reminder #306876071 that federal prison system is ~13% of US prison pop. Reform is needed from top to bottom, don't get me wrong. But any coverage needs to be crystal clear about what this does & does not mean. As always, see @PrisonPolicy prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie201… 3/
Read 17 tweets
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45 Days Of @ElvisCostello: a twitter megathread in anticipation of the Oct 12 release date of LOOK NOW, the new LP by Elvis Costello & The Imposters

This is either a bright idea or a brilliant mistake, but this is only, this is only, this is only the beginning...
I did something similar to this 5 years ago, in anticipation of EC & @theroots' Wise Up Ghost LP, on tumblr.

(You can still find all those posts if you look, although a lot of the YouTube links etc are now dead ends. It was 40 Days Of EC then, so for 2018 I'm upping it to 45.)
Mostly I will be going chronologically from the early years right up to the present, but it feels right to start out with Costello's 2002 song, "45."

Music Video directed by @jessebdylan


(There's an alternate "diner" version I can't find anywhere online)
Read 2378 tweets
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It seems like every company is tripping over themselves in a rush to say their software is “powered by AI.”

But saying “powered by AI” is like saying you’re “powered by the internet” or “powered by computer code." By itself, it means nothing.

Here’s how I think about it:
1) Most “now powered by AI!” is just a rebranding of the same heuristics and rules engines software has used for decades.

When your email program keeps track of what folders you use most often and magically offers to file mails to them, that’s a simple algorithm, not “AI.”
Software has been adapting to users for decades.

The old Microsoft Office “smart” menus and toolbars rearranged based on your usage (“powered by AI!”) as early as 1999.

Learning spam and antivirus filters have been around for more than 20 years.
Read 15 tweets

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