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Gergely Orosz Profile picture
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Writing @Pragmatic_Eng, the #1 technology newsletter on Substack. Author of @EngGuidebook. Formerly Uber & Skype.
34 subscribers
Aug 22 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
What is happening at Sonos is hard to believe.

The company released a new app that is a big regression in reliability, usability and functionality vs the old one.

Sales are falling thanks to the new app.

There is no quick fix.

They want to re-release the old app... but cannot Image Screenshot from

Talk about a company damaging themselves, thanks to ignoring practices like:

1. Only release a product that has been properly tested (was not the case w Sonos)

2. Have a rollback plan, especially when skipping #1 (also not the case)reddit.com/r/sonos/commen…
Aug 21 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Do I have this right:

Major banks skipped due diligence on the deal when providing massive loans to the world's wealthiest person buying Twitter for $44B, assuming they would make a quick buck by selling on these loans.

But they cannot sell it on and make money on it? Image The full story by WSJ:

It's hard to feel sorry for massive banks that don't make the quick buck they expected to do, because they loaned for an objectively terrible deal? (Twitter was sold for 2-3x the value of Snap, despite fewer users, similar rev)wsj.com/tech/elon-musk…
Aug 19 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
It's notable that coding assistants like Copilot, Tab9 and many others are available in most IDEs... save for XCode.

This means we have an unlikely "control group" to determine if these AI assistants make a major difference in coding: native iOS devs vs everyone else! Assuming these coding assistants provide a meaningful and long-term productivity boosts: teams doing web and Android development using these tools (e.g. via Jetbtains or GH Copilot) *should* be meaningfully more productive vs iOS folks.

Interesting if we'll see major differences
Aug 8 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Outside of coding and customer service, what are areas where GenAI / LLMs result in very clear productivity gains or business gains, without a deterioration in the experience for customers?

These are two areas I currently see as "yeah, GenAI actually works here, not just a fad" Funnily enough, even when Sundar Pichai was asked about GenAI, he seemed to only list these two examples. Two weeks ago he said:

"There are pockets, be it coding, be it in customer service, et cetera, where we are seeing some of those [GenAI] use cases seeing traction"
Jul 31 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Here is an EU regulation that surely massively accelerated online businesses:

The right to return any physical goods purchased online within 14 days.

Here’s why (my recent story with a faulty vacuum cleaner that will make me only buy stuff like this online, even from a shop:) I needed a vaccuum cleaner while in Hungary. So I walked into a retailer shop and bought a cordless one.

The vacuum cleaner broke after 7 days (no charge.) Took it back to replace it… but was told that in-store purchases are not eligible for the 14-day return. Only online ones
Jul 30 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It's a good reminder that CrowdStrike most likely caused more financial damage to their customers than their annual revenue.

CrowdStrike annual revenue: $3B. "Just" the damage caused to a big customer (Delta): $300-500M.

It is only business sensible Delta sues CS/MS for this. Delta (by regulation) needs to stand in for the losses and cover them for passengers.

The interesting parts of the lawsuit will be:

1. What contracts did Delta strike with CS/MS in case of them causing financial damage to their business, like now?

2. What does the judge say?
Jul 30 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
What happens when a government decides that their banking sector needs proper competition, and mandate a new payment method that is:

1. Instant (unlike bank transfers)

2. Free for consumers, very very cheap for merchants (unlike credit cards)

What Brazil did with Pix: Banks, credit/debit card companies (MasterCard, Visa, AMEX) all hate if and when this would happen.

The economy usually loves it: local businesses spend less on payment fees (previously going to the above) and consumers will spend as much or more.

Other countries also did this.
Jul 26 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
So it’s official: until something changes in the future, accounting-wise the US is the most hostile place to start a software startup/small business.

The only country in the world where developers’ salary cannot be expensed the same year: but needs to be amortised over 5 years. No other country does this. Obviously the US has many other upsides (eg access to capital, large market etc) but this accounting change will surely result in fewer software developer jobs from US companies.

More in my analysis: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/
Jul 20 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The CrowdStrike outage will hit airlines esp hard, financially.

These companies pay CrowdStrike to secure their endpoints (Windows machines.) The outage caused by CrowdStrike immobilised them, forcing cancellations. They are now is required to refund tickets this blackout hit. An: interesting question: can airlines hold their vendor accountable for losses it caused them? I his will depend on the contract: I suspect not.

It’s also interesting how airlines are regulated to be compliant, security-wise. Many contract w a vendor like CrowdStrike for this.
Jul 20 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The smart thing in light of the Crowdstrike global outage is to look not to Crowdstrike, but your own company:

What happens when someone (anyone!) pushes code that passes all internal tests but crashes prod for most customers? When do you discover it? Is it before customers? If you are an engineer and you notice poor practices (eg no proper automated testing, no staged rollouts for critical code, poor monitoring, no automated rollback mechanism for key parts) you won’t have a better time to make your case to invest in these than today.

So speak up!
Jul 19 • 22 tweets • 9 min read
Oh wow - sounds like there are global outages across airlines globally (from LAX to BER), TV & radio stations from the UK to Australia and supermarkets in Australia thanks to the “Windows blue screen of death” for companies running Crowdstrike?

This kind of impact is wild. Image Source:

So many reports here on Twitter, eg this for airlines and blue screens: theguardian.com/australia-news…
Jul 11 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
How Intuit takes care of its people:

It's CEO advertises to the world that those they are letting go are not meeting expectations.

You cannot make this up: it's from official Intuit comms.

If this is not punching down for no reason, I don't know what is... Image Source - shockingly! - is from Intuit themselves.

When any decent company does mass layoffs, they try to do their best to not hurt employees on the way out. Great companies go out of their ways to help them (e.g. Airbnb connecting with recruiters etc)

intuit.com/blog/news-soci…
Jul 10 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I talked to a few ex-McKinsey folks after our response with @KentBeck on McKinsey’s software dev claims got traction.

An open secret in these groups:

Customers often pay $$$ to McKinsey so McKinsey “formalizes” what they already want to do, but now they can point to McKinsey. A good example is when a large company is bloated, and a new structure w layoffs is needed.

Do it, as the CEO: unpopular.

Pay McKinsey $5M and they bring this as the “best” approach: we are just following the advice of “experts.”

(Our response, btw )mckinsey.com/industries/tec…
Jul 8 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
There's much speculation out there on LLM ("AI") potential future use cases, but surprisingly little data on what is working (or not working) today.

Going through responses on how developers use AI tools, how it works day-to-day etc.

Not nearly as rosy as the predictions were. AI coding assistants are are interesting area, because a good % (perhaps even majority) of software developers are using these tools, every day. So we have data.

Will share the report in @Pragmatic_Eng.

Here is last year's: most of it still holds (!) newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-coding-to…
Jul 7 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Today, one of the “smart” locks stopped working. There’s power: just no functionality. Physical locks removed so residents like me locked out - from our downstairs storages. No one answers the phone on a Sunday.

Residents outrage brewing to ditch the vendor and “smart” locks. Apparently, this week, this same lock was down for 12 hours thanks to a problem on the vendor (server) side without the vendor noticing (they remotely reset it after they got the messages in the morning residents left at night.)

Amazed how such vendors have any business at all.
Jul 2 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I feel that lots of GenAI businesses are digging the graves of their greater industry.

Got an email that was clearly machine generated, w some fake compliments, baiting me to reply. Turns out this was sent by a GenAI SaaS doing just this.

In response, I ignore cold emails more. Image The company in question is called "Respona." Blocked their whole domain, as I know only to expect these AI-generated emails.

By this startup optimizing for their short-term revenue (with GenAI-generated spamming at scale) they are slowly destroying their original market.
Jun 28 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Who ever decided at Apple that it's a good idea to ship "Reactions" as an OS-level feature on Mac, with no way to turn it off, on when you use e.g. external cameras as well.

It crashes some apps, fantastic (and no way to turn off across the system, only per-app, for some apps) Image I understand this gimmicky feature being part of eg iOS. But why ship it *on Mac,* and give the user (the admin) no option to say "no, I don't want this junk firmware-level feature turned on on my camera feed?"

Since when does Apple know better how people want to use their Macs?
Jun 28 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Learned that a major YouTube channel - Techlead - admitted he has been issuing fraudulent copyright strikes to any and all videos criticizing him. This is a big deal because channels with 3 strikes get deleted: for good.

Does YouTube know about this? They do for sure, now. It’s always hard to tell if the right people at a company are informed of conduct that breaches terms and conditions.

Now, 2 large channels shared the details in a way that is impossible to escape the attention of the YT copyright strike team. Video #1:

Jun 25 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Fascinating observation by @ByrneHobart about how even OpenAI is unlikely to believe that "AGI" is close, based on changing equity structures.

Basically, OpenAI is expecting more employees to leave. If the same employees saw AGI be round the corner, would they leave? Unlikely. Image Full analysis in The Diff (a newsletter I am a paying subscriber to - it is full of analysis nuggets like this. Recommended!)

thediff.co/archive/does-t…
Jun 25 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This single 2021 article caused more meetings across tech companies in the Netherlands (and Europe) for engineering leadership and HR than anything I've published before or after.

I'm aware of several that revamped compensation (increasing ranges and/or equity) as a result: Image The article:

The timing was innocent (I left Uber shortly before & had a few months to think about this topic, and publish without worrying about corporate's feedback.)

But it coincided with the bull 2021-2022 tech jobs market, where it became relevant.blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engin…
Jun 23 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Sometimes living in a smaller country has its advantages.

I published the concept of the trimodal distribution of sw engineering compensation thanks to analyzing the smaller Dutch tech compensation market, which I both understood very well, and got lots of data points for. Image The market in NL has characteristics many other tech markets have:

1. Big Tech is present
2. Lots of scaleups/startups with VC funding
3. Lots of local companies

And because I knew the market very well, I was confident to make a definite assessment.

blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engin…