I somehow value my time more than the money. I think that I have some kind of stake/interest in things I dedicated my time to.
Though I am always thankful (as Eric is in this post) for the people and the income. I can't help but feel regretful as the product of my time and dedication is discarded.
> How could someone be resentful at losing their job to a nonsensical decision making process? How could someone possibly be frustrated to be shown zero gratitude for their very profitable work for someone else?
He chose to work for Mark Zuckerberg. He wishes he could continue working for Mark Zuckerberg, in order to make Mark Zuckerberg richer. Perhaps you can understand why I don't have a lot of empathy.
He never said that this is why he wants to continue working at Meta. People do have other reasons for wanting to work there.
He has a blog. He can post any thing he likes, any time he likes. As can anyone here who can manage to put together a blog.
I did choose to work for Facebook. The pitch I was given seven years ago was that (1) the mission of the company is to lower costs of building community and connecting people; running an ad-funded social media platform is the means to that end. That's not a mission that is super important to me, but I can respect it. And (2) FB is the company that is investing heavily in advancing modern developer tools outside of the Microsoft ecosystem. That is a mission that is important to me.
Your statement that I wish I could continue to work for and enrich Zuck is false. I was regretted attrition.
Your lack of empathy is clear.
> Your statement that I wish I could continue to work for and enrich Zuck is false. I was regretted attrition.
Perhaps you should make it more clear in the blog post that you left of your own accord. People who are not familiar with the Facebook org chart might not understand that when you say "My team — Probabilistic Programming Languages — and indeed entire “Probability” division were laid off a couple weeks ago" that you yourself are not included in that set of people who were laid off.
No kidding. I just spent 30 minutes reading both Eric's blog post and this HN thread with a (very) wrong idea in mind.
I've had many gentle, kind, thoughtful and loving friends, classmates and coworkers who have lived with autism, and it's unfair and unkind to compare them to internet trolls. Thanks!
You see, most of us actually care about our work and hate to see it thrown away.
> Instead of being "vexed" that he was fired instead of the people building toys for Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps he should be thankful for the two years he spent working on the PPL team.
Again, you don't understand how normal people work.
Normal people would be sad to see work they cared about passionately and had sunk thousands of hours into being thrown away, particularly when it's being done for no good reason.
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Your post comes off as callous. You claim to be a "big fan" of this guy's work, and yet you mock him repeatedly for caring when that very same work is thrown into the garbage.
I suggest cultivating compassion for others, particularly people you are big fans of.
Me neither until about a month ago. Let me tell you - it's awful. I've watched myself and many coworkers go through the process of emotionally accepting it.
Some people want to know what algorithm or decision-making picked them for the chopping block. Some out of a desire to know that it wasn't performance-related, others to know the mechanics because maybe it feels like you'll be able to avoid it next time, or at least see it coming.
Some are just mad. Mad that their hard work went unappreciated, mad that their lives have been upended at the whims of a handful of rich people (who take full responsibility of course), mad that they have to change life plans and go through our industry's stupid interviewing process.
Some are very sad - it's deflating and depressing to be plugged into the fast-paced, high pressure environments these places cultivate and then just be told the next day you'll be doing... nothing. (Not here, anyway!) And pulling yourself out of the rut means going over the bed of nails that is job-seeking.
I was personally mostly in the first group. I think I'm mostly accepted it now. Except for while I'm in the shower - then I'm just mad at it all.
Anyway, my point is, everyone deserves the space to emotionally process this stuff, and I don't think you should look down on his own version of the process.
Good leaders spell out the why. For one, it’s just decency. Secondly, if you care even a little about a subordinate, you want them to succeed after leaving. This feedback helps them understand any missteps they can avoid later. Thirdly, removing uncertainty reduces stress. It reminds me of the study about mice and electric shocks. The mice who were randomly shocked with no rhyme or reason became helpless because of the uncertainty in their life.
Nobody is entitled to good leadership, but most can understand why it’s necessary.
I was well compensated, it's true. It's also true that for every $1000 I was paid, I lowered FB's costs by about $4000. The argument that I should be eternally grateful to Zuck for allowing me to keep a quarter -- before taxes! -- of the profit that accrued to him for writing zero lines of compiler code while he keeps the other three quarters is maybe not the strong argument you think it is.
I'm a big fan of Eric Lippert's work, but this blog post comes across as whiny and evinces a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement. This is a person who voluntarily chose to get paid (I can only assume) a very large amount of money to work on something that he found to be exciting and fulfilling. The only catch: it all belonged to Mark Zuckerberg.
Why does Mark Zuckerberg owe him an explanation for why his services are no longer needed? Why does he think that the decision process should be visible and rational (cost vs benefit) to him? It suggests that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Instead of being "vexed" that he was fired instead of the people building toys for Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps he should be thankful for the two years he spent working on the PPL team.