
What the last few weeks have been like for the CEO of Slack - mooreds
https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1243000487365861376
======
Traster
I thought this twitter thread would be a lot more about

>Network ops & infrastructure engineers deserve huge credit for 99.999% uptime
through absolutely unprecedented growth. Folded hands

The company I work at are very busy because of the events of the last few
weeks and a huge focus of that has been "Okay, we know these things can
happen, the focus right now is to focus, follow our contignency plans and make
sure everything just keeps working. No new features, no standard releases,
stop everything non-essential and focus on making sure everything holds up".

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bvandewalle
I have said this before but the way Slack is used today is most of the time a
net negative of the modern workplace.

And I will agree that it's mainly because people use it badly but Slack
encourages to use it as a dopamine fix contributing to an ever lower attention
span in the workspace.

An IM tool is needed in the modern workspace but it should be seen as the last
resort. A synchronous answer should not be expected. Instead, Slack has been
pushed as the replacement of email and is being used as the single place where
all the discussions are going on in real-time, making it extremely difficult
to work on a complex task without taking the risk of missing an important
decision/discussion.

I find it amazing that this tool is used unquestionably by every small/medium
company without ever wondering if it really provides a productivity benefit.

~~~
erikbye
You seem stuck in the past and project your problems onto others. For many, IM
and chat rooms do not cause productivity problems. Different companies use
Slack and other tools in their own way, have their own policies as to what is
expected and what not.

The client has enough options available you can set as you like as to not
disturb you.

Email has its own problems. Sometimes you need answers to important questions
promptly. @<user> works better then, at the same time, it is less intrusive
than a phone call.

Also, it is work time, you have to expect to be on the ready, and answer
people that needs something from you, so they can get their work done, too. It
is not your leisure time.

Some people here talk about work like they think it is their own personal
project time.

~~~
tduberne
> Also, it is work time, you have to expect to be on the ready, and answer
> people that needs something from you, so they can get their work done, too.
> It is not your leisure time.

I do not agree with that statement. In lots of roles, it does not matter
whether you answer now or in one hour, but being constantly disrupted
unexpectedly can have a dramatic impact on concentration and productivity. I
cannot do any substantial programming or data analysis if I expect to be
disrupted. The problem is not someone calling because the house is on fire and
I am the only one who can fix it; the problem is someone screaming for my
attention to e.g. know if I will participate in an event in 2 months time.
Avoiding unnecessary disruptions is not letting people have leisure time, it
is allowing them to do their work properly.

On that topic I really like that piece:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

~~~
icebraining
> I cannot do any substantial programming or data analysis if I expect to be
> disrupted.

Yet when you're in an office, you can always be interrupted by anyone coming
up to you (and that's usually true even if you have your private office). That
doesn't mean we don't reduce the actual number of interruptions. The same
applies when working remotely.

~~~
lejalv
It's a matter of cost-to-interrupt. IM substantially lowers that, the same as
home visit is more expensive than snail-mail spam is more expensive than
e-mail spam.

------
ulisesrmzroche
Steven King wrote Carrie in his dining room while he was a schoolteacher and
also raising Toddlers.

I personally suffer from neck pain because I can do deep work. A distraction
(my dog) is put in place to shake me from deep work and force rest.

If you’re getting easily distracted by your messages, you’re not doing deep
work. This is why you’re so easily distracted.

~~~
anoncake
> If you’re getting easily distracted by your messages, you’re not doing deep
> work. This is why you’re so easily distracted.

Psychology is an entire academic discipline. You can't just extrapolate from
your own introspection to everyone else.

~~~
qchris
I'm against the generalization of anecdotal evidence as much as, if not more,
than the next guy, but their point about distractions like message alerts is
doesn't seem like a controversial stance to me.

That statement is in line with essentially every piece I've ever read over the
years on deep work, and I'm not sure why you seem to feel they are only
extrapolating from introspection.

~~~
staticautomatic
In any event the statement is tautological.

------
fxbois
It is a real opportunity missed for google. Slack/Teams is the current heart
of company activities all over the world and Google only provides tens of
similar chat tools. They should really communicate about this.

~~~
pfranz
Google is so big I'm sure they had their own ups and downs. I see so many
school districts doubling down on Google Classroom--the district may have used
it previously, but were now adding accounts for Kindergarteners.

While Google usage is way up, ad buys dropped like a rock.

~~~
ian0
Can confirm classroom is seeing huge adoption in SEA too

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gregmac
One thing I found quite striking was that they started allowing "optional
WFH". Slack, which not only makes one of the main tools used to enable
distributed work, but the most popular one, didn't allow remote work??

It'll be interesting to see what changes come as they start eating their own
dog food.

~~~
tablethnuser
Slack is surprisingly anti remote work. They only offer it to incredibly
senior roles. Everyone else has to jump through hoops and get approvals from
many layers of middle management - it's one of those ask Mom / ask Dad
policies that's designed to make sure no one gets an answer.

~~~
EForEndeavour
Genuinely curious: what's your source for this claim? Are you a current or
former employee, or did you hear this from one? If so, what position(s)?

~~~
asah
confirmed with friend who works there in middle mgmt...

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yread
I hate Slack ("you'll never go back to email" wtf?) but this was a great
thread, really ties in all the stuff you have to worry about as a CEO

------
christiansakai
I hope once all this over people will ditch their social media and instant
messaging apps and begin to take most discussions with civility. We need less
social media, we need less instant messaging, we need less echo chambers.

------
perlgeek
Missing from that list: last Friday there was a huge hackathon in Germany that
tried to create a slack project and invite around 45k people to it, which
totally crashed the project.

The hackathon organizers said they were in contact with Slack's CEO or CTO
(cannot remember which one), and they continued trying to add people over most
of the weekend.

~~~
pas
Could someone elaborate on why? Why would anyone need a project/workspace with
45K users? Especially for a hackathon?

~~~
empath75
The kubernetes slack is quite a bit larger than that.

~~~
pas
Sure, there are large slacks, but those aren't those for a lot of working
groups, and announcements, and basically just being there (like IRC)? Whereas
for a hackathon you would need to talk/interact with those who are on your
team. And that team can just use whatever they want? (Skype, matrix/riot,
hangouts, fb messenger, and of course slack too.)

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dclusin
I wonder how much of that revenue/usage is sticky? E.g. how much use will
decline once people are back to work.

~~~
steve_adams_86
It's addressed in the tweets, but there's also the question of how many
existing customers are folding or going to fold before this all wraps up. If
you have that plus unsticky new customers, you're looking at a potential loss.
I have no idea what's realistic at this point, but I suppose neither do they.
These are strange times.

~~~
paxys
Yeah, I like that he called out that no matter how smart or informed people
are trying to sound at the moment, everyone - from the largest companies to
governments to everyone else - is flying blind.

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twomoretime
Tangent: is it ok to put sensitive stuff on slack?

I mean sure, they're legally prevented from snooping, but considering there'd
be no way to find out if that confidence were breached, is it ok to have
confidential discussions or upload sensitive documents or private keys?

~~~
mhh__
I think this is a situation where you need training in best practices and
checklists etc. rather than asking questions on HN.

Marginally I don't think it's a problem but given that most people don't treat
slack too carefully I wouldn't trust it regularly (Not slack itself but people
gaining access).

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40four
A tangent if I may...

I freaking hate twitter 'essays' like this. What is it, 30+ tweets in a row?
This is such a horrible way to communicate. 240 characters at a time is is not
a good way to write, let alone to try to read. I guess it makes me angry I am
expected to follow a long, disjointed, meandering stream of thought all the
way to the end. Tiny chunk... by tiny chunk.. by chunk.. chunk.. chunk. It
just feels bad.

I think I know why people do this, usually people with large followings, and
they want to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. But if you have
this much to say... please can we agree to just write a blog post and post the
link on twitter? Then we can go read a long article in a comfortable manner,
without all the other distractions of twitter, chunks spinning off a new
threads of comments along the way. Meanwhile, you still get to put it in from
of all your followers :)

~~~
gknoy
I don't remember who said it, but someone who tended to post twitter threads
noted that they have massive anxiety about writing things, and would/have
never managed to write a normal blog post, whereas a tweet is just below the
threshold of what is Too Much for them. So, for some authors, we can choose
between hearing nothing, or reading a thread of tweets.

~~~
afandian
You're probably thinking of
[https://mobile.twitter.com/foone](https://mobile.twitter.com/foone)

Foone's stuff is great. But that's a bit different to the [semi]official comms
of a CEO.

------
jrandm
If the pen is mightier than the sword; transferring long-form information via
Twitter is like leaving hand grenades lying around.

(The above sentence is 129 characters, feel free to tweet it)

I'm not trying to disparage this person, and I suspect he might even agree
based on the screenshot of the message posted in Slack, I'm just wondering why
we all keep treating this like it's normal.

Slack even has posts and (public?) file sharing as part of the product he
could use to distribute this information!

~~~
empath75
You go where the audience is.

~~~
jrandm
It would seem simpler and more effective, to me, to then tweet a link to the
information.

------
teslademigod1
Slack was a really great idea at the beginning, perhaps.

but mannn the way it is now -- at least, more accurately, the way people are
using it -- it's such a huge distractor

and these damn messages at 9pm or 8am or saturdays and sundays...

~~~
jve
Psst, don't tell anyone... [https://slack.com/intl/en-
lv/help/articles/214908388-Pause-n...](https://slack.com/intl/en-
lv/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notifications-with-Do-Not-Disturb)

~~~
teslademigod1
i guess it depends on your bosses. mine knows that i have it on my phone and
that the default notifications go off at 10 pm (?) and turn on at 8am. in
other companies, situation is probably different and better

~~~
paxys
So then it's not a Slack problem but "my boss" problem.

