Oh yes, the good old "Let's do all it takes to meet demands of an unhinged billionaire even if it means crippling our own health in the process". Classic.
The difference is a farm needs that sort of dedication to function properly. Nature does not have a massive ego, and nothing started and finished this week at Twitter will make a significant or long term difference in its bottom line.
SpaceX is a different business entity that actually produces something of value and utility.
When it comes to Twitter, yes the ego is out of check, expecting employees to go above and beyond for something that is little more than a spam cannon.
That said, neither company's success could not be realized on a normal work weeks for all employees. Nothing SpaceX is doing has a hard time limit - they are not saving lives or winning wars. Its about revenue - short term revenue.
So, if a deadline is given under threat of firing, is that considered creating a hostile workplace? Like, enough to file a lawsuit against?
If you're given an impossible deadline, that your peers all agree is impossible, and are under threat of firing, is that considered constructive dismissal?
It just sounds so insane to me that there wouldn't be some sort of regulatory mitigation against this type of "demand under threat of firing" thing
It is just an arbitrary deadline. It doesn't matter whether it ships next week or the week after. In the big picture it is not going to make any difference.
Man i miss the days when i got to work like this. As a leader i can't really do this type of stuff cause i don't want to pressure people. But the only thing more meaningful than working hard on what matters to you is family.
Believe it or not the most meaningful thing for people is being adequately compensated and having a work-life balance, not grinding away for some billionaire.
This shouldn't be normalized, even if some people are happy to oblige.
This is a one time only thing, what's the big deal?! It's not like they are working in the coal mines, and besides twitter pays (or used to pay) quite a lot so it's not slave labor by any means.
Has it happened before? I don't remember reading about it, and I suspect HN would be the place for this kind of news.
Also I don't think it will happen again because people are obviously quite vocal about it. It was such a surprise that the most common reaction was compliance. Next time it will be a mass riot.
Many of us did this sort of thing in our twenties and sneered at the whiners nattering on about “work/life balance,” then discovered there’s more to life than pulping yourself for… a pat on the back, a voucher for a dinner for two at a nice steakhouse, and the expectation that you’ll do it all over again the next time that the CEO just has to have some feature.
Anyone who goes into one without knowing this is naive.
The important thing is to go in there and work bloody hard, because in a startup your hard work is uniquely able to contribute to the success of the company. And you’ll be handsomely rewarded if the company succeeds.
Many startups are unsuccessful, but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless or undesirable to have the option of striving within this environment.
All big companies were startups at some point. We must maintain the culture of hard work and high risk/reward, otherwise our economy will consist of uninspiring medium-sized companies (with the only large ones being banks or oil companies), as is the situation in most of the world outside America.
> We must maintain the culture of hard work and high risk/reward, otherwise our economy will consist of uninspiring medium-sized companies (with the only large ones being banks or oil companies), as is the situation in most of the world outside America.
You think that without that culture, there would be no large companies other than banks or oil companies anywhere in the world?
