VrimjApr 29, 2023
I think it is interesting and says something about tech in general that even Elon understood he had to hire rocket scientists and car manufacturing engineers and neuroscientists for those projects but he doesn't appear to have hired a single expert in communication or social dynamics when taking over Twitter, the same appears to be true for every other newly founded social network where I have taken a look at the leadership.
Show threadVrimjApr 29, 2023

There is a very specific sort of thing here that I don't have language for but I have noticed. People who work with things respect other people with expertise in how to work on things.

Often they do not see skills with people as real unless they are deeply abstracted and not really about people anymore but the things that make up people, eg neuroscience.

Show threadWilliam Pietri
@Vrimj Great points. For me this is of a piece with the people who start restaurants never having worked in a restaurant. They think their experience as a restaurant-goer and food-eater is enough. The "how hard can it be" fallacy, we might call it.
Apr 29, 2023 at 5:18pmWeb
Show threadWilliam PietriApr 29, 2023
@Vrimj And like you, I noticed the same thing about a prominent new social network: https://sfba.social/@williampietri/110277753471261078
William Pietri (@[email protected])

How did this happen? Well, you could look at their initial team announcement: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-31-2022-initial-bluesky-team Or their jobs page (the history of which you can see on the Wayback machine): https://blueskyweb.xyz/join Or who LinkedIn thinks is working there: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?currentCompany=%5B%2279571598%22%5D&origin=COMPANY_PAGE_CANNED_SEARCH&sid=8VD I don't see anybody there with expertise in these problems. There's definitely nobody whose job it is to think about this. So we have the classic approach of "build for the comfortable, worry about anybody else later if at all".

SFBA.social
Show threadVrimjApr 29, 2023
@williampietri Oh yeah, the "hate switch" is just asking to become the new home of the abusive fruit site.