Mastodawn

jimray Jul 28, 2023

Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about the launch of The Torment Nexus, the opening of the Xthonic Gateway, and release of the arch-demon Tzaunh MAY HIS REIGN BE DARK AND ETERNAL, who has begun his foretold 10,000 years of suffering and torment. I figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I yeeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup in 2020 I finally got to see it from the inside. Up close it was both amazing and terrible, like so many other companies and things in life. But, as we all now know, mostly terrible. So, so, *so* terrible.

Still, “Don’t Build The Torment Nexus” was one of my all-time favorite sci-fi books as a kid so getting to work *on* The Torment Nexus was a lifelong dream come true.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, it often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, and reorgs — not to mention there was a strong contingency of people who didn’t want to build The Torment Nexus.

You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a Chthonic Priest of the Seventh Order who *did* want to build The Torment Nexus.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

Although I didn’t know much about Elonthradiel The Cursed Vessel I was cautiously optimistic – I saw him as the guy who built technolgies like cars that lie and rockets that destroy entire ecosystems, so perhaps his private ownership could shake things up and breathe new life into the company.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I regret that Elonthradiel was the first to be consumed by The Torment Nexus, shattering his soul into a billion billion shards and providing the catalyst for the return of Tzaunh MAY HIS REIGN BE DARK AND ETERNAL. He would be proud of what we built.

My take on what’s happened since then is full of lived nuance.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

When people ask why I stayed it’s easy to answer: optimism, curiosity, personal growth and money.

And a sacred vow from the high priestess of Tzaunh that my family would be spared the despair and misery that is now being visited on every living creature on earth.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

From the beginning I saw that some of the changes Elonthradiel made were smart, some were stupid, and some were putting us on a path to open an interdimensional portal that would unleash a hellspawn who would bring about the end of all life as we know it after he spent a thousand lifetimes torturing every soul that has ever lived.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

But when I’m on a team I uphold the philosophy of “praise in public and criticize in private”. I was far from a silent wallflower. I shared my opinions openly and pushed back often, both before and after the beginning of The Dark Reign.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

In person, Elonthradiel was oddly charming and so, so funny. Not like funny “ha, ha” more like “oh you’ll flay my children in front of me if we don’t ship the new monetization features *and* discover the location of The Necrolance of Gronthx this quarter” funny. Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said. Like, literally fanatical, often willing to offer themselves as blood sacrifice.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. That was particularly frustrating for me since I believed I had useful institutional knowledge that could help him make better decisions. Instead he'd consume a mix of virgin’s blood and Diet Coke and consult the Book of Ancients he kept locked in a safe in his office.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

It seemed he trusted his hallucinations from these times more than the people in the room who’d spent their lives dedicated to the problems at hand.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

His focus on speed was incredible and he obviously was not afraid of blowing things up or bringing about the end of days, but now the real measure will be whether enough penitent souls are capable of withstanding a thousand eons of damnation to restart the great wheel of life.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I think of life as a game, and being at the opening of The Torment Nexus was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode. Since I like taking on difficult challenges I found it interesting and rewarding because I was growing and learning so rapidly.

Besides, as everyone in both Silicon Valley *and* the Valley of the Damned knows, just shipping is so much more important than what you ship.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that in all of this there is also a cautionary tale for anyone who succeeds at something — which is that the higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. It’s a strange paradox but the richest and most powerful people are also some of the most isolated.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

Unfortunately there was no way for me to realize this without experiencing it firsthand and opening the literal gateway to hell since this tale has never been explored in any work of art. If life is able to evolve again on our planet maybe they’ll explore this insight further.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

I realize our society today trends toward polarization but when it comes to The Torment Nexus, Tzaunh MAY HIS REIGN BE DARK AND ETERNAL, and the future of life as we know it, I am neither a fan nor a hater — I’m an optimistic pragmatist.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

As for me, after taking some time to think about my next move, I’m excited to announce I’ll be joining McKinsey and Company as Junior Associate Partner in their new Torment Nexus division interfacing directly with the Seven Elders and Council of the Damned. I expect it will continue to be a very entertaining ride.

@jimray That so much of this works as just straight quotes is amazing.

jimray Jul 28, 2023

@gknauss The Call of PMthulu writes itself

Sumana Harihareswara Sep 8, 2023

@jimray If I refer to this elsewhere, such as to nominate it for awards, is "The Call of PMthulu" your preferred title?

This thread has lodged itself in me alongside "Rät" by Penelope Scott, "Divine Comedy of the Tech Sisterhood" by Anat Deracine, & "The Bug" by Ellen Ullman on one dimension, & The Daily Show's "America: The Book" & Alexandra Petri's satire on another. Several absolutely mathematically elegantly perfect skewerings that cause an edifying ache in my chest. Outstanding.

jimray Sep 8, 2023

@brainwane oh my what an incredibly kind and generous thing to say, thank you for taking the time to say it! “The Call of PMthulu” feels about right.

Sumana Harihareswara Sep 8, 2023

@jimray Excellent. Thanks. I recommended it at https://www.metafilter.com/200616/I-found-it-interesting-and-rewarding .

Narrative art about *being a technologist* is one of my interests: https://www.harihareswara.net/texts/on-the-art-of-python-2019/

I realized that another piece of fiction that strikes a similar vein, for me, is Peter Watts's bonus material for his scifi novel Blindsight, the in-universe presentation "Vampire Domestication: Taming Yesterday's Nightmares for a Better Tomorrow" https://rifters.com/real/progress.htm . If you haven't enjoyed it already, I recommend it to you.

'I found it interesting and rewarding'

Jim Ray riffs on the satirical 2021 tweet about 'Don't Create The Torment Nexus' with a short fiction story told as a thread on Mastodon starting: 'Like seemingly everyone on this app I have...

jimray Sep 8, 2023

@brainwane oh wow thank you! Some lunchtime reading.