Dorsey was CEO for years, leaves, and is now complaining about how it's run? This feels wildly immature, why trash talk the company you just stepped down from? Also, given that he was CEO, he...
Dorsey was CEO for years, leaves, and is now complaining about how it's run? This feels wildly immature, why trash talk the company you just stepped down from? Also, given that he was CEO, he could've directed the company to open up the API again at any time...
I mean this was the specific tweet Dorsey got Steve Jobs-ed out of the company for a while (which is when he started Square) before being invited back in as CEO by the board in hopes of buoying...
I mean this was the specific tweet
Worst thing we did. I wasn’t running company at the time. Company has worked hard and will continue to open back up completely.
Dorsey got Steve Jobs-ed out of the company for a while (which is when he started Square) before being invited back in as CEO by the board in hopes of buoying poor stock performance.
The context was that Dorsey was doing his other part time job, namely arguing with random people about blockchain on twitter, this time arguing that web3 will never be decentralized when someone made a quip about Twitter's API access. In context it's not really a "complaint" so much as a quick aside, and it still has the "we made mistakes, but we're fixing them" ra ra CEO energy anyway.
But he did. In particular, in 2020 Twitter launched their revamped public API and has steadily been adding more endpoints to reach feature parity with the client since then. That's what presumably...
Company has worked hard and will continue to open back up completely.
presumably refers to. Putting out a public API is not just a switch to turn on, especially since Twitter has a number of new features since they began restricting the API ages ago, and no doubt has had many internal changes. Like everything public facing, there's usually an extensive review process, load tests and security reviews, discussions with product teams to handle pricing and tiering, not to mention just the engineering work to fit everything onto new services.
Ah, I didn't realize it had started to open again. Still, it seems like he became CEO in 2015, and only started fixing it properly many years later (I know tech takes a long time to build, but it...
Ah, I didn't realize it had started to open again. Still, it seems like he became CEO in 2015, and only started fixing it properly many years later (I know tech takes a long time to build, but it definitely did not 5 years to build an API).
True, I'd give it a range of 1-3 years from starting the endeavor to ready for GA. But that's still consistent with his tweet - Dorsey never said something like "I always knew we should have...
True, I'd give it a range of 1-3 years from starting the endeavor to ready for GA. But that's still consistent with his tweet - Dorsey never said something like "I always knew we should have maintained our developer API", just that by now he considers that a major mistake and the company has begun to reverse it.
In the end, I don't see anything particular in the tweet that is a slight to Twitter, or hypocritical. Especially with the context. Basically someone said "lol at least web3 won't close down their api like Twitter" to which he replied "yes, that was a big mistake and Twitter has been working on fixing it."
It does seem like a long time, but then again, everything about social media got worse in the meantime. Particularly the scale of spam and abuse. So it seems like it’s a moving target?
It does seem like a long time, but then again, everything about social media got worse in the meantime. Particularly the scale of spam and abuse. So it seems like it’s a moving target?
I mean turning off the API was probably a bit annoying for some users, sure. But it's not anything on the scale of creating a worldwide information cannon able to be wielded by just about anyone...
I mean turning off the API was probably a bit annoying for some users, sure. But it's not anything on the scale of creating a worldwide information cannon able to be wielded by just about anyone for any purpose, good or evil, then dragging their feet like they'd been nailed down when it came to removing the accounts spewing hate, misinformation and propaganda into the eyeballs of millions. Which is what I would say "the worst thing" Twitter has done was. Pretty much just existing at all is approaching the worst thing they've done. Well, that and their comment/reply threading system which is just beyond awful. I do not understand, at all, how one has a conversation on twitter and my account is old enough to be only three letters long (I didn't get @mat but very close)
As an aside I have a theory that (a) we could replace all of twitter with bots and nobody would notice and (b) this may have mostly already happened.
Dorsey was CEO for years, leaves, and is now complaining about how it's run? This feels wildly immature, why trash talk the company you just stepped down from? Also, given that he was CEO, he could've directed the company to open up the API again at any time...
I mean this was the specific tweet
Dorsey got Steve Jobs-ed out of the company for a while (which is when he started Square) before being invited back in as CEO by the board in hopes of buoying poor stock performance.
The context was that Dorsey was doing his other part time job, namely arguing with random people about blockchain on twitter, this time arguing that web3 will never be decentralized when someone made a quip about Twitter's API access. In context it's not really a "complaint" so much as a quick aside, and it still has the "we made mistakes, but we're fixing them" ra ra CEO energy anyway.
Except he was CEO again for many years, and he could have reversed the decision.
But he did. In particular, in 2020 Twitter launched their revamped public API and has steadily been adding more endpoints to reach feature parity with the client since then.
That's what
presumably refers to. Putting out a public API is not just a switch to turn on, especially since Twitter has a number of new features since they began restricting the API ages ago, and no doubt has had many internal changes. Like everything public facing, there's usually an extensive review process, load tests and security reviews, discussions with product teams to handle pricing and tiering, not to mention just the engineering work to fit everything onto new services.
Ah, I didn't realize it had started to open again. Still, it seems like he became CEO in 2015, and only started fixing it properly many years later (I know tech takes a long time to build, but it definitely did not 5 years to build an API).
True, I'd give it a range of 1-3 years from starting the endeavor to ready for GA. But that's still consistent with his tweet - Dorsey never said something like "I always knew we should have maintained our developer API", just that by now he considers that a major mistake and the company has begun to reverse it.
In the end, I don't see anything particular in the tweet that is a slight to Twitter, or hypocritical. Especially with the context. Basically someone said "lol at least web3 won't close down their api like Twitter" to which he replied "yes, that was a big mistake and Twitter has been working on fixing it."
It does seem like a long time, but then again, everything about social media got worse in the meantime. Particularly the scale of spam and abuse. So it seems like it’s a moving target?
I mean turning off the API was probably a bit annoying for some users, sure. But it's not anything on the scale of creating a worldwide information cannon able to be wielded by just about anyone for any purpose, good or evil, then dragging their feet like they'd been nailed down when it came to removing the accounts spewing hate, misinformation and propaganda into the eyeballs of millions. Which is what I would say "the worst thing" Twitter has done was. Pretty much just existing at all is approaching the worst thing they've done. Well, that and their comment/reply threading system which is just beyond awful. I do not understand, at all, how one has a conversation on twitter and my account is old enough to be only three letters long (I didn't get @mat but very close)
As an aside I have a theory that (a) we could replace all of twitter with bots and nobody would notice and (b) this may have mostly already happened.
More discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29664742