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by latexr 879 days ago
> Just so you are aware, it would probably take a lifetime or more to recoup the revenue lost during that outage. But we don’t assign blame

Assuming that’s accurate, it’s a pretty shitty way to put it. “Hey man, just so you know you should owe me for life (and I pay your salary so I decide that), but instead of demanding your unending servitude, I’m going to be a chill dude and let it slide. I’m still going to point it out so you feel worse than you already do and think about it every time you see me or make even the smallest mistake, though. Take care, see you around”.

It’s the kind of response someone would give after reading the Bob Hoover fuelling incident¹ or the similar Thomas Watson quote² and trying to be as magnanimous in their forgiveness while making it a priority that everyone knows how nice they were (thus completely undermining the gesture).

But it’s just as likely (if not more so) the Zuckerberg event never happened and it’s just someone bungling the Thomas Watson story.

¹ https://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/01/criticism/

² https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/

1 comments

I was an FB infra engineer in 2010. It's not accurate, there was already a "retro" SEV analysis process with a formal meeting run by Mike Schroepfer, who was then Director of Engineering. I attended many of them. He is a genuinely kind person who wouldn't have said anything so passive-aggressive. Also, many engineers broke the site at one time or another. I agree this is just a mutation of the Watson quote.

The only time I ever saw an engineer get roasted in the meeting was when they broke the site via some poor engineering (it happens), acknowledged the problem (great), promised to fix it, then the site went down two weeks later for the same reason (not great but it happens) and they tried to weasel out of responsibility by lying. Unfortunately for them there were a bunch of smart people in the room who saw right through it.