Sounds like someone who genuinely wants to make an impact, donated his time to do so, and wrote some stuff to potentially help while giving us a glimpse into the daily life of a high-profile group. I really appreciate this.
I think the intent, as stated, appears to match what you're saying. It's hard to ignore that there doesn't appear to be any display of critical thinking involved, though.
He wants recognition for quickly building simple tools (e.g. visual org chart) without the responsibility of what the tool was used for: to fire half a million people. Where are the efficiency gains in this? It's very telling that the interview that he got fired for included his praise that the government was actually more efficient than he expected.
Given all that, I can't take the writing as being all that sincere.
FYI this is Sahil Lavingia, who has a long history in the tech world and HN. He's definitely not a villain and has done some good things in the tech world over the years.
However, he's also very good at PR and spinning things in his favor. He has a long history of going full hustle-culture on trends as they come along, including everything from NFTs to LLMs and now DOGE. He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.
This isn't ancient history, all of this /just/ (is) happened. We were all there. How is it that so many people took one look at DOGE (_before Trump took office even_) and saw it for what it is but this person with "long history in the tech world" couldn't see it? I don't care how many "good things" they've done in tech, they were a willful and active participant all of this.
> He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.
Is it? It makes them look like an idiot. An idiot for not seeing what so many people saw before or an idiot for thinking we would buy this load of BS. In fact, I'm not even sure what this is supposed to accomplish, they do not come off looking smart or any positive trait I can think of.
> he materially contributed to seriously harming people.
There are 2 points:
1. Umm he wasn't an exec who had any power to decide whether to lay off somebody or not.
He built some prototypes and launched 1-2 improved UI. Was improving a website harming people?
2. Laying off unnecessary workforce isn't a net harmful to the society.
Are you saying we should never ever fire or stop hiring anybody ever?
Have you ever stop hiring someone in your life? A house cleaner. A babysitter? Stop going to a restaurant? Did you harm them when you stop paying for their services?
He wants recognition for quickly building simple tools (e.g. visual org chart) without the responsibility of what the tool was used for: to fire half a million people. Where are the efficiency gains in this? It's very telling that the interview that he got fired for included his praise that the government was actually more efficient than he expected.
Given all that, I can't take the writing as being all that sincere.