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Comment by refulgentis

12 hours ago

He was right about Google in [1] when I was still drinking the Kool-Aid, in big and tangible ways that aren't discussed publicly.

[2] is 100% accurate, Grok was the backbone / glue of Google's internal developer tools.

I don't disagree on the current situation, and I'm uncomfortable sticking my neck out on this because I'm basically saying "the guy who kinda seems out of it, totally wasn't out of it, when you think he was", but [1] and [2] definitely aren't grandiose, the claims he makes re: Google and his work there are accurate. A small piece of why I feel comfortable in this, is that both of these were public blogs his employer was 100% happy about when hiring him to top positions.

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refulgentis

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Cedricgc  11 hours ago

I should be specific. I think the technical analysis is reasonable and I actually enjoy someone staking on a big vision, which is why I saved these pieces.

An example:

"I’ve seen Grab’s hunger. I’ve felt it. I have it. This space is win or die. They will fight to the death, and I am with them. This company, with some 3000 employees I think, is more unified than I’ve seen with most 5-person companies. This is the kind of focused camaraderie, cooperation and discipline that you typically only see in the military, in times of war.

Which should hardly surprise you, because that’s exactly what this is. This is war.

I am giving everything I’ve got to help Grab win. I am all in. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish when you’re all in."

This is the writing of someone planning to make a capstone career move instead of leaving in 18 months. It's not the worst thing to do (He says he left b/c the time difference to support a team in SE Asia was hard physically, and he's getting older) and I support taking big swings. I'm just saying Yegge's writing has a pattern.

Crypto and what Yegge is doing with $GAS is dangerous because if the token price crashes and people betting their life savings think he didn't deliver on his promises... I like Steve personally which is why I'm saying anything.