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Gerald McAlister

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@GEMISIS

Focused on #AI #VR #AR #MR #XR #SpatialComputing | he/him | SWE @Meta | Previously @RealityLabs @amazon @alexa99 | Side projects @RGBSchemes | Opinions are mine
Seattle, WA gerald.io Joined June 2013
1.2K Following 1.5K Followers 11K Posts

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Gerald McAlister Verified account @GEMISIS
Hot take: hobbies and especially having kids do far more for personal growth than hustle culture.

Hustle culture tries to prioritize everything, resulting in sloppy decisions and bad products. Structured hobbies and family life force a person to decide what to prioritize and what not to, often resulting in stronger decisions and better results.
Matt Grimm Verified account @mttgrmm 14h
GFY

Propaganda bullshit. Expected, I suppose, from a Nashi propagandist.

I have 3 miniature humans that aren't my hobby - they're my entire raison d'être. To say nothing of my delightful wife that I greatly enjoy spending as much time with as possible.

Every single late night at the office, business dinner, investor event/retreat, trip to a supplier, visit to a customer, etc is a direct trade-off against my being an involved and present father (and husband). It's a difficult balance! And yet I've done it.

The real talk side of the "hustle culture" bullshit that nobody talks about is how your work output falls off a cliff around ~60 hours. Maybe a bit more if you're super young, but I doubt it. In most cases, that 80th hour at your desk is performative - it's theater.

Balanced lives (whether it's raising kids, sailing, tinkering on hobby cars, fitness, whatever) directly lead to balanced thinking and a FAR more sustainable lifestyle than "all work no play."

And, more importantly, it models for your employees that balance is actually good for output, morale, retention, etc.

Building big, impactful companies is a marathon. An ultra marathon. 10 years of marathons back to back. Your mind (and body) do need to actually rest and restore, or else you burn out. Fact of life.

Nonsense claims like this are propaganda from the (typically) VC crowd who want to see MOAR HOURS as if that makes PMF happen, under the misguided belief that hours in linearly equals company value out.

Have hobbies. Have kids. Take a vacation with your partner. And also work hard to build your company. The balance is difficult to find, but very doable.
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Gerald McAlister Verified account @GEMISIS
One of the biggest learnings I had a year ago now and has held up remarkably well: more code does not mean a better product

This is very similar to how had managers and companies will often try to use amount of code as a measure of engineer quality. A lot of PMs in particular think that more code is a sign of more being done. This is of course not true, and the focus on this will kill any project exceptionality quickly.

Many companies and people are going to learn this the hard way these next few years unfortunately.
[archer] @archer_uwu 2d
this is whats going to happen to epic games in about a year
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Gerald McAlister Verified account @GEMISIS
The comments on this are wild. The idea that piracy doesn’t have harm is so prevalent, and the consequences that are incoming from this are going to be wild.

Most folks pirating are so short sighted in the impact this will have, it’s going to be a major wake up call. Modern gamers have never experienced a proper gaming recession like the 80s (myself included!) and I’m curious how the world will handle this.
La Rubric @SmugHound 3d
Almost overnight, piracy has gone from 'we're making this unsupported triple A title available at low prices to counteract corporate greed' to 'I just wanna steal shit'. It's not about simping for a company, it's seeing how untenable this will be for an already fragile industry.
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Gerald McAlister Verified account @GEMISIS
Discontinuing both the Cybertruck and Model X is extremely bad from a consumer trust standpoint. I say this as both a Model Y owner and someone who was looking into the Model X up until its discontinuation: how can I trust future Tesla products to not also be killed?

This is Google levels of killing off products. FSD moving to subscription only, the slowing of building super charger stations, and the various promises over the years not being kept add to this feeling. At this stage, my next vehicle will be from a traditional car manufacturer or Rivian, simply because Tesla doesn’t offer what my family needs.
Elon Musk Verified account @elonmusk 4d
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
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