http://www.techcrunch.com/author/michael-arrington/‘s recent trashing of Blaine Cook is one of the most egregious pieces of crap I’ve ever read. Here’s a guy who wouldn’t know code from Sanskrit passing technical judgement on one of the most stellar technical people I know based on the following “arguments”: (MXY)
- Twitter had scaling problems. Blaine was the Chief Architect there. Hence, Blaine doesn’t know how to deal with scaling. (MXZ)
- Twitter hired some new people to work on scaling. Hence, Blaine didn’t know what he was doing. (MY0)
- Blaine made a tongue-in-cheek comment on scaling being easy at a technical workshop a year ago. Hence, Blaine is arrogant. (MY1)
Twitter had scaling problems because it was successful beyond anyone’s imagination. Twitter hired additional people because, well, that’s what you do when you’re dealing with success. If you’re going to criticize someone’s technical skill, do it based on facts, not on irresponsible musings. And there’s never any excuse to trash a person’s character like that. (MY2)
I would be thanking my lucky stars to have Blaine as my Chief Architect, my Chief Technical Officer, or just on my team period. He’s a great talent and an even better human being, and companies will be lining up to get him now that he’s moving on. (MY3)