David Zhou

Tweets my own. Engineering Manager @netflix. Jokes probably stolen from Reddit. he/him.

[David Zhou @dz]

I bought Pokemon Pearl. LET ME SHOW YOU MY POKEMANS

[David Zhou @dz]

@zeeg literally thought it was some weird iOS app updating icon for a week before i realized it wasn't updated, it was a random new icon

[Jordan Fraade @schadenfraade]

“NYC has high property taxes” is the sort of thing it makes sense to believe if you don’t live here, but alas, it’s not true

[David Zhou @dz]

@zeeg not the only company i've heard of that has an official leaderboard, with people naturally min-maxing when told their jobs are on the line

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

The more I use AI tools, the more I have to admit that I'm not that much more productive... I simply FEEL that much more productive.

In reality, the context switching of kicking several things off wipes out my perceived productivity gains. At least in many/most cases!

[David Zhou @dz]

you know what i miss? cinemagrams and boomerangs

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

I really think the left has lost the way on tech policy

[David Zhou @dz]

@billsmith181172 @WestsideLAGuy i'm sorry, do you avert your gaze during photos?

[Rishi Mody ツ @rishimody]

we’re about to speedrun this realization across every institution in society aren’t we

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Cannot wait for teams that build their custom JIRA/Workday replacement/custom CRM to one day turn around and ask:

“Why do we have so much internal software that is buggy / has poor UX + we need to maitain?”

Seen this movie well before AI, when Uber built uChat (custom Slack)

[David Zhou @dz]

So much of the food that make up various Asian cuisines tailored techniques and flavor combinations to account for shelf stability, and "using what's available"

It's just someone who shows absolutely no curiosity to understand, and remarkable hostility to doing so.

[Tim | Vite Ramen Founder @TimJZheng]

An alternate take on this whole thing:

Asian cuisines are actually one of the most approchable ones for people with poor executive dysfunction!

Soy sauce, mirin, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, chili crisp, etc are shelf stable and basically never go bad.

Staples like dried noodles, rice, can live in your pantry forever too, and frozen veg and protein that you'd add anyway makes things really easy

Meanwhile pretty sure even my dried herbs amount to vaguely plant-like flavors when i use them now...

[tess🏳️‍🌈 @turnabouttess]

@jonaircon how is this real

[David Zhou @dz]

The most fascinating thing about decant the olives onto sesame noodles or whatever food discourse is that you apparently can have zero energy when it comes to food prep, but also have the energy to post 1000 tweets at the same time

[Benzo Stray Dogs @benzostraydogs]

Every time cooking at home discourse occurs, I learn how many of you think it's a complicated process, and treat spices and non-American condiments as exotic purchases you assume possess no meal versatility. And no, you don't need high executive function to prep Asian food

[David Zhou @dz]

@Halalcoholism Also..... every cuisine has dishes that require very few ingredients, and dishes that require many. What a maddeningly annoying take on "Asian cuisine".

[Aaron Bady @zunguzungu]

this maddening bit of discourse makes a lot more sense in a context where, to a lot of the people doing it, "sesame oil, chili oil, sesame seeds, rice vinegar" are strange and exotic, but salt/pepper/butter/olive oil is basic normal and just sort of appears in your fridge

[David Zhou @dz]

this has been bouncing around my head all week

among other things, inclusive of GenAI discourse and what feels like the ultimately lightweight artifacts that are touted as heavyweight achievements

https://t.co/FR7KD4dm7I

[David Zhou @dz]

The software industry has spent so much effort over the years trying to steer away from commits and PRs as sole metrics of productivity (see DORA, SPACE, etc) that I honestly found it disheartening how quickly some GenAI users turned to those very metrics as productivity evidence

[Nate Berkopec @nateberkopec]

This is what I've been saying since the summer. We are in the middle of software engineering's productivity crisis.

LLMs inflate all previous productivity metrics (PRs, commits) without a correlation to value. This will be used to justify layoffs in Q1/Q2 of this year.

[David Zhou @dz]

@zeeg hey man claude has 10X'd my abandoned projects

[David Zhou @dz]

@GergelyOrosz "just prompt agent" feels like a selective quote from a larger set of thoughts from the departed engineer. I'm be curious to see how they'd characterize their departure!

Eg, unchecked "iterating faster than ever" can have 2nd order impact on overall mental load and burnout!

[David Zhou @dz]

i think about doing the math about what if my downpayment was invested in the S&P instead sometimes but i don't hate myself that much

[David Zhou @dz]

my hero journey is literally buying a house while listening to @ramit talk about home ownership, and then deciding 2 years later actually he was right, i don't want to own a home, and anyway i'm excited to rent again