Posted by zdw 17 hours ago
1. who is Drew DeVault?
2. what change did he bring to Linode?
I lost the context after 'the same title "Developer"'
I know I’ll get some whataboutisms of people who work for places that give good raises for good work. Great for you but you’re in the minority.
If it's not part of my job, and neither is my own company, it's not my problem.
Everyone likes working for these companies, but this requires a mature work culture. The people with seniority have to be competent and experienced enough to distinguish good ideas and not abuse their position for personal gain.
In my experience these good places tend to be midsized companies. In contrast, just about any team you land in at a big tech company is going to be siloed off with one or more psychopaths at the helm who never "spent enough time in the trenches" to understand what healthy management looks like. The same is true at a startup. Those are workplaces mired in politics precisely because nobody in charge knows what good sense is and they do everything in their power to make sure anyone with a good idea is silenced or bullied out.
Many of those situations where it is OK are down at the foundational level of the internet itself, which is what linode and Drew DeVault were concerned with back in the day.
An example today I’m wrestling with is TLS interception (valid) vs protecting against TLS man in the middle attacks. It’s tough to get people to see it’s an either or situation, they truly are mutually exclusive.
Unless, we walk together through every painstaking detail to reach the necessary conclusion together.
And then whether your trust in the browser vendor coalition to push back against and punish even accidental CA malfeasance are reasonable.
Security, like every human, believes they’re the good guys.
Platform teams cannot enforce the principle of least privilege.
Truly a paradox.
It's just basic due diligence, and it's worth reviewing details when these topics come up. Maybe the new ideas aren't always fully baked, but they may have a point. Regular discussion is just part of the job.