HashiCorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto took to X this week to unveil the secret of workplace success: stay off your phone, sweep the floor, and clean the machines after that.

Hashimoto co-founded HashiCorp in 2012, acting as CEO for four years before becoming CTO, then stepping back from the corporation in 2021. During that time, HashiCorp launched infrastructure-as-code tool Terraform, as well as other products central to the cloud-native wave.

The business was then [1]sold to IBM in 2024 , by which time [2]Hashimoto was devoting himself to other coding projects , primarily [3]terminal emulator Ghostty . And flying planes.

[4]

So life is good. But not perfect, as [5]he told the X sphere this week.

[6]

[7]

"Appalled when I see workers on their phones. My dad used to always say 'there's always something to do.' No customers? Sweep the floor. Floor swept? Clean the machines. Machines clean? Organize stock. Organized? Clean again. Insane that anyone lets you on your phone lol. (I worked in various forms of customer-facing retail for about 7 years, but this extends beyond that)."

It wasn't clear whether Mitchell was talking about software engineers, retail or hospitality workers, or public employees.

[8]

Nevertheless, he sparked a long thread about how his sweeping approach scales from a retail outlet, or similar, to a hundreds or thousands-strong company. Like a major software vendor perhaps. Or even a small one.

One responder, @afterlanie, [9]said : "My thought tends more towards that they're not being paid enough to care, and this is a company culture issue. employees who feel invested in the work/culture, and see potential for growth don't sit on their phones."

While fellow founder and engineer @Doom_S_dey [10]opined : "Slack isn't laziness, it's capacity. It's how teams absorb rushes, train new hires, and stay accurate when things get hectic."

[11]

The Reg is pretty sure they didn't mean the chat platform Slack. Though maybe...

[12]UK prime minister stares down barrel of ban on social media for kids

[13]Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

[14]BBC to staff: Uninstall TikTok from our corporate kit unless you can 'justify' having it

[15]Here's something communism is good at: Making smartphones less annoying

On the other hand, as @Simantak242172 [16]said : "Gotta do something while Claude Code is 'schellepping.'"

And @zwuvincent [17]added : "Maybe they're orchestrating agents."

Or maybe we're not just talking retail staff or engineers. @jreidgreer [18]said : "Drives me absolutely insane when I'm in NYC and half of the NYPD is on their phones."

To be fair, it's not just about sweeping and cleaning machines. Mitchell was clear about the need to organize stock. After all, his stake in HashiCorp was estimated to be worth around half a billion dollars at the time of the sale. ®

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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/25/ibm_q1_2024/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/15/hashimoto_departs_hashicorp/

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/08/ghostty_1/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aXzjveQwGnFUsOJROnj7wAAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[5] https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2016168709031919663

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aXzjveQwGnFUsOJROnj7wAAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aXzjveQwGnFUsOJROnj7wAAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aXzjveQwGnFUsOJROnj7wAAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[9] https://x.com/afterlanie/status/2016222461201940714

[10] https://x.com/Doom_S_Dey/status/2016177826878390321

[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aXzjveQwGnFUsOJROnj7wAAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/19/uk_social_media_children_ban_prime_minister/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/10/apple_ipad_ad_bombs/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/british_broadcasting_corporation_softbans_tiktok/

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/15/china_app_fix/

[16] https://x.com/Simantak242172/status/2016291604534009960

[17] https://x.com/zwuvincent/status/2016185108102083024

[18] https://x.com/jreidgreer/status/2016444040192143418

[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/