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Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

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Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#21

Post by inglor_cz »

unnouinceput wrote: post #14
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #3

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/twitter-employ... "At the meeting with employees on Monday, executives tried to assure employees that they wouldn’t be shortchanged by Mr. Musk’s acquisition. Mr. Agrawal told employees that their stock options would convert to cash when the deal with Mr. Musk closes, which he estimated would take between three and six months. Employees would receive their same benefits p…

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

IDK why are you getting downvoted. Twitter is barely profitable, so layoffs are definitely in the picture, though I wouldn't go as far as predicting the total percentage of cuts.

(Also, some people may decide that they are no longer a cultural fit and subsequently go elsewhere, where the workplace politics will be closer to their ideals. So there will be certain turnaround of staff just from that.)

As for the top managers, they face a much more uncertain future, given that they are co-responsible for the current unsatisfactory situation.

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#22

Post by recuter »

unnouinceput wrote: post #14
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #3

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/twitter-employ... "At the meeting with employees on Monday, executives tried to assure employees that they wouldn’t be shortchanged by Mr. Musk’s acquisition. Mr. Agrawal told employees that their stock options would convert to cash when the deal with Mr. Musk closes, which he estimated would take between three and six months. Employees would receive their same benefits p…

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

Well that's just impossible bud. The number of twitter employees in 2018 was 4000 and it is about double that now. What on earth do you think they've all been doing? You can't possibly run something like twitter with just 2000 employees like you suggest. The fail whale might reappear.

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#23

Post by vrc »

baby wrote: post #15

Also: what is the point of taking the company private?

I’d assume it would allow Musk to restructure Twitter along longer-term goals. My sense is that he will eventually take it public again, but it’s a hard road to make huge changes to a company’s trajectory when your “fiduciary duty” relies on quarterly earnings reports. For example, killing bots will decimate DAU and would tank the stock. But do that and wait a year or two and perhaps Twitter flourishes as a true p2p platform again. Then you can take it public again with a different narrative and trajectory that’s more in your control. If you were public all along you’d get pummeled for the choice because it crushed the DAU KPI.

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#24

Post by inglor_cz »

recuter wrote: post #22
unnouinceput wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

Well that's just impossible bud. The number of twitter employees in 2018 was 4000 and it is about double that now. What on earth do you think they've all been doing? You can't possibly run something like twitter with just 2000 employees like you suggest. The fail whale might reappear.

If I read him correctly, he is saying that only 30 per cent of current employees will be there in a year.

It is possible that some of them will be replaced by other people who now work elsewhere and who will try their luck with remodeled Twitter.

There will likely be a major cultural shift at Twitter; for someone, deeply repulsive, for other people, possibly very attractive. So there might be significant staff churn even though the total numbers may stay similar.

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#25

Post by bko »

unnouinceput wrote: post #14
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #3

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/twitter-employ... "At the meeting with employees on Monday, executives tried to assure employees that they wouldn’t be shortchanged by Mr. Musk’s acquisition. Mr. Agrawal told employees that their stock options would convert to cash when the deal with Mr. Musk closes, which he estimated would take between three and six months. Employees would receive their same benefits p…

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

My limited experience in engineering organizations, I have found that the core task can be accomplished with probably 25% fewer engineers. The rest are working on products that are going nowhere or are generally inefficient at their jobs. It's not even "50% of the people don't do anything, we just don't know what 50%". It's pretty obvious to everyone.

Is this the norm? Are there any eng orgs that exist without this padding? Is that spare capacity working on meaningless projects ever worth it?

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#27

Post by johnmorrison »

recuter wrote: post #22
unnouinceput wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

Well that's just impossible bud. The number of twitter employees in 2018 was 4000 and it is about double that now. What on earth do you think they've all been doing? You can't possibly run something like twitter with just 2000 employees like you suggest. The fail whale might reappear.

You can run something like Twitter with 500 good employees.

That is, unless, you mean the massive manual censorship organization needed to "run" the current "algorithm", which Twitter will no longer be needing.

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#29

Post by djbebs »

recuter wrote: post #22
unnouinceput wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, we all know the truth, hence why the question pop-up in the first place. Elon will cut deep in left and right among employees within an year. I guess only 30% of existing ones will still work at Twitter in a year after deal is done.

Well that's just impossible bud. The number of twitter employees in 2018 was 4000 and it is about double that now. What on earth do you think they've all been doing? You can't possibly run something like twitter with just 2000 employees like you suggest. The fail whale might reappear.

Do you also think that you can't just fire 12 floors worth of people?

Re: Ask HN: What happens with stock grants for Twitter employees?

#30

Post by jbverschoor »

saagarjha wrote: post #7

They will be paid out on the same schedule, but as cash (at $54.20). I assume this will also be true of promised grants with a number attached to them that have not yet been converted to a fixed number of shares yet, but that hasn't been fully clarified yet.

That doesn't make sense for stock you'll get in 3 years, as it assumes appreciation in value.
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