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Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

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Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#211

Post by throwaway427 »

nickstinemates wrote: post #176
user3939382 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing could be worse than the crap reddit has been doing for the last year or so to force users (or from their perspective, useds, as rms likes to say) to download its app or login. First they outright blocked viewing posts unless logged in, then they disabled that, and now brought it back so that random posts are blocked from viewing with a message "This hasn't been reviewed" whatever that means. Someone at reddit…

Agree nothing more hostile than going to reddit on a mobile device these days.

Apollo has the ability to intercept clicks on reddit links and open them in the app. It works pretty well.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#212

Post by adrianmonk »

Traster wrote: post #84

So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It wo…

> So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes.

It's conceivable that he already had a backlog of changes in his mind that he wanted to do at some point, sooner or later. But due to acquisition coming, sooner or later has turned into now or never.

If he legitimately believed these changes were best for the company before, he might still believe so.

In other words, yes, there's a reason, but not necessarily a nefarious one. It could be, or maybe it's as innocuous as urgency.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#213

Post by gitfan86 »

fny wrote: post #173
TameAntelope wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're discounting the very real possibility that Parag is operating as if the deal will not go through, and is making large strategic decisions in anticipation of that being the case. For Parag, I don't see it "burning his reputation" at all, considering either a) he's right and will face the tall task of helming a Twitter that continues to disappoint its investors or b) he's wrong and it won't be his problem when E…

It maximizes his chance of survival either way. The probability that Elon is margin called by year end is roughly 40% according to option prices. - 60% chance you get fired either by Musk or investors if you don't turn the ship. - 40% chance you Musk is margin called and doesn't take over, but still might be fired by investors or acquired by someone else who may in turn can him.

The more likely scenario is that some of the financial backers like Larry Ellison will ask Elon to renegotiate the buyout price due to current market conditions and the deal will fall through.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#214

Post by travisgriggs »

bradlys wrote: post #85
minimaxir wrote: post #2

> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122

Firing while on paternity leave isn't really that bad as long as they give you severance to cover paternity leave plus some extra - which I'm guessing they did since severance packages for higher ups tend to be pretty good. (As compared to no severance or two weeks that many ICs get)

This my feeling as well. Maybe I’m thinking too logically about all this:

A) spend paternity leave enjoying your newborn, but in the second half gearing up and remotivating to go back to work, getting back to work and being let go with a “we didn’t want to dismiss you while you were gone, thanks for coming back, here’s the door”

vs

B) you’re on paternity leave and the company lets you go, but still your leave is fulfilled (I.e you get the payout and time off). Now, instead of investing energy on the return to work, you can just move on with a “best to quit while your having fun” attitude.

I fully support paternal leave. As a father of four who despairs at a fatherless world around me, anything we can do to strengthen fathers (and equally mothers) is a great thing.

But there is a sad reality to extended leaves as well. We hire people with 6 month probationary periods, but rarely are people filtered by this. But I have been in meetings where a person on extended leave (medical, parental, whatever) and it becomes group apparent that the individual hasn’t been missed for a variety of reasons, and the consensus emerges that this “individual not being here” is actually a net win for the company and its aspirations. Do we know that that’s not what happened in this case?

Remember, “My Job” is an oxymoron.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#215

Post by nrmitchi »

chrisco255 wrote: post #138
bradlys wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing while on paternity leave isn't really that bad as long as they give you severance to cover paternity leave plus some extra - which I'm guessing they did since severance packages for higher ups tend to be pretty good. (As compared to no severance or two weeks that many ICs get)

I mean, it's still getting fired heading into a recession shortly after having a kid.

I mean, he apparently sold $1.5M worth of Twitter stock last week, and is estimated to hold (based on some super basic internet research) ~500k more shares, which is ~$25M in stock[0].

I think he'll be able to weather the financial impact of a recession and having a kid.

[0] Note that this is Twitter only, and wouldn't include any other form of diversified holdings.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#216

Post by sva_ »

user3939382 wrote: post #156
pdq wrote: post #112

Is he the one who gave final approval of the anonymous login-wall, which pops up after 2 screens of scrolling in Twitter? If so, good riddance, as that is an incredibly hostile user pattern. BTW, maybe it's purely coincidence, but after refreshing my browser cache it seems to have gone away today.

Nothing could be worse than the crap reddit has been doing for the last year or so to force users (or from their perspective, useds, as rms likes to say) to download its app or login. First they outright blocked viewing posts unless logged in, then they disabled that, and now brought it back so that random posts are blocked from viewing with a message "This hasn't been reviewed" whatever that means. Someone at reddit…

i.reddit.com works for the most part on mobile (isn't great with media though).

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#217

Post by johnboiles »

This is mind boggling to me. Kayvon is one of the best product leaders / visionaries I know. It was confusing to me in Dec that he wasn't Jack's successor.

Kayvon was a huge driving force behind all the interesting product efforts of the last few years: Spaces, Fleets, topics, etc. Twitter went from not iterating on product (remember when Twitter's only change in several years was to change the star to a heart?) to starting to take some shots. Behind the scenes he was often pushing against significant headwinds that resisted product change (not the least of which was the internal 'sacred cow' that all things must be built with Scala and only run inside Twitter's on-prem datacenters).

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#218

Post by ar_lan »

RektBoy wrote: post #76
minimaxir wrote: post #2

> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122

Quoted post unavailable.

We get it, you hate America. Just don't come here, we'll be fine without you. :)

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#220

Post by ksherlock »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #106
paxys wrote: post #17

Why is Parag making any major changes at this point? What "new vision" is he going to execute in his last few months at the company before Elon comes in and torpedoes it anyways?

Is the twitter deal actually happening? Elon had to get a loan using Tesla stock and if the price of Tesla drops a lot then the whole loan and deal falls apart. I don't know if we know the exact stock price number where it happens, but it's seeming pretty dicey with Tesla continuing to drop in value IMHO.

As of last week, there is $7 billion in outside funding -- new money and existing shareholders that will retain their stake. That cuts the amount borrowed on the back of $TSLA in half.
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