Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#271

Post by Shadonototra » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

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…

twitter has no strategy, it became apparent the day they killed vine, and it is still true today

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#272

Post by pndy » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

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…

If you want just to browse reddit then you can do that through teddit or libreddit front-end instances. And with extensions like Privacy Redirect [1] you can do it automatically.

There are also front-ends for twitter and instagram but these seem to be most faulty - sometimes it takes a while to reach a stable instance and extension tends to overwrite manually selected instances.

Edit: seems there's already a fork of mentioned extension but it's available for manual installation [2]

[1] - https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect

[2] - https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#273

Post by Spivak » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

NelsonMinar wrote: post #243

carabiner wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter will never succeed without satisfying the old school whims of HN users.

Really the company started failing when they turned off Jabber.

Really went downhill when they turned off SMS support.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#274

Post by Spivak » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #249

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.

its the reason i completely ignore twitter now. its not a site to reach out to the publicc its a site to communicate to a small subset of logged in users.

I think as far as Twitter is concerned if you never bothered to create an account and your only use of Twitter was being linked to a tweet and then closing the tab you were already ignoring them.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#275

Post by windowsrookie » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #210

azemetre wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda hoping that reddit will finally remove old.reddit and the old design, not that I think the new design is good but it would finally make me drop reddit from my social media addiction.

Yeah the new reddit is unusable. Not borderline unusable, but like actually useless. I can't believe they released it and I can't believe people actually use it.

The people that I know who use new reddit, don't even know old reddit exists. They chuckle and say "are you using a website from 2005?" when they see me on old reddit. One of them even works in IT.

Yes I am using a website from 2005. And it's superior in every way.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#276

Post by UweSchmidt » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

jamiequint wrote: post #224

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…

Reddit is doing this because it works and has real impact on the bottom line, and effectively zero impact on user retention. As long as users continue to behave the way they do it would be fiscally irresponsible to shareholders for the company not to do it, same with Twitter. If you don't like it the best thing you can do is to bounce and never use the product again. Users doing this en masse is the only thing that w…

This is such a short sighted thinking, aggravating users because it makes some "user retention" metric look good.

You can either remain the central forum hub of the internet, or be replaced when the next big thing comes around. Just think how many major websites came and went during those last short 20 years.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#277

Post by slotrans » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #182

droopyEyelids wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's deeply weird, too. In the enterprise, if someone high ranking is going to be replaced, they're never fired unless there was company-hostile bad behavior. If the organization is trying to move in another direction, they reorganize and reduce the role of that high ranking leader- maybe to a position where they're alone! and give that high ranking person time to make their next move comfortably. This goes double wh…

> In the enterprise, if someone high ranking is going to be replaced, they're never fired unless there was company-hostile bad behavior. What? Perhaps in shitty companies that are incapable of making tough decisions, but this is definitely not my experience. On the contrary, for most cases I don't think there is much "shame" for being fired as a senior exec because a lot of times it's just that there are disagreement…

> shitty companies that are incapable of making tough decisions

> the enterprise

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#278

Post by adventured » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #213

fny wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Twitter is worth a lot less than what it's trading for. Musk's bid is rather idiotically high. Twitter's shareholders will be desperate if they start to see the full mauling that other prominent, hyper overvalued tech stocks have enjoyed lately. They will take a lower offer accordingly, whether that's from Musk or other. The stock is going into the $20s if they don't take an acquisition offer from someone.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#279

Post by VectorLock » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

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

Maybe the dude just wanted to feel what it was like to fire someone while he still had the chance.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#280

Post by Py-o7 » Thu, May 12, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

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 probability that Elon is margin called by year end is roughly 40% according to option prices.

The way tycoons frequently do this involves putting collars around a significant portion of the margined stock (and for a sizable position like this, the trade would flow through to option prices on tesla and the stock itself via delta hedging or whatever the trade desks are doing as part of the trade)