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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

#361

I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked…

Does this deal have a serious chance of going through? My estimate, based on the direction of Tesla stock, is this deal will not go through.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally disagree, primarily because Twitter offers nearly 5 months of paternity leave. I don't know when the Twitter's Head of Product originally left for paternity leave, but if it was a couple months ago, obviously the world has changed under Twitter's feet in that time. A business can't just stop because someone is on leave. I would expect them to be treated fairly, and the same as if they were not on leave when i…

The ENTIRE point of parental leave benefit is to ensure that your employment status doesn’t change while you are using it. The business doesn’t have to stop in it’s tracks, but the legal expectation is generally that you will come back to the same job you left. This sends a horrifying message to employees.

So if the company has widespread layoffs (not saying that's what happened in this case), then anyone on paternal/maternal leave is automatically immune?

> This sends a horrifying message to employees.

Yeah, as someone without kids, your proposal certainly sends a horrifying message to me.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also think the proposal to have Twitter allow all content that is "legal under US law" is a dangerous idea for the platform being a healthy community that most people actually want to participate in. This is key. If @dang suddenly threw up his hands and said "anything goes on HN within U.S. law" this wonderful virtual discussion forum would die and most of us would sign off forever. I say that as someone whose be…

That only works because HN is, mostly, politics-free. I'm not a regular Twitter user but afaik that platform is pretty heavy on politics, more than that, it's pretty heavy when it comes to a certain political spectrum, the other side has been mostly de-platformed by now. I don't consider that as a healthy platform to comment on for the general public (even though, I agree, it might be ok for people who happen to shar…

> but afaik that platform is pretty heavy on politics

Twitter is what you want it to be, topic-wise, based on who you follow and what they like to talk about. Further tuning is possible using blocks and muted keywords.

However, there is bleed because people you follow and Twitter's recommendation features can't help themselves (and not just about politics; anything "newsy" pops up).

What happens when Elon's "anything under U.S. law" approach kicks in is toxic behavior and arguments will get so extreme that it will drive millions of people away, and those who are left will see the quality of their feeds decline. Then many of them will bail, too.

> That only works because HN is, mostly, politics-free.

This place holds together because the signal:noise ratio is so high and @dang and the community work to keep it that way. Toxicity and low-value contributions kill communities, regardless of the topic at hand.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#364
post #339
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is going to get a severance package larger that most of us will make in our lifetimes. There's no reason to weep for him.

Laid off, sure. Fired, maybe not? Edi: Kayvon says he was "asked to leave" which is not the same as fired.

When the CEO "asks you to leave," it is absolutely the same as being fired.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#365
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably he presided over the only new features added to Twitter, which is more censorship and "adding context" to tweets that have a certain political slant. In any case, it's clear he did almost nothing.

Twitter's launched a Snapchat competitor, a Substack/Patreon competitor, and a Clubhouse competitor, plus Twitter Blue.

And now a Google+ competitor.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being so proud you lose your sanity? That's quite odd. It's an insane amount of hyperbole.

Didn’t Steve Jobs make that usage of ‘insane’ popular in SV?

I think so. I think he also coined a number of other annoyingly ubiquitous speech patterns, like "Do X. Fast."

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#368
Looking at this guy's CV, seems as though the industry has decayed into the electronic version of a direct mail operation--one social/video company buying another for its customer list. A thinner ethnic version of Karl Rove has been let go. Forgive me if my eyes remain dry.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fired while on paternity leave" hurts a hell of a lot less when you're a mega millionaire who will be able to walk into a leadership position anywhere he likes, but it still sucks.

When does getting fired not suck?

Idk, if I got an 8-figure severance for being fired, I'd be pretty damn happy. I would say that definitely does not suck.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#370

I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked…

You'd have to be pretty naive to assume Musk would let trolls run Twitter into the ground.

The most likely upshot of Musk's hints is that Twitter will stop censoring or adding warning labels to "misinformation", the classification of which is highly subject to partisan biases.

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