Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 1000 posts

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#391

Post by mdoms »

johnboiles wrote: post #217

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 s…

> Kayvon was a huge driving force behind all the interesting product efforts of the last few years: Spaces, Fleets, topics, etc

Honestly not sure if you're being sarcastic. Fleets were killed within months of launch because they were awful and no one wanted them. Spaces will die when the nft bubble finishes collapsing. And topics are just a way to shoehorn crap no one wants onto their timelines without asking first.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#392

Post by logicalmonster »

johnboiles wrote: post #217

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 s…

> Kayvon is one of the best product leaders / visionaries I know.

Maybe this person is absolutely amazing and is just constrained by the crazy realities of working in a very large and political company. Maybe they did the best possible job under difficult circumstances. I'm not the insider and can't easily judge that.

But as an outsider, what I can judge is that it's easy to perceive the Twitter platform as basically doing nothing truly noteworthy in terms of design/features to improve the platform other than feeling like a slower and slower site, while at the same time it's increasingly hostile to the open Internet (stuff like blocking viewing Tweets unless you login), and has some significant and growing freedom of speech issues until Musk came along. The stuff that outsiders can judge doesn't feel too good.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#393

Post by s1artibartfast »

YSoManyRaptors wrote: post #37
Mindwipe wrote: post #6

Twitter's consumer product team is truly awful and have just made the product more and more miserable to use, so I don't cry too much about the change in leadership. Having said that, firing someone on paternity leave is terrible and would be rightly illegal in many countries.

I mean, what do you expect from the United States, one of the only countries in the UN that doesn’t require employers to have paid parental leave.

Ridiculous claim. Here is some actual information

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/14/6196042...

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#394

Post by SemanticStrengh »

tempestn wrote: post #307
SamBam wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still confuses me that being part-owner of an old dot-com payment company, part-owner of a mid-sized car company (by number of cars sold), and part-owner of a (very good) rocket company make a person richer than anyone has ever been in the history of the planet, but that's probably because I just haven't looked into it enough.

The majority is due to the fact that Tesla's valuation skyrocketed in 2020-2021. The second-largest car maker by market cap is Toyota at 217B. (They're about double VW group, the next-largest.) Tesla's market cap is now 740B. For a while there it was over 1T. Here's a fun visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRQlsDHbl0M

VW will produce more EV next year than tesla (800K)

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#395

Post by thrwy_918 »

aetherson wrote: post #360
lesstenseflow wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would firing someone who's on paternity leave be an issue at all? We're talking multi-millionaires who will get multi-million dollar severance. It's pretty hilarious to see the pearl clutching of techno-bourgeoisie over something like this, pretending other tech-lords are getting mistreated over some supposed breach of decorum. The mere fact that he gets to take parental leave puts him head and shoulders above mo…

Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security. It's part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation. I never really feel bad for executives who are fired, even for unfair reasons -- it's just part of what they sign up for.

>Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security.

I would say that in the US labor market having no job security is the norm rather than the exception, so it seems peculiar to couch it as "part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation".

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#396

Post by sp332 »

aetherson wrote: post #364
sp332 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it's for cause, some or all of the severance package might be off the able.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#397

Post by victor22 »

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

Absolutely, that's how you replace the team, the old leader fires everyone then leaves last.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#398

Post by throwaway_1928 »

dymk wrote: post #373
jmyeet wrote: post #258

The two execs fired were: - Kayvon Beykpour, Head of Consumer Product (3 years, 11 months) [1]; and - Bruce Falck, Revenue Product Lead (5 years at Twitter, 3 years and 11 months in this position) [2] Kinda weird that both people were just shy of serving 4 years in their current roles. When I see moves like this my immediate thought is always, it's to save or make money. For example, there could be an options pool in…

The vesting / payout theory makes no sense, firstly Twitter vesting at that point would be quarterly, so the company would be saving at most 1/16th of what those employees had already vested from their initial grant. Secondly, it's the employees who would have the incentive to leave, not the company to fire them. Assuming a typical 4 year vesting period, it's right at this year when their compensation would have _dro…

This may be Parag's hail mary play to appease his new master and keep his lucrative job.

I would not be surprised if his next move is to publicly extol the virtues of Free Speech and the First Amendment.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#399

Post by Sebb767 »

belter wrote: post #231
cycrutchfield wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the deal is not going to close?

"SEC is investigating Elon Musk over his late disclosure that he had purchased Twitter stock" https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-investigates-elon-musks-...

Was there a time in the past few years where Musk wasn't actively investigated by the SEC? Hasn't hindered his business ventures much, so far at least.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#400

Post by robertlagrant »

paganel wrote: post #293
SamBam wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still confuses me that being part-owner of an old dot-com payment company, part-owner of a mid-sized car company (by number of cars sold), and part-owner of a (very good) rocket company make a person richer than anyone has ever been in the history of the planet, but that's probably because I just haven't looked into it enough.

That "mid-sized car company" has revolutionised an ~120-year industry while still managing to remain at the forefront, that's why its valuation is so high (even though I also do believe it's over-valued). I'm not saying this as a Tesla-lover nor as a fan of Musk, in fact, as a lover of gasoline engines and of cars in general I see this as a tragedy (I regard EVs as refrigerators with some wheels attached), but it is…

Well, refrigerators killed the ICE industry :D
Post reply on HN