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

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#851

Post by eastbound » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

broodbucket wrote: post #760

hnews_account_1 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$42 million is a pittance for a man at his level. VCs with a tenth of the risk have taken home more money than that over the years from several deals. He has also been at the company for a very long time. I’d be enraged at a $42 million exit when I’m a child prodigy who has worked his ass off to finally helm one of the most publicly visibly corporations on the planet.

No human being needs $42 million for anything, let alone more. I'm sure he'll be fine.

The initial ideal of capitalism is, the people who make good decisions capitalize more “decision power” (=money) because it will be good for the future economy to concentrate power in their hands. Those who hold power are the best ones.

It’s just a fun theoretical thought exercise, in which there’s no limit to how much one would accumulate, if their decision making is good to the infinite. He didn’t tank Twitter into the ground, therefore he deserves a good share. In practice, they use this money for themselves instead of reinvesting it into other endeavours.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#852

Post by glouwbug » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

GaylordTuring wrote: post #809

munificent wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A rule I’ve learnt recently and really loved is - every community can be judged quickly by how comfortable women are in it. I've thought about this rule for many years. It applies equally well to offline real-world communities.

I would be careful using this rule. Women are, in general, most uncomfortable around weak/strange (but totally harmless) men. Bring your average woman to a Richard Stallman meet-up and then to a UFC match and ask her which setting she found most uncomfortable. I can guarantee you that Richard picking his own nose in a room full of sweaty needs will be more disturbing to her than being close to thousands of jacked-up…

Aren't you just exemplifying basic laws of attraction? Our lizard brains want to pair with the strong, even if the modern day equivalent of strong is a good paycheck and a maxed out Roth and 401k

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#853

Post by rocqua » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:25 AM UTC

TechBro8615 wrote: post #844

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 probability that Elon is margin called by year end is roughly 40% according to option prices. This sounds like “two more weeks, MOASS, trust me bro” level of analysis. How can you possibly have enough insight into Musk’s financial holdings to make such an assertion? Nevermind the structure of the Twitter deal itself, which doesn’t exactly require him to fork over $40 billion in cash.

Musk has published his margin loans backed by tesla stock. Those come with a clear margin requirement iirc.

It is then easy to calculate 'at this price, the loan will face a margin call'. Options pricing implies a probability of a certain price being hit by a certain time. So they imply a probability of the margin loans Musk has getting a margin call.

Ofcourse, getting a margin call wouldn't mean the loan falls through. Guessing that would require deep insight into Musks personal financials.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#854

Post by shapefrog » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:26 AM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #354

shapefrog wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am wondering what is in it for those people lining up - they are paying 20% over the market value to be locked in with musk.

Tesla is up 995% over the past 5 years.

Are you suggesting that twitter will have a marketcap approx worth tesla / facebook / berkshire hathaway / johnson and johnson in 5 years time?

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#855

Post by ayende » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #612

Pxtl wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do spaces have to do with NFTs?

NFT dudes are the only people I have EVER seen using that feature, and I use Twitter daily. I also follow exactly zero NFT dudes so I don't know why I always see their spaces.

Spaces are heavily used where I am right now as a replacement for radio with plenty of really interesting topic. Basically, "everyone can open a station" scenario.

Off the top of my head, there is a big trial going on, and people are discussing details and commentary on that (with competing spaces for the defense and persecution sides). Stuff that you don't have the time to convey using traditional media.

It has gotten big enough to have politicians show up and do special shows. Thing about 2+ hours of interacting directly with the public.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#856

Post by tricky777 » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #382

chris11 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a person richer than anyone has ever been in the history of the planet Tesla's P/E ratio is currently 106. I have no idea why Tesla is so expensive.

Tesla is currently valued at over 20x Ford even though Ford did 13x Tesla's revenue last year. That stock should have dropped through the floor a long time ago.

It is because (some) people believe/have faith in Musk. To some, he is a icon/leader to follow blindly. They trust him a lot.

Which is because, his work/impact as ceo is visible on company and industry levels. contrast that with mba shortsighted ceos and/or ceos who sit on their assess waiting for golden parachute to deploy (thats the sentiment, irrelevant if unfounded). Charisma and beeing somewhat casual/releatable person on tv also helps.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#857

Post by alar44 » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #784

IAmGraydon wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a part of the HN population that has delusions of becoming billionaires one day, so they talk about tens of millions like it's not much. They'll likely never have either.

Financial security in the Bay Area requires a house there ($2-3M, nowadays) plus $COST_OF_LIVING/4%. This is easily $5M net worth. It's in "two Googlers and a successful exit at some point earlier" territory. Granted, this threshold is less than $10M, but it isn't orders of magnitude less All of which is to say that it is basically impossible to stay in the Bay long-term unless you make an absolute fuckton of money.…

No post body was provided.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#858

Post by namecheapTA » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #784

IAmGraydon wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a part of the HN population that has delusions of becoming billionaires one day, so they talk about tens of millions like it's not much. They'll likely never have either.

Financial security in the Bay Area requires a house there ($2-3M, nowadays) plus $COST_OF_LIVING/4%. This is easily $5M net worth. It's in "two Googlers and a successful exit at some point earlier" territory. Granted, this threshold is less than $10M, but it isn't orders of magnitude less All of which is to say that it is basically impossible to stay in the Bay long-term unless you make an absolute fuckton of money.…

I used to work in car sales in the bay area. Basically every car salesman and every mechanic at a franchise car dealership owns a home. Maybe they drive 30-75 minutes to work, but they are 25-35 and own a home in California. The older ones own a home within 15 minutes of their job.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#859

Post by JohnBooty » Fri, May 13, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #576

ilamont wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Twitter is what you want it to be, topic-wise, based on who you follow and what they like to talk about. I've tried this. It's false. It's a myth that Twitter users tell themselves, AFAICT. Even disregarding the trending topics and explore interfaces, all it takes is for one of the curated members that you follow to retweet something you're not interested in seeing. > What happens when Elon's "anything under U.S. l…

    > 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.

    But that's contradictory to your claim that Twitter is 
    what you want it to be, based on who you follow, isn't it?

What? It's not contradictory in the slightest.

Nobody is claiming that Twitter would somehow magically somehow continue "be what you want it to be" if most of the quality contributors leave.

    Because Twitter _isn't_ what you claim it is. 
    Twitter is optimized for outrage-oriented engagement.

I have a few accounts and I simply don't see what you describe.

I don't follow or engage with controversial crap. My follows are people in my hobbies, and funny people. My feed is pretty close to 100% strife-free.

Either it's really easy to avoid the hellscape of outrage that you describe or I'm extremely lucky/talented.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#860

Post by hericium » Fri, May 13, 2022, 6:04 AM 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…

> It also seems weird for Musk to already have the insight into the company to know specifically who to fire

If in his viewpoint (he wouldn't be alone thinking so) Twitter recently became less appealing - booting the Lead of Consumer Product team seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Despite "we know he'll be gone" Parag may as well want to try to keep his chair when Elon takes over and is making changes that would be favored by the new leadership. And if the deal doesn't pass - firing the team leads (possibly) responsible for company's recent bad press and maybe Elon's move itself seems justified.