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

941–950 of 1000 posts

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#941

Post by credit_guy »

urthor wrote: post #914
brutus1213 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always curious .. how do these execs negotiate such contracts (where contingencies like getting acquired/fired lead to a payoff). Does this start at the VP or EVP level? I assume there are professionals/lawyers involved in the contract part (representing the exec I mean)?

It's simple. You say "this company turns over 20 billion a year revenue. If I want to I can flush the whole damn lot down the toilet." "Pay me to not do a shit job." Latest in executive compensation research. As advocated by expensive consultancies.

I think some CEOs actually do that. For example the CEO of Boeing certainly decided to flush the thing down the toilet.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#942

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

bogomipz wrote: post #239
lvl102 wrote: post #170

Not sure what he is proud of? Twitter did NOTHING for a decade. That’s why they’re being acquired. Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.

>'Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.' I was curious what this was because I don't think I've ever heard Zuckerberg say anything that was either remotely or intentionally funny: Mark Zuckerberg: "Twitter is such as mess — it’s as if they drove a clown car into a gold mine and fell in."[1] It's seems to be largely anecdotal but a funny comment none the less. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zuckerber…

It’s appropriate for Facebook too.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#943

Post by wutbrodo »

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #444
wutbrodo wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> part-owner of a mid-sized car company (by number of cars sold) Because the market doesn't, and shouldn't, value things solely based on a snapshot of current business, as opposed to a projection of future business, based only partially on the current snapshot. A phrasing that gets at the market's thinking looks more like "A car company that effectively created the electric car market, right before the entire industr…

> But it sounds like the bulk of your confusion comes from a significant misunderstanding of what the stock market _is_. I think OP would not be the confused one in 6 months time. Stock market only cares about the future when people care about the future. AKA when there is optimism in the air. The 2015-2022 wave of optimism was quite frankly uncalled for and overextended given the reality at the base level. Especiall…

> I think OP would not be the confused one in 6 months time

Apologies, but this doesn't make any sense. The OP referred to the current size of Tesla ("mid-size car company"), with no reference to future cash flows, which is what the majority of most stock prices are made up of.

Looking at where tesla will be in six months _is_ looking at the future, which is the exact opposite of what I was remarking on. If the complaint had been "Tesla is overvalued due to irratuonal exuberance that its future revenues are unlikely to deliver on", I wouldn't really have any disagreement.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#944

Post by wutbrodo »

SemanticStrengh wrote: post #337
wutbrodo wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> part-owner of a mid-sized car company (by number of cars sold) Because the market doesn't, and shouldn't, value things solely based on a snapshot of current business, as opposed to a projection of future business, based only partially on the current snapshot. A phrasing that gets at the market's thinking looks more like "A car company that effectively created the electric car market, right before the entire industr…

The stock market is not about retributing merit though. When the EV market will be very significant, there will be no strong reason to choose a tesla over dozens of alternatives. There will be Huaweis/xiaomis equivalents for cars.

As I said, I don't think tesla is properly valued right now (though I haven't looked into their financials rigorously enough to have a strong opinion).

The market is betting on Tesla being "Apple for EVs", with a combination of first-mover advantage and innovative secret sauce. Apple similarly had competitors but an Apple bull in 2008 is a very happy man today.

I was narrowly responding to the parent comment's misunderstanding of what valuation is: specifically, the fact that it includes more than simply the current state of the business, incorporating future success as well.

"Tesla's market prices relies on super optimistic assumptions" is a sound complaint. "Tesla is a midsized car company" is a nonsensical one.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#945

Post by dleslie »

JohnBooty wrote: post #859
dleslie wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 contradictor…

Or you have a higher tolerance for negativity and hate than I do.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#946

Post by saxonww »

slibhb wrote: post #905
saxonww wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Why_ is that the American colonists were very familiar with life in contemporary England, which had recently had a civil war over (among other things) religious freedom; the Pilgrims were mostly people who had fled England because of religious persecution. I believe you were risking a charge of treason to run your mouth about the King or members of the royal family. I guess I just assumed that the framers wanted to…

Your inability to come up with a solid reason why free speech is good is very telling. You don't think it's good! And I'm tired of reading comments written by people trapped in a legalistic fiction where the only thing that people are obligated to do is follow the law.

How is it legalistic fiction? What are people obligated to do, that is not required by law? I hope you're not talking about stuff like breathing. I'll also say that I haven't been thinking about morals, which I would agree cause people to feel obligated to do things that they aren't legally required to do.

Also, what is a "solid" reason? Is it just a reason you agree with? Does it have to be a purely original reason no one has uttered before? What was the right answer, so I know for next time?

I'll remind you that you specifically asked whether I thought the 1st amendment was "good." I answered that, but you didn't like my answer, so you asked me why while pivoting to free speech in general (which I've already asserted I don't believe is granted by the 1st amendment). Then, when I provided a why to the original answer, you followed up with this. You've moved the goalposts, basically dismissed my answers as not good enough, and now you just want to I guess unmask me as some sort of anti-speech person.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#947

Post by tikiman163 »

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…

There is also a simple possibility that these two executives would have been fired anyway. Average executive tenior at a company is only about 4 years, and executives leave or are asked to leave pretty frequently.

As for the hiring freeze, new funding sources are essentially cut off until the purchase either goes through or officially fails. New loans or lines of credit requests are likely to be reject due to the uncertainty around whether Twitter will be acquired or not, and addition sales of stock would be seen as a bad faith act because it would essentially lose the company funding if the sale goes through. Increased spending could cause liquidity issues for Twitter for this reason. It is a known fact that Twitter is not a particularly profitable business, and given all of these facts those executives may have been let go purely for financial reasons.

Trying to read into this without more knowledge regarding internal motivations is purely speculative and cannot provide reliable information. What's more, every major company would be aware of these likely motivations and would see his actions as ordinary under the circumstances even if it turns out his motivation was to keep Musk from having access to those employees.

In short, there would have be extremely compelling evidence of intentional malfeasance for this to impact his reputation or future career prospects any more than Musk acquiring Twitter.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#948

Post by munificent »

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…

Note that I was describing communities and not individuals. Some properties get fuzzy when you scale down.

But, also, I have faith that most women have a very good intuition about which strange awkward men are harmless and which are not. If you're not a women or haven't talked to many of them about this, it's hard to really internalize how profoundly important it is for women to be able to make those calls correctly many many times throughout their lives.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#949

Post by SemanticStrengh »

kortilla wrote: post #818
sudosysgen wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is quite unreasonable to expect. The Renault Zoe came out at around the same time as the Model S and had over 150km of reasonable range, at half the price a Model 3 sells at today. It was already competitive.

150km of range is wet shit

no it was 210 km

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#950

Post by rbanffy »

credit_guy wrote: post #941
urthor wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple. You say "this company turns over 20 billion a year revenue. If I want to I can flush the whole damn lot down the toilet." "Pay me to not do a shit job." Latest in executive compensation research. As advocated by expensive consultancies.

I think some CEOs actually do that. For example the CEO of Boeing certainly decided to flush the thing down the toilet.

Hindsight is always 20/20
Post reply on HN