From that OP thread, it seems that talent and not engineering was affected.
For us old people, what is "talent" ?
Talent: the ones who hire you
HR: the ones who fire you
Twitter Layoff Started Today
181–190 of 355 posts
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can only deposit 10k/yr but how does 9.62% sound?[0] [0] https://treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance...
To add to this for next year, you can also purchase $5k more with a tax refund, for a total of $15k per year. A basic strategy is to plan ahead and over pay with your final paycheck of the tax year by updating your W-4 to withhold more to enable a tax refund if you weren't already expecting one.
To add for those that are married and/or have kids then everyone in the family can buy 10k, a trust can buy another 10k, and if you have a small business that can buy 10k.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they have a mortgage, they don't have 1.5M in assets. They have 1.5M in debt.
They would've put at least 150k down wouldn't they? This also assumes they just moved in. If you have a 1.5 million dollar home in SF today you likely bought it for less than that at some point in the past. These people have net worths that would allow them to buy a nice house, almost anywhere else on the planet for cash.
You're making a lot of assumptions here, none of which might be true, and which are incredibly individualized.
"I have a mortgage on a house" tells you essentially nothing about a person's finances, how they financed the house, their assets, their monthly expenses or their debt-to-income ratio.
Some people might have put 20% down, avoided PMI, have no other debt and only put down 20% because they wanted to hold onto cash. They had a good credit score, and got a reasonable interest rate.
Others may have utilized any one of a number of loan programs to put down > 5%, which they financed through loans from family, or emptying their 401K, got a not great rate, have PMI, have student loans on top of that, a healthcare debt, etc.
You have zero information beyond "well, they have a house."
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lowest total comp was in excess of $200k/year. If you can’t have 6 months in cash sitting in a high yield savings account on that, there’s no amount of severance that will help you.
Someone who earned 150k cash and 50k stock might be able to save, but they'd probably just keep their stock as their "emergency fund". Twitter are blocking them selling that stock. Effectively Twitter are laying people off and putting a freeze on their savings account. I think it's reasonable to have a little sympathy for people in that situation.
Your brick and mortar and online savings accounts are your savings account up to the maximum insurable amount.
Your company stock is an investment that is part of your compensation.
Your retirement account has (mostly) investments, at least in the US.
Your brokerage account has investments investments.
Any investment advisor will tell you that all investments have risk. There's an upside, and there's a downside to every stock. Anyone who remembers the Dot-com bust will remember that.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can only deposit 10k/yr but how does 9.62% sound?[0] [0] https://treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance...
That's not emergency fund material since there are big penalties for early (pre-12 months) withdrawal.
It's not a good emergency fund at first, but if you roll a few years into bonds then it can act as your fund after a few years.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone who earned 150k cash and 50k stock might be able to save, but they'd probably just keep their stock as their "emergency fund". Twitter are blocking them selling that stock. Effectively Twitter are laying people off and putting a freeze on their savings account. I think it's reasonable to have a little sympathy for people in that situation.
This sounds like the standard blackout period that public companies have every quarter to prevent insider trading. If so, it'll be lifted a few days after TWTR reports Q2 earnings later this month.
Things might be different because of Elon Musk's announced acquisition attempt of Twitter.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lowest total comp was in excess of $200k/year. If you can’t have 6 months in cash sitting in a high yield savings account on that, there’s no amount of severance that will help you.
The median home value in SF is ~$1.5 million. A typical mortgage on a home like that is ~$4-5k per month. So you're assuming folks have $25-30k in liquid cash hanging around all the time. Not unrealistic but certainly not everyone working at tech companies there has that kinda cash. And that's before you factor in other costs like property taxes, insurance, etc. that you'll need to cover too.
I'm stunned really.
I'm from the Netherlands, known for its comparatively poor pay for engineers as well as high costs of living.
Despite that, from day 1, when my salary was at its lowest and I was still single, I saved 25% of my salary. A lot of years later and no longer single, I've build up multiple years in savings. Even more than that if I add my spouse. And the funny thing is that the need to do this applies less here, as unemployment benefits are relatively generous.
It just shows the dramatic difference in culture. I'm shocked how even the best paid engineers can't even manage to save 30K. 30K...are you kidding me? A single event or large expense (construction at house, car breaks down) would bankrupt you. And if your cost of living is so enormous, what the hell does 30k even do during unemployment?
If I'd earned 200K+, I'd save so hard and retire 20 years early. The US has such a spending culture.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
WSJ has a piece on it. A third of the talent team, which affects fewer than 100. https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-lays-off-third-of-talen...
makes sense. They've been in a hiring freeze for a while now. Not much sense paying recruiters to sit on their hands I guess.
Also, they need to remove the ideologists there first, if they want to be able to replace the ideologists in other positions.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
40k is accurate if you only need one bedroom. Now try being the breadwinner for 4 people.
I don’t see the motivation of raising a family and paying such a high rent in SF, particularly when Twitter has stated just about all their employees can work remote.
With the Elon cloud that statement doesn't really mean anything.
Re: Twitter Layoff Started Today
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
$30,000 a year for an apartment in San Fran. If you can't swing that on your $250k income it's not Twitter's fault
$40k is probably a more accurate median. Still, after taxes, that should leave ~$80k money to live on/save beyond rent concerns.
A nice (but not luxury) 2BR place, or a modest 3BR place, within 60 minutes of SF (excluding Central/Deep East Oakland) can easily be $50k/year if you moved in within last 3 years.
That’s probably close to the average (4k/mo).