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Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

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Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#21

He's mentioned several times that him expecting his employees to work 10-12 hours a day is ok because he himself works 18+ hours. How does he expect to retain employees when other companies pay way more than Tesla does for way fewer work hours? Am I missing something?

It is just so hard to believe that the man is working 18 hour days given how much time he spends pulling stupid fucking stunts.

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#22
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference... Hackers may have even more contempt for the slackers and sanctimonious activists currently at Twitter. This is just like the far-left and the far-right aligning with Russia, because they loathe their immediate opposition so much.

Ahh, this makes sense to me. I have been accused of looking at this entirely through the lens of hating Musk, but I imagine that many are looking at this entirely through the lens of hating Twitter. Pretty short-sighted imo. My opinion about new leadership forcing engineers to work nights and weekends is entirely unaffected by the company’s former PR strategy for handling culture war issues.

> through the lens of hating Musk, but I imagine that many are looking at this entirely through the lens of hating Twitter.

The "internet of beefs" is very real. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/ (not a Rao supporter, but this essay is so spot on at describing the phenomenon)

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#23
post #6

Elon has a fascinating ability to make people look at things from his point of view. Suppose the story was something like “Jeff Bezos acquires company, immediately slashes workforce, maneuvers to avoid paying severance, reportedly forces engineers to work nights and weekends under threat of dismissal (and probably will lay them off anyway).” The tech community would be pretty united in saying the engineers would have…

I think most people in the community recognize that Musk is a pretty abusive boss, and everyone really good is leaving the company. There are a few people who can't protect themselves from a predator, and those people will get relentlessly predated upon until they learn their lesson. It may well be fine: even Truth Social (mostly) works, and nobody thinks they're hiring the best engineers in the world. I mean as long…

> "...and everyone really good is leaving the company."

Then all of those people should have absolutely no problem finding another job.

As for Musk and Twitter, it's been such a cesspool and a biased bubble of groupthink that I think many outsiders (i.e. your average user) is willing to give Musk a chance at doing what he thinks needs to be done.

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#24

He's mentioned several times that him expecting his employees to work 10-12 hours a day is ok because he himself works 18+ hours. How does he expect to retain employees when other companies pay way more than Tesla does for way fewer work hours? Am I missing something?

Does he really work 18+ hour days, practically speaking? It’s not Musk Co, Tesla, space ex and twitter are three different companies. I may not care how he spends his time, but time spent not working for the company I work for might as well be spent basketweaving. I work 18 hour days too, I have my wife job, my kids job, my watching tv job and my tech job.

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#25
What is the low hanging fruit in terms of changing the product? Can there be different 'streams' of twitter users? Moderation ala reddit? How will light touch moderation actually work given the garbage that will rise to the surface (child porn, beheading videos) that will kill advertising?

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#26
post #6

Elon has a fascinating ability to make people look at things from his point of view. Suppose the story was something like “Jeff Bezos acquires company, immediately slashes workforce, maneuvers to avoid paying severance, reportedly forces engineers to work nights and weekends under threat of dismissal (and probably will lay them off anyway).” The tech community would be pretty united in saying the engineers would have…

> Elon has a fascinating ability to make people look at things from his point of view. Honestly, he seems to have a very effective propaganda (i.e. "public relations") effort behind him. With unusual frequency, I'll see someone regurgitate some propagandistic talking point without any hint of irony (e.g. answering criticism of him with "Musk is literally saving humanity, what have you done?"). I don't know how much o…

I feel like I'm often accused of being that person but it's not just with him, it's usually with any divisive person. I greatly dislike the habit of people try and dismiss everything a person has done because they have done one or several things that they are against so I'm often seen "defending" controversial figures.

I don't have any particular love for Musk nor would I want to work for any of his companies but it's incredibly frustrating to me to see people pretend like taking EVs mainstream and re-usable rockets aren't an incredible feats that he's played a large part in accomplishing (even if it's just by funding, for the people who say "he didn't do any of that work!"). And he's objectively a good businessman, given that the metric for business is money.

Some communities are incapable of espousing anything positive about people that they've deemed the enemy.

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#27
post #6

Elon has a fascinating ability to make people look at things from his point of view. Suppose the story was something like “Jeff Bezos acquires company, immediately slashes workforce, maneuvers to avoid paying severance, reportedly forces engineers to work nights and weekends under threat of dismissal (and probably will lay them off anyway).” The tech community would be pretty united in saying the engineers would have…

I absolutely despise Twitter and their mods, so seeing layoffs is lovely schadenfreude.

You cannot remove a sitting President when you’re functionally the town square. We now know COVID almost certainly was a lab leak. You don’t get to enforce your views on the world forever - this is gravity pulling down the bubble.

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#28
post #6

Elon has a fascinating ability to make people look at things from his point of view. Suppose the story was something like “Jeff Bezos acquires company, immediately slashes workforce, maneuvers to avoid paying severance, reportedly forces engineers to work nights and weekends under threat of dismissal (and probably will lay them off anyway).” The tech community would be pretty united in saying the engineers would have…

I think most people in the community recognize that Musk is a pretty abusive boss, and everyone really good is leaving the company. There are a few people who can't protect themselves from a predator, and those people will get relentlessly predated upon until they learn their lesson. It may well be fine: even Truth Social (mostly) works, and nobody thinks they're hiring the best engineers in the world. I mean as long…

You really think Tesla and SpaceX have accomplished as much as they have with no one good at the company? Why is Twitter different?

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#29

Not only this, but he's demanding people work 12+ hour days through weekends or get fired "for cause". He's doing everything he can to make layoffs happen without actually laying people off, which sure seems like he's trying to evade California's 60 day warning for layoffs. I suspect we'll see him in court over how this was handled.

I guess the question is, what are the limits on how you treat existing employees to avoid laws regarding layoffs by forcing a mass exodus?

When it crosses the line into "constructive dismissal"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal#United_...

Re: Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter

#30

Not only this, but he's demanding people work 12+ hour days through weekends or get fired "for cause". He's doing everything he can to make layoffs happen without actually laying people off, which sure seems like he's trying to evade California's 60 day warning for layoffs. I suspect we'll see him in court over how this was handled.

> Not only this, but he's demanding people work 12+ hour days through weekends or get fired "for cause". Question from Europe: Is that actually legal in the US? :-O

There's already a class action suit underway regarding Tesla's mass constructive dismissal, so it'll be really interesting to see all this go down. In the US, there are two things to consider: legality, and lawsuits. Regardless of legality, you can still drown in lawsuits.
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