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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#611

Post by Someone1234 »

thinkingemote wrote: post #409

Musk and friends compare Twitter to other tech companies and see that it's ratio of employees to revenue is lowest. He therefore thinks he must halve the number employees and/or increase revenue to get this ratio up. From the chat log exhibits from the Twitter vs Musk case: https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#47 A VC (Jason Calacanis) does back of the envelope calculations: Twitter revenue per employee: $5B rev /…

Interesting that the conversation then turns into using Return-To-Office as a strategy for voluntary departures ("20%").

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#612

Post by PragmaticPulp »

tshaddox wrote: post #558
john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

> This is ironic if you consider all the complaining that Musk does in the public sphere about "freedom of speech" (I know that the first amendment only applies to government censorship, but Musk likes to pretend not to) It’s not ironic or remotely unexpected if you’ve taken notice of any of his actual actions involving freedom of speech.

Everything Musk does in the public sphere is a performance. He's putting on a show, and the show is always crafted according to whatever he thinks will sway the public in the direction he wants them to go.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#613

Post by idlewords »

Bhilai wrote: post #541

Sorry to say this but comments on this thread are very disappointing and show a basic lack of empathy in HN crowd. I am obviously generalizing and I know most of you are not heartless souls. FFS people, a huge number of people have lost their livelihoods, sense of belonging and might fall into financial hardships in current market conditions. Whatever you think of Elon or Twitter employees, its good to be grounded in…

Those techies had years in which to organize their workplace under US labor law to forestall exactly this kind of outcome. For the past 20 years, there was no group of employees on earth with more latent power than US tech workers, but this very fact blinded them to the possibility that they might ever lose this power. What feeble efforts there were at collective action were organized around divisive "social justice" topics rather than securing a permanent voice for labor in tech company governance and decision making.

Twitter workers are highly intelligent and the current pity party for them is unseemly. Everyone in the industry saw a day coming when the music would stop, whether because of economic changes or automation, but no one chose to act.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#614

Post by neel8986 »

The way employees were treated was beyond disgraceful. Really feel sorry for my younger self who believed that Musk truly cares about Humanity. Never ever hero worship a billionaire while thinking he will change the world. They are all ego manic pos hungry for more and more control. Small things you can do a) If you care about environment don't buy an over expensive electric car. Think about efforts to improve Public transport b) SpaceX is not about putting man on Mars. It is about elon wanting to control world's internet through Starlink. Whenever a small nation falls for the trap raise your voice.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#615

Post by nemo44x »

bichiliad wrote: post #344

When there were layoffs at Etsy back in 2017, one of the unintended consequences were that a lot more people quit voluntarily afterwards. Attrition was a lot higher than expected. I have to believe that the people who remain are not all going to want to stay at the company that Twitter is becoming, whether it be for lack of institutional knowledge, peer support, or just because they liked their coworkers and are sad…

It's easy to quit a job when we are in a bull market. The last few years have seen massive turnover, for example.

But we aren't in that scenario any longer. People who remain will find it much more difficult to find a good job somewhere else as more and more companies are freezing hiring. This could go on for awhile.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#616

Post by willcipriano »

sib301 wrote: post #561
nostromo wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "freedom of speech" (I know that the first amendment only applies to government censorship, but Musk likes to pretend not to) Freedom of speech is not the first amendment and vice versa. Freedom of speech is an ideal that applies to all people and all spaces, public and private, while the First Amendment only applies in America and to the government. People think they sound smart when they say freedom of speech onl…

Every time this debate comes up, someone suggests that companies like Twitter are in violation of the first amendment when they remove a user's post. To me they often sound like the ignorant ones.

This[0] is probably a first amendment violation.

[0]https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformat...

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#617

Post by mikkergp »

browningstreet wrote: post #550

I'm personally quite curious how much alignment there is between Jack and Elon, and yet.. Jack was the CEO not too long ago. Jack didn't fix a lot of the things Elon is worked up about. Which makes their communication and cooperation perplexing.

Jack I think blamed the board for a lot of the inaction which is why he was supportive of Elon taking it private.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#618

Post by PragmaticPulp »

idiotsecant wrote: post #578
bentt wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few years, if not sooner, Twitter will be right there with Tesla/SpaceX in terms of resume cachet. Everyone will see their culture has been transformed to one of rigor and performance. The "A" players will surface and they will do more with half the staff (or less even) than they ever did with 7500 people... and it will be noteworthy. Musk will be in the mix heavy for about 6 months. He'll make executive hires t…

SpaceX and Tesla have no 'resume cachet'. They are widely known in engineering circles as hiring huge numbers of entry level or just barely above entry level engineers, exploiting their interest in technology to work them like rented mules until they burn out, and then discarding them. It's not a negative having worked at one of these places necessarily but unless the next employer is looking for an engineer with sou…

> SpaceX and Tesla have no 'resume cachet'.

Among hiring managers at big companies, they absolutely do.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#619

Post by ugh123 »

john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

It may not be violating "twitter rules", but it's likely violating company policy not to expose internal dealings (even as trivial as screenshots of slack emojis).

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#620

Post by kevstev »

q1w2 wrote: post #493
alistairSH wrote: post #403

And the class action for WARN Act violations has already been filed. Sounds like the Chief Twit didn't give 60 days warning OR severance, as required by law. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/4/23440304/twitter-mass-fir...

If you actually read the lawsuit - it was filed preemptively to ensure that Twitter give 60-days severance/notice period. There is no evidence listed in the suit that says these employees were not given such notice. Further, it specifically states that employees assumed that they were laid of without severance because they were locked out of their accounts and hadn't been yet presented a severance package. The lawsui…

It appears they did not file a WARN notice: https://edd.ca.gov/en/Jobs_and_Training/Layoff_Services_WARN Direct link to the list of recent WARN notices received: https://edd.ca.gov/siteassets/files/jobs_and_training/warn/w...

I am not an expert on these things, but I believe this notice is required. I am surprised there is not an easier way to receive this information, this is certainly something I would want an alert set up on.

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