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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#661

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

Twitter won't die, but it won't make much of a profit either. Elon Musk will find another buyer in 2 years for $25 billion and make most of his money back while leaving the company saddled with most of the $11 billion in debt financing.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#662

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…

There are other billionaires out there doing good things, without needing to have a weekly news scandal:

Bill gates foundation has made tremendous progress with healthcare in developing countries. He’s probably made as much progress that can made in these countries as the walls he’s hitting seem to be corrupt/incompetent governments rather and money or technical.

Mark Cuban’s cost plus drugs company is making a life changing difference for Americans paying a lot per month in medicine, often saving their customers hundreds of dollars per month, and committed to expanding their selection of generic medicines.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is a really tired take since it's not something that could possibly ever be known by you or anyone else not immediately close to Elon, and it's impossible for anyone else to refute it because they have the exact same lack of insight into whether Elon is putting on a performance every time he leaves the house.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#664
post #8

I'm pretty curious about how and where Twitter employees were distributed. For a company ostensibly worth $44 billion, having 7,500 staff feels pretty damn lean. It feels like Musk isn't just purging people, he's purging the Twitter culture...

For comparison, SpaceX runs an entire private space program on ~12,000 employees. Near-weekly launches. Rocket development+production. Building+deploying Starlink. (Although that's just a number from a quick googling. Maybe they outsource a lot of manufacturing etc?)

And Walmart has over 2M employees, and they're just running a retail store!

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#665
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…

Bahaha. Rigor and performance?? Teslas kill people. SpaceX is cool, but pays fuck all because it’s cool. I once watched the YouTube video of musk talking about battery prices and buying raw materials on the London exchange, and I thought, wow this guy is so insightful, no wonder his companies do well. It’s not till later that I found out that everything he says is someone else’s idea that he takes credit for.

Tesla’s AIs save people too. And looking at the balance it’s quite good.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#666
post #572

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…

Usually your employer has confidentiality and non-disparage clauses in your employment contract and separation agreements. So "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." probably would be more like "This Tweet violated your contractual agreement to your employer".

This is exactly right and it's ridiculous people don't see this. Free speech isn't equal to breaking confidentiality agreements on a platform owned and operated by the company you work for.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#667
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 3 years ago Twitter had 5000 employees. They now have 8000 in 2022. That's a massive headcount growth for a company whose stock price declined significantly since then.

That is also the time period when they started showing a profit.

No new features, and from my seat I can see no new monitization model.

Where is all this new money coming from, and why do suggest it requires these new employees to keep that stream flowing?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#668

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…

Twitter employee on October 21: "Slowly making the migration to Mastodon"

Same Twitter employee today (November 4): furiously posting on Twitter about having gotten fired from Twitter.

Karma?

Ref:

- https://twitter.com/ruchowdh/status/1583518479210393600

- https://twitter.com/ruchowdh

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#669

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…

Enforcers: "Those are the rules"

Everyone: what about our freedom of speech?

Enforcers: those are our rules

New Boss: You're playing by my rules now

Ex-enforcers: what bout our freedom of speech?

New Boss: Welcome to your machine

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#670
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…

> The "A" players will surface and they will do more with half the staff (or less even) than they ever did with 7500 people It's still not obvious to me what they did with 7500 people that couldn't have been done with 10% of that

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