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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#801

Post by pwinnski »

cal85 wrote: post #378
notacoward wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think it will be four years? Considering his attention span, and the rapidity with which Twitter is already deteriorating, I suspect it will be much less than that.

Yeah he’s only seen like a handful of new space rocket designs through from conception to profitability, and he only created one major car company before moving onto other things. He can never stick to anything.

I agree that "short attention span" doesn't seem like it belongs on Musk's very long list of negative qualities, but a reminder: he was not an initial founder of Tesla, he bought in a year later and claimed to be a founder until he was sued and reached an agreement[0].

0. https://www.cnet.com/culture/tesla-motors-founders-now-there...

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#802

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#803

Post by ghastmaster »

ninth_ant wrote: post #791
sequoia wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The way employees were treated was beyond disgraceful." Sorry I may have missed this in the article–was it something beyond being laid off? Being laid off sucks (it's happened to me) but it's a normal part of business operations.

They are treated like disposable trash, tossed into the wind by a capricious ultra-rich jerk who bought the company on a whim. The consequences of that poorly thought out “decision” meant the purchase had to be a leveraged buyout which necessitated heavy cost cutting. How is this not disgraceful? This not “normal business operations”, this is peoples lives being torn apart while the ultra rich play games with their l…

It goes both ways. Employees get to quit at a moments notice, leaving the company scrambling to find a replacement at potentially great costs. The internet is replete with stories of employees quitting, leaving their companies in shambles trying to figure out how to fill the void. I choose to care about my employer and my employer chooses to care about me. I could make a lot more money at a company that does not care, but I value that relationship more than money. Everyone should have the choice.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#804

Post by ctvo »

flappyeagle wrote: post #800

Elon is pushing a giant reset button on Twitter. This is long overdue and the pain is a result of accumulated managerial debt. Twitter will be fine operationally. It might have some short term hiccups as people pick up the pieces but the network effects and the value proposition are unchanged. Letting go of these people also makes room for more wild thinkers and hacker types to join the party. Sometimes the team that…

> This is long overdue and the pain is a result of accumulated managerial debt.

The pain is the result of Elon Musk overpaying 3x for a company he didn't want to buy and aggressively cost cutting to lower expenses.

1 billion a year in debt interest payments due to the 12 billion in loans he took on to purchase Twitter matches reality more closely than "accumulated managerial debt".

> Twitter will be fine operationally.

I'm unsure how anyone can say this with any confidence.

> Letting go of these people also makes room for more wild thinkers and hacker types to join the party.

I think I met you at a gathering in SF once and had to walk away from the conversation.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#805

Post by pvarangot »

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…

I work in embedded/systems software and worked in aerospace, have been in hiring committees in the Bay Area for years. While what you say about how Tesla churns Jr. engineers, SpaceX is not much like that. Also they both carry significant 'resume cachet', and I hired both in projects ran by "ex Tesla" and also ran by "Tesla haters" and making a career in SpaceX and in Tesla do signal that you are pretty serious about your performance as an engineer.

I don't like Musk, I don't like Tesla, I don't like (most of) what SpaceX does. But as a professional I can't agree with your Reddit-AntiWork-MuskIsEvil portrayal of those companies. It's just not true.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#806

Post by alecbz »

kenjackson wrote: post #636
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…

The concept outside the context of legal sanctions is an odd one though. It's much like the anti-cancel culture argument. It seems some want freedom of speech with absolutely no chance of any consequence whatsoever. I think there's a reason why the more broad sense of freedom of speech has never been codified.

The broader concept of "free speech" is not a legal one, and so is a lot "mushier" and more nuanced. "There should be no negative consequences of any kind for anything anyone ever says" is obviously way too strong. I think "free speech" is more like: "there's value in hearing ideas that are new, different, or that we actively disagree with, and we shouldn't discourage people from expressing ideas like that".

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#807

Post by acdha »

VancouverMan wrote: post #345
taurath wrote: post #89

Since apparently nobody else in the thread has any empathy for those who've lost their jobs, future access to healthcare (in the US and less civilized countries), and financial security, I guess I'll be the first: I feel bad for people who are laid off by the machinations of billionaires. I wish we lived in a society where it wasn't optimal to act like raving lunatics will tear down every bit of security you have at…

I think it would be easier to feel sympathy for these Twitter employees had we seen them show sympathy for the various people that were suddenly banned from using Twitter, and/or other platforms and services, often with the flimsiest of "justifications". In at least some of those cases, it was a matter of livelihood and financial security for the people who were banned, too.

I won’t quote your reply since you deleted it but I would suggest reviewing that list of suspended Twitter accounts and looking for any example which supports your original claim that this is being done callously on flimsy grounds. Conservative grievance peddling is a popular way to assert group loyalty but it’s hard not to recognize how routinely they leave out the parts about knowingly violating the terms of service repeatedly and ignoring warnings.

People make mistakes but they also correct them and there’s no reason to believe individual Twitter employees were callously nuking accounts, much less at the scale where it’d justify being dismissive about thousands of people losing jobs they were performing satisfactorily.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#808

Post by blueprint »

tshaddox wrote: post #780
yummies wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a much simpler and less juicy angle here: someone posted a screenshot of an internal communication , and it got removed. It's not surprising or controversial that Twitter would try to contain a leak of its own internal comms (a screenshot of their slack). This isn't "Twitter took down a disparaging post about Twitter", it's that they tried to stop the sharing of internal data. That being said, I don't…

> It's not surprising or controversial that Twitter would try to contain a leak of its own internal comms (a screenshot of their slack). It's not surprising or controversial, but it's in direct opposition to the idea that Twitter should allow all legal speech.

But is it what you're calling "legal" speech to disclose confidential info? If so, is it not just like they issued themselves a takedown notice and immediately executed on it?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#809

Post by flappyeagle »

ctvo wrote: post #804
flappyeagle wrote: post #800

Elon is pushing a giant reset button on Twitter. This is long overdue and the pain is a result of accumulated managerial debt. Twitter will be fine operationally. It might have some short term hiccups as people pick up the pieces but the network effects and the value proposition are unchanged. Letting go of these people also makes room for more wild thinkers and hacker types to join the party. Sometimes the team that…

> This is long overdue and the pain is a result of accumulated managerial debt. The pain is the result of Elon Musk overpaying 3x for a company he didn't want to buy and aggressively cost cutting to lower expenses. 1 billion a year in debt interest payments due to the 12 billion in loans he took on to purchase Twitter matches reality more closely than "accumulated managerial debt". > Twitter will be fine operationall…

> The pain is the result of Elon Musk overpaying 3x for a company he didn't want to buy

If he were put in charge of twitter and paid no money, I don't think his actions would be any different. He's that kind of crazy.

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