Surely this is partially a calculated move to further reduce headcount/expenses.
Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
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Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#82This can’t not result in some hidden maintenance or security problems.
Half of the people left and the other half has been told to brace for difficult times, it doesn’t sound like good conditions for smooth continuous operation.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#83Whatsapp had 1B users with far fewer eng, why is Twitter so big?
Here is my back of the envelope math of how big I think the company should be for their main offering. Over the past years Twitter has acquired a ton of companies, but I'm going to leave them out of this equation.
Eng (250)
===========
Backend/Storage: 100 eng
Subscriptions: 50
Front-End: 50 eng
iOS App: 20 eng
Android App: 20 eng
UX: 10
Abuse/Moderation (200) ========================= Abuse: 100 Moderation: 100
Marketing/Sales (210)
=======================
PR/Marketing: 30
Ad Sales: 180
Mgmt/overhead (40)
=====================
Legal/GDPR/compliance: 20
HR/Recruiting : 10
CEO/CFO/etc.: 10
What do you think? How far off am I? If more people turn to subscriptions perhaps the abuse/moderation team will shrink in the future.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#84> “over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.” Is this goodbye to @ElonJet? Also, "troll" seems rather nebulous. Is it the end for anyone seen as a troublemaker?
I don't think the intention is to suspend ElonJet since Musk has already explicitly said he made the choice to not suspend it despite the alleged "personal safety risk". Trolls in this case probably refers to accounts that paid for new Twitter Blue and are now impersonating well-known figures/entities.
The wording seems consistent with everything going on at Twitter so far, that he's just kinda winging it while everyone else is frozen in confusion over the abrupt changes. A $44B acquisition is quickly reverting into the volatility of a 2006 startup.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#85> “over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.” Is this goodbye to @ElonJet? Also, "troll" seems rather nebulous. Is it the end for anyone seen as a troublemaker?
> Is this goodbye to @ElonJet?
No. [0]
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s fair to critique someone who just upended the lives of all these people.
Yeah, but most of the posts here aren't really critique, they're just sarcastic scorn. We get it, HN, you like remote work a lot and can't imagine any alternative.
I'm reading the same comments, and there seems to be a reasonable amount of thoughtful writing too. In addition, there are sarcastic/scornful comments in the other direction too, yours included ("We get it, HN, you like remote work a lot and can't imagine any alternative."). Try not to get focused on individual snarky comments, because doing that makes those comments a bigger part of the conversation.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#87Whatsapp had 1B users with far fewer eng, why is Twitter so big? Here is my back of the envelope math of how big I think the company should be for their main offering. Over the past years Twitter has acquired a ton of companies, but I'm going to leave them out of this equation. Eng (250) =========== Backend/Storage: 100 eng Subscriptions: 50 Front-End: 50 eng iOS App: 20 eng Android App: 20 eng UX: 10 Abuse/Moderatio…
Twitter isn't the same product(s) as Whatsapp. That difference is noticeable within 1 minute of opening both applications.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#88The one-sidedness of the comments in this thread surprise me. If you want to work remotely, don’t work at Twitter. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Musk thinking it’s more beneficial for his employees to work in the office. He has goals and methods of working towards them. He wants likeminded people to work towards those goals. Can you really not think of pros and cons of either situation? To give my opinion, if…
In an all-else-being-equal world, yes I can see the tradeoffs.
The problem is that Elon has already destroyed the trust that should’ve existed between him and his newfound employees. It shouldn’t be surprising that in such a relationship any managerial decisions are viewed with extreme skepticism towards their motivation.
Not to mention all of the text messages we’ve already seen that already explain the motivation behind this move. Those were just one of the things that destroyed the trust.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#89I have to admit if I was an executive and I watched one of those "day in the life of" tiktoks from twitter employees that show them spending maybe 20% of their day doing work and the other 80% enjoying company amenities I might be considering tightening things up as well.
Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work
#90Whatsapp had 1B users with far fewer eng, why is Twitter so big? Here is my back of the envelope math of how big I think the company should be for their main offering. Over the past years Twitter has acquired a ton of companies, but I'm going to leave them out of this equation. Eng (250) =========== Backend/Storage: 100 eng Subscriptions: 50 Front-End: 50 eng iOS App: 20 eng Android App: 20 eng UX: 10 Abuse/Moderatio…
You forgot operations, tooling, observability, SRE, incidence response, etc