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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

#461
post #208

Let's say you run a company and you want to reduce staff. Let's also say you want to make an unpopular decision (or multiple unpopular decisions) that you know will drive a certain percentage of your staff to leave the company. Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure…

I think you have it backwards. This is how you accomplish a 75% reduction while only having to lay off (and pay severance for) 50%! Musk again playing 4d chess.

4D chess? he doesn't have the self control, too busy haring off tilting at windmills to launch his damned spaceship

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has Twitter innovated on in the past decade? While I don't agree with the way Elon has been making this move, it's sure looking like he's trying to clear the place out so he can establish a new culture. These policy changes are likely to scare mobile, top-performers off to other companies. This likely clears out a lot of internal dissent and heal digging to make room for new "top performers". I wouldn't be shock…

They launched the predecessor to the current hottest social media app but killed it before it could gain any popularity. So that’s a new way to shoot yourself in the foot.

> They launched

They bought Vine. Story still holds though.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#463
post #113

I 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.

That video was recorded while being at the office . If anything, it's evidence against the supposed effectiveness of forbidding remote work.

Not every office is a daycare for Gen Z complete with wine on tap. SV workers are spoiled.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#464
post #289

This kinda thing is great for the "remote work at all hours" is the erzats demon keeping software companies alive. If it is, we'll likely see some downtime, lots of typical E company results (burned out software folks, higher turnover than is industry standard, and much lower pay since Elon doesn't negotiate at silicon valley salary expectations at any of his companies... If in 2 years Twitter isn't significantly sma…

Twitter is going to not exist in 2 years. The financials make no sense, and we already have influencers making fun of subscribers. Subscribing is not only going to create a dichotomy that drives away "economy-of-scale" users but it's going to quickly gain a reputation of being "lame."

Care to wager?

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#465
post #357

Everytime a new Commanding Officer (CO) showed up when I was in the Navy we tried to bet which type it was: 1) The kind who investigated the goings-on in the ship, interviewed the officers and chiefs, and learned how the ship was being run, then made small changes over time to optimize the operations based on what they learned. Sometimes big changes in one specific area, if it was required (like fixing the ship's cry…

Wait, each ship works completely different from the other ships, there are no established generic procedures, the crew just figures out how they want to do encryption?

When you transfer onto another ship, do you need a long onboarding as well, does each ship have its own culture? How do they coordinate?

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#466
post #357

Everytime a new Commanding Officer (CO) showed up when I was in the Navy we tried to bet which type it was: 1) The kind who investigated the goings-on in the ship, interviewed the officers and chiefs, and learned how the ship was being run, then made small changes over time to optimize the operations based on what they learned. Sometimes big changes in one specific area, if it was required (like fixing the ship's cry…

A better analogy is Twitter is a sick and dying patient and drastic measures are needed to be taken to save it. Whether or not you agree with those measures, well you don't have $44b on the line. Of all of Elon's businesses, this one is probably the most in his wheelhouse. He's a web guy after all.

>A better analogy is Twitter is a sick and dying patient and drastic measures are needed to be taken to save it.

Was it that before Musk actually decided to buy it? Because as far as I can tell, the ad dollars started dropping after his announcement.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#467
post #357

Everytime a new Commanding Officer (CO) showed up when I was in the Navy we tried to bet which type it was: 1) The kind who investigated the goings-on in the ship, interviewed the officers and chiefs, and learned how the ship was being run, then made small changes over time to optimize the operations based on what they learned. Sometimes big changes in one specific area, if it was required (like fixing the ship's cry…

>>>>> and generally acted like they owned the place this is the $44B problem to your CO analogy. Skin in the game. The world runs far better on it.

Whether or not they literally own the place is aside from the posters point about new leaders coming in and automatically upending everything without taking the time to actually listen to people and learn what actually is and isn't working. But yeah, it's an ironic choice of words.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#468

Twitter is going down. The question is whether it will take Musk down with it.

Tesla's stock is down 30% the last couple of months. So my guess is it probably will.

While the rest of tech a d the stock market are way up this year!

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#469
post #269

Interesting strategic window: You can't innovate and software engineer using 1950s style "butts in seats". Maybe this is a signal twitter isn't going to innovate, develop, and maybe even operate, internally, at least going forward. You need code for a new feature? Buy a startup that already wrote it. You need to keep something running? Contract out instead of employees. Very few companies have a full time plumber or…

> Maybe this is a signal twitter isn't going to innovate, develop, and maybe even operate, internally, at least going forward.

It seems clear to me that Musk believes Twitter is dysfunctional and inefficient. His top priority is to make it efficient. From this perspective, as the right people and a culture of intensity are set up, Twitter will be unburdened to move and innovate.

The open question is how quickly can he pivot the culture. Nobody is better positioned than the CEO of a private company.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#470
post #357

Everytime a new Commanding Officer (CO) showed up when I was in the Navy we tried to bet which type it was: 1) The kind who investigated the goings-on in the ship, interviewed the officers and chiefs, and learned how the ship was being run, then made small changes over time to optimize the operations based on what they learned. Sometimes big changes in one specific area, if it was required (like fixing the ship's cry…

>>>>> and generally acted like they owned the place this is the $44B problem to your CO analogy. Skin in the game. The world runs far better on it.

Skin in the game? A ship commander might die if something on the ship goes wrong.
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