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Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

bloomberg.com

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

#511

Post by behringer »

pasttense01 wrote: post #502
danans wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 all teams are properly staffed. He's got huge debt and declining revenue - both of his own making - so he doesn't have time for employees to self-select based on minor incentives. He has to strip down the car fast while someho…

And how do you find "the people carrying the previous culture" and other deadwood? You have to observe them over several weeks/months. But Elon didn't do this at all. He is about as likely to have fired the best people as the worst people.

The worst people will never leave on their own.

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

#512

Post by tthun »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #437
ok_dad wrote: 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.

how much skin in the game .. isn’t this a leveraged buyout, with twitter on the hook for the borrowed money ..

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

#513

Post by steve_taylor »

jmiskovic wrote: post #309
VLM wrote: 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…

Why call it 1950s style when it was most common mode of operation up to 2019? Elon already insisted Tesla engineers work on-site, so this move isn't too surprising. What leaves me puzzled is why would anyone decide to work there. Where's the carrot?

Because the 1950s is the only decade that’s a villain.

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

#514

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

"at least 40 hours in the office"

Why would anyone work for this douche? Even if you make a lot of money, you aren't going to get your time back later. There's no reward for killing yourself to appease a rich workaholic. The only prize you win is burning out or getting laid off.

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

#515

Post by ryandrake »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #195
Balgair wrote: post #157

I think that the NYT article has the much better lede from the emails in it: Due to resignations by 3 top execs yesterday, engineers are now likely to have to make sure that their code is compliant with the FTC w.r.t. the 2011 judgement against Twitter. As in, there is a good chance that individual SWEs at Twitter are going to be legally culpable for violations. Even if I am totally misreading that quick lede about d…

More info about that: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451198/twitter-ftc-elo... > The FTC reached a settlement with Twitter in May after the company was caught using personal user info to target ads. If Twitter doesn’t comply with that agreement, the FTC can issue fines reaching into the billions of dollars, according to the lawyer’s note to employees. > The note goes on to say that its author, who The Verge kn…

Asking software engineers to make legal determinations on behalf of the company. What could possibly go wrong?

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

#516

Post by slg »

danans wrote: post #301
slg wrote: 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…

> 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 all teams are properly staffed. He's got huge debt and declining revenue - both of his own making - so he doesn't have time for employees to self-select based on minor incentives. He has to strip down the car fast while someho…

>He has to strip down the car fast while somehow also keeping it road-worthy and operational.

But this is my point. By doing it in this order he is risking continued operation of Twitter because he no longer can ensure Twitter can either properly staff business critical teams or retain critical institutional knowledge for how to run the company. He is jeopardizing the continued viability of a $44b investment to save maybe a few hundred million max.

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

#517

Post by poszlem »

abxytg wrote: post #481

Or -- he's stupid.

What's stupid is people thinking that someone who successfully rules over some of the most influential companies in the world is stupid. Reminds me of all those people who claim that Trump or Putin[1] are "stupid" where in reality they just mean "I don't like them".

[1] You can be a murderous dictator and not stupid, I would actually wager a guess that those people tend to actually be cleverer than average. Some applies to blood-thirsty CEOs.

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

#518

Post by bottlepalm »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #500

Is there any reason for anyone to stay at twitter? I’ve not seen Musk offer any upside anywhere to remaining. He’s laying out a stark plan of hard work and fewer benefits and a brutal management. What reason other than inability to find another job (perhaps due to visa status, the hiring freezes at end of year, and layoffs) does anyone have for working at twitter now? I’m shocked if they don’t see another 50+% volunt…

Even though the pay is lower and hours longer - at his other companies they offered stock options that at least 20x’d over the past 10 years at SpaceX and Tesla.

If the employees at Twitter think under Musk’s leadership that they can grow the company to 200 billion or more - then yea it’d be worth staying to collect stock that no one else can get now.

Hopefully they’re giving the remaining employees generous stock awards for staying. With the user base they have there’s no reason they can’t grow the company a lot with the the right strategy.

Musk has already discussed attacking YouTube directly and it sounds like he wants to expand into other social network niches. The whole X.com thing.

A lot of Twitter employees could come out pretty wealthy if successful. If it were me I’d stick around a year at least to see which way this whole thing is going.

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

#519

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

Invictus0 wrote: post #453
batter wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The video was satire

Satire is not believable; this was. So whatever it was it was poorly done. Unless you were already familiar with the dude you would have no idea he was joking. He even put THIS IS REAL in front of the image.

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

#520

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

ctvo wrote: post #80
DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO the ideal situation would be for people to work in their own offices, with doors that closed, and short commutes. Easy to work distraction-free alone, easy to have group meetings and random chats. But real estate costs have made this approach untenable, so something has to give.

> But real estate costs have made this approach untenable, so something has to give. I need a citation here. Big tech was so large and profitable the last decade that thinking it’s real estate costs that led them to open office spaces and not a flawed ideology re: work and collaboration.

Remote work has changed a lot, but construction in the places where the big tech companies are headquarters is highly constrained. It’s not like they all could immediately triple the size of their campuses again. Tech companies did build large new campuses at enormous cost, but mostly development crowded out other development. Everyone is bidding for the same land and labor.

Reasonably, one company could give everyone an office but there’s no way everyone could do it at once.

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