Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by RavingGoat » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #530

poszlem wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 appl…

The smartest man in the world can still make mistakes.

He comes across as average to slightly above average IQ so he's not stupid. Definitely not a genius though. Just a really, really great self promoter who likes to take credit for other people's work.

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

#572

Post by drcross » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

nonrandomstring wrote: post #528

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…

I made a half-joke here on HN a few months ago that Musk was buying Twitter just to destroy it for the lols. Maybe everyone's wasting their time with rational economic analysis, trying to figure out a pretty simple guy with an obscene pile of fuck-you money and an axe to grind.

Watch Musks interview with Ron Baron instead of reading second hand quality hack articles if you want to understand the scale of his plans for twitter.

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

#573

Post by jrochkind1 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

I actually have no strong opinions about whether remote work must be allowed or not... but presumably this is going to result in more people leaving, right? Presumably he knows this, right? (Maybe he's even counting on it?).

I guess this is an interesting experiment in how much staff turnover you can have at a tech company like Twitter and still do fine.

I personally would not expect it to go well. Losing everyone who knows how things work and starting over from scratch with all new employees in as short a time period as possible, or even doing your best to approach that asymptote... that can't be a good idea, can it?

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

#574

Post by PartiallyTyped » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

notacop31337 wrote: post #538

nonrandomstring wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a half-joke here on HN a few months ago that Musk was buying Twitter just to destroy it for the lols. Maybe everyone's wasting their time with rational economic analysis, trying to figure out a pretty simple guy with an obscene pile of fuck-you money and an axe to grind.

I made this comment to a friend recently that I don't think enough people are considering that he might actually be mad enough to have spent $44B to destroy a toxic business.

> destroy a toxic business

Twitter is more toxic under musk..

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

#575

Post by barbazoo » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

nonrandomstring wrote: post #528

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…

I made a half-joke here on HN a few months ago that Musk was buying Twitter just to destroy it for the lols. Maybe everyone's wasting their time with rational economic analysis, trying to figure out a pretty simple guy with an obscene pile of fuck-you money and an axe to grind.

Is it true that $13bn came in the form of loans and that those loans are secured by Twitter, not Musk or any entity he'd personally be responsible for?

If so, how does that work?

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

#576

Post by throwuwu » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

autospeaker22 wrote: post #549

I keep thinking it'd be much cheaper for Elon to have paid to build an entirely new Twitter that has the features he's looking for. Let's say Elon had set aside a budget to hire some of the best developers he's ever worked with or heard of, and lets give them an imaginary salary of 1.5 million total comp per year, at about 10 devs for easy math. And let's say another 500k for bennies. So our operating expense for top…

The problem with your proposal is that Elons Twitter followers do not equal a profitable market. He needs Twitter’s brand and established user base to bootstrap whatever X is (something payment related probably). If it were just a bunch of his fans it wouldn’t have the penetration needed to loop more people in.

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

#577

Post by autospeaker22 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #563

autospeaker22 wrote: post #549

I keep thinking it'd be much cheaper for Elon to have paid to build an entirely new Twitter that has the features he's looking for. Let's say Elon had set aside a budget to hire some of the best developers he's ever worked with or heard of, and lets give them an imaginary salary of 1.5 million total comp per year, at about 10 devs for easy math. And let's say another 500k for bennies. So our operating expense for top…

All of the people (or most of the people) that matter would not have left Twitter for Elon's new company. Tons of people have tried this. Remember Dalton Caldwell's App.net. That didn't even get off the ground and it had a ton of YC press. Network affects are real.

I think for an insane comp and equity in a new company led by Elon, lots of people would consider leaving. Network affects are real and is probably a top 10 world individual as far as the power of his network is concerned. Having a ton of YC press is way different than being Elon.

Even still he could pay people to use his application. Pay businesses $20 a month for a verified business account. Pay individual users $10-100 a month based on activity and engagement. Does it scale? Absolutely not but I still think it'd end up cheaper than $44 billion.

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

#578

Post by awinder » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

autospeaker22 wrote: post #549

I keep thinking it'd be much cheaper for Elon to have paid to build an entirely new Twitter that has the features he's looking for. Let's say Elon had set aside a budget to hire some of the best developers he's ever worked with or heard of, and lets give them an imaginary salary of 1.5 million total comp per year, at about 10 devs for easy math. And let's say another 500k for bennies. So our operating expense for top…

Congratulations, you just lost all your invested capital on Truth Social 2.0.

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

#579

Post by ramesh31 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #451

msmith wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you've read Turn the Ship Around [1]? It's one of my favorite leadership books and tells the true story of the Navy captain who was put in the awkward position of running a submarine class that he was not familiar with. He adapted to the situation by leaning on the expertise of the crew in a way that was very different than the normal command-and-control style of leadership. It sounds like what you descri…

Yea, the Navy has basically fostered a shit culture that turned the leadership into MBA-style bullshit artists today. Leadership isn't taken seriously, just promotions and personal gain. Only those who kiss ass can make it in today's Navy. If more leaders like this guy who wrote this book were sent to the top levels, it would be an improvement. Instead, you notice he's writing books for a living now.

>Yea, the Navy has basically fostered a shit culture that turned the leadership into MBA-style bullshit artists today. Leadership isn't taken seriously, just promotions and personal gain. Only those who kiss ass can make it in today's Navy.

This is a disease of all peacetime militaries. The Army suffers the same problem. They spend an entire career LARPing in camouflage, and think that somehow means they know anything at all about warfare or leadership.

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

#580

Post by danans » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #516

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…

>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…

> He is jeopardizing the continued viability of a $44b investment to save maybe a few hundred million max.

Both he and the market know that he paid too much for Twitter. It isn't worth $44B, but he needs to make it lean enough to start throwing off enough cash to pay back the loans he took to buy it at that price.

Since it is very hard to increase revenue (especially when he is allowing more advertiser-repellent content), he is trying to dramatically cut costs while trying to increase non advertising revenue.

He can't go back to the banks and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and explain to them that he needs a deferment so he can invest in more efficient SRE and content moderation. He has to sleep in the bed he made, which means show his creditors the money.