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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

#641

Post by eftychis »

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…

He bought the users not the equipment, developers etc. The brand and domain is what he bought -- in his mind at least.

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

#642

Post by cpeterso »

gdubs wrote: post #489
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…

When we began looking at farms, the advice we got over and over again was to live with it through a few seasons before making any changes. See how the water flows in the winter months, see what dries out in the summer. Learn what the wildlife get up to, where the best views are. It's something I think about to this day. As we've made progress restoring and transforming our place, we're constantly informed by those ob…

Good advice about the seasons. Sounds like "Chesterton's Fence":

  The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to [the fence] and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence

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

#643

Post by throw8383833jj »

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…

Anybody can build a twitter at a tiny fraction of the cost of Twitter. The problem is always user acquisition. It's extraodinarily difficult to get a vast segment of the userbase to switch to your platform. Even getting a tiny handful would cost vast sums of money. Think about it. If it could be done, it would be done and we'd see a largely segmented social media landscape with hundreds of twitter clones. It's not the case.

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

#644

Post by jonny_eh »

shp0ngle wrote: post #586
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…

He doesn’t want to build a better twitter. He wants to _own this twitter_.

"You made this? I made this." https://imgflip.com/i/70bgz4

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

#645

Post by agrajag »

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.

A major problem is that life in the Navy sucks too much compared to the civilian world, so that most of the competent Naval Officers leave, and you end up with a pretty small pool of competent leaders. It’s a super weird dynamic where junior officers are on average more competent than mid-career officers.

As for why life sucks so much, leadership has let there be too much to do with too few people, and inflexible systems.

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

#646

Post by spbaar »

rgovostes wrote: post #152

> over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam. Would it improve the situation to simply require a CAPTCHA once per day per non-subscriber to tweet? I would think it would greatly increase the cost to operate a troll farm, but have minimal impact on real users (setting aside accessibility and third-party clients a moment). If it causes attrition because som…

Use the 4chan captchas those are the hardest things ive done since calculus

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

#647

Post by _djo_ »

wingworks wrote: post #624
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It'd be even cheaper if he had the sense to not play chicken with Twitter's board only to get called on his bluff. Nothing about how he's handled Twitter thus far suggests that he ever took his offer to buy them seriously. He was showboating from the beginning and screwed up, and thous…

Allot of how Elon handled the layoffs from what's public doesn't sound ideal. But also idk how many of those people would've had a job at twitter for much longer anyway. We get a post in HN every other day at the moment of x company laying of 1000 of people.

Twitter was almost certain to see layoffs had Musk not bought it, but they’d have been slower, more considered, less harmful, and probably smaller because the company didn’t have a ludicrous leveraged buyout $1bn annual debt bill.

The way things are going now there’s an increasingly real possibility that Twitter may not exist in a few months, putting the jobs of the other 3000 or so employees at risk too. Not to mention all the people who used Twitter to make a living.

The destruction of lives and so much value for one man’s ego is astounding.

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

#648

Post by danny_taco »

poszlem wrote: post #517
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 appl…

Elon or Putin are not stupid, far from it, but that doesn't mean they can't make stupid decisions, and not only make them but double down on them.

For example, look at Putin and the state of Russia and their invasion of Ukraine. I think everyone would agree it has been one of the biggest military and geopolitical blunders ever. As far as Elons acquisition of Twitter, time will tell if it was 'stupid' decision or not.

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

#649

Post by cmh89 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #570
cmh89 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of remote work is an excellent way to chase away your best employees while retaining people with nowhere to go.

the correlation in my experience is if anything the other way around. The best and most productive employees tend to be involved and in-person is still the best way to get things done and actually exchange ideas. This is the one thing Musk is 100% right about, remote work is awful for productivity and it's most popular among the "least amount of effort" crowd. It's also why almost any major tech company after covid i…

>The best and most productive employees tend to be involved and in-person is still the best way to get things done and actually exchange ideas.

I'm having a hard time believing this. The people in my company who want to end remote work were the people that needed it for a social output. Nothing as shown that productivity suffered during the pandemic due to remote work.

>This is the one thing Musk is 100% right about,

Elon Musk is a 100% remote worker.

>t's also why almost any major tech company after covid is trying to scale remote work back again.

Hard disagree, most companies want people back in the office because they are run by middle managers who have spent their careers climbing the ladder by putting in face time and building relationships. Remote work is a huge detriment to that style of career advancement. They basically want everyone back in the office so they, the middle managers, can feel productive.

There is a reason they focus on abstract concepts like water cooler conversations rather than hard data. The data says there isn't a problem

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