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

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

#671

Post by agrajag » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #477

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>>> 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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man I see you edited your comment from the original: > this seems to be a significant problem to your CO analogy. So let me ask you… how does a ship’s commanding officer not have more skin in the game? A rich person loses their second home or yacht when things go south… a person on a ship can hit the brig or lose their life.

You’d be surprised at how much you can fuck up a ship as a CO without life-changing consequences. Unless there’s gross negligence a CO is almost certainly not even going to get discharged even if their actions lead to death of a sailor.

They’ll stop being CO and will never be promoted, but will finish out their Navy career in a job where they can’t hurt anyone, and will have almost no impact once they retire and go into civilian life.

They’re not going to do time in the brig unless there’s willful misconduct.

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

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Post by johannes1234321 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

wefarrell wrote: post #501

thordenmark wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He’s a web guy in the same way that Rudy Giuliani is an expert in criminal law. It was true in the 90s but definitely not anymore.

He is not a web guy, but he is a Twitter power user, thus sees problems and limitations in the platform. But then: his usage and experience probably is far from representative for most users.

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

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Post by bart_spoon » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

elorant wrote: post #613

sangnoir wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to achieve Musk's target would be to drop ad revenue numbers precipitously until it is equal to subscriptions - a process that may well be under way.

Sure, but in this case you'd hardly make any profit. Interests on that $13bn loan alone are somewhere around $1bn annually.

I'm fairly certain they were making a joke.

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

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Post by gray_-_wolf » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

throw8383833jj wrote: post #643

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 th…

Isn't one exception to this the case when you control both the old and new platform, and can technically just migrate what content possible and just replace the old one with new? It technically does not even have to be "new" platform, it could be presented as "twitter redesign".

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

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Post by gnaritas99 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #621

nitwit005 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring is expensive, and people can take months to get up to speed on a new role. If too many people quit, he'll have simply wasted money and time. I've joined two teams where everyone previously on the team quit (plenty of openings). There was indeed a benefit to fresh eyes on things, but those projects took months to get back up to speed.

> Hiring is expensive, and people can take months to get up to speed on a new role. If too many people quit, he'll have simply wasted money and time. Yes, he's probably screwed either way. Sucks that others are getting screwed as a result of his choices.

No post body was provided.

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

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Post by fortydegrees » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:34 PM UTC

throw8383833jj wrote: post #643

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 th…

Twitter has 450M monthly active users. Elon bought it for $44bn. With ~$5bn in operating expenses, that gives you an absolutely insane CAC of $90 to play with.

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

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Post by dools » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:34 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…

It would be even cheaper to just buy the political influence he is trying to wield by directly funding politicians like his buddy Peter Thiel. Corrupting the GOP is surprisingly inexpensive for the value you receive in return.

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

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Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #504

SkyPuncher wrote: post #313

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…

Why would any competent engineer sign up to work in the environment Musk has created? I’ve seen no upside to employees offered, only brutal management and benefit reduction with a promise of hard work for less.

>Why would any competent engineer sign up to work in the environment Musk has created?

same reason people worked for id software or other companies with grueling cultures. Because working with people who are excited about what they do and who are fiercely loyal is great. It's not even really about Musk, it's what has always drawn people to hard work.

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

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Post by qez » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:35 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…

> So then you need users. Elon has 115 million followers on Twitter. He'd get users no matter what he built, so he's solved that problem too

No. He got that number of followers because he is on Twitter. He would not get the same number of followers on some other social media platoform. Trump had 20 times as many followers on Twitter than he has on Truth Social. And those Truth Social users are less valuable.

Engineers like to think that the engineering is the important part of platforms. It's not. The engineering can be easily replicated. The valuable part of platforms is the users. You buy the platforms to buy the users.

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

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Post by Archelaos » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

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…

You need to include the commuting time into the productivity calculation. If a person has to commute 1 hour for 200 days a year while working for 40 years, this would result in 8,000 hours of work-related unproductivity during a life, which is equivalent to 5 full years of work. This is the benchmark that you first have to surpass. In other words: such a person needs to be on average 12.5 percent more productive on site than at home to break even.