Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

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

#811

Post by lupire »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #599
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…

Putin's and Musk's massive ego and narcissism will be their downfall. By invading Ukraine, Putin has achieved the exact opposite he wanted to achieve. The West is now more united than ever and more Russia border countries are going to join NATO. On top of that he has destroyed Russian economy. Tell me how that's not stupid? I don't even have to go into Musk's actions. He massively overpaid for Twitter and to service…

Downfall at 70+ years old is winning, not losing.

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

#812

Post by moffkalast »

ideaz wrote: post #303
alistairSH wrote: post #275

So, he fires thousands of them while hob-knobbing with other billionaires on the other side of the country. And his first company-wide communication is rescinding previous WFH policies without much reason. What an absolute knob. Edit to add... He demanded a company-wide all-hands on one hours notice, then appeared 15 minute late. I hope every employee worth their salary walks, Twitter implodes, and Musk loses much of…

Maybe in his genius mind thats how he will get them to buy more Teslas.

"Sometimes my genius... it's almost frightening."

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

#813

Post by [deleted] »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #805
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…

> both of his own making Really? I was under the impression that Twitter was hemorrhaging money.

[deleted]

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

#814

Post by idontpost »

nyokodo wrote: post #781
gw98 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is the real problem. Stupid people with money can look like they are clever because the layer of people immediately underneath them actually wields the clue stick. Stupid people with no money look stupid because they can't afford the layer of clever people underneath them. Clever people are either abstracting the liability via stupid person in the layer above them or don't need that kind of shit in the…

> Stupid people with money can look like they are clever I get it, some people hate Elon’s guts and equally hate Elon fans. I also think that it’s pretty well established that he has a range of character flaws that really hurt him and threaten his future success. However, anyone who insinuates that Elon is stupid needs to establish how a genuinely stupid person could found two successful dot coms and then hire all th…

He can be entirely explained by random luck.

If you're got enough moron CEOs spouting enough random crap, one of them will get lucky often enough.

His only real skill is taking credit for things other people do.

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

#815

Post by hirvi74 »

wittycardio wrote: post #534
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…

Success is not really a measure of intelligence. I actually think Elon is likely quite intelligent but a lot of success is determined by luck, ambition and attitude rather than pure intelligence. I definitely do not think Donald Trump is very intelligent, but he has undoubtedly been very successful.

Intelligence is still determined by luck.

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

#818

Post by lupire »

danans wrote: post #580
slg wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 cont…

Counterparty risk. Do you have think the banks and Saudis want $1B this year and $0 after when Twitter collapses, or $0 this year and $500M in future years?

Do you Elon wants the banks to foreclose and seize Twitter? Or have to sell TSLA?

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

#819

Post by epistasis »

14u2c wrote: post #757
slg wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, the actual best approach for the wellbeing of employee is to combine these two moves. Give employees the choice between taking a voluntary severance package or coming back to the office. Make it known that a round of layoffs is possible depending on the number of people who take the severance. That way no one is misled into moving and the company doesn't have to be as concerned with the distribution of peop…

I don't think I've ever seen a company leave a question of "possible" layoffs up in the air like that. If they happen the announcement is made the same day, otherwise you have people questioning their employment for months.

Musk came in saying he wanted to get rid of 75% of the employees:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/10/20/musk...

Then a week later took it back:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-tells-twitter-employees-...

I think every single person at Twitter should be contemplating their employment right now.

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

#820

Post by aylmao »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #35
kypro wrote: post #23

I am split on the remote work thing from a productivity / creativity perspective. I do think there are times when I'm less productivity working from home compared to the office. I also think as a team we're less creative. Some of the best stuff I've done in my career has come out of casual conversations with my team about the stuff we're building. I've noticed I don't think about what I'm building as much when workin…

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.

Urban planning in large parts of the USA isn't very conducive of this approach, since housing space tends to be quite segregated from office space.

I also can only assume that it plays a role in office real-estate costs too, just like it does on housing costs.

Post reply on HN