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100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

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Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#81

Post by justin66 »

gretch wrote: post #75
sega_sai wrote: post #29

I do know that many on HN are critical of twitter, but since the start of the war with Ukraine, twitter was an essential way to get fresh news/analysis of the situation. Therefore it's a pity that twitter is going down. And I do think it is happening.

Is losing information on the war really a bad thing? I mean of course it is for people living in Ukraine who need updated information to survive. (But I would also hope they have govt sponsored alternatives) But I actually thought it was deeply disturbing how many ppl in unrelated places, like California, would wake up and look forward to getting a fresh voyeur look on the suffering of others. Ppl were spectating and…

That "fresh voyeur look on the suffering of others" (odd framing) is why there is widespread, bipartisan political support for supporting Ukraine with munitions and money. People wouldn't make that choice if they did not know what is going on.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#82

Post by shagie »

gretch wrote: post #75
sega_sai wrote: post #29

I do know that many on HN are critical of twitter, but since the start of the war with Ukraine, twitter was an essential way to get fresh news/analysis of the situation. Therefore it's a pity that twitter is going down. And I do think it is happening.

Is losing information on the war really a bad thing? I mean of course it is for people living in Ukraine who need updated information to survive. (But I would also hope they have govt sponsored alternatives) But I actually thought it was deeply disturbing how many ppl in unrelated places, like California, would wake up and look forward to getting a fresh voyeur look on the suffering of others. Ppl were spectating and…

> Is losing information on the war really a bad thing?

From the other day: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/11/1063162/twitters...

But then we get to other issues such as 'Lost memories': War crimes evidence threatened by AI moderation - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-socialmedia-rights...

And further back: Youtube and Facebook are Removing Evidence of Atrocities, Jeopardizing Cases Against War Criminals https://theintercept.com/2017/11/02/war-crimes-youtube-faceb...

Recently: Are tech companies removing evidence of war crimes? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60911099

Or from the EFF - Amidst Invasion of Ukraine, Platforms Continue to Erase Critical War Crimes Documentation - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/amidst-invasion-ukrain...

So yes, losing information on the war is a bad thing.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#83

Post by sigil »

whateveracct wrote: post #74
sigil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So Elon paid $44B for a company now with 900-odd employees. For a 10-year ROI, that's $4.4B per year profit, or $440 million/per employee. Your math is off. $4.4B per year profit / 1000 employees = $4.4M per year profit per employee.

So still higher than some of the highest benchmarks. 2x instead of 20x. Still tough.

Yeah, still tough. More like 5X - 10X. Definitely not the 200X disparity claimed by parent though.

Apple had $1M profit per employee in 2021.

What’s an achievable PPE for a business like New Twitter? If you say $500K, and if you subscribe to The Headcount Method of Valuation, that implies Musk will need to 10X headcount from this low point to break even in 10 years.

(I question the premise though — I don’t think the plan is “extract $44B in cash by 2032.”)

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#84

Post by cratermoon »

trinovantes wrote: post #80
cratermoon wrote: post #61

Twitter will fall down over Thanksgiving.

The world cup should be a good stress test for Twitter's automated systems

Ooof. I don't follow football, but yes, World Cup and Thanksgiving the same week.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#85

Post by andreyk »

partiallypro wrote: post #12

I think there are going to be two levels of shock: 1) Never give people an ultimatum. It basically never works in your favor. That was such a dumb thing by Elon and his team. I don't think Elon expected the numbers to be so high. 2) Workers often overestimate their own worth within a company or how easily they can be replaced. It's likely that all the people leaving saying Twitter is going to majorly break soon won't…

Wrt 2: "I am going to miss this place. We built something special here, and I do not expect to see its like ever again. I have worked here at Twitter for over 11 years. Back in July, I was the 27th most tenured employee at the company. Now I'm the 15th. I am not going to click "yes""

https://mobile.twitter.com/THISWILLWORK/status/1593376111563...

Twitter is full of employees with 5-10 years of experience sharing that they are leaving. There is no doubt many people with critical knowledge and skills that are not easily replaced are gone.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#86

Post by giantdude »

dang wrote: post #70
giantdude wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Please don't call names on HN and especially please don't do psychiatric name-calling. You may not owe billionaire CEOs who you feel are psychopathic better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please look up the definition of psychopathy.

I can see that you are impressed by his wealth and title, but I owe this community a voice to balance yours.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#87

Post by dang »

giantdude wrote: post #86
dang wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't call names on HN and especially please don't do psychiatric name-calling. You may not owe billionaire CEOs who you feel are psychopathic better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please look up the definition of psychopathy. I can see that you are impressed by his wealth and title, but I owe this community a voice to balance yours.

Tossing pejoratives like 'psychopath' around in information-free ways is a marker of a bad HN comment, regardless of who it is you're putting down—although the celebrity aspect makes it worse because it adds sensationalism. If you've read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, it should be obvious that this isn't in the intended spirit of the site. In fact, if that isn't obvious of your comment, of which comment would it be obvious?

It's common for people to conclude that the mods secretly hold the opposing view to theirs*. I suppose the logic goes like this: (1) I can't possibly have broken the rules; (2) yet the moderator has scolded me; (3) why? there must be some other reason; (4) it must be that they disagree with me. The mistake is at step (1). The truth is, we don't care—we just want commenters to use the site as intended.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#89

Post by cma »

rayiner wrote: post #68

I suspect this works at Tesla and SpaceX because working on rockets and EVs is intrinsically cool and motivating for nerds, in contrast to whatever kind of company Twitter is. But I don’t understand why everyone is so dour. Either Musk figured out how to fix Twitter, or we no longer have to deal with Twitter. Win win.

> or we no longer have to deal with Twitter

If it goes bankrupt it goes to the creditors and won't disappear.

Re: 100s of Twitter employees leaving after Musk's 'extremely hardcore' work demands

#90

Post by benjaminwai »

cmh89 wrote: post #73
partiallypro wrote: post #12

I think there are going to be two levels of shock: 1) Never give people an ultimatum. It basically never works in your favor. That was such a dumb thing by Elon and his team. I don't think Elon expected the numbers to be so high. 2) Workers often overestimate their own worth within a company or how easily they can be replaced. It's likely that all the people leaving saying Twitter is going to majorly break soon won't…

>as I doubt the core engineers are the ones posting Emojis in the Slack channels. Why would someone who is capable of being a core engineer at Twitter agree to be overworked after Musk destroys the majority of the company. The most talented people will leave the dumpster fire. The remaining folks are probably going to be the people with the least confidence that they can get a new job in three months

I empathize with those remaining with a H1B, they would be worried sick. They would have less choices and would otherwise have less of 60 days to find a new job or to leave the country.
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