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Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#101

Post by pseudo0 »

anamexis wrote: post #27
herodoturtle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referring to the HN title of this post: "Twitter to lay off 25% of workforce in first round of job cuts" I opened the article thinking this was a formal announcement. But it's nothing of the sort. It's just speculation at this stage. Hope that clears things up.

But it's not speculation: > ...according to four people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them, as well as tweets from some of the people involved.

Are two of them named Ligma and Johnson?

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#102

Post by benj111 »

COGlory wrote: post #67
outside1234 wrote: post #20

Honestly, the whole of Twitter should just walk out and wildcat strike until Wednesday morning. The worst he can do is fire you.

Why? What has Musk actually done? To date there's: - Reports that he had Tesla engineers with him when they interviewed some Twitter engineeers. Currently the biggest arguments against that are: Tesla engineers belong to Tesla (we have no idea in what capacity they were they) and "that's an ineffective strategy to review a codebase" (we have no idea if that's what they were actually doing. - Reports that he gave a te…

What? How would you feel if someone announced they were buying your company after breaking M&A laws and messing around with a significant portion of your net worth, tried to back out, further messing around with your net worth, started talking shit about your company, takes it over because they are forced to, then within days, is threating 25% layoffs.

Would you want to be in that kind of situation?

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#103

Post by xnorswap »

jdm2212 wrote: post #36
yboris wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it legal to demand people work on weekends? How is it legal to (even threaten) firing if a new assigned task that takes a long time is not done on time?

For salaried, at-will employment, the employer can demand whatever they want and fire you for whatever reason they want. There are exceptions for, like, sexual harassment and racial discrimination, but not for "I disagree with the boss about what is a realistic project timeline".

> the employer can demand whatever they want and fire you for whatever reason they want

In the US.

I'm glad I work in a country where workers actually have rights.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#104

Post by s1artibartfast »

outside1234 wrote: post #20

Honestly, the whole of Twitter should just walk out and wildcat strike until Wednesday morning. The worst he can do is fire you.

Twitter doesn't have a union. A wildcat strike is a strike undertaken by unionised workers without union leadership approval.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#105

Post by hotpotamus »

Alex3917 wrote: post #25

> Longtime Musk associates David Sacks and Jason Calacanis appeared in a company directory over the weekend, according to photos obtained by The Washington Post. Both had official company emails and their titles were "staff software engineer." Do either of these guys even know how to program? Calacanis has been making tech content for decades, and I've never once heard him talk about writing code.

Twitter probably didn't have a pre-existing title for "Member of the Musk Entourage" so they just found what they considered the next closest thing.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#106

Post by xtian »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #54
herodoturtle wrote: post #4

From the linked article: > The company has yet to release a formal announcement of the acquisition. The communications department has gone silent. Rumors have swirled about layoffs, with some notices going out quietly. Is it just me or is this headline totally misleading? No formal announcement yet folks.

>No formal announcement yet folks. This is how you get a press that only uncritically regurgitates press releases.

Yeah it would be horrible if one day we had a press like that. In this case I expect they simply didn’t have enough moveable type to include “Rumor:” at the start of the headline

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#107

Post by jupp0r »

photochemsyn wrote: post #93

The Washington Post really has lost a lot of credibility since the Bezos purchase in 2013. It reflects a trend of consolidation of corporate media in the hands of America's ruling oligarchs (who exert far more influence over federal policies and expenditures than any Congressperson, and perhaps the President as well). For example, I can't imagine the WaPo taking this same tone with regard to a Bezos acquisition or co…

That's why we have multiple newspapers. The other ones can cover for deficiencies of a single one. The Post is doing great investigative journalism still, including this piece.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#108

Post by luckylion »

rjzzleep wrote: post #66
swozey wrote: post #9

Evidently Musk had Tweeps work all weekend on the new Verified feature lest they get fired, and some were fired "for cause" anyway. https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1587029446061686784

I'm all for the European don't work unpaid overtime, but what I don't get is the sense of entitlement these people had, when they were threatening to leave in advance and then decided they'd rather just stay in their cushy jobs in the hopes that Musk would change his mind. "WE WILL SHOW YOU ELON" - Show what exactly? That billing and other completely standard cookiecutter SaaS features can't be implemented by other e…

> The acquirer, his attitude towards workers

"Workers" is strange to me when talking about people who make 5-10x the national average (i.e. make more than many average executives in other industries). They're employees, but "workers" implies blue collar in my opinion. I'm fine with including staff in retail, restaurants etc, but someone making $500k+ a year doesn't fit into that category.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#109

Post by rakoo »

sneak wrote: post #61
yboris wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it legal to demand people work on weekends? How is it legal to (even threaten) firing if a new assigned task that takes a long time is not done on time?

In the US, there is a fair amount of respect (in business at least) for the idea of “consent to continue the interaction can be revoked with or without cause at any time”. I personally can’t see a good reason why it should be illegal outside the rare edge case where there is only a single employer in a geographical region, and even that unfortunate situation should probably be remediated with a different type of gove…

> I personally can’t see a good reason why it should be illegal

There is a big one: the employer/employee is not a balanced relationship, the employer clearly has more power over where things go. So it's absolutely normal to protect the employee from being asked too much, especially when said employee doesn't benefit from the overtime.

There is a big bias towards taking companies as important citizens whose needs must be catered for, but it's taking more and more importance when the actual citizens aren't listened to. It is important to put companies back to what they are: a social construct for exploiting people and make profit from their work.

Re: Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans

#110

Post by Rahul_Ligma »

photochemsyn wrote: post #93

The Washington Post really has lost a lot of credibility since the Bezos purchase in 2013. It reflects a trend of consolidation of corporate media in the hands of America's ruling oligarchs (who exert far more influence over federal policies and expenditures than any Congressperson, and perhaps the President as well). For example, I can't imagine the WaPo taking this same tone with regard to a Bezos acquisition or co…

I think it would behoove you, given how easily they bent over for Bezos and have silenced opposition against him, to reflect back on the last two decades and compare various outlets (including the ones you don’t like because they don’t align with your political stance) and see just for how long they’ve been corrupted.

They didn’t wake up in 2013 and suddenly decide they won’t have any integrity.

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