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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

#151

Post by kweingar »

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…

> 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.

I imagine that at this point, many are staying until they get fired so they can collect severance pay.

That is what I would do. I absolutely would not work for Elon’s Twitter long term unless they paid me a king’s ransom, but I would definitely stick around and jump through the hoops just long enough to get a nice payout.

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

#152

Post by s1artibartfast »

georgeg23 wrote: post #135
yrgulation wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mainly media workers exploiting current events for traffic, even if their content is misleading. We really need to sort out media corruption and incompetence.

Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this?

Phone, email, and in person are safe if you trust your counterparty?

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

#153

Post by dmix »

duxup wrote: post #19

Twitter now owes about $1 billlion in debit payments per year. Cash flow last year $630 million. I think 25% staff reductions is just a starting point.

It might be arbitrary and pure speculation but with ~7500 employees (3000 of which are engineers) I think they'll be able to do just fine with 5000. -25% of staff would just mean going back to 2019 staff levels...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twit...

I remember it was a common meme on HN to ask what Twitter's thousands of employees did all day, even back in 2015. So maybe I'm falling into that trap. But I do still wonder.

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

#154

Post by nebula8804 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #125
xnorswap wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You probably don't work in a country with a 3.5% unemployment rate.

That unemployment rate is nonsense. If you want a job that does not pay you enough to even afford a studio apartment in many locales then yes there are multiple jobs ready to take you. Hell they'll even provide you some free (candy\pens\fast food\a pat on the back) to further tempt the deal. For everyone else that unemployment rate is a mirage.

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

#155

Post by TeMPOraL »

robin_reala wrote: post #132
gitfan86 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nice thing is that this goes both ways. If you are an at-will employee you can send an email that says "I resign effective immediately" and walk away and never speak to anyone at that company ever again.

Who’s hurt more: the company whose employee leaves on the spot, or the employee whose company fires them on the spot? At-will is asymmetric.

Depends on the role, the company, and the timing. A single worker in an important position leaving on the spot, dropping some critical work half-way done and taking all the context and specific knowledge with them, could easily torpedo a million dollar deal. Or, a single employee leaving could trigger a cascade, and soon you're short a whole project team.

In general, I'd say at-will still favors employers, who are in a better position to structurally mitigate the threat of a critical employee leaving, even though they often don't do so.

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

#156

Post by tjpnz »

mikkergp wrote: post #49
rr808 wrote: post #29

Seems to be a lot of work at twitter I doubt there will be many devs removed. However he tweeted that there are 10 people managing for every one dev. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586686935518498816 Also Layoffs before vesting denied. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586831721386766337 Bring back Vine? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586918804780630016

With all these layoffs, Hopefully he brings back the fail whale.

If death marches are now the new norm they'll absolutely need it.

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

#158

Post by jupp0r »

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…

Most of these people don't have to work for Twitter. They ended up working there because it used to be a nice company to work for.

New ownership seems to have changed that, not only in the things that were rumored they would do, but also in the abysmal communication during the whole thing.

This kind of thing happens all the time and it's always a risk, but that doesn't mean that people have to like it.

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

#159

Post by sp332 »

yboris wrote: post #17
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

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?

Even if the firing is legal - and California does have restrictions when a company fires a large number of people at once - arguing that it's "for cause" to withhold severance packages is going to be a lot more difficult.

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

#160

Post by jupp0r »

Not sure what Musk's intentions are with this. Normally this will lead to the best people updating their resumes and switching over to less toxic places ASAP. You are left with people who are attached to their ancient code or who can't find good jobs elsewhere.

edit: typoz

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