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

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

#161

Post by dmix »

AlexandrB wrote: post #150
dmix wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit and Instagram is even worse. Besides cookie boxes (which all have different UIs and rarely a good no button) it's probably the most annoying thing on an ad-blocked internet. How do the designers who work at these tech companies not understand that repeatedly annoying non-user visitors doesn't make them want to sign up? Nor incentivize others to link to it?

I think these things come about because of A/B testing. The metric being optimized is probably "app installs" or "account creations" and the negative side effects of driving a bunch of users off are not considered/measured.

Indeed, short term metrics vs long term hatred.

I know how it happens, I've designed many a KPI. Something so fundamental and important as the default non-user first-exerpience (not just a 'signup flow') should be evaluated more holistically than just looking at numbers.

But I guess when you have layers of middle managers it's safer to point to a spreadsheet than make hard choices.

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

#162

Post by AlexandrB »

giarc wrote: post #149
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.

$1 billion across 5000 employees is just $200,000 each. I suspect if you add total comp plus expenses for each employee you get to $200,000 pretty quickly.

That's only if Twitter can continue to function at the same revenue without those 5000 employees. That remains to be seen.

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

#163

Post by luckylion »

fknorangesite wrote: post #134
luckylion wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> They're employees, but "workers" implies blue collar in my opinion. You are (understandably) conflating "worker" with "working class", but these are different contexts. A worker is anyone who must, well, work for a living as opposed to their income coming from property/capital.

Wouldn't you differentiate between workers and executives? Is the CEO a worker if he doesn't own the company?

Tying it to the salary makes sense to me. If you get paid minimum wage, asking you to work overtime without additional pay is unjust. You get paid a minimum wage worker's life-time-earnings per year? It's perfectly fine to ask you to come in this weekend for an urgent project.

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

#164

Post by AlexandrB »

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.

I'm constantly shocked that "leveraged buyouts" are a thing. It seems like taking a business and loading it up with debt is a recipe for failure that would introduce a lot of risk for the lender, but banks and other capital holders continue issuing the debt.

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

#165

Post by kweingar »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #79
Barrin92 wrote: post #40

quick question here. I'm completely in the dark about US labour law and such but is it possible to lay people off if the sole purpose is to prevent them from receiving stock compensation? Sounds kind of wild given that it seems expected compensation when you signed a contract to work there in the first place.

> Sounds kind of wild given that it seems expected compensation when you signed a contract to work there in the first place. Contract says you get the stock if you work for a certain period of time at the company. Consequently, if you're fired or quit before that period elapses, you don't get it.

There are laws that restrict firing someone to avoid a payout, at least in some states.

Not sure if it applies to stock vesting. From what I understand, the main goal is to prevent an employer from firing someone at e.g. 19 years 11 months tenure purely to avoid paying them a pension.

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

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

benj111 wrote: post #102
COGlory wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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

As a salaried SE, why would you care? Or is that about SV's love for paying in stock instead of cash?

> then within days, is threating 25% layoffs.

That's an unconfirmed rumor at best, a lie most likely.

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

#167

Post by rglover »

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 pitfalls of extreme comfort. You have a place like the Bay Area with near perfect weather, obscene amounts of money, and at least until relatively recently, a social environment that lorded you as a "rockstar."

You look at your bank account and think "yeah, I AM a Rockstar! I DO deserve this! Everybody wants to be ME!"

Rinse and repeat that general attitude for ten years or so and blammo (which is even more explosive considering large chunks of the millennial generation were already coddled—and yes, I'm a millennial). You get a bunch of entitled brats who view anyone who isn't doing what they're doing as _less than_ (which is ironic considering those "less-thans" keep the bubble they live in running—electricity, food delivery, sewage systems, etc).

Pepper in the absolutely psychotic, cult-level diatribe these people sputter about "changing the world" and "making dents" and you have a low-level Jim Jones field jamboree brewing. It's absolutely zero surprise what's come out of SV over the last decade and change.

And that doesn't even factor in the pharmaceuticals!

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

#168

Post by rjzzleep »

rglover wrote: post #167
rjzzleep wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pitfalls of extreme comfort. You have a place like the Bay Area with near perfect weather, obscene amounts of money, and at least until relatively recently, a social environment that lorded you as a "rockstar." You look at your bank account and think "yeah, I AM a Rockstar! I DO deserve this! Everybody wants to be ME!" Rinse and repeat that general attitude for ten years or so and blammo (which is even more explo…

Maybe throw in a landmark forum, after you failed your first startup. I've actually seen people walk past hundreds of homeless people in the mission as if they don't exist, only to sit down in a flat in the middle of them to tell your tech buddy (me) that they're changing the world with the next photo sharing app. I had a little dystopia vibe, but then again I grew up in Europe so what do I know.

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

#169

Post by notacoward »

Ancalagon wrote: post #157

What’s with the contempt for twitter employees in this thread? I really hope Musk doesn’t come for your job next

> I really hope Musk doesn’t come for your job next

Part of me hopes he does, because that's the only way the Tall Poppy Syndrome folks have any chance of learning. But most of me has more empathy than they do.

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

#170

Post by adventured »

oneplusone wrote: post #48
swader999 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's following the law if he pays the penalty.

So I I kill someone and go to jail for it I was following the law?

There are rarely laws that say you may not kill another person. There are typically laws that lay out the consequences if you are found guilty of murdering someone, through a designation (eg if it's a felony offense, and what type of felony).

Whether you're guilty of murder or not is of course established after the fact. And you can do nothing wrong in the act of killing someone and still get screwed by a jury. Just ask the political left what they think of Kyle Rittenhouse being innocent.

You can certainly follow the law and go to jail regardless.

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