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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

#171

Post by dave78 »

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?

I'm not sure if my perspective is warped or yours is, but from my standpoint this is all pretty common in corporate America. Companies are acquired or merge and most everything changes - polices, training, perks, and almost always significant layoffs. Similar things usually happen to divisions and groups within a company as leadership changes. Has this really not been a thing at places like Twitter?

The difference is that usually it's not covered minute-by-minute on all the major news outlets.

No one would want to be in this situation yet it happens every day. Where I'm at, new VPs take over our division every couple years and every time they reorganize everything, rename everything, promote some people, lay off a bunch of people, bring in their "people", change polices and procedures, etc. It sucks but it's part of business as far as I can tell. If I walked out every time this happened I think I'd be hard pressed to keep a steady job.

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

#172

Post by jdm2212 »

xnorswap wrote: post #103
jdm2212 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everything in life is tradeoffs. American software engineers get paid more than basically anyone else in the world, but we also have less job security. What's preferable just depends on your risk aversion vs marginal utility of money.

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

#173

Post by taurath »

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…

You’re almost there - which systemic problems in society are creating this elysium like class system where we jeer about the battles of the ascendant elite vs the shrinking bourgeois in a city where people beg for water on the street?

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

#174

Post by Balgair »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters last week said the total number of layoffs is likely to be closer to 50 percent. Unless I’m missing something, the only sources for this article are a mix of speculation and anonymous sources who can’t even agree with each other about the layoff.

I dunno.

WaPo isn't the best of new reporting agencies [0], but it's certainly not the worst. They do have standards and they don't make up the large majority of their data. Meaning, they have actually talked to someone that is 'familiar' with the 'deal' at some point 'last week.' It's not pure speculation on WaPo's part, though it maybe pure-unrefined-grade-A speculation on the contact's part.

If I had to bet, and many HNers out there are currently in that seat, then I'd bet on their reporting over other forms of pure speculation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_...

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

#175

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

georgeg23 wrote: post #144
AlexandrB wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would anything let him change the deal at this point? Even if Twitter was hiding their bot problem Elon's initial offer waived his ability to do due diligence on this, no?

The courts can make anything happen .

You'd think so, but so far it seems like they can't get him out of this deal no matter how hard he tries.

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

#177

Post by duxup »

dmix wrote: post #153
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 t…

Keep in mind that’s cash flow, not profit and they need to at least maintain it while cutting staff… and maybe make a profit one day?

They only have made a profit 2 out of the last 10 years.

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

#178

Post by gamblor956 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters last week said the total number of layoffs is likely to be closer to 50 percent. Unless I’m missing something, the only sources for this article are a mix of speculation and anonymous sources who can’t even agree with each other about the layoff.

Can verify that Twitter is laying people off. Several contacts at Twitter were laid off this weekend and hoping they I could submit their resumes to my current employer.

They were told that these were performance based terminations, despite not receiving any negative evaluations during their time at Twitter. They were also told they needed to sign NDAs in order to receive any severance.

Can't confirm the %.

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

#179

Post by photochemsyn »

legitster wrote: post #133
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 can't imagine the WaPo taking this same tone with regard to a Bezos acquisition or contract Uhhh... you must not ever read WaPo. They run critical coverage of Bezos and Amazon all of the time .

I see them reporting on stories that others have generated, but what I certainly don't see is anything like investigative journalism targeting any of Bezo's business interests, i.e. generating original stories, publishing embarrassing leaks (that others have not already published) etc. Again, see the Top Secret America investigative journalism effort from 2010. There's nothing similar that the Post has done since Bezos bought it, is there?

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

#180

Post by UncleMeat »

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…

It isn't an entitled attitude to refuse to work over the weekend under threat of losing your job to ship a new feature that isn't actually urgent at the whims of your new CEO who has spent the last few months publicly shitting all over you.
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