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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

#371

Post by agsnu »

linuxhansl wrote: post #276
saurik wrote: post #253

6 months ago it was all painted (maybe seemingly, though, by prior executives who weren't speaking for Musk) as if this wouldn't be a big deal for employees, which to me makes this idea that people are being rapidly fired "for cause" after a suddenly-imposed weekend work shift deadline extra shitty :/. (Even if I do sometimes claim that Twitter is incompetent as an organization or bloated with idle staff, these are h…

Firing 25% of the workforce "for cause" looks like a very hard sell to me, and would open up Twitter for a barrage of lawsuits - and rightly so. Even laying off 25% of the workers would be hard to justify at this point. I'm certainly curious where this all is going.

Tesla is currently engaged in litigation over allegedly firing employees without providing necessary 60 day notice period under California law, denying them pay as a result, so it would appear that Musk has precedent.

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

#372

Post by brainphreeze »

simonw wrote: post #305
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.

This is how high quality journalism works. There's actually quite an involved skill to reading and fully understanding this kind of writing - and it's infuriatingly difficult to pick up that skill (I've been developing it by spending time talking to professional journalists, but I'm still not there yet). When you read "another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive…

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not

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

#373

Post by joegahona »

spamizbad wrote: post #327

Interesting that David Sacks and Jason Calacanis are "Staff software engineers" - assuming that's accurate. To my knowledge, neither have worked as professional software engineers. Calacanis is a journalist turned entrepreneur/investor and Sacks is a former management consultant who became a C-suite during the dotcom boom who later became an entrepreneur/investor.

It's probably just to get them into the system asap. I've seen this at companies in the past -- someone gets input into the HR system with a role/title that has nothing to do with what they actually end up doing. One time the HR person screwed up and a lower-level data-entry guy was mistakenly listed above the CEO. I have a screenshot somewhere; some decent comedy for a few days until the CEO noticed.

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

#374

Post by kingsloi »

hef19898 wrote: post #325
linuxhansl wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing 25% of the workforce "for cause" looks like a very hard sell to me, and would open up Twitter for a barrage of lawsuits - and rightly so. Even laying off 25% of the workers would be hard to justify at this point. I'm certainly curious where this all is going.

Stories like this make like the employee protection I enjoy even more.

/cries in an at-will state/

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

#375

Post by BryantD »

georgeg23 wrote: post #86
tootie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw this Tweet by a director-level person at Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1585813324285239296 Seems Elon is keeping his machinations to himself.

It seems he barged in, went through internal chats to look for evidence to scuttle the deal or change the terms. https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/15868858873416458...

If I were Elon there is zero chance I’d be able to resist name-searching myself in the company Slack, just in public channels and channels I was added to. I can’t blame him for that.

Tweeting it out, well. I could resist that urge just fine.

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

#376

Post by conradfr »

cercatrova wrote: post #328
simonw wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting commentary on this from someone who used to work at Twitter: - https://twitter.com/joshelman/status/1586812933043933184 > Changing the logged out home page of Twitter to show more content is likely one of those “easy fixes” that has symbolic effect but very little to no metrics effect. I ran A/B tests on this in 2010. Usually the best way to grow Twitter active users is make people sign up first

Technical people, especially engineers and those on HN, hate sign up forms but having grown a product to X thousand users, the more you push the sign up form, the more people sign up. You can even plot a linear relationship between the two, which I've done before.

But that's also reduce ads for unlogged visitors.

Are ads for logged-in users so more profitable that it's worth it?

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

#377

Post by pianoben »

caeril wrote: post #204
lm28469 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reports that he gave a team until Nov 7th to roll out a paid subscription > None of these things are particularly unreasonable Six business days to come up with a system to process $6m per month of income. Nothing unreasonable indeed...

Yes, by historical Twitter standards it may seem unreasonable to write a Stripe API integration with simple UI and account history in six days. In the real world, however, a single developer can do it in less time than that. Twitter (and really, BigCo in general) engineers are accustomed to their foosball tables, catered meals, wine bars, beer taps, rooftop gaming session, and endless meetings and code reviews. It's…

> Twitter (and really, BigCo in general) engineers are accustomed to their foosball tables, catered meals, wine bars, beer taps, rooftop gaming session, and endless meetings and code reviews.

Tell me you've never been hired at Twitter without telling me you've never been hired at Twitter, lol. Every company has some dead weight, sure, but what you describe isn't remotely applicable to most people.

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

#378

Post by rurp »

superfrank wrote: post #277
jupp0r wrote: post #160

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

If you're Musk and you truly believes that the company is bloated with underperforming employees, what is the alternative?

The alternative is to take a measured approach to learning about the business and org, in order to make informed decisions about how to restructure efficiently. But of course that takes time and effort. For somebody impetuous and self-indulgent, it's much more satisfying to go in swinging a machete on day one.

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

#379

Post by mola »

AlexandrB wrote: post #137
georgeg23 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems he barged in, went through internal chats to look for evidence to scuttle the deal or change the terms. https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/15868858873416458...

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?

He's a vindictive little man, even if he is stuck with Twitter at the price he paid, he probably wants revenge. Any evidence about information he didn't see will be fair game to claim witholding information from the court. And maybe a sec fraud indictment against those that were at the helm of Twitter.

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

#380

Post by whateveracct »

realgeniushere wrote: post #357
linuxhansl wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing 25% of the workforce "for cause" looks like a very hard sell to me, and would open up Twitter for a barrage of lawsuits - and rightly so. Even laying off 25% of the workers would be hard to justify at this point. I'm certainly curious where this all is going.

Even California still has at-will employment. He doesn’t need cause, or anyone else to agree on what that cause is.

there's legislation around layoffs you can't handwave with "at will"
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