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Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

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Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#401

> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122

Why would firing someone who's on paternity leave be an issue at all? We're talking multi-millionaires who will get multi-million dollar severance. It's pretty hilarious to see the pearl clutching of techno-bourgeoisie over something like this, pretending other tech-lords are getting mistreated over some supposed breach of decorum. The mere fact that he gets to take parental leave puts him head and shoulders above mo…

That there is high compensation attached to this job is unrelated to the principal of firing an employee on family leave.

Companies are having to hold the line on what we value in this country, as legislation from environmental to health is not keeping up.

Twitter is specifically of note because the CEO recently had a child and rightfully took paid leave himself.

Whatever your personal opinions are on Elon Musk, he is very influential.

The man has six children and a varying track record on how he has communicated his views and personal use of parental leave and the role of the father following the birth of a child.

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/59806585473604403...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/elon-m...

The culture and policy Twitter matters. It doesn’t matter if the individual experience is that a janitor or senior management.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would firing someone who's on paternity leave be an issue at all? We're talking multi-millionaires who will get multi-million dollar severance. It's pretty hilarious to see the pearl clutching of techno-bourgeoisie over something like this, pretending other tech-lords are getting mistreated over some supposed breach of decorum. The mere fact that he gets to take parental leave puts him head and shoulders above mo…

Seriously. HN: "Firing a millionaire on paternity leave—and by "firing" I mean continuing to pay for the rest of their leave, plus probably a bunch of severance—is horrible!" 99% of the rest of the US: "WTF is paternity leave? Is that when your boss generously lets you use some of your annual leave for part of the week in which your kid is born?"

Many states in the US have family leave (including paternity leave). California is more than 10% of the US population and the rules for paternity leave are extremely broad:

- Welcomed a new child into the family in the past 12 months through birth.

- Paid into State Disability Insurance (noted as "CASDI" on most paystubs) in the past 5 to 18 months.

- Not taken the maximum eight weeks of PFL in the past 12 months

Insinuating that 99% of the US lacks paternity leave is disingenuous.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#403
post #378

All- some of you are clinging onto the paternity leave. I can't quote whether this is true, but at both Fortune 250 companies I worked for, you were paid out for your entire leave even if you weren't coming back after. So I would bet money he is still being paid for the whole leave, but if someone sees something else, please correct me. There is incentive to pay it out since one annoying side effect can be a person g…

The concern is that there could be a chilling effect resulting in people not taking this leave. If people expect to be fired for using this benefit, they won’t use it.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#404
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the revolution? There are competitive cars vs tesla for electric. Even if tesla have an edge, it's evolutionary, not at all revolutionary.

Tesla produced the first ICE-equivalent EV sedan that was not merely a "compliance vehicle" in decades. Then, it turned out, people bought them by the hundreds of thousands, single-handedly recreating the market for EVs. Then, other manufacturers noticed, and started realizing they might be left behind if they didn't take EVs seriously. Now, sure, there are many competitors, but even still they have only been built i…

I am not an expert in cars and yet I know the Renault Zoe was commercialized in 2012, the year of the model S, for a reasonable autonomy and a much, much cheaper price. I believe tesla were the first to sell low volume, pricey EV cars. Their range and timing advance is only because of choosing the rich over the middle class, aka a lesser impact. Although it's true EV were and remain not cheap but it's getting quickly much better and it's definitely not tesla that will lead the dance of democratisation

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#405
post #266
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, why would you think that? His wealth is mostly owning 20% of Tesla, plus some extra few billions from owning significant fractions of SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. Presumably there’s some cash in there as well, but on his scale a hundred million is a rounding error.

It still confuses me that being part-owner of an old dot-com payment company, part-owner of a mid-sized car company (by number of cars sold), and part-owner of a (very good) rocket company make a person richer than anyone has ever been in the history of the planet, but that's probably because I just haven't looked into it enough.

It's confusing because wealth in this case is based on valuation, which in the case of Tesla is based entirely on what some people think the company will do, monetarily, in the future. In my mind, Bill Gates is truly richer than Elon, because he has a diversified portfolio and could convert more of his holdings into other, different holdings, with less friction.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#406
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corrected for inflation, John D. Rockefeller is probably the richest American ever.

Hmm, according to this calculator [1], Rockefeller's net worth of $1.4B in 1937 would be worth $28B today. Elon's is around $240B, so it sounds like 10x the amount. Even by different calculations, it seems like an order of magnitude is a big difference. By GDP, they are both worth around 1% of the US GDP, but the US GDP is many times what it was then, particularly post-WWII. Musk's buying power seems significantly mo…

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Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#407
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corrected for inflation, John D. Rockefeller is probably the richest American ever.

Hmm, according to this calculator [1], Rockefeller's net worth of $1.4B in 1937 would be worth $28B today. Elon's is around $240B, so it sounds like 10x the amount. Even by different calculations, it seems like an order of magnitude is a big difference. By GDP, they are both worth around 1% of the US GDP, but the US GDP is many times what it was then, particularly post-WWII. Musk's buying power seems significantly mo…

Tesla is also a worldwide company and trading around the world is significantly faster and easier than in Rockefeller's days.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#408
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what would the problem be? Well, for one: PR at a critical time, obviously. And, general employee morale.

The problem is, if they decided they wanted to move on, when would it be "appropriate" "PR-wise"? After he comes back? A few weeks after? They all seem like bad options.

I don't know. That's why I'm not in PR.

I'm a systems guy. I'm into straight up logic. Emotional intelligence scares and confuses me.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#409
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vesting / payout theory makes no sense, firstly Twitter vesting at that point would be quarterly, so the company would be saving at most 1/16th of what those employees had already vested from their initial grant. Secondly, it's the employees who would have the incentive to leave, not the company to fire them. Assuming a typical 4 year vesting period, it's right at this year when their compensation would have _dro…

This may be Parag's hail mary play to appease his new master and keep his lucrative job. I would not be surprised if his next move is to publicly extol the virtues of Free Speech and the First Amendment.

Thats what I was thinking too. It felt weird that Dorsey was replaced with such quiet low profile thinker in the first place. He has no presence on earnings calls or spaces. I’ve listened to him take questions and he seems to handle them no better with no deeper insight then even I could provide. Maybe he was keeping things close to his chest. However, it just made me think they sort of put a puppet in charge for the purpose of acquisition. Parag would be easy to control as a lever into change within Twitter. Attractive feature for a buyer. I thought it would be big tech. Never thought Elon would be the one buying and controlling him. What a plot twist!

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#410

Growing up outside of the US, I feel kinda cringed when he said he was "INSANELY proud of our collective teams achieved". Such an interesting cultural difference.

This quirk of dialect should be called the California Superlative.

Everything is awesome, amazing, radical, insane, great, gnarly, not to mention sick, ill, righteous, dope. Californians just love superlatives, use them constantly, wear them out, and need new ones.

This spreads like a fine coating of mold over the rest of the country before going on to annoy the Commonwealth, and then we repeat. It's pretty cool.

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