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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

#421

Post by NationalPark »

twawaaay wrote: post #362
H8crilA wrote: post #339

So, it was a simple corporate raid after all. Welcome back to the 70s: energy markets problems, inflation, and now finally some good old corporate raiding with LBOs. PS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid

Twitter has been taken private so this is not corporate raid. Corporate raid is aimed at making changes to the company specifically to increase share price. The idea is that the resulting share price increase covers at least significant part of the cost of getting majority stake. This makes the buyout relatively cheap or even free. Which of course makes little sense if you are also taking the company private. I would…

Taking a company private via LBO, firing a quarter of the staff so you can afford the debt payments, and then streamlining and flipping the profitable parts of the business is the classic corporate raid playbook. So far he's done the LBO part, and is apparently doing the layoff part. Of course, he's the richest person in the world and his finance partners are well connected Saudis, so there are obviously many plausible reasons to operate it at a loss and never do the actual looting part of the corporate raid.

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

#422

Post by ghaff »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #256
s1artibartfast wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Personal email, obviously. Never discuss anything of this nature on any communication medium that is owned by your employer. There's a reason "Direct Message" labeling overtook "Private Message" in chat apps.

Depending upon how sensitive I’d generally try to avoid written communications in general. It’s easy for even well-meaning friends, current or ex-workers to forward something without thinking it through.

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

#423

Post by ska »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #389
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.

How many devs at twitter have no code to show for the past month, because they swept up by the impending doom of Musk's takeover and stopped working? I would guess more than a few. Firing those "for cause" will probably be easy; they stopped working for a month and anybody can get fired for that. Those that remained productive will probably have better prospects for keeping their jobs, and for suing if they're fired.

> because they swept up by the impending doom of Musk's takeover and stopped working?

To a first approximation I would guess 0.

When a company is teetering on calamity, people don't just stop doing things, they just stop doing things in organized, co-ordinated ways.

More than that, firing people for cause usually requires records and a demonstration of dialog the the person (not all jurisdictions) and is hard to demonstrate.

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

#424

Post by twawaaay »

NationalPark wrote: post #421
twawaaay wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter has been taken private so this is not corporate raid. Corporate raid is aimed at making changes to the company specifically to increase share price. The idea is that the resulting share price increase covers at least significant part of the cost of getting majority stake. This makes the buyout relatively cheap or even free. Which of course makes little sense if you are also taking the company private. I would…

Taking a company private via LBO, firing a quarter of the staff so you can afford the debt payments, and then streamlining and flipping the profitable parts of the business is the classic corporate raid playbook. So far he's done the LBO part, and is apparently doing the layoff part. Of course, he's the richest person in the world and his finance partners are well connected Saudis, so there are obviously many plausib…

> Of course, he's the richest person in the world and his finance partners are well connected Saudis,

Care to point to your sources or are you just spreading misinformation?

Saudis are second largest shareholder in Twitter but their share is relatively slim. Also, just because Saudis bought the same thing I bought does not immediately mean they are my finance partners even if it somehow helped my goal.

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

#425

Post by AlexandrB »

User23 wrote: post #300
sosodev wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is requiring an NDA for severance even legal? That's seriously sketchy

Not just an NDA but a full general release is absolutely standard. It’s not worth buying you out if you’re not willing to sell your right to sue.

Isn't some amount of severance legally required during layoffs? That's not "buying someone out" that's complying with the law.

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

#426

Post by eqbridges »

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.

Can you cite where it’s been said he’s firing 25% (or any significant percentage) “for cause”?

The only parties being cited as fired for cause are the outgoing executives, and WaPo article at the top of this post provides reasons for that.

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

#427

Post by 98codes »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #389
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.

How many devs at twitter have no code to show for the past month, because they swept up by the impending doom of Musk's takeover and stopped working? I would guess more than a few. Firing those "for cause" will probably be easy; they stopped working for a month and anybody can get fired for that. Those that remained productive will probably have better prospects for keeping their jobs, and for suing if they're fired.

We've known that lines of code were no indication of code quality or developer productivity for well over two decades now -- why would it start to matter now, particularly for those at more senior levels?

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

#428

Post by ska »

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.

Every jurisdiction is different in details, of course, but "at-will" just means you can fire someone, not that you get to decide what happens after unilaterally (e.g. you may owe severance)

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

#429

Post by JasserInicide »

swozey wrote: post #195
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

The contempt for them on twitter is even worse. A ton of anonymous twitter accounts laughing at people losing their jobs.

Can't blame them honestly. There was that Project Veritas video where they talked to some employees and they don't even hide how big of assholes they are.
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