Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 852 posts

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

#471

Post by furyofantares »

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…

This makes it extremely easy to make low quality content that looks just like high quality content, with the only difference being that it's more likely to be found out to be wrong information. And it doesn't seem like we can reliably punish news organizations for constantly putting out bad news, so what's their motivation to do the high quality version?

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

#472

Post by khazhoux »

98codes wrote: post #427
MichaelCollins wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

While you are correct that LOC is not a full measure of productivity, and there are many factors to consider, it would be nonsense to say that merging code has no bearing on productivity. All things equal (and disregarding engineers whose job isn’t coding per se), submitted code is the essential deliverable of a software engineer.

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

#473

Post by Archelaos »

Y-bar wrote: post #391
kingsloi wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/cries in an at-will state/

Unions. Not just for fancy Europeans and factory workers. If your colleagues gets fired for some bs reason you and your other colleagues can stand for each other by striking.

... and codetermination. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

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

#475

Post by mikeyouse »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #462
mikeyouse wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw a note today they're going to layoff a number of "highly compensated" sales people highlighting that they made even more than very senior engineers... which is an interesting plan for a company trying to salvage revenue.

Twitter has salespeople? Like what do they sale? I'm not trying to be facetious I am just ignorant.

Anyone that has revenue has salespeople. Twitter’s (and every tech company’s) sales staff convince large companies to spend money paying for Twitter ads. A good salesperson will be mostly paid on commission for bringing huge clients who spend millions of dollars per year on advertising. Their comp is high specifically because they can sell many multiples of that comp.

A salesperson that has the ability to call the head of an advertising agency and get them to answer the phone is maybe the most valuable possible employee in any ad-supported business.

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

#476

Post by Emigre_ »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #263
georgeg23 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this?

>Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this? How did people communicate before the invention of Twitter and employer provided email and slack channels?

Bulletin board systems?

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

#477

Post by fourstar »

digdugdirk wrote: post #365
fourstar wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

There are plenty of people who have the skills to provide value to an organization, and just want a safe/reliable payment to provide for their families in return. Its still a sad occasion to see them fired for no/little reason.

No post body was provided.

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

#478

Post by gotoeleven »

freejazz wrote: post #461
telotortium wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could believe you, but unfortunately journalists have trashed their credibility with their turn to "moral clarity" post-Trump. With the effective merger of the opinion and news beats in this era, "another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters" could refer to anybody at all with a grudge against Musk, and we as readers would have no way of knowing which of…

Ah, yes. The secret meeting of the journalists. They use the same room as my secret meeting for all-powerful Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

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

#479

Post by bambataa »

gamblor956 wrote: post #178
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 %.

Are they being laid off on the Sunday so that they miss their 1 Nov vest date? I find a reprehensible way to treat people.
Post reply on HN