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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#511

Post by CommieBobDole »

inglor_cz wrote: post #356
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

SpaceX does not seem to have a problem attracting talent and even poaching it from competitors. The difference might be in the fact that Musk founded it and allegedly takes part in the recruitment process himself. Maybe he wants to do the same at Twitter. Turning an already existing company with an already existing company culture around is much more complicated, though.

I think the difference is SpaceX doing cool cutting-edge things with rockets. People want to be a part of that and are willing to take less pay and poorer working conditions to do so.

Twitter is boring. Its explosive growth days are behind it, working there now is basically about maintaining a legacy platform that has a bunch of problems that mostly aren't technology problems. It's about as interesting as working for a big insurance company; if the paycheck and working conditions aren't there, you're not going to be able to attract talent.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#512

Post by mschuster91 »

PM_me_your_math wrote: post #414
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

Twitter employees were treated nicely. Too nicely. And yet they were not productive. The only new features they introduced in 10 years were losses in excess of 200MM to 1bn+ and the banning/shadow banning of those who went against the group think, fun police, and thought-gestapo. Each staffer had 10 bosses and every department had a ton of waste. Musk could never show up again after some changes, and the company woul…

> those who went against the group think, fun police, and thought-gestapo.

Yeah, "fun police" - it's not fun if your "jokes" are made on the back of minorities.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#513

Post by tofuahdude »

snarf21 wrote: post #406
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

Are these layoffs even legal under the WARN act?

It depends. People are jumping to conclusions on this point before full information is available.

There are many carve-outs that will dismiss WARN liability: if severance packages are offered and accepted (with appropriate conditions), the WARN act is irrelevant.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#514

Post by el_benhameen »

khazhoux wrote: post #469
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

> THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. How bold, to speak for everyone ;-) I really don't see this as a "treat employees nicely" issue. I'm open to being convinced otherwise. But... Elon's premise from day 0 was that Twitter was mismanaged -- bloated, misguided, bad as a business and broken as product. This echoes the sentiment even by many…

I don’t think the point is that the layoffs themselves are “not nice”—I think most people are in agreement that Twitter was not particularly well-run. But there’s a difference between e.g. the layoffs we saw at Stripe yesterday and what’s happening at Twitter today.

The Stripe layoffs came with a clear message from the top brass, solid severance and benefits continuation options, etc., while Twitter staff have received no communication from new management (until the unsigned and rather robotic letter last night), arbitrarily implemented deadlines that require extreme hours, and what appear to me at least to be attempts by Twitter to construct cause in order to weasel out of severance and notification requirements.

Nobody is owed a job, layoffs are sometimes necessary, and Musk bought the company and can do whatever he wants within the bounds of the law, sure. But I think we’re all better off when we treat each other with respect, and that doesn’t seem to be happening here.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#515

Post by yanderekko »

Loughla wrote: post #257
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

>Anyone want to make predictions about the state of Twitter in a few years? I'll bite on this one. For reference, I personally believe Elon Musk is a degenerate blowhard who has literally zero concept of what life actually is like for billions of people on the planet, nor does he care. I believe he belongs to the class of people known as 'parasites'. Here's my take: 1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead wei…

>5 Years: Twitter is dead. There was a political assassination that was formed, planned, and tweeted/broadcast from Twitter live.

The internet has existed for decades with laxer moderation and nothing like this has happened - seems like you're making some hidden assumptions about how the political climate will evolve that are pretty questionable.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#516

Post by kasajian »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #486
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

Jobs wasn't like Musk or Bezos, cared deeply about employees, despite the famous youthful tantrum stories (probably also true, but salacious so more famous): my friend's wife had a hard to diagnose condition (autoimmune it turned out, I believe) and Jobs offered unlimited use of his private jet to get her to any doctor anywhere. I was similarly told to be with my very sick parent, no time constraints, and I was part…

Kinda like when Steve Jobs refused to give early Apple employees stock, famously giving them zero shares. Yeah, cared deeply about employees.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#517

Post by rdevsrex »

KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

I think by default you have to assume most billionaires don't care that deeply about their employees.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#518

Post by martius »

khazhoux wrote: post #469
KaiserPro wrote: post #308

THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. Tech was a bastion of "treat your employees right, and they'll be productive". Musk is not a proponent of that. He is a micromanaging, capricious, easily distracted, arrogant and vindictive CEO. If twitter thrives then we can expect copycats to try and spread his shitty work philosophy (like everyone ido…

> THe issue we all have here is this: if Musk is successful then treating employees nicely will fall out of fashion. How bold, to speak for everyone ;-) I really don't see this as a "treat employees nicely" issue. I'm open to being convinced otherwise. But... Elon's premise from day 0 was that Twitter was mismanaged -- bloated, misguided, bad as a business and broken as product. This echoes the sentiment even by many…

Even if we assume the changes are for good and will "fix" the company, asking people to work nights and week-ends while conducting mass layoffs in less than a week is a "treat employees nicely" issue.

Actually, I think we're more on the level of "threat employees with basic decency".

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#519

Post by nicce »

grumple wrote: post #472
q1w2 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smart journalists are going to stop relying on Twitter's API now. This seems unlikely. Journalists are pragmatists and won't abandon Twitter unless there is an alternative.

The alternative is screenshots or direct quoting, both of which are actually easier than using the api.

But they have zero proof about being real. Using the API was proof. I can make any tweet from any user, take screenshot and you can’t prove it was not real.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#520

Post by algoatecorn »

FortiDude wrote: post #433

hot take: big tech layoffs are actually very good because they release into the wild a slew of competent workers with great credentials who will hopefully get hired by a company which does something useful for humanity instead of selling ads

hear hear
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