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

washingtonpost.com

521–530 of 852 posts

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

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, “solved problems” is the essential deliverable of a software engineer, and the more senior one gets the less often “submitting code” is the correct path to solving a problem. Someone might submit code based on your work, but there’s no direct correlation between “submitted code” and “did your job” at higher levels.

But you’re describing exactly what I mentioned above: engineers whose job is not code, per se. Yes, the super-senior engineer who cracks down on bad code by others and sets the right path, etc, is very valuable even if they’re not directly coding themselves. I’m talking about the engineers who are directly responsible for implementing features and fixing bugs. I.e., most software engineers.

Sometimes a great engineer spends a month tracking down a 3-line fix, and that’s just what happens with complex software. But by and large, if an engineer averages only a few LOC a month (and I’ve unfortunately seen this way too many times) then we probably have a problem on our hands.

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

#522

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…

> streamlining and flipping the profitable parts of the business

Good luck finding some at Twitter.

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

#523
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elsewhere in this thread, people are discussing a potentially-credible (but maybe you disagree) report on this from Gergely Orosz that does not paint this as "only the 3 senior executives". https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1587042365084209153?... > I talked with an engineering manager who was at Twitter for 5+ years, and got laid off on Sunday "for cause". They were too exhausted from working over the weekend…

I don't understand why so many people celebrate when Elon treats his underlings like trash. Is it because people hate Twitter and think if you work there you deserve this? Is it because they want to have Elon's level of power and fame where the rules don't apply to them? Something else?

No post body was provided.

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

#524
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I read this as "code termination" instead of "co determination" and was about halfway through the wikipedia article and quite confused before I figured it out.

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

#525

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.

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.

From WP: "Layoffs are expected to begin ahead of Nov. 1, when Twitter employees are slated to receive additional compensation related to stock grants."

I think this might be the confusing part, because he's trying to claw back as much compensation as possible, maybe he's trying to avoid paying severance as well

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

#526
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 %.

They should probably take a look at the lawsuit around Tesla's illegal layoffs. Your description sounds similar to that. It's probably worth it to find a labor attorney.

No post body was provided.

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

#528

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> streamlining and flipping the profitable parts of the business Good luck finding some at Twitter.

Sell data?

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

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

For the downvoters - google the WARN act
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