Musk’s inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by Gibbon1 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

pfisherman wrote: post #507

MichaelCollins wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've known that lines of code were no indication of code quality or developer productivity for well over two decades now You're severely overstating it. The difference between 500 loc and 5000 loc isn't a clear signal of anything. But zero lines of code certainly is. Firing people because the VCS shows they stopped working is common.

The true big brain 10x programmer is pushing -100 lines of code per sprint.

The true big brained programmer sat in a meeting and prevented a team of 25 people from wasting 6 months.

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

#542

Post by roughly » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #521

roughly wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 enginee…

The question is who’s writing the code. A core part of a senior engineer’s job is helping to train and mentor junior engineers; it’s not unusual for an entire project to be designed and led by a senior engineer and implemented by more junior engineers. Design reviews don’t result in commits, deep dives on technical implementations don’t result in commits, negotiating an architecture change between groups don’t result in commits. A large amount of the actual heavy-lifting value-add of an actually senior engineer is not in the code they’re writing.

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

#543

Post by sulam » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

dirheist wrote: post #274

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…

Those being laid off for cause are the 3 senior level executives (the old CEO, the lead counsel, and the content policy head). Those 3 had a 100+ million cumulative severance package which they are now no longer eligible to receive, although none of them are strapped for cash.

Taylor Leese is a respected Twitter engineering manager who tweeted on Sunday that he was no longer working at Twitter. While it's remotely conceivable that he quit, it's much more likely he was fired.

I had reports from friends who worked there that they were asked to stay available over the weekend, presumably for situations like this, or requests from the "war room" group that has been setup.

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

#544

Post by marrone12 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #436

cercatrova wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical people, especially engineers and those on HN, hate sign up forms but having grown a product to X thousand users, the more you push the sign up form, the more people sign up. You can even plot a linear relationship between the two, which I've done before.

This seems shortsighted. It's optimizing for what's easy to measure (sign ups) over what's hard to measure (brand, customer satisfaction, word of mouth).

Generally when running these kinds of tests you measure for further down the funnel metrics than sign ups. It's obvious sign ups would increase. In all the tests I've done around this, you look either at revenue or engagement over a longer term.

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

#545

Post by yumraj » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

Does anyone know how much of his own money he actually put in, as opposed to conning others?

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

#546

Post by kcplate » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

llbeansandrice wrote: post #370

jdm2212 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in life is tradeoffs. American software engineers get paid more than basically anyone else in the world, but we also have less job security. What's preferable just depends on your risk aversion vs marginal utility of money.

Just because American SWEs are able to exploit the current workers paradigm in the US due to eye-watering amounts of money from VCs and the state of ad-tech doesn't mean jack shit for any at-will salaried employee that isn't paid in truck-loads of equity. There are states in the US where teacher's unions are out-lawed. US workers don't have rights. I have a feeling you might feel differently if not part of the segmen…

> There are states in the US where teacher's unions are out-lawed.

That’s a bold statement. Care to back it up?

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

#547

Post by majou » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

tommica wrote: post #533

cercatrova wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical people, especially engineers and those on HN, hate sign up forms but having grown a product to X thousand users, the more you push the sign up form, the more people sign up. You can even plot a linear relationship between the two, which I've done before.

I do like the change, i can't even sign up with my email to twitter - most likely because it is a custom domain.

I've had no issues making accounts with my custom domains, fwiw.

Did get a phone-number nag that I was able to ticket myself out of.

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

#548

Post by PixyMisa » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

prions wrote: post #514

nharada wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because the aggrieved aren’t satisfied only by Elon taking over twitter and taking it in a different direction, they also believe that those currently at twitter deserve harsh punishment for whatever role they had in twitter.

Correct.

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

#549

Post by btilly » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #325

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.

Stories like this make like the employee protection I enjoy even more.

TANSTAAFL. (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.)

The downside of employee protections is that it makes companies more reluctant to hire. And also once hired, the salary to be offered is reduced to cover the estimated current value of the future employee protections. These are real downsides, particularly for young people who are trying to get a foot into the corporate ladder.

I have even personally witnessed a situation where a company evaluated a legal change to increase employee protections, and decided to layoff almost everyone in a particular country before the new law took effect. (The company was Pictage, the country was Argentina, and this was a bit over a dozen years ago.)

So I'll take the up front downsides of at will over the hidden downsides of employee protections.

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

#550

Post by monksy » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

jdm2212 wrote: post #36

yboris wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it legal to demand people work on weekends? How is it legal to (even threaten) firing if a new assigned task that takes a long time is not done on time?

For salaried, at-will employment, the employer can demand whatever they want and fire you for whatever reason they want. There are exceptions for, like, sexual harassment and racial discrimination, but not for "I disagree with the boss about what is a realistic project timeline".

That is not true in the least. Keeping corps honest about that requires legal action.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/electronic-arts-faces-overt...

There are legal, labor, consequences for cultures that expect more than 40 hours on average.