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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#751

Post by galdosdi »

UncleMeat wrote: post #163
taurath wrote: post #89

Since apparently nobody else in the thread has any empathy for those who've lost their jobs, future access to healthcare (in the US and less civilized countries), and financial security, I guess I'll be the first: I feel bad for people who are laid off by the machinations of billionaires. I wish we lived in a society where it wasn't optimal to act like raving lunatics will tear down every bit of security you have at…

Even worse than that, immigration status. Getting laid off when on H1B, especially when other companies are freezing hiring and we are getting close to the holidays when everything takes longer is terrifying . You are on a clock for being simply kicked out of the country.

Some shitty body shops are going to have a field day with this. Some random regional nontech companies who staff their IT departments as cheaply as they can are going to randomly accidentally end up with some MUCH better talent than they deserve for what they pay because of this.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#752

Post by isx726552 »

yummies wrote: post #639
john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

I think there's a much simpler and less juicy angle here: someone posted a screenshot of an internal communication , and it got removed. It's not surprising or controversial that Twitter would try to contain a leak of its own internal comms (a screenshot of their slack). This isn't "Twitter took down a disparaging post about Twitter", it's that they tried to stop the sharing of internal data. That being said, I don't…

> someone posted a screenshot of an internal communication, and it got removed

Yeah, except Musk himself already did that:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824

I mean it’s his company he can do as he likes, but that was one of the first things he did after the buyout.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#753

Post by NikolaNovak »

thinkingemote wrote: post #409

Musk and friends compare Twitter to other tech companies and see that it's ratio of employees to revenue is lowest. He therefore thinks he must halve the number employees and/or increase revenue to get this ratio up. From the chat log exhibits from the Twitter vs Musk case: https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#47 A VC (Jason Calacanis) does back of the envelope calculations: Twitter revenue per employee: $5B rev /…

This is an ignorant question: to what extent is it relevant that a hardware company like Apple effectively employs/contracts services of e.g. Foxconn to the tune of probably a million employees?

It feel a little bit misleading to take a look at company in isolation, as different companies have different dependencies and depths of integration.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#754

Post by NikolaNovak »

uwuemu wrote: post #698
Someone1234 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a discussion board. Therefore, commenting at all requires something to discuss, and there is nothing really to discuss specifically around the topic of empathy towards the laid off employees. It sucks, we all know it sucks, and it shouldn't be minimized but there's no "other side" to that viewpoint, so what is there to talk about? People aren't "heartless" because they choose to talk about the bigger picture…

The vast majority of the people let go were management-class silicon valley people. Not a single tear should be shed.

And just like that we found a counterpoint to "Empathy is obvious, nothing to discuss there"; I assume the explicit point here is "Management aren't people and shouldn't be treated as such"? :)

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#755

Post by dangerwill »

idlewords wrote: post #613
Bhilai wrote: post #541

Sorry to say this but comments on this thread are very disappointing and show a basic lack of empathy in HN crowd. I am obviously generalizing and I know most of you are not heartless souls. FFS people, a huge number of people have lost their livelihoods, sense of belonging and might fall into financial hardships in current market conditions. Whatever you think of Elon or Twitter employees, its good to be grounded in…

Those techies had years in which to organize their workplace under US labor law to forestall exactly this kind of outcome. For the past 20 years, there was no group of employees on earth with more latent power than US tech workers, but this very fact blinded them to the possibility that they might ever lose this power. What feeble efforts there were at collective action were organized around divisive "social justice"…

Any time a whiff of union talk for tech workers comes up, the industry recoils in abject horror driven by many years of anti-union propaganda ("unions = evil" or "how DARE you well paid, lazy programmers ask for even more"). Especially here in HN given its hyper-capitalist slant. I think it's a bit disingenuous to put all of the blame on tech workers

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#756

Post by padheyam »

yummies wrote: post #639
john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

I think there's a much simpler and less juicy angle here: someone posted a screenshot of an internal communication , and it got removed. It's not surprising or controversial that Twitter would try to contain a leak of its own internal comms (a screenshot of their slack). This isn't "Twitter took down a disparaging post about Twitter", it's that they tried to stop the sharing of internal data. That being said, I don't…

Agree re: the less sinister explanation. I think only this particular tweet has been removed and the other tweets referred in the article are still up.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#757

Post by pelasaco »

I'm never happy with mass layoffs, but reading some tweets and going through some profiles linked to the article, it is clear to see that some people who were fired, weren't happy with the company. So regardless of their performance, maybe was everything that they needed to find their happiness in another company?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#758

Post by DesiLurker »

idlewords wrote: post #613
Bhilai wrote: post #541

Sorry to say this but comments on this thread are very disappointing and show a basic lack of empathy in HN crowd. I am obviously generalizing and I know most of you are not heartless souls. FFS people, a huge number of people have lost their livelihoods, sense of belonging and might fall into financial hardships in current market conditions. Whatever you think of Elon or Twitter employees, its good to be grounded in…

Those techies had years in which to organize their workplace under US labor law to forestall exactly this kind of outcome. For the past 20 years, there was no group of employees on earth with more latent power than US tech workers, but this very fact blinded them to the possibility that they might ever lose this power. What feeble efforts there were at collective action were organized around divisive "social justice"…

So its our fault for not making a union? Also nothing to do with 40 year decline in consumer rights & stagnated wages & heavy influence of money in politics. Also, to quote Stephen Colbert, its the ribcage's fault that victim got knifed.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#760

Post by cmeacham98 »

pphysch wrote: post #737
xivzgrev wrote: post #715

Elon Musk is great at building new things. Time will tell if he can re-invent an existing thing. So far, it's not looking great. Corporate raiders / PE usually have a well defined thesis and plan to hit the ground running - Elon clearly does not. His plan seems to be "I need to double free cash flow ASAP, we'll figure out how along the way". Trying to figure out how to lay off half of the company, without negatively…

> Corporate raiders / PE usually have a well defined thesis and plan to hit the ground running - Elon clearly does not. He clearly does, but most people don't care to engage with it in good faith. Something like: - Twitter's value is its integrated GLOBAL network of professionals/leaders/celebrities - Twitter Co has not remotely leveraged this, going for a FB/Reddit/etc content-centric advertiser model instead - Spri…

> - Twitter's value is its integrated GLOBAL network of professionals/leaders/celebrities

This seems to directly contradict Musk's plan to start charging these people $8/month (previously was going to be $20/month).

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