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Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

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Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#941

Post by memish »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #920
memish wrote: post #895

What happens when Twitter survives despite reducing headcount by 80-90%? It's going to send a message that companies are more overstaffed than we thought. This may explain an underlying fear driving even some engineers to put their reputation on the line with confident declarations that Twitter is going to fail. Some were saying it wouldn't survive the night. It's now morning. Others saying it won't last the weekend…

I think that Twitter won't fail anytime soon. These rash HR moves probably have a mid-term goal of completely replacing the company personnel. When 95% or so of donations made by Twitter staff went to Democratic party, it is safe to say that his political stance of allowing free speech for all parties will be heavily resented by the current workforce, and might lead to demotivation, low productivity and even sabotage…

Yes, and actually Tesla is similar in that their staff donates 94% to Democrats. That's not an issue because it's not affecting the output of electric cars in a negative way. Perhaps it's even positive since they are more motivated in the direction of electrification and its role with regard to climate change. But Twitter is the public square and needs to be neutral.

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#942

Post by ModernMech »

masswerk wrote: post #674

Over the last few hours, I've seen numerous tweets displayed as deleted or not available, only to resurface later on. (Both embedded and directly linked.) Are these first signs of erosion?

I've seen this too. Others are noticing it in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33652976

Talking about this Tweet: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961

It's marked as "unavailable" when I view logged in to Twitter, but it's there in incognito mode.

Edit: Actually I just tried refreshing a couple times and it seems to be stochastic as to whether I can see the Tweet or not. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's "unavailable".

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#943

Post by jefurii »

nemothekid wrote: post #34
pschuegr wrote: post #25

I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. Having said that, he really made it obvious to me as an eng that the severance is the option I would be taking. Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. But somebody who takes over the company and accrues…

> Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. I don't see what it is about the Twitter product that would require going "hardcore". It's a lose-lose situation; I don't think Twitter's problems would be solved by engineering harder; and you will spend 80 hrs/wk where you can end up fired because people aren't as deterministic as cars. It's a comp…

Not a fan of Elon but it does look like Twitter had some serious problems that did need to be fixed. Like not having plans for dealing with cold-boot situations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33593122

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#944

Post by r721 »

r721 wrote: post #375

>In addition to the payroll team being gone, Twitter's entire US tax team is gone, I'm told, along with its financial reporting team. Not great. https://twitter.com/HaysKali/status/1593449877094047744

Article by Kali Hays:

>Twitter loses payroll department, other financial employees as part of mass resignation under Elon Musk

https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-payroll-finance-depa...

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#945

Post by grappler »

pschuegr wrote: post #25

I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. Having said that, he really made it obvious to me as an eng that the severance is the option I would be taking. Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. But somebody who takes over the company and accrues…

I don't hope the wheels stay on. I hope they come off, as a warning to anyone in the future considering acquiring an organization with the idea that its people are a small part of its value and can be cast out or easily replaced.

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#946

Post by mrguyorama »

avisser wrote: post #894
xxs wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We'll send humans to Mars Even if(when) we do - what's there? We are progressively failing a perfectly habitable world that even has a magnetic core. Moving to another planet will not solve anything for the humans.

> Q: "Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?" > Edmund Hillary: "Because it's there" Humanity is innately adventurous. We don't need a more complex reason to explore the unknown.

"Explore" is different than "colonize". Musk has been adamant that we "have" to colonize mars for "the survival of our species", meanwhile DART just proved that deflecting a meteor is a valid strategy, and we are all still choking on our own burned dinosaurs, a thing he seems to have no interest in fixing despite owning a damn solar panel company.

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#948

Post by thereare5lights »

Aaron2222 wrote: post #707
Aaron2222 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely feels like internal sabotage at the moment...

It appears I wasn't paritually clear. I meant Elon Musk is the one commiting internal sabotage.

So is this ignorance or malice?

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#949

Post by masswerk »

ModernMech wrote: post #942
masswerk wrote: post #674

Over the last few hours, I've seen numerous tweets displayed as deleted or not available, only to resurface later on. (Both embedded and directly linked.) Are these first signs of erosion?

I've seen this too. Others are noticing it in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33652976 Talking about this Tweet: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961 It's marked as "unavailable" when I view logged in to Twitter, but it's there in incognito mode. Edit: Actually I just tried refreshing a couple times and it seems to be stochastic as to whether I can see the Tweet or not. Sometime…

> Actually I just tried refreshing a couple times and it seems to be stochastic

Yes, I observed this, too.

Re: Twitter to employees: all office buildings closed, badge access suspended

#950

Post by _Tev »

ryandrake wrote: post #925
BucketsMcG wrote: post #907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's any doubt that many tech companies are hideously, bafflingly over-staffed (3000 people working on just the music functionality of Alexa? What could they possibly be doing?). But maybe take a bit of time to understand what everybody is (and isn't) doing before throwing half out and alienating the rest? This is just a masterclass in how not to do it. He doesn't look dumb because he's reducing the…

> What could they possibly be doing? People constantly underestimate the size of the support staff needed to keep the engineering team productive. For every ten or so software engineers you hire to work on a new product or feature, you're going to need 5-10 QA engineers, another project manager, another product manager, maybe another build engineer, maybe more internal IT staff... You need these people. Software does…

That would easily explain 300 employees. But 3000? For this?

> just the music functionality of Alexa

Seems absurd to say without a link to source

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