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> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. I tried rewriting his email to live up to this promise: -
by Sidnicious 11y ago
> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight.
I tried rewriting his email to live up to this promise:
- - -
Team,
We're cutting our workforce to strengthen Twitter as a company.
The team has been deciding how to best streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to put their focus on the projects which will have the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world.
We plan to cut up to 336 people. This was a tough decision, and we'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Product and Engineering are going to make the most changes. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel.
This isn't easy. We'll honor those who we're losing with our service to all the people who use Twitter. We'll do it with a more purpose-built team. Thank you all for your trust and understanding here. As always, please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions.
Jack
- rokhayakebe 11y agoTeam, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce to strengthen the company. We are deciding how to streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to focus on projects with the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of discovery. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel. Thank you all for everything. As always, please reach out to me directly with anything.
- Mahn 11y agoTeam, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce. Sorry for that. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Jack
- yuvadam 11y agoTeam, 336 people will be fired. We hope it brings our stock price back up. Jack
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bshimmin 11y agoThis is like corporate email golfing, I love it. I propose "Hey" instead of "Team".
- masklinn 11y agoHey, Stock in the dumps, 336 chumps are fired. Jack
- ethbro 11y agoPlus side: would definitely fit in a tweet.
- flashman 11y ago@jack: "just slimming down my twttr"
- Mahn 11y agoYo, 336 people out. We'll compensate. J.
- williamguerra 11y agoemployees -= 336
- butwhy 11y agoHey, you stole Elon's schtick: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/652605371857530880 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/652605371857530880
- drb311 11y agoThat one's a proper improvement.
- kauffj 11y agoI'd hire you to fire me any day.
- hitekker 11y agoThey say any employee you hire is someone you have to imagine being able to work for.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Flimm 11y agoAm I the only one who doesn't see much difference between your version and his?
- mattmanser 11y agoIt's removed all the fairly meaningless corporate buzzwords like: roadmap structural change nimbler streamlined impactful And many more.
- adevine 11y agoWhile they may be jargon, they're not meaningless. I mean, roadmap? Is there anyone who has worked at a tech company that doesn't know what a roadmap is, and why it's important? Is there anyone who doesn't know that nimbler means better able to react to changes in the marketplace?
- rudolf0 11y agoThey're jargon as well as buzzwords. They mean things, but they're unnecessary. "Roadmap" -> plan, strategy "Structural change" -> internal reorganizing, lay-offs "Nimbler" -> fewer employees, which we hope will make us become more agile "Streamlined" -> ambiguous and essentially meaningless by itself "Impactful" -> revenue- and/or growth-generating, maybe "important"
- ethbro 11y agoYou're suggesting we revert to Chaucer's English because linguistic drift is bad? I'm as much a hater of overuse of jargon as the next person, but for his intended audience I don't think this is an example of that. If one doesn't know what any of those words mean, then "Hello, welcome to Hacker News."
- mc32 11y agoNo, it's simpler English. It's not trying to put artificial distance between speaker and audience. There is a power component to these language queues. It's like the difference between legalese and regular English.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- netcan 11y agoI'm all for eliminating corporate euphemisms a meaningless talk, but… Some of this is just human. Not wanting to hurt people's feelings is real. Wanting to get that across is human. I mean, you have this kind of thing in everyday life, without lawyers and CEOs. Want to hang out after work? Sorry, my wife would kill me. Little lies & euphemisms are human.
- mosburger 11y agoSome of the weasley language you'd propose cutting is likely there for the people staying at Twitter, not those whom are getting laid off. E.g., > "Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization" As an Engineer, you don't want to hear that corporate is slashing just your team, and that it's affects the entire company. You're right, it doesn't matter to those who were laid off, but it does to the people who aren't. > "Thank you all for your trust and understanding here" Same thing. You're right that someone who is being laid off doesn't care or want to understand. They're probably really asking those who are staying on, and losing their colleagues, to understand why those people are leaving and that it isn't a statement about a perceived lack of value in the engineering team in general.
- fauigerzigerk 11y agoTeam, we thought we would grow very fast and we hired accordingly. Turns out we didn't grow that fast so now we're firing accordingly. Please don't be mad at us! If things work out as we hope they will with Moments and all the rest, we may want to hire you back in the future because you folks are not so shoddy after all. Cheers
- Taek 11y agoThat is part of the startup world. Companies stall, and companies fail. If stability is required, it should be worked into the employee agreement. I don't know what is meant by "generous exit package", but it may be enough to tide the employees over to their next job.
- efuquen 11y agoTwitter is still a "startup"?
- cwbrandsma 11y agoStartup is just a code word for "tech company" anymore.
- rconti 11y ago"Anymore" is just a word used to mean "now" anymore. (I kid, but seriously, I've searched for analysis on the use of the word 'anymore' in the positive (eg, as something other than part of a 'not...anymore' clause) and haven't been able to find anything. Any links would be appreciated, I am legitimately curious as to when and how this became a thing).
- krstck 11y agoHere you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore
- 11y ago
- hammock 11y agoDear Twitter, They're going to let me be CEO again, but as part of the deal I had to fire a bunch of people. Mostly engineers since I'm told there are many of them who cost too much and don't seem to impact the top line. Please let's all be nice about the whole thing, so it doesn't turn into a PR disaster. Jack
- ethbro 11y agoLet's be honest (and no offense to anyone who got fired), but twitter probably had some dead weight to shed. Sadly, I'm sure some quality engineers got the ax too. Way of the world.
- walshemj 11y agoI would imagine that rapid growth meant that twitter had a lot more tail (hr building services) than it needed. Interesting that they call out hard to recruit engineering roles specifically - I bet every recruitment agent who has twitter guys and gals in his list is cold calling the ones still remaining.
- diego 11y agoQuality engineers and dead weight are not exclusive. Great people who are burnt out and unmotivated become dead weight to a company. When planning layoffs, it's normal to put people who are checked out, coasting, and/or clearly planning their next move at the top of the list. That doesn't mean they are not high quality professionals.
- at-fates-hands 11y agoI'm always surprised people can never seem to see these things coming. If I was working there, I would've started looking two or three months ago. Maybe they had some stock options or something they were holding onto??
- kaonashi 11y agoMaybe they have families and don't want to upset the status quo until it's absolutely necessary.
- d23 11y agoIt could have been a lot worse. People on here seem to confuse being polite with corporate speak. Yes, he could have summed it up in a single sentence: "I'm firing 336 people." It would also have been a hell of a lot more rude.
- hitekker 11y agoEveryone should take note of this person's excellent structure: he put the decision first. If you are writing a decisive message that can greatly impact many people's lives: write the decision first. Don't "sandwich" the truth. Sandwiching only makes sense when the decision or the mistake is not of huge significance. Beating around the bush in matters of great import will always harm the sincerity of your words. After you've stated clearly what the decision is, right after that, you can justify it however you wish.
- coldpie 11y agoLegitimately asking: Do you have any evidence that this achieves certain goals better than how this email was phrased? Are you sure those goals are the same as those of the author of this email?
- hitekker 11y agoYou're right that the CEO's goals may not be the idealistic goals I'm thinking of. The goals I had in mind were: be honest with your employees about something terrible and show them, don't tell them, that you valued their service to the company. Judging by the contents of this email: the goal might be to confound or confuse counter-arguments to the decision, limit the damage PR-wise (and stock wise), and above all, insulate the new executive staff from a groundswell of anger/hatred from the bottom. My instincts as a writer, and maybe a bit as a human being, is that you shouldn't try to fool the people who support you. If the author of the email (probably not Dorsey) was a stronger writer, and perhaps free of some pressures, I'd like to think he or she could have both been fair to those under him or her, and also protected from their wrath. I too would be very interested in seeing historical examples of leaders forced to write messages explaining tough decisions. Would you happen to have any?
- deanCommie 11y agoLet's be practical, and I don't mean this in a cynical way: The goal isn't to actually BE honest. The goal is for the employees to feel as if you ARE being honest, and that they have something positive to focus on that is not just plain disappointment and insecurity. Plenty of corporate drones take this too far and focus too much on the sugar-coating to the point that only other top corporate drones think the email is a good one. But I think Dorsey's passes the b.s. test (Most people's reactions, even those being fired isn't going to be "what a load of b.s.") Could he be more direct? Yes. But it would come at a risk of coming off as callous and incosiderate.
- notacoward 11y agoYou missed a couple. * "Reach out" - I doubt that Mr. Dorsey wants people literally reaching out to him. * "Streamline" - literal physical air flow is probably not involved here, and it's not even a particularly good metaphor.
- Geekette 11y agoA (what-if-the-news-broke-via-Twitter) translation: Fam, Shit got real, gotta drop, 336 deep. Mainly ingenieros. Don't get shook, all drops get $. Keep keeping on. Questions? Holla @ur boy. -J
- Apocryphon 11y agoNeeds hashtags for full authenticity
- Geekette 11y agoTrue, but there wasn't any room left. But we know in real life, that would have been taken care of within the next tweet to rally the troops. That would probably be the most retweeted tweet of all time, based on all the fellow HQ Tweeps hoping not to be dropped next: Keep ya heads up and Eyes on the prize fam. Stay woke & drop a RT/fave so I know its real. #TweepsGoDeep #GottaGoLeanToRegulate
- bigtunacan 11y agoChecked Twitter. You're 1 character over the limit. Funny nonetheless.
- Geekette 11y agoIt's exact now. Meant to and thought I did drop the extra space.
- joshrotenberg 11y agoNo room for "Moments #FTW" unfortunately.
- rsobers 11y agoI would change: > Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. To: > Moments, which we launched last week, illustrates the problem. It missed the mark. I honestly don't think Jack or Ev think Moments, in its current incarnation, embodies what Twitter is or should be.
- famousactress 11y agoHere's another attempt: http://qz.com/522824/jack-dorseys-jargon-free-firing-memo-edited-to-remove-the-jargon/ http://qz.com/522824/jack-dorseys-jargon-free-firing-memo-ed...
- latj 11y agoDear human resource, Twitter no longer requires the services of 336 current employees. Twitter must do what is best for Twitter and what will lead to optimal financial measures over the next 12 months. The executives of Twitter chose who to fire based on the belief that the remaining employees will lead to the best products and therefore greatest profits. HR will provide people getting fired with a list of open positions elsewhere. Twitter will give fired employees some money to help them survive and make non-fired employees feel better about their own situation. Firing people is unpleasant for the executives of Twitter. Please believe that you can affect the decisions that are made by executives at Twitter. -Twitter
- felixfurtak 11y agoNow try to write it again in 140 characters ;)