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Musk always does aggressive layoff rounds until the company is in a solidly profitable state, as could be seen at Tesla and SpaceX. So an employee revolt would
by the_duke 5y ago
Musk always does aggressive layoff rounds until the company is in a solidly profitable state, as could be seen at Tesla and SpaceX.
So an employee revolt would neither be unexpected nor entirely unreasonable.
Note: not to imply that SpaceX is profitable, they certainly are deep in the red due to Starlink and Starship. But that's by choice.
- bpodgursky 5y agoYou could lay off half of the 7,000 employee Twitter workforce with absolutely no product impact. It's not just about profitability, it's a bloated, ineffective, behemoth.
- gotaquestion 5y agoSo you know what they do? Are you Twitter management? Or just the run of the mill know it all?
- nightski 5y agoThe Twitter management receiving a $40M payout if terminated for a poor job? Aka, Parag Agrawal.
- umeshunni 5y agoTBH - he did a pretty good job. Stock was at $45 when he became CEO and it is now effectively valued at $54.20, while the NASDAQ is down over 15% in that time period.
- nightski 5y agoIt was also at $70 when Dorsey left around last October and down to $30 when Elon started buying shares this March. That is a great job?
- bpodgursky 5y ago- It took them about two years to replicate Clubhouse, which was built by about 4 engineers in far less time - They killed Vines, and then proceeded to lose on short videos to TikTok a couple years later with no response - Their Substack competitor is a joke that nobody uses, and also took years to produce This is not an organization which ships products! You don't have to be a Harvard MBA to evaluate the output of this organization. The ratio of employees to product development is not in line with any other major engineering organization.
- camdat 5y agoIs this a number with a source? Or just pulled out of perceived superiority?
- KarlKemp 5y agoI'm having trouble imaging an "ineffective behemoth", but you seem like the person that puts the d in dictionary, so I'll defer to your wisdom.
- skippyboxedhero 5y agoA fact I have always found baffling about most tech companies. You read on here: it is just tales of giga, 10x programmers...I only work at companies with sufficient technological prowess, 7 figures, I expect my workplace to be staffed with those of similar intelligence to myself, Ivy League PHds only, send me full resumes of everyone who will be on my team, I only deal with problems that are world-changing...on and on. You read financial statements: inept management, no controls, massive staff expenses, development budget is usually totally out of whack with revenue, growth in staff faster than revenue, struggle to develop new features (despite a relatively simple product), over-engineered, bloated maintenance...on and on. Financial statements don't lie (the consistency between these two stories is: most engineers are massively overpaid, they aren't good at doing useful things, many tech companies have monopoly products, they then hire lots of engineers who do nothing but bloviate about how influential they are). In the case of TWTR, comically mismanaged company. I don't know where the bloat is but Dorsey isn't someone who should be running a listed company (and has crashed and burned several times at Twitter alone). The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. If nothing else, hopefully Musk will put them back on an even keel (I don't Musk is a good exec either, but this job is far simpler than Tesla so hopefully he will bring them back to an even keel).
- ultimoo 5y ago> The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. Curious to know why you think so?
- skippyboxedhero 5y agoBecause he totally mishandled the bid, his communication skills were terrible, it was an internal tech hire (I do not know the process, but was it competitive?), TWTR's board is notoriously dysfunctional (so I am guessing they just went with what Dorsey said, they were quite happy to let him run the company off a cliff...so why not let him appoint his successor), and he appears to have been on leave for a large part of 2021 (when the shit started to make contact with the fan for TWTR). But he also gave the impression consistently of someone who was in the wrong job. Communication is an important skill for a CEO, the least worrying interpretation is that he was making choices about PR with no reference to his PR people...least worrying...if PR actually was involved, that is worse.
- john_moscow 5y agoThe trouble is, people that are actually productive usually suck at convincing the management that they belong to the "good" half.
- qgin 5y agoManagers want to manage people. Beyond a certain size, fiefdoms start growing.
- icedchai 5y agoI laughed when I read this headline. Twitter hasn't made any real product updates in years.
- s__s 5y agoThey just added live voice chat. (Clubhouse) and have been A/B testing a downvote button. The iOS app just got a UI refresh. I’m sure there’s more.
- adam_arthur 5y agoCompany was run more as a hobby/toy than a serious attempt at making money. I was hearing credible stories back in 2014 about them having way too many junior devs with nothing, or very marginal amounts to do. They had the excesses on the spending side covered without the insane growth or profitability to go along with it. Can be a great business if it's hugely downsized in headcount
- cjbgkagh 5y agoThe Thanos approach, half by random lottery. Otherwise it's a corporate politics fight to find out who stays and those who win that fight are more likely to be better at corporate politics and probably not as good at the business of Twitter. In addition, those who are let go are not tainted as underperformers, just unlucky. I don't know what 7,000 Twitter employees do but it does seem like a rather high number to me.
- ffggvv 5y agothe wokes will protest no matter what. even if he gives them 500k bonuses
- gkoberger 5y ago> the wokes will protest no matter what. even if he gives them 500k bonuses I won't comment on your first sentence. But your second makes it seem like you believe that everyone is motivated primarily by money. A good amount of people just want to make the world a better place.
- gotaquestion 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- majormajor 5y agoNah... if anything, the Trump wing of the Right is far less interested in money than the "traditional" business-first wing. For instance, this whole anti-Disney thing in Florida his hardly about wanting more money. It's just about power.
- zeruch 5y agoNot sure you can separate the two. An underlying presumption is that if power/control is acquired, that allocation of the spoils inevitably follows and that everything will fall in line. I'm not disputing your statement per se, just that I think it's more of a splitting the difference than much else.
- decremental 5y ago
- ffggvv 5y agoi said it in the context of layoffs in the parent context. even if there were no layoffs and instead they gave people bonuses there still would be unrest. that was the point i was trying to make. that the unrest has nothing to do with layoffs/money
- KarlKemp 5y agoHow can that be seen at Tesla and SpaceX, two companies that he started (more or less), an neither of which is in a "solidly profitable state"?
- aglavine 5y agoBoth make profits.
- croes 5y agoIs making profit the same as being in a solidly profitable state?
- bryanlarsen 5y agoSource for the SpaceX profitability? They raised a lot of money last year, which wouldn't be necessary for a profitable company. Falcon is probably profitable, but it only grosses a couple billion a year. OTOH, Starlink and Starship are both $10B+ projects that aren't generating significant revenue yet.
- nightski 5y agoI have no idea where you'd get the notion that profitable companies don't need to borrow money for large capital investments.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoHe didn't borrow money. They issued stock. Significantly, this reduced Elon's share below 50% which I doubt he would have done lightly.
- HWR_14 5y agoDid he retain 51% of voting rights? A lot of people (e.g. Brin, Zuckerberg) own way less than 50% of their companies but still maintain control.
- WYepQ4dNnG 5y agoI am glad I did not join them last year when I had the chance. Went for a FAANG instead. I see pure chaos for the foreseeable future.
- gedy 5y agoReminds me - why was Twitter never considered a FAANG? FATNAG, etc.
- bluedino 5y agoWhy not Tesla?
- fennecfoxen 5y agoTesla isn't a mass-market software/online-services business. They manufacture, which means a lot of capital going into factories and a lot higher of material-input costs, and they're kind of a high end brand. This gives their business different performance characteristics from Facebook (mass market social-media and ads), Amazon (mass market sales and logistics), Apple (which is at least slightly luxury, but contracts out its manufacturing, and does mass market hardware — look at that iPhone sell), Netflix (mass market entertainment), and Google (mass market search, mail, advertising).
- postalrat 5y agoAmazon and apple probably both have more capital invested in factories, warehouses, etc than Tesla does. Apple is also kinda a high end brand. They seem a lot more similar than different.
- fennecfoxen 5y agoYou might be thinking of contract manufacturers like Foxconn.
- pradn 5y ago
- crackercrews 5y agoI wouldn't have wanted to work at Twitter as it previously existed, but I'm curious now. I think Musk could be a better leader of the company. And I might like to be part of the changes that are coming even if I disagree with some of them. Any idea how someone could get in the queue to be hired at the new Twitter?
- jeffy90 5y agowait for the acquisition to happen and then use the same methods you'd use to get an interview at any other company.
- joncrane 5y agoWhy wait until after the acquisition? Have Twitter also announced a hiring moratorium?
- staunch 5y agoIt's often better to be hired by the new guard rather than the old guard in situations like this. Your entire department/team might get the axe.
- kasey_junk 5y agoBecause there is a high chance of layoffs post acquisition and when that happens they won’t go asking if you were a “new” twitter person or not.
- brink 5y agoI'm in the same boat - there's no way I would have worked at Twitter a year ago; but now I would consider it. Elon's acquisition has made me much more optimistic about the outlook of the company. If Twitter has a mass exodus after the acquisition, I'm sure there's a wave of open-minded engineers ready to take their place.
- recuter 5y ago
- nimbius 5y agoLike most of Elons strategic vision, its hardly a tactic he came up with on his own. his operating strategy is similar to a few historic figures i can think of. Sears CEO Eddie Lampert was so ruthless in his cost cutting he would pit his own divisions of sears against eachother for bonuses an even continued employment. he declared a moratorium on any in-store livery updates for 25 years and played the company off its stock to increase its value. the guy bilked sears for personal wealth hovering around 2bn and left shareholders holding the bag. Al Dunlap, former Sunbeam CEO, was so ruthless people called him "chainsaw al." he was notorious for massive layoffs, factory shutdowns, and threatening physical violence against board members. the guys famous catchphrase was "if you want to be liked, get a dog." he died in 2019, but is really only remembered for massive accounting fraud nowadays.
- staunch 5y agoThose examples couldn't be less like Musk's strategy. There are both good/ethical and bad/wrong reasons to do layoffs. Musk's primary strategy at Tesla has been to create innovative products that people want to buy in huge numbers.
- thehappypm 5y agoI agree, nothing about Tesla and SpaceX has anything to do with a aggressive cost cutting type of strategy
- nimbius 5y agoYoure correct. perhaps a more salient example is in order. https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/tesla-fires-hundreds-of-workers-for-poor-performance.html https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/tesla-fires-hundreds-of-wo... Tesla arguably chose to fire 1200 people to avoid paying their severances. https://electrek.co/2019/05/24/tesla-cost-cutting-effort-toilet-paper/ https://electrek.co/2019/05/24/tesla-cost-cutting-effort-toi... Teslas 2019 cost cutting effort included basic hygene products like toilet paper, arguably an inconsequential operating expense. Employees had to bring their own to work.
- 5y ago
- staunch 5y agoSounds like a good first step. Especially if his plan is to run Twitter in a more hands off way. Instead of 7,500 employees, they can probably do the job with 700 people that are specially picked, and make the company much more efficient. Reddit apparently has 700 employees today, and they haven't done anything significant since they had far fewer employees. Scaling these services just isn't nearly as hard as it used to be, especially given how many more experienced engineers and good technologies exist today. Twitter should re-build the product to be almost purely software driven, with as little employee intervention as possible. Give users the tools to self-moderate content however they want. For the good of their users and long-term success, they'd be wise to make self-moderation easier to do in a "healthy" way even if it's worse for short-term engagement and revenue. Again, Reddit did this fairly well for years without a huge team. What Twitter lacks most of all is someone with the guts to risk breaking the product in order to fix the product. The team at Twitter has been visibly afraid to make significant changes, which has left the product weak by modern standards. It's a lot like Apple was before Jobs came back.
- spiderice 5y ago> nor entirely unreasonable. Sabotaging your company by secretly pushing code because you suspect a layoff is coming isn't unreasonable?