45 ms·

Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

1032 points by danso 4y ago

paxys 4y ago
Why is Parag making any major changes at this point? What "new vision" is he going to execute in his last few months at the company before Elon comes in and torpedoes it anyways?
- goodoldneon 4y ago
  I'd be shocked if these changes weren't Musk's
  - afavour 4y ago
    I would because it would be a pretty egregious violation of how takeovers like this are supposed to work.
    - samstave 4y ago
      Keeping the "hostile" in "hostile takeover"?
    - curuinor 4y ago
      i mean, when's that ever stopped this guy?
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    I would think taking orders from someone who is not yet in charge could open up Parag and the board to shareholder lawsuits.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    It's got nothing to do with Musk as he has no control of the company what so ever. He doesn't even know who the employees are.
- mr90210 4y ago
  “I may go down, but I won’t go alone”
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  Its not over till its over. Elon may still not end up owning twitter.
  - lr4444lr 4y ago
    But it's clear he's already 0wn3d it.
- encoderer 4y ago
  He’s being paid millions to keep his hand on the wheel and not be distracted by a deal that may never close.
  - paxys 4y ago
    That's my point though. The board accepted the buyout offer. "Hands on the wheel" means keeping the lights on and making sure everything stays stable until the deal closes. Firing the company's product and revenue leads is the opposite of that.
    - samstave 4y ago
      So they can re-negotiate with NewTwittah at higher salary?
    - ckastner 4y ago
      You're assuming that the deal will definitely close. The deal can still fall apart for a number of reasons. The risk of this happening is far from remote. This is evident from the current stock price of about $46, which is significantly lower than the $54.20 Musk is offering.
      - boringg 4y ago
        Only reason twitter hasn't tanked is people holding on hoping this deal goes through otherwise it would have dropped significantly with the rest of the tech index. My point is that its market cap is artificially overvalued currently on hopes that elon buys at 54$ (which i doubt he will)
        ckastner 4y ago
        I too believe that he'd be crazy not to renegotiate. As far as I recall, they agreed on a break fee of ~$1bn if Musk walks away. But if he can lower the price to $40 a share (which is still far higher than market would probably be, at least in this market), he gets Twitter at $31bn instead of $42bn.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- r00fus 4y ago
  Why do you think this isn't what is required as part of the acquisition plan?
  - paxys 4y ago
    That's not how acquisitions work. Elon made the offer, it was accepted. Now the company has to continue to operate without his influence until the deal actually closes.
    - enraged_camel 4y ago
      There isn't any guarantee that the deal will actually close, especially with tech stocks (and much of Elon's own wealth along with them) taking a dive.
    - sophacles 4y ago
      If those changes were planned before Musk's offer, wouldn't changing the plans to that "keeping the lights on and making sure everything stays stable until the deal closes" be opposite of operating without his influence?
      - paxys 4y ago
        Operating without his influence means not inviting him into the boardroom and not taking directions from him. They can still make their own decisions on how best to prepare for the acquisition. That's something every company in that situation does.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      What's your citation for the notion that post-acquisition changes never happen before the deal fully closes? I grant that irreversible structural changes are rare, and cross-company integrations of course can't happen. But here this isn't one company acquiring another, and it's just changing one exec. Maybe you're right, but I've never seen anything showing that.
    - ericbarrett 4y ago
- whoisjuan 4y ago
  Parag is likely the first one getting the boot after the takeover is finished.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Elon Musk has no intention of actually acquiring Twitter. He's just using it as a smoke screen to liquidate a huge amount of Tesla stock. The fact that TWTR is currently trading at a 25% discount to the supposed acquisition price shows I am not the only person in the market who doubts the ultimate consummation of the acquisition.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Interesting thought. But if he doesn't go through with it, he will be on the hook for a $1B penalty. Is that perhaps a selling fee that makes sense for him to pay?
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      He would only be trading it for the chance to go to court and argue over who owes the $1e9 and to whom.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Is the twitter deal actually happening? Elon had to get a loan using Tesla stock and if the price of Tesla drops a lot then the whole loan and deal falls apart. I don't know if we know the exact stock price number where it happens, but it's seeming pretty dicey with Tesla continuing to drop in value IMHO.
  - ksherlock 4y ago
    As of last week, there is $7 billion in outside funding -- new money and existing shareholders that will retain their stake. That cuts the amount borrowed on the back of $TSLA in half.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  Are you certain Elon would torpedo anything? What if it the move he would make as well? Would he still torpedo it? I am not sure how anyone can say with certainty what Elon will or won't do.
  - throwmeariver1 4y ago
- austinl 4y ago
  I think Parag is making decisions that he sees as inevitable, whether the deal goes through or not. The deal, and all of the discussions that have come from it about the future direction of Twitter, is probably enough of a catalyst for certain changes. Twitter is likely not left unchanged even it falls through.
- didip 4y ago
  Maybe Parag is trying to meet his own KPI before he got booted out to ensure his golden parachutes?
corndoge 4y ago
I can't read this thread, a black screen pops up that asks me to log in.
- bobro 4y ago
  i wonder if the guy who got fired was in charge of the decision to add that pop up…
- pessimizer 4y ago
  https://nitter.net/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656 https://nitter.net/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656
- tonguez 4y ago
  not sure why you’re being downvoted.
donohoe 4y ago
Some insights and kind words by Tony Haile, founder of Chartbeat and Scroll: https://twitter.com/arctictony/status/1524813920514482179?s=21&t=s5g1wGl4Vo4-m4nJqfVStQ https://twitter.com/arctictony/status/1524813920514482179?s=...
kosyblysk666 4y ago
good
minimaxir 4y ago
> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122
- RyanShook 4y ago
  Maybe this is Parag trying to keep his job?
  - 0xy 4y ago
    Pretty laughable, considering Parag as CTO presided over the slowest product velocity at pretty much any major tech company. The product is almost unchanged, except additional censorship, since he started as CTO in October 2017. With that track record, one must assume his head will be one of the first on the chopping block.
    - Sebb767 4y ago
      I don't see slow change as a net negative. It's not necessarily positive, either, but not trying to fix things that work perfectly well is a good mantra (looking at you, Google). Also, he was recently promoted to CEO, which would be strange if the common opinion at Twitter was that he failed as a CTO.
    - tinktank 4y ago
      > The product is almost unchanged, That we can see. Either the entire leadership is stupid and promoted a dud, or maybe there's more going on than meets the eye?
- skybrian 4y ago
  My guess: the new boss gets started on a more positive note if they don't have to fire people because the old boss did it for him? Or at least, that would be a good explanation if we weren't talking about Musk.
danso 4y ago
More info and more firings: https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/1524793136051986434 https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/1524793136051986434 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/technology/two-twitter-leaders-are-leaving-after-musks-deal-to-buy-the-company.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/technology/two-twitter-le...
- r00fus 4y ago
  Parag was explicitly hired as a hatchet-man: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hatchet-man https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hatch...
dylan604 4y ago
"To the hard working (current and former) Tweeps out there who made all this happen: Thank you for pouring your heart and soul into this place " Tweeps? Is that really a term of endearment they refer to each other as? Really?
- moate 4y ago
  Feels less condescending than Apple "Geniuses" or Best Buy "Nerds", and pretty in line with "Googlers", "Toasters" or "Hulugans". Is this a thing most people refer to other employees as most of the time? No, but it helps corporate create an image of a fun, playful workplace. I think it's utter bullshit, but you know, to each their own.
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    meta-me-tes
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Metastasized
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Metastases
    - corobo 4y ago
      Meta “Creeps” It’s like peeps, but more Facebook-y
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > No, but it helps corporate create an image of a fun, playful workplace Nah, all of these corporate 'pet names' are applied unilaterally, by the executives to the workers. Condescension is the point. The application of such a nickname is a show of power, meant to remind workers of their place in the system.
smm11 4y ago
Is Tumblr still a thing?
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  it is and its kinda coming back. alot of genz are opening accounts there.
Mindwipe 4y ago
Twitter's consumer product team is truly awful and have just made the product more and more miserable to use, so I don't cry too much about the change in leadership. Having said that, firing someone on paternity leave is terrible and would be rightly illegal in many countries.
- criley2 4y ago
  Firing someone for being on paternity leave is definitely illegal in most places, but laying off executives and high level business folks before a transition at the top isn't illegal. I wonder if being on paternity leave is a "get out of layoffs free" card where you simply cannot be laid off with others while you're out.
  - spiderice 4y ago
    My wife was on maternity leave when Covid layoffs happened at her company. She didn’t get laid off. But at the time we both looked at each other and wondered “did we just get saved by maternity leave?” She is great at her job so we have no reason to think she would have otherwise been laid off. But plenty of people who were great at their jobs got laid off due to Covid. So it’s hard not to wonder.
  - atonse 4y ago
    I haven’t seen claims anywhere that he was fired FOR being on paternity leave. It’s that he was fired when he happened to be on paternity leave. But at the end of the day, isn’t it another form of paid leave? So if he was paid out in advance for that time off would that fulfill the company’s obligations? Genuinely asking, I am neutral on this since I don’t know the intents involved.
- YSoManyRaptors 4y ago
  I mean, what do you expect from the United States, one of the only countries in the UN that doesn’t require employers to have paid parental leave.
  - 4y ago
e_commerce 4y ago
Operyl 4y ago
I can't help but wonder if this is to ensure he gets a good severance package before Musk comes in and cleans house? I can only hope, but it doesn't seem likely based on tone :(.
- runjake 4y ago
  You could simply read the linked URL where it doesn't sound like it was a good firing?
  - Operyl 4y ago
    I did say “but it doesn’t seem likely based on tone”.
SiempreViernes 4y ago
Literally head of product at Twitter, and still not enough clout to have paternity leave respected.
- jjmorrison 4y ago
  He's still doing his paternity leave and will be paid through it. Company just needs to get going on hiring someone else in the job.
- encoderer 4y ago
  It’s sort of the opposite. A low level IC would not be called while on leave to be fired. But when the company needs a change of excecutive leadership, they aren’t going to wait months because you had a baby. I’m sure he’s being paid through the end of his leave period and besides is compensated in the millions.
  - firstSpeaker 4y ago
    Yep, that is how it is. People are fired when they are on parental leave only if they are high enough in the ladder that matters.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  What's wrong with firing someone on paternity leave? It's not like he was fired because he was on paternity leave.
  - justinator 4y ago
    Maybe they would like to focus on their newborn, their wife, the new family dynamic - you know: important things - and not some stupid web app - which is what I would assume, since they're on maternity leave in the first place.
    - 4y ago
prescriptivist 4y ago
OT but one thing I've noticed is that Twitter has scaled back its aggressive modal/login prompt when viewing the site without being logged in. This seems to have occurred recently. It seems like it would have nothing to do with the acquisition talks but, curiously, it coincided with them.
- runjake 4y ago
  Still happens here.
  - b65e8bee43c2ed0 4y ago
    use a US proxy/VPN or better yet, use Nitter
- google234123 4y ago
  Seems the same to me. Maybe A/B testing?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- corrral 4y ago
  It's gotten a little worse, AFAI can tell. Every few days I have to re-load the Twitter tabs I've got in private browsing on my phone (without private browsing, the modals have always come much faster, basically as soon as I scroll down) because they start throwing modals. Then they're fine for a few more days. I didn't used to have to reload the page, ever.
- lmc 4y ago
  This may be in the middle of an A/B test - I still get pestered every time when in incognito mode.
  - prescriptivist 4y ago
    Huh. I haven't been logged in on any of my devices and I never get pestered. Thanks for the update.
ramesh31 4y ago
Must have been bad blood if he wasn't even given the opportunity to resign and save face. I can't even imagine the vipers nest of toxicity that building must be at this point.
- afavour 4y ago
  Might be a severance issue. If he resigns, no severence. I imagine if he is fired he gets some. So he might have forced them to fire him. I know I would.
- minhazm 4y ago
  > Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction. I interpreted that as he was asked to resign. Which in practice most people consider the same as getting fired. At this level it's rare for someone to actually get terminated though, you would have to do something illegal or highly inappropriate. It's almost always that you're asked to resign and you get a generous severance package to go with it.
kadenwolff 4y ago
Interesting that he co-founded Periscope and they also just removed any mention of Periscope from their TOS. Maybe just an artifact of them considering removing him, or it has no meaning. Just found the timing notable.
- peppertree 4y ago
  Periscope was one the main reasons they killed Vine.
  - natly 4y ago
    That makes no sense to me, they're completely different products. (Periscope is about livestreaming vine was short clips.)
    - peppertree 4y ago
      Beykpour convinced the board live video was the future. Vine founder left so no one was around to defend Vine.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    Funny that Vine was essentially TikTok and they killed it.
    - HaZeust 4y ago
      TL;DR: The world wasn't ready to monetize and mass-produce short clips at Vine's time.
dpeck 4y ago
Letting people go while they’re on maternity or paternity leave us not cool.
- schnebbau 4y ago
  Don't worry, he'll be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.
  - shadowmatter 4y ago
    Yeah, but it's the rank and file employees who will now think "I'm not there to defend myself against being fired if I take maternity/paternity leave" who will suffer most. The ones who won't be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      > Yeah, but it's the rank and file employees who will now think "I'm not there to defend myself against being fired if I take maternity/paternity leave" If an executive is gunning for a rank and file employee, there is no defending yourself except through wrongful termination lawsuits, etc. Being sat in the office when it happens won't help you save your job from an executive that wants you gone.
  - mypalmike 4y ago
    The severance is on top of the $20M worth of TWTR stock he already holds, according to public records. Plus whatever other assets he holds, which I would presume to be not insubstantial. I think he'll be OK.
- bobro 4y ago
  what should they have done? waited til he returned? they very likely are giving him a severance, so why wait?
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
Is him on Elon's side or not?
cloudwalking 4y ago
A lot of assumptions here that Parag is out after Elon takes over. Is that backed up by evidence?
- glerk 4y ago
  I may be wrong, but I assume that once Twitter becomes a private company there will be no more board and Elon will be the CEO. Parag may stay at the company in a different role.
  - pie_flavor 4y ago
    I don't think Elon particularly wants to be in the actual driver's seat of Twitter. That's a job and a half, especially when he already has SpaceX and Tesla to manage. I rather assume he will have someone competent at the helm to which he can give incredibly broad orders like 'figure out how to make free speech work'. Though that doesn't mean Parag won't be out - the competent person is likely to be someone who is not soft on free speech like Parag is, and there's a good chance it'll even be Jack.
bhouston 4y ago
I suspect this was done in part because Elon Musk wants to make some big changes. It would be best for the outgoing CEO to make these difficult firings and then let Elon Musk come in and set a new tone without dealing with this negativity falling on Elon. I'm not saying this is right, but it makes a lot of sense.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mlindner 4y ago
  Musk doesn't have any control yet or even insight into the company.
Traster 4y ago
So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It would seem weird for Parag to be following Musk's orders given how Musk has behaved. It also seems weird for Musk to already have the insight into the company to know specifically who to fire. There's not much advantage to making these changes now. On the other hand, going rogue and making big strategic decisions about the company really has the potential to burn Parag's reputation for wherever he would move next. I guess there's a third option - that Musk has expressed a specific view, Parag has a different view, but that they both think that this move is necessary anyway so just got on and did it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cycrutchfield 4y ago
  Or the deal is not going to close?
  - belter 4y ago
    "SEC is investigating Elon Musk over his late disclosure that he had purchased Twitter stock" https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-investigates-elon-musks-twitter-stake-disclosure-report-2022-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-investigates-elon-musks-...
    - Sebb767 4y ago
      Was there a time in the past few years where Musk wasn't actively investigated by the SEC? Hasn't hindered his business ventures much, so far at least.
- rabite 4y ago
tfp137 4y ago
If he was fired on paternity leave, the credited play is to say nothing. This is potentially a beautiful lawsuit and the last thing you want to do is lose ground on something you said on the internet.
5bolts 4y ago
If he's fired now the current board can offer him a severance package that may not be on the table once Elon takes over. Might be a good thing, or strategic?
- 1290cc 4y ago
  This is the correct answer, Elon will not be as generous when cutting numbers. I'll never forget letting go of staff in France and Italy. The employees were overjoyed we were letting them go and got into fights over who would be taking the packages. I learned that they received 1 year of salary upfront tax free with a bunch of additional benefits to help with job training and placement. An average middle manager friend has had this happen 3 times, each time after a US acquisition. He now has a chateau in the south of france and is very happy with himself.
- WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago
  Wild. Technically is that legal?
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    Why wouldn't it be? The sale hasn't finalized, so unless there's evidence that they're intentionally harming the company they can continue to operate as usual.
  - nickff 4y ago
    Severance packages are usually a deal: company pays you $X, and you agree to say (or not say) certain things, and also agree where you might work in the future (i.e. not at a competitor). The current board/CEO may want to keep things stable, and offer generous money to keep things on an even keel; Elon may not care what a former executive says or does.
brk 4y ago
Without knowing details of the severance, non-compete clauses, etc., it is hard to read too much into this. It could be a giant favor, or a giant kick in the balls.
hintymad 4y ago
Growing up outside of the US, I feel kinda cringed when he said he was "INSANELY proud of our collective teams achieved". Such an interesting cultural difference.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  I grew up in the US, and I also found that odd. Not unprecedented, but odd. The literal interpretation of that statement might be more justifiable than the one he meant...
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  it's cringeworthy in the US outside of the job-finding/bragging echo chamber this kind of post normally shows up in
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    I also believe there would also be a large segment of the US that finds these "job-finding/bragging echo chamber" Twitter posts cringeworthy regardless of context. They appear oddly performative and obligatory. Stay tuned for the follow up "I'm incredibly excited to announce that today I am joining ___" post.
- bobro 4y ago
  you should read this more from the perpective of a dude who just lost his job and will need to soon get rehired. not really a US culture thing.
- mypalmike 4y ago
  What's the issue? Using the adverb "insanely" in a positive light? Or that he's proud?
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  What's odd about it? Why wouldn't he be proud of his team for successfully building stuff he thought was important to build?
ryanSrich 4y ago
Not entirely related, but I do not understand how someone could say this with a straight face https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787804743475201?s=21&t=NtnXIAaHVftJnPYK3a8nQA https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787804743475201?s=21&t=...
- exolymph 4y ago
  > I'm proud that we changed the perception around Twitter’s pace of innovation, and proud that we shifted the culture internally to make bigger bets, move faster, and eliminate sacred cows. Lol
m1117 4y ago
Why need product when they have Elon Musk.
moralestapia 4y ago
>Twitter’s DAU has grown by over 87% since Q2 2018 LOL, that's why you got the boot, pal.
pdq 4y ago
Is he the one who gave final approval of the anonymous login-wall, which pops up after 2 screens of scrolling in Twitter? If so, good riddance, as that is an incredibly hostile user pattern. BTW, maybe it's purely coincidence, but after refreshing my browser cache it seems to have gone away today.
- carabiner 4y ago
  Twitter will never succeed without satisfying the old school whims of HN users.
  - NelsonMinar 4y ago
    Really the company started failing when they turned off Jabber.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Really went downhill when they turned off SMS support.
  - vdnkh 4y ago
    "Without RSS Twitter will never succeed"
- bozhark 4y ago
  Reddit does the same thing now if you use their website. Good thing hardly anyone uses their website to read their website
- user3939382 4y ago
  Nothing could be worse than the crap reddit has been doing for the last year or so to force users (or from their perspective, useds, as rms likes to say) to download its app or login. First they outright blocked viewing posts unless logged in, then they disabled that, and now brought it back so that random posts are blocked from viewing with a message "This hasn't been reviewed" whatever that means. Someone at reddit said, hey we can't be honest with users that we're trying to force them to use our app, we need to lie to them while we're doing it!
boringg 4y ago
On pat leave too. Ouch.
DeathArrow 4y ago
It would be wise for Musk to rehire him.
- topspin 4y ago
  Why?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago
Are we all going to pretend Twitter's consumer product is not in desperate need of reworking? It's failing hard to users and on the business side. The decision makes sense... This is extremely personal matter, beyond the Elon hate, I can't imagine why anyone would think its a good idea to make a public show about all this. Good luck to him though. Would be awesome if he can prove Twitter (and the world) wrong and not be a one-hit wonder with Periscope. Or, not.. Time will tell.
robbiemitchell 4y ago
> Spaces, Communities, Topics, Creator tools, Safety controls Interesting: as a casual Twitter user since 2008, I am completely unaware of Spaces, Communities, Topics, and Creator tools. Probably because I use Tweetdeck (desktop) and Tweetbot (mobile). I never see trending posts or ads, either.
- sefrost 4y ago
  I use the regular app and website as a casual user and am only aware of Topics. My experience with Topics was really bad, I followed the "web development" topic and it just surfaces tweets of people who took a coding bootcamp and posting the thread emoji a lot. I tried for a while marking tweets in the Topic as not relevant but it didn't change anything.
bogomipz 4y ago
While trying to read the Head of Consumer Product's exit Twitter post which was split across 8 or 9 separate Tweets, I was prevented from reading them by the login wall pop up. For me this sums up a lot about the state of the product.
thunkshift1 4y ago
Parags role has changed from ceo to hatchet man
lvl102 4y ago
Not sure what he is proud of? Twitter did NOTHING for a decade. That’s why they’re being acquired. Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  >'Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.' I was curious what this was because I don't think I've ever heard Zuckerberg say anything that was either remotely or intentionally funny: Mark Zuckerberg: "Twitter is such as mess — it’s as if they drove a clown car into a gold mine and fell in."[1] It's seems to be largely anecdotal but a funny comment none the less. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zuckerberg-twitter_n_4256014 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zuckerberg-twitter_n_4256014
  - kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
    It’s appropriate for Facebook too.
- ibejoeb 4y ago
  > Twitter is one of the most important, unique and impactful products in the world. As long as there are no follow-up questions... SV hubris is its own thing.
- Sebb767 4y ago
  Examples like Digg and MySpace should sufficiently show that iterating on a perfectly fine product is not necessarily a good idea. In fact, being able to stay cool and not steer into a ditch is definitely a rare skill.
xyst 4y ago
twitter cleaning house, preparing for the inevitable scorched Earth effect of the transition to being privately owned.
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
kyledrake 4y ago
I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked very well for me anyways. The fact that they're doing a leadership purge right now is not helping my opinion on this. I also think the proposal to have Twitter allow all content that is "legal under US law" is a dangerous idea for the platform being a healthy community that most people actually want to participate in. Content moderation debates have never been so ham-fisted as they are online so I won't try here, suffice to say there's some pretty horrible, disgusting things that are "legal under US law" (and as a content moderator, I've seen them all). If Twitter allows people to do them, it will make it difficult for Twitter to maintain a healthy community, and the platform could quickly devolve into a scarychan-style sewer that only the craziest people on the internet will want to dwell in. To say nothing about whether advertisers will tolerate some of it, or even Apple's app store.
- wfhordie 4y ago
  I hope you’re right. I hope Elon takes over and turns into a cesspit . Burn it to the ground once and for all, let the public stare into the abyss that their fellow humans.
  - the_doctah 4y ago
    You're assuming it can get any worse than it already is
    - rchaud 4y ago
      It can get much worse. After yesterday's UST/Luna crash, the main Luna subreddit has stopped all posting because of the volume of suicide threats. Only a few of those posts remain and are at the top, with automated messages linking to helplines. r/terraluna The average person doesn't realize how manicured the social media experience is. People that want zero censorship are in for a nasty surprise.
brodouevencode 4y ago
Tangential question: who all previously had a Twitter account, abandoned it, then came back when Elon Musk announced he was buying it?
nickdothutton 4y ago
It is normal to ask the outgoing management to clean house before the new management moves in. Often a condition of any severance payment.
johnboiles 4y ago
This is mind boggling to me. Kayvon is one of the best product leaders / visionaries I know. It was confusing to me in Dec that he wasn't Jack's successor. Kayvon was a huge driving force behind all the interesting product efforts of the last few years: Spaces, Fleets, topics, etc. Twitter went from not iterating on product (remember when Twitter's only change in several years was to change the star to a heart?) to starting to take some shots. Behind the scenes he was often pushing against significant headwinds that resisted product change (not the least of which was the internal 'sacred cow' that all things must be built with Scala and only run inside Twitter's on-prem datacenters).
- bobro 4y ago
  Are Spaces, Fleets, or Topics considered successes?
  - DantesKite 4y ago
    Fleets was actually relatively good amongst certain content creators, especially as a monetization funnel.
  - bern4444 4y ago
    Fleets certainly not, Twitter internally removed it because it did so poorly.
  - brundolf 4y ago
    As others have said here, Spaces is a minor success. In my corner of Twitter I see people use it occasionally and I've had a few good experiences with it
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  Twitter copied all of those features from other apps. Spaces = Clubhouse, Fleets (which was also cancelled last year) = Snapchat. At best, Kayvon was good a being reactionary to competition. Not that great of a track record.
  - 4y ago
LightG 4y ago
And so it begins... With Elon Musk's hand up Parag's jacksie and pressing all the buttons he chooses.
gumby 4y ago
First of all, this isn't a diss on the guy who was fired, though it must sting. This is how things go.* Second of all, for the question "why now?": Twitter's CEO Parag has to "run through the tape": regardless of what he thinks might happen, he has to keep to the plan and in fact can't talk to the potential acquirer. One reason is that perhaps the deal won't happen, but also he's just not allowed to. If that sounds strange, consider CNN+ which was launched and killed within a couple of weeks. The buyer of CNN couldn't tell CNN what they thought but planned all along to nuke it; the CNN people either didn't understand that, were fanatics, or just didn't give a fuck. * We don't know the whole story so it's possible he was actually doing something bad. But I think that's very unlikely, as these days those things are usually mentioned rather than being swept under the carpet.
tls 4y ago
Bud 4y ago
Looks like they fired him during paternity leave. Stay classy, Twitter.
jmyeet 4y ago
The two execs fired were: - Kayvon Beykpour, Head of Consumer Product (3 years, 11 months) [1]; and - Bruce Falck, Revenue Product Lead (5 years at Twitter, 3 years and 11 months in this position) [2] Kinda weird that both people were just shy of serving 4 years in their current roles. When I see moves like this my immediate thought is always, it's to save or make money. For example, there could be an options pool in the event of a change of control. Well, you've just fired a couple of people right before a huge vest (probably; I have no concrete information) and increased your share of that options pool. It just reminds me of Skype firing executives at the Microsoft buyout to avoid payouts [3]. Otherwise making these moves before an acquisition has closed doesn't make a lot of sense. My money is on this having everything to do with money. EDIT: Updated comment as the link was updated from the original Twitter thread by Kayvon Beykpour about his firing. [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayvon-beykpour-2b264b4?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayvon-beykpour-2b264b4?original... [2]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucefalck?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucefalck?original_referer=http... [3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/skype-fires-executives-avoiding-payouts-after-microsoft-buyout/#:~:text=Tony%20Bates%2C%20CEO%20of%20Skype,people%20familiar%20with%20the%20matter https://www.seattletimes.com/business/skype-fires-executives....
- pikseladam 4y ago
  wow. i think this is the true answer.
- dang 4y ago
  Ok, we'll change to that first link (submitted URL was https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656 https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656) - thanks!
- mattmaroon 4y ago
  If the moves were made at 11 months I'd agree. It'd be really unusual if there was some large vest at the 4 year mark. Unless maybe they've recently been granted something for retention.
  - 4y ago
nashashmi 4y ago
Related: Twitter diff check on terms of service. Lots of removal of periscope language in the tos.
barelysapient 4y ago
Just freeing up a chair for himself after the deal closes.
dwighttk 4y ago
“INSANELY proud…Twitter’s DAU has grown by over 87% since Q2 2018…”
jjtheblunt 4y ago
It's amazing how horrible a UE is involved in reading that thread. It's so fractured.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I wonder what changed….
omega3 4y ago
I would be silent and grateful for the severance package if I had developed a product that has this functionality: https://bayimg.com/EabiBAaHF https://bayimg.com/EabiBAaHF
georgia_peach 4y ago
Looking at this guy's CV, seems as though the industry has decayed into the electronic version of a direct mail operation--one social/video company buying another for its customer list. A thinner ethnic version of Karl Rove has been let go. Forgive me if my eyes remain dry.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Vaslo 4y ago
All- some of you are clinging onto the paternity leave. I can't quote whether this is true, but at both Fortune 250 companies I worked for, you were paid out for your entire leave even if you weren't coming back after. So I would bet money he is still being paid for the whole leave, but if someone sees something else, please correct me. There is incentive to pay it out since one annoying side effect can be a person gone for 3 to 4 months suddenly calls 2 days before leave is over and says "I think I am resigning." It's better to pay the full leave and have them tell you that from the start so you don't waste 3 months.
- elicash 4y ago
  The concern is that there could be a chilling effect resulting in people not taking this leave. If people expect to be fired for using this benefit, they won’t use it.
  - bredren 4y ago
    Many folks seem to understand the chilling effect of surveillance but can not fathom that such a thing might exist related to family leave.
  - 0xFACEFEED 4y ago
    (M|P)aternity leave cannot ever make you immune from being let go. That would be insane. People are let go all of the time without any warning or cause. Especially executives.
    - elicash 4y ago
      Obviously. I'm just explaining the concern. There's no allegation from the person fired that taking the leave is why they were fired. But the mere PERCEPTION can have a chilling effect. And I have worked with many people who worry about taking this type of extended leave for exactly this reason.
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  your point makes it even more weird/indecent. there's literally no (financial) cost to waiting. this breeds insecurity for 0 benefit.
elromulous 4y ago
Do we have any reason to believe that this was a musk motivated decision?
- dymk 4y ago
  No, and anybody aside from those directly involved who tries to tell you otherwise is just making things up.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
novaleaf 4y ago
in the last few days Twitter doesn't force me to login to scroll down tweets anymore. Maybe related to the buy action? Want to show increased engagement in the final weeks for bargaining power?
- mrlatinos 4y ago
  I've had the opposite experience. In the past few days I've noticed the "login wall" immediately pops up, along with a new feature - it prevented me from navigating back in my browser.
paulpauper 4y ago
What if this is just a huge PR stunt on elon's part to get more followers and engagement for his own brand, without having to actually buy twitter?
- outworlder 4y ago
  It likely is. Don't be surprised if a new company emerges though. There's always some truth behind what he does – even though it doesn't necessarily aligns with what he says.
jeffrallen 4y ago
Heh hey. Popping me some popcorn.
csefam14 4y ago
fleddr 4y ago
Just a spring cleaning that is about a decade late. Twitter under-performs in every aspect imaginable: financially, product quality, product innovation. Nothing ever gets released and whilst this pace has improved in recent years, those "innovations" don't really deliver. They're barely used, copycats from other apps, and so on. Meanwhile, age-old problems are never addressed, like bots and the extremely hostile mob mentality on the platform. They're ineffective and lack accountability. They need a reset and mentality change.
- themitigating 4y ago
  How would they control mob mentality?
  - fleddr 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31160916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31160916 See above comment thread from another discussion, first reply is from me.
    - kbenson 4y ago
      Those may help, but I'm not sure what they could do other than breaking the core conceit of their platform (short form, limited space) to really deal with it. Limited space to express your intent, and the quick response cycle it engenders are not conducive to productive discussion. It's hot-takes and terse replies that people interpret as hostile even if they weren't meant as such all the way down. Take that out and what makes Twitter any different than every other platform? Though, maybe they're large enough and popular enough they could weather that change.
    - dmix 4y ago
      > (e) Make it possible to prevent retweets (including quote retweets) from certain accounts you follow from showing up on your timeline. There are certain people you might like who retweet effluent, and you don't want that effluent going straight into your eyeballs. There's many good points here. This is the best. They need to assume the content kinda sucks and let people control as much as possible, instead of thinking that AI is doing a good enough job for them.
kringo 4y ago
And keeps himself? Didn't he hire or was responsible for hiring these two?
haoc 4y ago
Getting fired during paternity leave, sounds brutal.
Cupprum 4y ago
Maybe its a way to give his “friends” golden parachutes before he also quits after they sell twitter?
Melatonic 4y ago
Am I just getting old or is Twitter just always been a shitty format? I never got the appeal and still do not.
- draw_down 4y ago
alkjl34tk34 4y ago
socrates1998 4y ago
I deleted twitter around the time Elon's bid got approved. I was thinking about it for a while, as the app is just another way to get pissed off at the world. These moves seem odd given that Elon isn't even the owner yet and still has some ways to go to get it all done. I am getting the feeling twitter will be dead in a couple of years. End up like Tumblr or something. It will still be there, but it will have lost it's place in the top 20 social media platforms.
Graffur 4y ago
Probably a good thing - Twitters product sucks. I feel bad for Kayvon Beykpour since he said he was on paternity leave but I guess that is what happens when you fly high.
Railsify 4y ago
Good, Twitter has problems worthy of firing people over and in all cases it's ultimately executives that are responsible for all problems, so it makes sense that even if they don't publicly enumerate the specific events that led to the firing, these executives most certainly deserved to be fired.
Vladimof 4y ago
lol.... only 2 top comments visible on this post https://i.imgur.com/TiIKxnr.png https://i.imgur.com/TiIKxnr.png
DeathArrow 4y ago
Who will fire him?
ranjitcool1 4y ago
Dave3of5 4y ago
Oh dear wtf is going on at twitter HQ right now. Be interesting to see what happens when the dust settles.
dustinmoris 4y ago
Musk taking over Twitter can not happen soon enough. I am sick of woke fascism and Twitter was up until now the prime breeding ground for new age radical left fascists. If the deal goes through the world will be a better place for it.
nickstinemates 4y ago
I wonder if this is at all related to today's news. How big of a bot problem is there and who knew?

1032 points by danso 4y ago

Why is Parag making any major changes at this point? What "new vision" is he going to execute in his last few months at the company before Elon comes in and torpedoes it anyways?

goodoldneon 4y ago
I'd be shocked if these changes weren't Musk's
- afavour 4y ago
  I would because it would be a pretty egregious violation of how takeovers like this are supposed to work.
  - samstave 4y ago
    Keeping the "hostile" in "hostile takeover"?
  - curuinor 4y ago
    i mean, when's that ever stopped this guy?
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I would think taking orders from someone who is not yet in charge could open up Parag and the board to shareholder lawsuits.
- mlindner 4y ago
  It's got nothing to do with Musk as he has no control of the company what so ever. He doesn't even know who the employees are.
mr90210 4y ago
“I may go down, but I won’t go alone”
philosopher1234 4y ago
Its not over till its over. Elon may still not end up owning twitter.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  But it's clear he's already 0wn3d it.
encoderer 4y ago
He’s being paid millions to keep his hand on the wheel and not be distracted by a deal that may never close.
- paxys 4y ago
  That's my point though. The board accepted the buyout offer. "Hands on the wheel" means keeping the lights on and making sure everything stays stable until the deal closes. Firing the company's product and revenue leads is the opposite of that.
  - samstave 4y ago
    So they can re-negotiate with NewTwittah at higher salary?
  - ckastner 4y ago
    You're assuming that the deal will definitely close. The deal can still fall apart for a number of reasons. The risk of this happening is far from remote. This is evident from the current stock price of about $46, which is significantly lower than the $54.20 Musk is offering.
    - boringg 4y ago
      Only reason twitter hasn't tanked is people holding on hoping this deal goes through otherwise it would have dropped significantly with the rest of the tech index. My point is that its market cap is artificially overvalued currently on hopes that elon buys at 54$ (which i doubt he will)
      - ckastner 4y ago
        I too believe that he'd be crazy not to renegotiate. As far as I recall, they agreed on a break fee of ~$1bn if Musk walks away. But if he can lower the price to $40 a share (which is still far higher than market would probably be, at least in this market), he gets Twitter at $31bn instead of $42bn.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
r00fus 4y ago
Why do you think this isn't what is required as part of the acquisition plan?
- paxys 4y ago
  That's not how acquisitions work. Elon made the offer, it was accepted. Now the company has to continue to operate without his influence until the deal actually closes.
  - enraged_camel 4y ago
    There isn't any guarantee that the deal will actually close, especially with tech stocks (and much of Elon's own wealth along with them) taking a dive.
  - sophacles 4y ago
    If those changes were planned before Musk's offer, wouldn't changing the plans to that "keeping the lights on and making sure everything stays stable until the deal closes" be opposite of operating without his influence?
    - paxys 4y ago
      Operating without his influence means not inviting him into the boardroom and not taking directions from him. They can still make their own decisions on how best to prepare for the acquisition. That's something every company in that situation does.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    What's your citation for the notion that post-acquisition changes never happen before the deal fully closes? I grant that irreversible structural changes are rare, and cross-company integrations of course can't happen. But here this isn't one company acquiring another, and it's just changing one exec. Maybe you're right, but I've never seen anything showing that.
  - ericbarrett 4y ago
whoisjuan 4y ago
Parag is likely the first one getting the boot after the takeover is finished.
jeffbee 4y ago
Elon Musk has no intention of actually acquiring Twitter. He's just using it as a smoke screen to liquidate a huge amount of Tesla stock. The fact that TWTR is currently trading at a 25% discount to the supposed acquisition price shows I am not the only person in the market who doubts the ultimate consummation of the acquisition.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Interesting thought. But if he doesn't go through with it, he will be on the hook for a $1B penalty. Is that perhaps a selling fee that makes sense for him to pay?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    He would only be trading it for the chance to go to court and argue over who owes the $1e9 and to whom.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Is the twitter deal actually happening? Elon had to get a loan using Tesla stock and if the price of Tesla drops a lot then the whole loan and deal falls apart. I don't know if we know the exact stock price number where it happens, but it's seeming pretty dicey with Tesla continuing to drop in value IMHO.
- ksherlock 4y ago
  As of last week, there is $7 billion in outside funding -- new money and existing shareholders that will retain their stake. That cuts the amount borrowed on the back of $TSLA in half.
dimitrios1 4y ago
Are you certain Elon would torpedo anything? What if it the move he would make as well? Would he still torpedo it? I am not sure how anyone can say with certainty what Elon will or won't do.
- throwmeariver1 4y ago
austinl 4y ago
I think Parag is making decisions that he sees as inevitable, whether the deal goes through or not. The deal, and all of the discussions that have come from it about the future direction of Twitter, is probably enough of a catalyst for certain changes. Twitter is likely not left unchanged even it falls through.
didip 4y ago
Maybe Parag is trying to meet his own KPI before he got booted out to ensure his golden parachutes?

corndoge 4y ago

I can't read this thread, a black screen pops up that asks me to log in.

bobro 4y ago
i wonder if the guy who got fired was in charge of the decision to add that pop up…
pessimizer 4y ago
https://nitter.net/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656 https://nitter.net/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656
tonguez 4y ago
not sure why you’re being downvoted.

donohoe 4y ago

Some insights and kind words by Tony Haile, founder of Chartbeat and Scroll: https://twitter.com/arctictony/status/1524813920514482179?s=21&t=s5g1wGl4Vo4-m4nJqfVStQ https://twitter.com/arctictony/status/1524813920514482179?s=...

kosyblysk666 4y ago

good

minimaxir 4y ago

> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122

RyanShook 4y ago
Maybe this is Parag trying to keep his job?
- 0xy 4y ago
  Pretty laughable, considering Parag as CTO presided over the slowest product velocity at pretty much any major tech company. The product is almost unchanged, except additional censorship, since he started as CTO in October 2017. With that track record, one must assume his head will be one of the first on the chopping block.
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    I don't see slow change as a net negative. It's not necessarily positive, either, but not trying to fix things that work perfectly well is a good mantra (looking at you, Google). Also, he was recently promoted to CEO, which would be strange if the common opinion at Twitter was that he failed as a CTO.
  - tinktank 4y ago
    > The product is almost unchanged, That we can see. Either the entire leadership is stupid and promoted a dud, or maybe there's more going on than meets the eye?
skybrian 4y ago
My guess: the new boss gets started on a more positive note if they don't have to fire people because the old boss did it for him? Or at least, that would be a good explanation if we weren't talking about Musk.

danso 4y ago

More info and more firings: https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/1524793136051986434 https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/1524793136051986434 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/technology/two-twitter-leaders-are-leaving-after-musks-deal-to-buy-the-company.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/technology/two-twitter-le...

r00fus 4y ago
Parag was explicitly hired as a hatchet-man: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hatchet-man https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hatch...

dylan604 4y ago

"To the hard working (current and former) Tweeps out there who made all this happen: Thank you for pouring your heart and soul into this place " Tweeps? Is that really a term of endearment they refer to each other as? Really?

moate 4y ago
Feels less condescending than Apple "Geniuses" or Best Buy "Nerds", and pretty in line with "Googlers", "Toasters" or "Hulugans". Is this a thing most people refer to other employees as most of the time? No, but it helps corporate create an image of a fun, playful workplace. I think it's utter bullshit, but you know, to each their own.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  meta-me-tes
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Metastasized
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Metastases
  - corobo 4y ago
    Meta “Creeps” It’s like peeps, but more Facebook-y
- robonerd 4y ago
  > No, but it helps corporate create an image of a fun, playful workplace Nah, all of these corporate 'pet names' are applied unilaterally, by the executives to the workers. Condescension is the point. The application of such a nickname is a show of power, meant to remind workers of their place in the system.

smm11 4y ago

Is Tumblr still a thing?

nickthegreek 4y ago
it is and its kinda coming back. alot of genz are opening accounts there.

Mindwipe 4y ago

Twitter's consumer product team is truly awful and have just made the product more and more miserable to use, so I don't cry too much about the change in leadership. Having said that, firing someone on paternity leave is terrible and would be rightly illegal in many countries.

criley2 4y ago
Firing someone for being on paternity leave is definitely illegal in most places, but laying off executives and high level business folks before a transition at the top isn't illegal. I wonder if being on paternity leave is a "get out of layoffs free" card where you simply cannot be laid off with others while you're out.
- spiderice 4y ago
  My wife was on maternity leave when Covid layoffs happened at her company. She didn’t get laid off. But at the time we both looked at each other and wondered “did we just get saved by maternity leave?” She is great at her job so we have no reason to think she would have otherwise been laid off. But plenty of people who were great at their jobs got laid off due to Covid. So it’s hard not to wonder.
- atonse 4y ago
  I haven’t seen claims anywhere that he was fired FOR being on paternity leave. It’s that he was fired when he happened to be on paternity leave. But at the end of the day, isn’t it another form of paid leave? So if he was paid out in advance for that time off would that fulfill the company’s obligations? Genuinely asking, I am neutral on this since I don’t know the intents involved.
YSoManyRaptors 4y ago
I mean, what do you expect from the United States, one of the only countries in the UN that doesn’t require employers to have paid parental leave.
- 4y ago

e_commerce 4y ago

Operyl 4y ago

I can't help but wonder if this is to ensure he gets a good severance package before Musk comes in and cleans house? I can only hope, but it doesn't seem likely based on tone :(.

runjake 4y ago
You could simply read the linked URL where it doesn't sound like it was a good firing?
- Operyl 4y ago
  I did say “but it doesn’t seem likely based on tone”.

SiempreViernes 4y ago

Literally head of product at Twitter, and still not enough clout to have paternity leave respected.

jjmorrison 4y ago
He's still doing his paternity leave and will be paid through it. Company just needs to get going on hiring someone else in the job.
encoderer 4y ago
It’s sort of the opposite. A low level IC would not be called while on leave to be fired. But when the company needs a change of excecutive leadership, they aren’t going to wait months because you had a baby. I’m sure he’s being paid through the end of his leave period and besides is compensated in the millions.
- firstSpeaker 4y ago
  Yep, that is how it is. People are fired when they are on parental leave only if they are high enough in the ladder that matters.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
oh_sigh 4y ago
What's wrong with firing someone on paternity leave? It's not like he was fired because he was on paternity leave.
- justinator 4y ago
  Maybe they would like to focus on their newborn, their wife, the new family dynamic - you know: important things - and not some stupid web app - which is what I would assume, since they're on maternity leave in the first place.
  - 4y ago

prescriptivist 4y ago

OT but one thing I've noticed is that Twitter has scaled back its aggressive modal/login prompt when viewing the site without being logged in. This seems to have occurred recently. It seems like it would have nothing to do with the acquisition talks but, curiously, it coincided with them.

runjake 4y ago
Still happens here.
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 4y ago
  use a US proxy/VPN or better yet, use Nitter
google234123 4y ago
Seems the same to me. Maybe A/B testing?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
corrral 4y ago
It's gotten a little worse, AFAI can tell. Every few days I have to re-load the Twitter tabs I've got in private browsing on my phone (without private browsing, the modals have always come much faster, basically as soon as I scroll down) because they start throwing modals. Then they're fine for a few more days. I didn't used to have to reload the page, ever.
lmc 4y ago
This may be in the middle of an A/B test - I still get pestered every time when in incognito mode.
- prescriptivist 4y ago
  Huh. I haven't been logged in on any of my devices and I never get pestered. Thanks for the update.

ramesh31 4y ago

Must have been bad blood if he wasn't even given the opportunity to resign and save face. I can't even imagine the vipers nest of toxicity that building must be at this point.

afavour 4y ago
Might be a severance issue. If he resigns, no severence. I imagine if he is fired he gets some. So he might have forced them to fire him. I know I would.
minhazm 4y ago
> Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction. I interpreted that as he was asked to resign. Which in practice most people consider the same as getting fired. At this level it's rare for someone to actually get terminated though, you would have to do something illegal or highly inappropriate. It's almost always that you're asked to resign and you get a generous severance package to go with it.

kadenwolff 4y ago

Interesting that he co-founded Periscope and they also just removed any mention of Periscope from their TOS. Maybe just an artifact of them considering removing him, or it has no meaning. Just found the timing notable.

peppertree 4y ago
Periscope was one the main reasons they killed Vine.
- natly 4y ago
  That makes no sense to me, they're completely different products. (Periscope is about livestreaming vine was short clips.)
  - peppertree 4y ago
    Beykpour convinced the board live video was the future. Vine founder left so no one was around to defend Vine.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Funny that Vine was essentially TikTok and they killed it.
  - HaZeust 4y ago
    TL;DR: The world wasn't ready to monetize and mass-produce short clips at Vine's time.

dpeck 4y ago

Letting people go while they’re on maternity or paternity leave us not cool.

schnebbau 4y ago
Don't worry, he'll be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.
- shadowmatter 4y ago
  Yeah, but it's the rank and file employees who will now think "I'm not there to defend myself against being fired if I take maternity/paternity leave" who will suffer most. The ones who won't be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > Yeah, but it's the rank and file employees who will now think "I'm not there to defend myself against being fired if I take maternity/paternity leave" If an executive is gunning for a rank and file employee, there is no defending yourself except through wrongful termination lawsuits, etc. Being sat in the office when it happens won't help you save your job from an executive that wants you gone.
- mypalmike 4y ago
  The severance is on top of the $20M worth of TWTR stock he already holds, according to public records. Plus whatever other assets he holds, which I would presume to be not insubstantial. I think he'll be OK.
bobro 4y ago
what should they have done? waited til he returned? they very likely are giving him a severance, so why wait?
- micromacrofoot 4y ago

hnthrowaway0328 4y ago

Is him on Elon's side or not?

cloudwalking 4y ago

A lot of assumptions here that Parag is out after Elon takes over. Is that backed up by evidence?

glerk 4y ago
I may be wrong, but I assume that once Twitter becomes a private company there will be no more board and Elon will be the CEO. Parag may stay at the company in a different role.
- pie_flavor 4y ago
  I don't think Elon particularly wants to be in the actual driver's seat of Twitter. That's a job and a half, especially when he already has SpaceX and Tesla to manage. I rather assume he will have someone competent at the helm to which he can give incredibly broad orders like 'figure out how to make free speech work'. Though that doesn't mean Parag won't be out - the competent person is likely to be someone who is not soft on free speech like Parag is, and there's a good chance it'll even be Jack.

bhouston 4y ago

I suspect this was done in part because Elon Musk wants to make some big changes. It would be best for the outgoing CEO to make these difficult firings and then let Elon Musk come in and set a new tone without dealing with this negativity falling on Elon. I'm not saying this is right, but it makes a lot of sense.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mlindner 4y ago
Musk doesn't have any control yet or even insight into the company.

Traster 4y ago

So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It would seem weird for Parag to be following Musk's orders given how Musk has behaved. It also seems weird for Musk to already have the insight into the company to know specifically who to fire. There's not much advantage to making these changes now. On the other hand, going rogue and making big strategic decisions about the company really has the potential to burn Parag's reputation for wherever he would move next. I guess there's a third option - that Musk has expressed a specific view, Parag has a different view, but that they both think that this move is necessary anyway so just got on and did it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cycrutchfield 4y ago
Or the deal is not going to close?
- belter 4y ago
  "SEC is investigating Elon Musk over his late disclosure that he had purchased Twitter stock" https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-investigates-elon-musks-twitter-stake-disclosure-report-2022-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-investigates-elon-musks-...
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    Was there a time in the past few years where Musk wasn't actively investigated by the SEC? Hasn't hindered his business ventures much, so far at least.
rabite 4y ago

tfp137 4y ago

If he was fired on paternity leave, the credited play is to say nothing. This is potentially a beautiful lawsuit and the last thing you want to do is lose ground on something you said on the internet.

5bolts 4y ago

If he's fired now the current board can offer him a severance package that may not be on the table once Elon takes over. Might be a good thing, or strategic?

1290cc 4y ago
This is the correct answer, Elon will not be as generous when cutting numbers. I'll never forget letting go of staff in France and Italy. The employees were overjoyed we were letting them go and got into fights over who would be taking the packages. I learned that they received 1 year of salary upfront tax free with a bunch of additional benefits to help with job training and placement. An average middle manager friend has had this happen 3 times, each time after a US acquisition. He now has a chateau in the south of france and is very happy with himself.
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago
Wild. Technically is that legal?
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Why wouldn't it be? The sale hasn't finalized, so unless there's evidence that they're intentionally harming the company they can continue to operate as usual.
- nickff 4y ago
  Severance packages are usually a deal: company pays you $X, and you agree to say (or not say) certain things, and also agree where you might work in the future (i.e. not at a competitor). The current board/CEO may want to keep things stable, and offer generous money to keep things on an even keel; Elon may not care what a former executive says or does.

brk 4y ago

Without knowing details of the severance, non-compete clauses, etc., it is hard to read too much into this. It could be a giant favor, or a giant kick in the balls.

hintymad 4y ago

Growing up outside of the US, I feel kinda cringed when he said he was "INSANELY proud of our collective teams achieved". Such an interesting cultural difference.

rossdavidh 4y ago
I grew up in the US, and I also found that odd. Not unprecedented, but odd. The literal interpretation of that statement might be more justifiable than the one he meant...
bobthepanda 4y ago
it's cringeworthy in the US outside of the job-finding/bragging echo chamber this kind of post normally shows up in
- bogomipz 4y ago
  I also believe there would also be a large segment of the US that finds these "job-finding/bragging echo chamber" Twitter posts cringeworthy regardless of context. They appear oddly performative and obligatory. Stay tuned for the follow up "I'm incredibly excited to announce that today I am joining ___" post.
bobro 4y ago
you should read this more from the perpective of a dude who just lost his job and will need to soon get rehired. not really a US culture thing.
mypalmike 4y ago
What's the issue? Using the adverb "insanely" in a positive light? Or that he's proud?
TameAntelope 4y ago
What's odd about it? Why wouldn't he be proud of his team for successfully building stuff he thought was important to build?

ryanSrich 4y ago

Not entirely related, but I do not understand how someone could say this with a straight face https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787804743475201?s=21&t=NtnXIAaHVftJnPYK3a8nQA https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787804743475201?s=21&t=...

exolymph 4y ago
> I'm proud that we changed the perception around Twitter’s pace of innovation, and proud that we shifted the culture internally to make bigger bets, move faster, and eliminate sacred cows. Lol

m1117 4y ago

Why need product when they have Elon Musk.

moralestapia 4y ago

>Twitter’s DAU has grown by over 87% since Q2 2018 LOL, that's why you got the boot, pal.

pdq 4y ago

Is he the one who gave final approval of the anonymous login-wall, which pops up after 2 screens of scrolling in Twitter? If so, good riddance, as that is an incredibly hostile user pattern. BTW, maybe it's purely coincidence, but after refreshing my browser cache it seems to have gone away today.

carabiner 4y ago
Twitter will never succeed without satisfying the old school whims of HN users.
- NelsonMinar 4y ago
  Really the company started failing when they turned off Jabber.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Really went downhill when they turned off SMS support.
- vdnkh 4y ago
  "Without RSS Twitter will never succeed"
bozhark 4y ago
Reddit does the same thing now if you use their website. Good thing hardly anyone uses their website to read their website
user3939382 4y ago
Nothing could be worse than the crap reddit has been doing for the last year or so to force users (or from their perspective, useds, as rms likes to say) to download its app or login. First they outright blocked viewing posts unless logged in, then they disabled that, and now brought it back so that random posts are blocked from viewing with a message "This hasn't been reviewed" whatever that means. Someone at reddit said, hey we can't be honest with users that we're trying to force them to use our app, we need to lie to them while we're doing it!

boringg 4y ago

On pat leave too. Ouch.

DeathArrow 4y ago

It would be wise for Musk to rehire him.

topspin 4y ago
Why?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago

Are we all going to pretend Twitter's consumer product is not in desperate need of reworking? It's failing hard to users and on the business side. The decision makes sense... This is extremely personal matter, beyond the Elon hate, I can't imagine why anyone would think its a good idea to make a public show about all this. Good luck to him though. Would be awesome if he can prove Twitter (and the world) wrong and not be a one-hit wonder with Periscope. Or, not.. Time will tell.

robbiemitchell 4y ago

> Spaces, Communities, Topics, Creator tools, Safety controls Interesting: as a casual Twitter user since 2008, I am completely unaware of Spaces, Communities, Topics, and Creator tools. Probably because I use Tweetdeck (desktop) and Tweetbot (mobile). I never see trending posts or ads, either.

sefrost 4y ago
I use the regular app and website as a casual user and am only aware of Topics. My experience with Topics was really bad, I followed the "web development" topic and it just surfaces tweets of people who took a coding bootcamp and posting the thread emoji a lot. I tried for a while marking tweets in the Topic as not relevant but it didn't change anything.

bogomipz 4y ago

While trying to read the Head of Consumer Product's exit Twitter post which was split across 8 or 9 separate Tweets, I was prevented from reading them by the login wall pop up. For me this sums up a lot about the state of the product.

thunkshift1 4y ago

Parags role has changed from ceo to hatchet man

lvl102 4y ago

Not sure what he is proud of? Twitter did NOTHING for a decade. That’s why they’re being acquired. Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.

bogomipz 4y ago
>'Zuckerberg was right about his “clown car” comment.' I was curious what this was because I don't think I've ever heard Zuckerberg say anything that was either remotely or intentionally funny: Mark Zuckerberg: "Twitter is such as mess — it’s as if they drove a clown car into a gold mine and fell in."[1] It's seems to be largely anecdotal but a funny comment none the less. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zuckerberg-twitter_n_4256014 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zuckerberg-twitter_n_4256014
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  It’s appropriate for Facebook too.
ibejoeb 4y ago
> Twitter is one of the most important, unique and impactful products in the world. As long as there are no follow-up questions... SV hubris is its own thing.
Sebb767 4y ago
Examples like Digg and MySpace should sufficiently show that iterating on a perfectly fine product is not necessarily a good idea. In fact, being able to stay cool and not steer into a ditch is definitely a rare skill.

xyst 4y ago

twitter cleaning house, preparing for the inevitable scorched Earth effect of the transition to being privately owned.

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

kyledrake 4y ago

I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked very well for me anyways. The fact that they're doing a leadership purge right now is not helping my opinion on this. I also think the proposal to have Twitter allow all content that is "legal under US law" is a dangerous idea for the platform being a healthy community that most people actually want to participate in. Content moderation debates have never been so ham-fisted as they are online so I won't try here, suffice to say there's some pretty horrible, disgusting things that are "legal under US law" (and as a content moderator, I've seen them all). If Twitter allows people to do them, it will make it difficult for Twitter to maintain a healthy community, and the platform could quickly devolve into a scarychan-style sewer that only the craziest people on the internet will want to dwell in. To say nothing about whether advertisers will tolerate some of it, or even Apple's app store.

wfhordie 4y ago
I hope you’re right. I hope Elon takes over and turns into a cesspit . Burn it to the ground once and for all, let the public stare into the abyss that their fellow humans.
- the_doctah 4y ago
  You're assuming it can get any worse than it already is
  - rchaud 4y ago
    It can get much worse. After yesterday's UST/Luna crash, the main Luna subreddit has stopped all posting because of the volume of suicide threats. Only a few of those posts remain and are at the top, with automated messages linking to helplines. r/terraluna The average person doesn't realize how manicured the social media experience is. People that want zero censorship are in for a nasty surprise.

brodouevencode 4y ago

Tangential question: who all previously had a Twitter account, abandoned it, then came back when Elon Musk announced he was buying it?

nickdothutton 4y ago

It is normal to ask the outgoing management to clean house before the new management moves in. Often a condition of any severance payment.

johnboiles 4y ago

This is mind boggling to me. Kayvon is one of the best product leaders / visionaries I know. It was confusing to me in Dec that he wasn't Jack's successor. Kayvon was a huge driving force behind all the interesting product efforts of the last few years: Spaces, Fleets, topics, etc. Twitter went from not iterating on product (remember when Twitter's only change in several years was to change the star to a heart?) to starting to take some shots. Behind the scenes he was often pushing against significant headwinds that resisted product change (not the least of which was the internal 'sacred cow' that all things must be built with Scala and only run inside Twitter's on-prem datacenters).

bobro 4y ago
Are Spaces, Fleets, or Topics considered successes?
- DantesKite 4y ago
  Fleets was actually relatively good amongst certain content creators, especially as a monetization funnel.
- bern4444 4y ago
  Fleets certainly not, Twitter internally removed it because it did so poorly.
- brundolf 4y ago
  As others have said here, Spaces is a minor success. In my corner of Twitter I see people use it occasionally and I've had a few good experiences with it
halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
Twitter copied all of those features from other apps. Spaces = Clubhouse, Fleets (which was also cancelled last year) = Snapchat. At best, Kayvon was good a being reactionary to competition. Not that great of a track record.
- 4y ago

LightG 4y ago

And so it begins... With Elon Musk's hand up Parag's jacksie and pressing all the buttons he chooses.

gumby 4y ago

First of all, this isn't a diss on the guy who was fired, though it must sting. This is how things go.* Second of all, for the question "why now?": Twitter's CEO Parag has to "run through the tape": regardless of what he thinks might happen, he has to keep to the plan and in fact can't talk to the potential acquirer. One reason is that perhaps the deal won't happen, but also he's just not allowed to. If that sounds strange, consider CNN+ which was launched and killed within a couple of weeks. The buyer of CNN couldn't tell CNN what they thought but planned all along to nuke it; the CNN people either didn't understand that, were fanatics, or just didn't give a fuck. * We don't know the whole story so it's possible he was actually doing something bad. But I think that's very unlikely, as these days those things are usually mentioned rather than being swept under the carpet.

tls 4y ago

Bud 4y ago

Looks like they fired him during paternity leave. Stay classy, Twitter.

jmyeet 4y ago

The two execs fired were: - Kayvon Beykpour, Head of Consumer Product (3 years, 11 months) [1]; and - Bruce Falck, Revenue Product Lead (5 years at Twitter, 3 years and 11 months in this position) [2] Kinda weird that both people were just shy of serving 4 years in their current roles. When I see moves like this my immediate thought is always, it's to save or make money. For example, there could be an options pool in the event of a change of control. Well, you've just fired a couple of people right before a huge vest (probably; I have no concrete information) and increased your share of that options pool. It just reminds me of Skype firing executives at the Microsoft buyout to avoid payouts [3]. Otherwise making these moves before an acquisition has closed doesn't make a lot of sense. My money is on this having everything to do with money. EDIT: Updated comment as the link was updated from the original Twitter thread by Kayvon Beykpour about his firing. [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayvon-beykpour-2b264b4?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayvon-beykpour-2b264b4?original... [2]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucefalck?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucefalck?original_referer=http... [3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/skype-fires-executives-avoiding-payouts-after-microsoft-buyout/#:~:text=Tony%20Bates%2C%20CEO%20of%20Skype,people%20familiar%20with%20the%20matter https://www.seattletimes.com/business/skype-fires-executives....

pikseladam 4y ago
wow. i think this is the true answer.
dang 4y ago
Ok, we'll change to that first link (submitted URL was https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656 https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1524787801757126656) - thanks!
mattmaroon 4y ago
If the moves were made at 11 months I'd agree. It'd be really unusual if there was some large vest at the 4 year mark. Unless maybe they've recently been granted something for retention.
- 4y ago

nashashmi 4y ago

Related: Twitter diff check on terms of service. Lots of removal of periscope language in the tos.

barelysapient 4y ago

Just freeing up a chair for himself after the deal closes.

dwighttk 4y ago

“INSANELY proud…Twitter’s DAU has grown by over 87% since Q2 2018…”

jjtheblunt 4y ago

It's amazing how horrible a UE is involved in reading that thread. It's so fractured.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I wonder what changed….

omega3 4y ago

I would be silent and grateful for the severance package if I had developed a product that has this functionality: https://bayimg.com/EabiBAaHF https://bayimg.com/EabiBAaHF

georgia_peach 4y ago

Looking at this guy's CV, seems as though the industry has decayed into the electronic version of a direct mail operation--one social/video company buying another for its customer list. A thinner ethnic version of Karl Rove has been let go. Forgive me if my eyes remain dry.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Vaslo 4y ago

All- some of you are clinging onto the paternity leave. I can't quote whether this is true, but at both Fortune 250 companies I worked for, you were paid out for your entire leave even if you weren't coming back after. So I would bet money he is still being paid for the whole leave, but if someone sees something else, please correct me. There is incentive to pay it out since one annoying side effect can be a person gone for 3 to 4 months suddenly calls 2 days before leave is over and says "I think I am resigning." It's better to pay the full leave and have them tell you that from the start so you don't waste 3 months.

elicash 4y ago
The concern is that there could be a chilling effect resulting in people not taking this leave. If people expect to be fired for using this benefit, they won’t use it.
- bredren 4y ago
  Many folks seem to understand the chilling effect of surveillance but can not fathom that such a thing might exist related to family leave.
- 0xFACEFEED 4y ago
  (M|P)aternity leave cannot ever make you immune from being let go. That would be insane. People are let go all of the time without any warning or cause. Especially executives.
  - elicash 4y ago
    Obviously. I'm just explaining the concern. There's no allegation from the person fired that taking the leave is why they were fired. But the mere PERCEPTION can have a chilling effect. And I have worked with many people who worry about taking this type of extended leave for exactly this reason.
nickstinemates 4y ago
your point makes it even more weird/indecent. there's literally no (financial) cost to waiting. this breeds insecurity for 0 benefit.

elromulous 4y ago

Do we have any reason to believe that this was a musk motivated decision?

dymk 4y ago
No, and anybody aside from those directly involved who tries to tell you otherwise is just making things up.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

novaleaf 4y ago

in the last few days Twitter doesn't force me to login to scroll down tweets anymore. Maybe related to the buy action? Want to show increased engagement in the final weeks for bargaining power?

mrlatinos 4y ago
I've had the opposite experience. In the past few days I've noticed the "login wall" immediately pops up, along with a new feature - it prevented me from navigating back in my browser.

paulpauper 4y ago

What if this is just a huge PR stunt on elon's part to get more followers and engagement for his own brand, without having to actually buy twitter?

outworlder 4y ago
It likely is. Don't be surprised if a new company emerges though. There's always some truth behind what he does – even though it doesn't necessarily aligns with what he says.

jeffrallen 4y ago

Heh hey. Popping me some popcorn.

csefam14 4y ago

fleddr 4y ago

Just a spring cleaning that is about a decade late. Twitter under-performs in every aspect imaginable: financially, product quality, product innovation. Nothing ever gets released and whilst this pace has improved in recent years, those "innovations" don't really deliver. They're barely used, copycats from other apps, and so on. Meanwhile, age-old problems are never addressed, like bots and the extremely hostile mob mentality on the platform. They're ineffective and lack accountability. They need a reset and mentality change.

themitigating 4y ago
How would they control mob mentality?
- fleddr 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31160916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31160916 See above comment thread from another discussion, first reply is from me.
  - kbenson 4y ago
    Those may help, but I'm not sure what they could do other than breaking the core conceit of their platform (short form, limited space) to really deal with it. Limited space to express your intent, and the quick response cycle it engenders are not conducive to productive discussion. It's hot-takes and terse replies that people interpret as hostile even if they weren't meant as such all the way down. Take that out and what makes Twitter any different than every other platform? Though, maybe they're large enough and popular enough they could weather that change.
  - dmix 4y ago
    > (e) Make it possible to prevent retweets (including quote retweets) from certain accounts you follow from showing up on your timeline. There are certain people you might like who retweet effluent, and you don't want that effluent going straight into your eyeballs. There's many good points here. This is the best. They need to assume the content kinda sucks and let people control as much as possible, instead of thinking that AI is doing a good enough job for them.

kringo 4y ago

And keeps himself? Didn't he hire or was responsible for hiring these two?

haoc 4y ago

Getting fired during paternity leave, sounds brutal.

Cupprum 4y ago

Maybe its a way to give his “friends” golden parachutes before he also quits after they sell twitter?

Melatonic 4y ago

Am I just getting old or is Twitter just always been a shitty format? I never got the appeal and still do not.

draw_down 4y ago

alkjl34tk34 4y ago

socrates1998 4y ago

I deleted twitter around the time Elon's bid got approved. I was thinking about it for a while, as the app is just another way to get pissed off at the world. These moves seem odd given that Elon isn't even the owner yet and still has some ways to go to get it all done. I am getting the feeling twitter will be dead in a couple of years. End up like Tumblr or something. It will still be there, but it will have lost it's place in the top 20 social media platforms.

Graffur 4y ago

Probably a good thing - Twitters product sucks. I feel bad for Kayvon Beykpour since he said he was on paternity leave but I guess that is what happens when you fly high.

Railsify 4y ago

Good, Twitter has problems worthy of firing people over and in all cases it's ultimately executives that are responsible for all problems, so it makes sense that even if they don't publicly enumerate the specific events that led to the firing, these executives most certainly deserved to be fired.

Vladimof 4y ago

lol.... only 2 top comments visible on this post https://i.imgur.com/TiIKxnr.png https://i.imgur.com/TiIKxnr.png

DeathArrow 4y ago

Who will fire him?

ranjitcool1 4y ago

Dave3of5 4y ago

Oh dear wtf is going on at twitter HQ right now. Be interesting to see what happens when the dust settles.

dustinmoris 4y ago

Musk taking over Twitter can not happen soon enough. I am sick of woke fascism and Twitter was up until now the prime breeding ground for new age radical left fascists. If the deal goes through the world will be a better place for it.

nickstinemates 4y ago

I wonder if this is at all related to today's news. How big of a bot problem is there and who knew?