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Will Twitter employees now hollow out like it just got purchased by private equity? Anyone with insight into this?

coldpie 4y ago
I've heard second-hand that this whole drama has been a huge drag on folks working there. The way it was phrased to me is Musk's handling of this whole thing has made their work feel like it's all a joke. So, I don't know, but I would guess it's at least not going to be a positive thing for retention or hiring.
- 93po 4y ago
  Let's be honest - working a twitter is a joke.
- wincy 4y ago
  I think there’s a lot of non Silicon Valley engineers like me that’d be super excited to go work at a Musk owned and operated Twitter.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - drcongo 4y ago
  - coldpie 4y ago
    Fewer than you think, I expect. But who knows! To be honest, even though I expect to be closing my Twitter account after this, I'm not sad to see a shake-up in this space.
  - Insanity 4y ago
    Honest question - why?
    - preommr 4y ago
      I am curious too. Putting aside Musk's... "immature behavior", there's many people that have talked about how horrible it is to work at places like SpaceX because of rough working conditions. And that's a field where people can feel passionate about doing something great for mankind.
      - wincy 4y ago
        I responded to the parent comment if you’re interested in my reasoning. You could be right though about the working conditions, I worked with some Tesla business analysts to do some software integration with them and it didn’t go super great. They wouldn’t communicate for m awhile, then they’d yell and screaming at us for not doing something they hadn’t asked us to do, seemed pretty bad. So you might be right! It’s possible I’d hate it.
      - oceanplexian 4y ago
        Lots of people can get passionate about working for a free speech platform, I know I would. However, it's another question if Elon will deliver on that promise.
    - wincy 4y ago
      I’ve watched as the internet changed from this wondrous bastion of free speech into curated gardens acceptable to advertisers. Just the other day Facebook flagged me for hate speech because I used some analogy that wasn’t at all hate speech or advocating for violence. Satirical in nature, but I’m sure I used some flag words like “Nazi” and “Hitler”. We’ve all been slowly trained by an algorithm to make sure we don’t say the no no words, and more keep appearing. So you end up with people in Wall Street Bets saying they’re all “highly regarded” because they’ll get in trouble if they say what they used to say. As I’ve gotten older instead of feeling like an adult I’m feeling more and more like a child being nannied by all these services. If I worked at Twitter and Musk does precisely what he says, ensures you can say anything you can legally say in the US on Twitter, I feel like I’d be doing some good in the world to work for the company.
      - 4y ago
  - ddevault 4y ago
    Well, a sucker is born every day.
  - thrillgore 4y ago
    I think that number has shrunk since he seriously proposed sending people down a vacuum tube, as a way to stop a high speed rail project. https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions/ https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions...
- robswc 4y ago
  I'm not a hater of fellow SDEs but at the end of the day, what did people even do at twitter? Seemed like they spin wheels only to push out and then kill half-baked features. Ofc, this could be "anyone's" fault but all the same...
laweijfmvo 4y ago
There's probably a non-zero number of employees who would be excited to build something new, versus their current work at Twitter (assuming Musk follows through with making big changes). What those new things are and how they're managed will be more important than who owns the company IMO.
diebeforei485 4y ago
I think a lot of folks would love to work Twitter after they get rid of the low productivity virtue-performative people. This also allows them to move their HQ out of zombieland.
pelorat 4y ago
What do engineers at Twitter even do? I've not seen any noticable changes for years. Feels like a platform you could run with 10 developers.

I've heard second-hand that this whole drama has been a huge drag on folks working there. The way it was phrased to me is Musk's handling of this whole thing has made their work feel like it's all a joke. So, I don't know, but I would guess it's at least not going to be a positive thing for retention or hiring.

93po 4y ago
Let's be honest - working a twitter is a joke.
wincy 4y ago
I think there’s a lot of non Silicon Valley engineers like me that’d be super excited to go work at a Musk owned and operated Twitter.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- drcongo 4y ago
- coldpie 4y ago
  Fewer than you think, I expect. But who knows! To be honest, even though I expect to be closing my Twitter account after this, I'm not sad to see a shake-up in this space.
- Insanity 4y ago
  Honest question - why?
  - preommr 4y ago
    I am curious too. Putting aside Musk's... "immature behavior", there's many people that have talked about how horrible it is to work at places like SpaceX because of rough working conditions. And that's a field where people can feel passionate about doing something great for mankind.
    - wincy 4y ago
      I responded to the parent comment if you’re interested in my reasoning. You could be right though about the working conditions, I worked with some Tesla business analysts to do some software integration with them and it didn’t go super great. They wouldn’t communicate for m awhile, then they’d yell and screaming at us for not doing something they hadn’t asked us to do, seemed pretty bad. So you might be right! It’s possible I’d hate it.
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      Lots of people can get passionate about working for a free speech platform, I know I would. However, it's another question if Elon will deliver on that promise.
  - wincy 4y ago
    I’ve watched as the internet changed from this wondrous bastion of free speech into curated gardens acceptable to advertisers. Just the other day Facebook flagged me for hate speech because I used some analogy that wasn’t at all hate speech or advocating for violence. Satirical in nature, but I’m sure I used some flag words like “Nazi” and “Hitler”. We’ve all been slowly trained by an algorithm to make sure we don’t say the no no words, and more keep appearing. So you end up with people in Wall Street Bets saying they’re all “highly regarded” because they’ll get in trouble if they say what they used to say. As I’ve gotten older instead of feeling like an adult I’m feeling more and more like a child being nannied by all these services. If I worked at Twitter and Musk does precisely what he says, ensures you can say anything you can legally say in the US on Twitter, I feel like I’d be doing some good in the world to work for the company.
    - 4y ago
- ddevault 4y ago
  Well, a sucker is born every day.
- thrillgore 4y ago
  I think that number has shrunk since he seriously proposed sending people down a vacuum tube, as a way to stop a high speed rail project. https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions/ https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions...
robswc 4y ago
I'm not a hater of fellow SDEs but at the end of the day, what did people even do at twitter? Seemed like they spin wheels only to push out and then kill half-baked features. Ofc, this could be "anyone's" fault but all the same...

laweijfmvo 4y ago

There's probably a non-zero number of employees who would be excited to build something new, versus their current work at Twitter (assuming Musk follows through with making big changes). What those new things are and how they're managed will be more important than who owns the company IMO.

diebeforei485 4y ago

I think a lot of folks would love to work Twitter after they get rid of the low productivity virtue-performative people. This also allows them to move their HQ out of zombieland.

pelorat 4y ago

What do engineers at Twitter even do? I've not seen any noticable changes for years. Feels like a platform you could run with 10 developers.