3 ms·

Confused by the negative reactions, I see many big teams in big tech where none of the employees are providing real value.

rchaud 4y ago
The owner paid above market price, seems like they were delivering plenty of value.
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  He didn’t pay due to what Twitter currently is, he bought because of what he thinks he can make it. That obviously means a detour from their current direction, otherwise he would have just leaned back with his investment let things continue as they are and wait for them to become more valuable.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > he bought because of what he thinks he can make it. He bought because it is his favorite place to be, he said he would as a joke, decided why not and made an offer right before a massive valuation drop, and then was forced to by the courts if he wanted to avoid disclosing a lot of personal information. I don't think that he actually fantasizes about it making money.
- concinds 4y ago
  The value generated by employes determines the market capitalization, not the delta between market cap and acquisition bid. Whether you pay "above market price" or not has nothing to do with the value employees provide, but with how friendly or hostile the board and shareholders may be, or how willing to sell they are.
  - IX-103 4y ago
    False. The value generated by employees only loosely determine the market capitalization. Market cap is driven primarily by perceptions of future market cap. Employees don't suddenly become less productive because the stock market has a bad day.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  The first statement is true; the second is a non-sequitur.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Twitter only makes money through advertising and data engineering is absolutely critical to figure out targeting for ads.
nonameiguess 4y ago
Unless he thinks Twitter doesn't need data engineers at all, they now have to staff an entire department from scratch, with zero handoff of institutional and tribal knowledge. Maybe on a long enough time horizon, they're really that bad that it's worth it anyway, but realistically, I doubt Twitter has just been hiring nothing but worthless shitheads. Whatever you think you can achieve with a new team could have been achieved with at least some of these people. It's like sacking the entire Los Angeles Lakers. Yeah, they suck and they're an embarrassment, but there aren't literally zero salvageable personnel and you can't hope to field a better team from scratch within a few seasons, and you'll have to overpay just to try. At least there is no salary cap for tech firms, so they're legally allowed to overpay, but seeing the company is a mess and you risk being fired en masse just to put on a show for the press as far as I can tell, you're going to have to overpay even more now. Maybe his plan is to automate it all? Full self data engineering within 5 years?
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  One important thing to remember is that Elon had access to Twitter data for quite some time and you can be certain his team has built tooling to do whatever Elon wanted. It won't be a mature system, surely, but it will be in place.
- wwweston 4y ago
  Let's posit that he didn't buy twitter for the potential profits on twitter revenues, since there are any number of equal/better options for that, some of which he's already involved in. Perhaps he bought it because he's interested its capacity to shape (dare I say manipulate) public discourse, which he's utilized heavily, and may have taken umbrage when that was limited in any way. Now, perhaps, he plans to manipulate it further, in the way a singularly-minded owner can. One possible problem with that plan is if internal staff see what's happening, don't like it, and tell the world. Data engineering is the staff likely in the best position to see what's really happening on the platform and potentially tell others. So an owner motivated by wanting to manipulate the platform without pesky whistleblowers might want to fire them all and replace them with people selected for loyalty and/or buy-in on the motivations for manipulating twitter as a platform.

rchaud 4y ago

The owner paid above market price, seems like they were delivering plenty of value.

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
He didn’t pay due to what Twitter currently is, he bought because of what he thinks he can make it. That obviously means a detour from their current direction, otherwise he would have just leaned back with his investment let things continue as they are and wait for them to become more valuable.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > he bought because of what he thinks he can make it. He bought because it is his favorite place to be, he said he would as a joke, decided why not and made an offer right before a massive valuation drop, and then was forced to by the courts if he wanted to avoid disclosing a lot of personal information. I don't think that he actually fantasizes about it making money.
concinds 4y ago
The value generated by employes determines the market capitalization, not the delta between market cap and acquisition bid. Whether you pay "above market price" or not has nothing to do with the value employees provide, but with how friendly or hostile the board and shareholders may be, or how willing to sell they are.
- IX-103 4y ago
  False. The value generated by employees only loosely determine the market capitalization. Market cap is driven primarily by perceptions of future market cap. Employees don't suddenly become less productive because the stock market has a bad day.
gnicholas 4y ago
The first statement is true; the second is a non-sequitur.

qbasic_forever 4y ago

Twitter only makes money through advertising and data engineering is absolutely critical to figure out targeting for ads.

nonameiguess 4y ago

Unless he thinks Twitter doesn't need data engineers at all, they now have to staff an entire department from scratch, with zero handoff of institutional and tribal knowledge. Maybe on a long enough time horizon, they're really that bad that it's worth it anyway, but realistically, I doubt Twitter has just been hiring nothing but worthless shitheads. Whatever you think you can achieve with a new team could have been achieved with at least some of these people. It's like sacking the entire Los Angeles Lakers. Yeah, they suck and they're an embarrassment, but there aren't literally zero salvageable personnel and you can't hope to field a better team from scratch within a few seasons, and you'll have to overpay just to try. At least there is no salary cap for tech firms, so they're legally allowed to overpay, but seeing the company is a mess and you risk being fired en masse just to put on a show for the press as far as I can tell, you're going to have to overpay even more now. Maybe his plan is to automate it all? Full self data engineering within 5 years?

Consultant32452 4y ago
One important thing to remember is that Elon had access to Twitter data for quite some time and you can be certain his team has built tooling to do whatever Elon wanted. It won't be a mature system, surely, but it will be in place.
wwweston 4y ago
Let's posit that he didn't buy twitter for the potential profits on twitter revenues, since there are any number of equal/better options for that, some of which he's already involved in. Perhaps he bought it because he's interested its capacity to shape (dare I say manipulate) public discourse, which he's utilized heavily, and may have taken umbrage when that was limited in any way. Now, perhaps, he plans to manipulate it further, in the way a singularly-minded owner can. One possible problem with that plan is if internal staff see what's happening, don't like it, and tell the world. Data engineering is the staff likely in the best position to see what's really happening on the platform and potentially tell others. So an owner motivated by wanting to manipulate the platform without pesky whistleblowers might want to fire them all and replace them with people selected for loyalty and/or buy-in on the motivations for manipulating twitter as a platform.