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> Another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters last week said the total number of layoffs is likel

> Another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters last week said the total number of layoffs is likely to be closer to 50 percent. Unless I’m missing something, the only sources for this article are a mix of speculation and anonymous sources who can’t even agree with each other about the layoff.

yrgulation 4y ago
This is mainly media workers exploiting current events for traffic, even if their content is misleading. We really need to sort out media corruption and incompetence.
- georgeg23 4y ago
  Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this?
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Phone, email, and in person are safe if you trust your counterparty?
    - forbiddenvoid 4y ago
      Personal email, obviously. Never discuss anything of this nature on any communication medium that is owned by your employer. There's a reason "Direct Message" labeling overtook "Private Message" in chat apps.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Depending upon how sensitive I’d generally try to avoid written communications in general. It’s easy for even well-meaning friends, current or ex-workers to forward something without thinking it through.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this? How did people communicate before the invention of Twitter and employer provided email and slack channels?
    - Emigre_ 4y ago
      Bulletin board systems?
  - ddingus 4y ago
    On them. I absolutely would have no trouble finding / creating a space and the Twitter people are likely far more capable.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- habitue 4y ago
  > This is mainly media workers exploiting current events for traffic This is basically what news is. The media "exploits" (reports on) current events, gets traffic and then pays its employees
- fasthands9 4y ago
  Washington Post isn't a random blog. https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=twitter+elon&facets=%7B%22time%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%22relevancy%22%2C%22section%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22author%22%3A%5B%5D%7D https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=twitter+elon&fa... Did a quick search of Elon + Twitter. Everything they reported seems factual and tied to things that actually happened? If Twitter does lay off a large amount of people will you admit that Washington Post probably had good sources or continue to be continually skeptical? I think part of wanting a good media atmosphere is rewarding news sources that are shown to be reliable - and I would argue Washington Post is close to that.
  - phone8675309 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
phpisthebest 4y ago
- Rahul_Ligma 4y ago
- more_corn 4y ago
  Are you disagreeing that layoffs are happening at twitter? Elon told investors it would happen, and he needs to increase profit by $1.5B to stop losing money. Layoffs are guaranteed. The question is will it be 25% as reported or 75% as Elon promised. The answer is we can’t know because nobody knows. It’ll probably something in between.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    What investors? The company is being delisted in one week.
    - amalcon 4y ago
      The investors in the acquisition? A company doesn't need to be listed on an exchange to have investors.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    I am disagreeing that they have happened, or that news sources have any accurate or reportable info on what will happen They have a bunch of rumors, and panicked employees as "sources" none of which are likely in a position to know anything with any degree of certainty and it is widely irresponsible to report on it as if it was factual
hotpotamus 4y ago
Sometimes people have their own motives and don't always tell you the truth or at least omit to tell you their plans. As a co-worker once told me, welcome to the mud pit along with everyone else you'll be a competitor with while trying to build a career and hopefully a decent product.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Balgair 4y ago
I dunno. WaPo isn't the best of new reporting agencies [0], but it's certainly not the worst. They do have standards and they don't make up the large majority of their data. Meaning, they have actually talked to someone that is 'familiar' with the 'deal' at some point 'last week.' It's not pure speculation on WaPo's part, though it maybe pure-unrefined-grade-A speculation on the contact's part. If I had to bet, and many HNers out there are currently in that seat, then I'd bet on their reporting over other forms of pure speculation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_...
- slg 4y ago
  Yeah, insiders not knowing the full details of Musk's plan because Musk doesn't have a detailed plan yet seems more likely than WaPo just making some stuff up.
  - kylecordes 4y ago
    As a casual observer, it appears that he moves very, very quickly. An insider might have read his mind yesterday but not be familiar with his current plan being executed today. Of course this can lead to big results in some cases and erratic chaos in others.
- stusmall 4y ago
  Honestly, that isn't a super convincing source. Every news outlet has a criticism section. For an almost 150 year old organization, that is pretty sparse. Even better some of things in there are non-issues like "Trump repeatedly railed against The Washington Post on his Twitter account." Who didn't he tweet "fake news" at? News agencies are organizations made of humans that have flaws and we should always treat with a critical eye. But we shouldn't just dismiss one out of hand as not one of the best because of the existence of a "Criticism and controversies" section on Wikipedia especially when it is FAR tamer than many mainstream competitors.
  - chihuahua 4y ago
gamblor956 4y ago
Can verify that Twitter is laying people off. Several contacts at Twitter were laid off this weekend and hoping they I could submit their resumes to my current employer. They were told that these were performance based terminations, despite not receiving any negative evaluations during their time at Twitter. They were also told they needed to sign NDAs in order to receive any severance. Can't confirm the %.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  maybe performance of Twitter, not the particular employees?
  - pc86 4y ago
    That's called a layoff.
    - chris11 4y ago
      Layoffs can be more expensive than terminating for cause. https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-sued-by-former-employees-over-mass-layoff-2022-06-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-sued-by-former-employ...
      - pc86 4y ago
        Sorry what does that have to do with the thread? Tweeps are being told these are performance-related terminations, not layoffs. It was posited that "performance" was referring to Twitter, not the employee. I simply pointed out that's exactly what a layoff was, and performance in this context can only mean the employee, not the company.
- sosodev 4y ago
  Is requiring an NDA for severance even legal? That's seriously sketchy
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
burkaman 4y ago
Sources cited in the article are: - four people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity - numerous employees contacted by The Post, who spoke on the condition of anonymity - tweets from some of the people involved - photos obtained by The Washington Post - A document filed with financial regulators Monday - interviews and documents obtained by The Post - court records
- 93po 4y ago
  What is the bar for "familiar with the discussions"? I read a news article about it, does that make me familiar? Does the person setting up the conference room count as familiar? Numerous employees - how much insight does a web developer at Twitter have into the inner workings of the management shift happening right now? Photos of what? The conference room? Are we going to pull in a body language expert to analyze what Elon was saying by walking into the room with sneakers instead of dress shoes? There is no accountability for sources in journalism, and it's why I think it's 99% useless garbage and never read it. Journalists and publications find the sources they want to tell the story they already planned to write regardless of reality.
simonw 4y ago
This is how high quality journalism works. There's actually quite an involved skill to reading and fully understanding this kind of writing - and it's infuriatingly difficult to pick up that skill (I've been developing it by spending time talking to professional journalists, but I'm still not there yet). When you read "another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters", you need to translate it to something more like the following: The journalist who wrote this has found a credible source, who has insider knowledge. That source has requested anonymity, and the journalist finds that request credible. The journalist then used their skills and experience in writing about this area over the course of their career to evaluate if that source was trustworthy. They also considered if the source had their own motivations which could affect what information they chose to share and why. The journalist may have then cross-checked that information against other sources of information to help evaluate its credibility. This becomes more important the more high stakes the claim in question becomes. An editor (and potentially even separate fact checkers) evaluated the statement as well, and applied judgement as to whether it held up firmly enough to be published. There are so many phrases like this in top-tier journalism. When an experienced journalist reads an article from someone else that says "a senior official in the administration said..." they can often narrow that down to just a dozen or so potential people, based on their knowledge of that beat. As a non-journalist reading newspapers this is pretty infuriating, because there's this whole language that you need to know about in order to fully understand what's being communicated here.
- brainphreeze 4y ago
  Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    It's not.
- EarlKing 4y ago
  [flagged]
- phone8675309 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

yrgulation 4y ago

This is mainly media workers exploiting current events for traffic, even if their content is misleading. We really need to sort out media corruption and incompetence.

georgeg23 4y ago
Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Phone, email, and in person are safe if you trust your counterparty?
  - forbiddenvoid 4y ago
    Personal email, obviously. Never discuss anything of this nature on any communication medium that is owned by your employer. There's a reason "Direct Message" labeling overtook "Private Message" in chat apps.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Depending upon how sensitive I’d generally try to avoid written communications in general. It’s easy for even well-meaning friends, current or ex-workers to forward something without thinking it through.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Do Twitter employees have a safe place to discuss this? How did people communicate before the invention of Twitter and employer provided email and slack channels?
  - Emigre_ 4y ago
    Bulletin board systems?
- ddingus 4y ago
  On them. I absolutely would have no trouble finding / creating a space and the Twitter people are likely far more capable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
habitue 4y ago
> This is mainly media workers exploiting current events for traffic This is basically what news is. The media "exploits" (reports on) current events, gets traffic and then pays its employees
fasthands9 4y ago
Washington Post isn't a random blog. https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=twitter+elon&facets=%7B%22time%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%22relevancy%22%2C%22section%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22author%22%3A%5B%5D%7D https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=twitter+elon&fa... Did a quick search of Elon + Twitter. Everything they reported seems factual and tied to things that actually happened? If Twitter does lay off a large amount of people will you admit that Washington Post probably had good sources or continue to be continually skeptical? I think part of wanting a good media atmosphere is rewarding news sources that are shown to be reliable - and I would argue Washington Post is close to that.
- phone8675309 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

phpisthebest 4y ago

Rahul_Ligma 4y ago
more_corn 4y ago
Are you disagreeing that layoffs are happening at twitter? Elon told investors it would happen, and he needs to increase profit by $1.5B to stop losing money. Layoffs are guaranteed. The question is will it be 25% as reported or 75% as Elon promised. The answer is we can’t know because nobody knows. It’ll probably something in between.
- rchaud 4y ago
  What investors? The company is being delisted in one week.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    The investors in the acquisition? A company doesn't need to be listed on an exchange to have investors.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I am disagreeing that they have happened, or that news sources have any accurate or reportable info on what will happen They have a bunch of rumors, and panicked employees as "sources" none of which are likely in a position to know anything with any degree of certainty and it is widely irresponsible to report on it as if it was factual

hotpotamus 4y ago

Sometimes people have their own motives and don't always tell you the truth or at least omit to tell you their plans. As a co-worker once told me, welcome to the mud pit along with everyone else you'll be a competitor with while trying to build a career and hopefully a decent product.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Balgair 4y ago

I dunno. WaPo isn't the best of new reporting agencies [0], but it's certainly not the worst. They do have standards and they don't make up the large majority of their data. Meaning, they have actually talked to someone that is 'familiar' with the 'deal' at some point 'last week.' It's not pure speculation on WaPo's part, though it maybe pure-unrefined-grade-A speculation on the contact's part. If I had to bet, and many HNers out there are currently in that seat, then I'd bet on their reporting over other forms of pure speculation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_...

slg 4y ago
Yeah, insiders not knowing the full details of Musk's plan because Musk doesn't have a detailed plan yet seems more likely than WaPo just making some stuff up.
- kylecordes 4y ago
  As a casual observer, it appears that he moves very, very quickly. An insider might have read his mind yesterday but not be familiar with his current plan being executed today. Of course this can lead to big results in some cases and erratic chaos in others.
stusmall 4y ago
Honestly, that isn't a super convincing source. Every news outlet has a criticism section. For an almost 150 year old organization, that is pretty sparse. Even better some of things in there are non-issues like "Trump repeatedly railed against The Washington Post on his Twitter account." Who didn't he tweet "fake news" at? News agencies are organizations made of humans that have flaws and we should always treat with a critical eye. But we shouldn't just dismiss one out of hand as not one of the best because of the existence of a "Criticism and controversies" section on Wikipedia especially when it is FAR tamer than many mainstream competitors.
- chihuahua 4y ago

gamblor956 4y ago

Can verify that Twitter is laying people off. Several contacts at Twitter were laid off this weekend and hoping they I could submit their resumes to my current employer. They were told that these were performance based terminations, despite not receiving any negative evaluations during their time at Twitter. They were also told they needed to sign NDAs in order to receive any severance. Can't confirm the %.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
maybe performance of Twitter, not the particular employees?
- pc86 4y ago
  That's called a layoff.
  - chris11 4y ago
    Layoffs can be more expensive than terminating for cause. https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-sued-by-former-employees-over-mass-layoff-2022-06-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-sued-by-former-employ...
    - pc86 4y ago
      Sorry what does that have to do with the thread? Tweeps are being told these are performance-related terminations, not layoffs. It was posited that "performance" was referring to Twitter, not the employee. I simply pointed out that's exactly what a layoff was, and performance in this context can only mean the employee, not the company.
sosodev 4y ago
Is requiring an NDA for severance even legal? That's seriously sketchy
- lotsofpulp 4y ago

burkaman 4y ago

Sources cited in the article are: - four people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity - numerous employees contacted by The Post, who spoke on the condition of anonymity - tweets from some of the people involved - photos obtained by The Washington Post - A document filed with financial regulators Monday - interviews and documents obtained by The Post - court records

93po 4y ago
What is the bar for "familiar with the discussions"? I read a news article about it, does that make me familiar? Does the person setting up the conference room count as familiar? Numerous employees - how much insight does a web developer at Twitter have into the inner workings of the management shift happening right now? Photos of what? The conference room? Are we going to pull in a body language expert to analyze what Elon was saying by walking into the room with sneakers instead of dress shoes? There is no accountability for sources in journalism, and it's why I think it's 99% useless garbage and never read it. Journalists and publications find the sources they want to tell the story they already planned to write regardless of reality.

simonw 4y ago

This is how high quality journalism works. There's actually quite an involved skill to reading and fully understanding this kind of writing - and it's infuriatingly difficult to pick up that skill (I've been developing it by spending time talking to professional journalists, but I'm still not there yet). When you read "another person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters", you need to translate it to something more like the following: The journalist who wrote this has found a credible source, who has insider knowledge. That source has requested anonymity, and the journalist finds that request credible. The journalist then used their skills and experience in writing about this area over the course of their career to evaluate if that source was trustworthy. They also considered if the source had their own motivations which could affect what information they chose to share and why. The journalist may have then cross-checked that information against other sources of information to help evaluate its credibility. This becomes more important the more high stakes the claim in question becomes. An editor (and potentially even separate fact checkers) evaluated the statement as well, and applied judgement as to whether it held up firmly enough to be published. There are so many phrases like this in top-tier journalism. When an experienced journalist reads an article from someone else that says "a senior official in the administration said..." they can often narrow that down to just a dozen or so potential people, based on their knowledge of that beat. As a non-journalist reading newspapers this is pretty infuriating, because there's this whole language that you need to know about in order to fully understand what's being communicated here.

brainphreeze 4y ago
Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
- giantrobot 4y ago
  It's not.
EarlKing 4y ago
[flagged]
phone8675309 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]