5 ms·

If you're Musk and you truly believes that the company is bloated with underperforming employees, what is the alternative?

rurp 4y ago
The alternative is to take a measured approach to learning about the business and org, in order to make informed decisions about how to restructure efficiently. But of course that takes time and effort. For somebody impetuous and self-indulgent, it's much more satisfying to go in swinging a machete on day one.
- superfrank 4y ago
  So is you issue not that he's laying off all these people, but just the speed that he's doing this? Or to put it another way, let's say that he took a year and really studied Twitter and then came to the same conclusion and did the same layoffs, would you have an issue with it then?
  - rurp 4y ago
    If Elon or anyone else actually has strong reason to believe that certain employees are dead weight I'm fine with them being laid off. Given the speed and general dysfunction of this particular case there's basically no chance that's what is going on here.
    - jupp0r 4y ago
      Exactly. If there was a way to determine the least performing 50% of employees in a matter of two days, they wouldn't be there in the first place anymore. Even if you fire them, that's a surefire way of making sure that the best 5% of people leave the company anyways do to the depressing atmosphere this creates.
      - mft_ 4y ago
        > If there was a way to determine the least performing 50% of employees in a matter of two days, they wouldn't be there in the first place anymore. This would assume that the previous management had an incentive to cut costs and remove 50% of their workforce... which is probably not the case at all.
        jupp0r 4y ago
        What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so? Do you think that Elon Musk has some special magic insight that makes him get the same amount of work done with half the resources? I know some people at Twitter and some people at Musk's companies and I don't think they are fundamentally run differently.
        dnissley 4y ago
        My experience is that most companies are pretty averse to firing people in general, even in the US with at-will employment, and even when there are many people who are moderately incompetent (so long as they are not posing obvious risks to the company, e.g. sexual harassment, etc.).
        Nathanba 4y ago
        >What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so? They probably don't know who the unproductive ones are anymore because without a fresh look at things they can't think about it objectively. They give tasks to people and they get done at the same speed as they've always been done with. How do you suddenly decide: Hey actually guys, I know we were working like this for 6 years but actually, we should be 40% faster on every single task so... you know.. start working faster please and everyone who doesn't gets fired. It's just not realistic for existing managers to do this for so many reasons. Unless absolutely forced by financial realities which was apparently never the case for Twitter.
        hnfong 4y ago
        As you might have noticed, it is quite painful to fire people, and if you have a public profile (as most CEOs of large corps usually do), you get a reputation hit for being ruthless and all that stuff. Previous management at Twitter didn't own a significant percentage of the company shares. Why be the "bad guy" when the paychecks are still rolling in? But when it's your "own money" at stake, you get much more motivated to cut unnecessary costs. Even if that makes lots of people on the Internet hate you.

rurp 4y ago

The alternative is to take a measured approach to learning about the business and org, in order to make informed decisions about how to restructure efficiently. But of course that takes time and effort. For somebody impetuous and self-indulgent, it's much more satisfying to go in swinging a machete on day one.

superfrank 4y ago
So is you issue not that he's laying off all these people, but just the speed that he's doing this? Or to put it another way, let's say that he took a year and really studied Twitter and then came to the same conclusion and did the same layoffs, would you have an issue with it then?
- rurp 4y ago
  If Elon or anyone else actually has strong reason to believe that certain employees are dead weight I'm fine with them being laid off. Given the speed and general dysfunction of this particular case there's basically no chance that's what is going on here.
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    Exactly. If there was a way to determine the least performing 50% of employees in a matter of two days, they wouldn't be there in the first place anymore. Even if you fire them, that's a surefire way of making sure that the best 5% of people leave the company anyways do to the depressing atmosphere this creates.
    - mft_ 4y ago
      > If there was a way to determine the least performing 50% of employees in a matter of two days, they wouldn't be there in the first place anymore. This would assume that the previous management had an incentive to cut costs and remove 50% of their workforce... which is probably not the case at all.
      - jupp0r 4y ago
        What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so? Do you think that Elon Musk has some special magic insight that makes him get the same amount of work done with half the resources? I know some people at Twitter and some people at Musk's companies and I don't think they are fundamentally run differently.
        dnissley 4y ago
        My experience is that most companies are pretty averse to firing people in general, even in the US with at-will employment, and even when there are many people who are moderately incompetent (so long as they are not posing obvious risks to the company, e.g. sexual harassment, etc.).
        Nathanba 4y ago
        >What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so? They probably don't know who the unproductive ones are anymore because without a fresh look at things they can't think about it objectively. They give tasks to people and they get done at the same speed as they've always been done with. How do you suddenly decide: Hey actually guys, I know we were working like this for 6 years but actually, we should be 40% faster on every single task so... you know.. start working faster please and everyone who doesn't gets fired. It's just not realistic for existing managers to do this for so many reasons. Unless absolutely forced by financial realities which was apparently never the case for Twitter.
        hnfong 4y ago
        As you might have noticed, it is quite painful to fire people, and if you have a public profile (as most CEOs of large corps usually do), you get a reputation hit for being ruthless and all that stuff. Previous management at Twitter didn't own a significant percentage of the company shares. Why be the "bad guy" when the paychecks are still rolling in? But when it's your "own money" at stake, you get much more motivated to cut unnecessary costs. Even if that makes lots of people on the Internet hate you.