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Twitter now asks some fired workers to please come back
- phoe-krk 4y agoHeavy Freenode vibes here.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blueflow 4y agoI feel relieved that Twitter is going downhill. People finally realized it might not be the greatest thing ever and see it more critical.
- insanitybit 4y agoI don't think the reason Twitter is going downhill has anything to do with people realizing it might not be the great thing ever.
- blueflow 4y agoI did not mean to imply causation.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LadyCailin 4y agoI just really don’t understand how this whole situation has been this badly mismanaged. I fully believe his original offer to be a troll, but then he got stuck with it, but he has since so mismanaged this entire affair that I simply can’t understand how. Is the guy surrounding himself with idiotic advisers? Has he just gotten so far from reality that he can’t make reasonable predictions? Has he gone off some meds? It just makes no sense.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago> I just really don’t understand how this whole situation has been this badly mismanaged. You and almost the whole world. There are still some people left believing him to play some kind of genius 4D chess. Same thing happens for Trump and Ye.
- taffronaut 4y agoMaybe Thiel is playing the 4D chess in the run up to 2024 and Musk is on board as a very effective distraction who thinks he's the central player.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoEver since thiel datamined humanitys true nature out of facebooks data he and all his associated are in full catastrophe fallback mode. If a decline to authoriatarian rule can not be prevented, at least make it controlled. Its also a visible background pattern in almost all larger tech investment - build technology that can not be used for exponential damage in the wrong hands and make humanity resilient to catastrophic change. Example: Youtube videos containg tutorials that survive all of humanity dieing of that knew a certain technology.
- squokko 4y agoBut the clear difference is that Musk is very clearly an extremely high IQ guy. Trump and Ye have incredible skills in their domain but Musk has really high general intelligence, but is clearly fucking this up beyond anyone's expectations.
- agubelu 4y agoI don't know if that is the case, but if it is, it's a perfect example of the difference between intelligence and wisdom.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoIQ is about processing speed, not processing quality. If you're operating outside of your competence with limited awareness and inaccurate contextual assumptions you can be super-smart and still make incredibly stupid decisions.
- chris_wot 4y agoMy strong advice is: take the severance package and go somewhere else. It ain’t going to be a good place to work. Any place that can “accidentally” fire you is a place you should stay away from.
- strken 4y agoSome of them can probably finagle their way into a short-term contract at 5x the previous hourly rate. I'd honestly be tempted.
- t0mas88 4y ago> Some of those who are being asked to return were laid off by mistake, according to two people familiar with the moves. Sure, "laid off by mistake" is a way to describe incompetence...
- still_grokking 4y agoJust to clarify: Whose incompetence? I would assume the executing people were still people form Twitter before Musk. Or not?
- pavlov 4y agoMusk brought in his own people to decide on layoffs, apparently mostly sourced among his VC friends and Tesla engineering.
- t0mas88 4y agoManagement incompetence at several levels. Apparently the CEO and his advisors choose to execute layoffs at this speed, others below that either didn't push back (could be due to the type of CEO / associated culture) or their pushback was ignored. The end result is the organization doing things that clearly aren't in its own interest which is a management fail.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- idontwantthis 4y agoI need the inside gossip so badly.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> I need the inside gossip so badly. They should have him on All In this week, since both Jason C. and David S. are assisting with that process and they keep he narrative that the ship is being turned around and cleaning house is what really needed to be done in order to pivot from growth to profit. If you can't even take into account what staff members you had cause to layoff, after having the former CEO escorted off the premises after having brought in a sink 'for the lulz' than something needs to be done. Then again, it's a private company and he doesn't respond to anyone anymore.
- satya71 4y agoFor layoff of this scale, finding a few mistakes seems well within reason.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> Many employees learned they lost their job after their access to company-wide systems, like email and Slack, were suddenly suspended. The requests for employees to return demonstrate how rushed and chaotic the process was. This is par for Musk corps, literally the day after my interview at Fremont they laid off 9% of total staff in 2018 [0] because of how poorly Model 3 launch had fared in the beginning. I can't go into specifics, much of which are public now, but it was so disheartening after having been so well received and cordial and enthusiastic; everyone was completely there because how important 'the mission' was only to be told 'don't come back' in incredibly uncouth manner. When they sent the message out the next day, which is how many found out they've been laid off, calamity struck and it was clear that this was a deliberate tactic to re-shuffle and quell not just the rumors of Model 3's shortcomings amongst the rank-and-file staff, but to sweep the poor safety record in the factory under the rug and the have intimidation creep for those who sought to Unionize--at the time I was not in favour of it, but as time went on and I got more insider information from other team members I soon realized that it was likely needed despite my initial apprehension. In short, I want to see the demise of social media's influence on the Internet (aka Web2.0) and if this represents how the most lauded CEO in SV handles things then I think we're nearing the end sooner rather than later. I think it's a commonly held sentiment that Social Media ruined most of what was magical of the early Internet and ushered in what has been the worst eternal September phase. I just hope it's not too late to correct this as Zuck is killing his corp in an equally embarrassing and out of touch manner. 0: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619426602/tesla-lays-off-9-percent-of-workforce https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619426602/tesla-lays-off-9-pe...
- rockzom 4y ago"Par for the corps" here is great
- prox 4y agoLots of social media seems to be a global shouting match, rather than thoughtful discussion. For instance you have first hand experience with Tesla, which is valuable. Many comments are posted after not even reading beyond a headline. It’s like standing on a crowded square and everyone just shouts out whatever they think. Unfortunately running ads and thoughtful, curious, spacious and timely discussion (and listening!) do not go well. Too often algorithms where (are?) tweaked for drama engagement.
- mkl95 4y agoSounds like they want to lay them off with three weeks notice or whatever the law mandates in that area to prevent legal action. Personally I would accept the offer and do the bare minimum while I look for a new job.
- bagels 4y agoAccept, with some extra consideration, and still look.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- highwaylights 4y agoI don’t see why anyone would take that deal for a few weeks income, given how much it seems to matter to the company that just laid them off.
- tablespoon 4y ago> I don’t see why anyone would take that deal for a few weeks income, given how much it seems to matter to the company that just laid them off. Getting called back immediately after a layoff seems like a pretty strong indication you can get away with a lot. Also, the quality of the organization's work on your layoff should indicate the quality of work the organization should get. Just take it easy and make sure you don't give them any key knowledge they need in a decipherable way.
- mhoad 4y agoIt’s really hard to overstate how badly things are going over there at this point. It’s incredibly obvious by now that Elon and his crew of weirdos currently running the show (David Sacks and Jason Calacanis etc) were just marinating for years in an echo chamber of right-wing propaganda full of resentment against Blue Checks, fantasies of "shadowbanning", resentment of rules against hate speech, and lies about politics and other topics. They are just making things up as they go in what is quickly becoming the new textbook reference of the Dunning-Kruger effect (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect)
- unsupp0rted 4y agoIt’s not incredibly obvious to me. “Move fast and break things” is a viable strategy some of the time. Works for MVPs. Doesn’t work for surgeons. The corollary is “the cost of fixing broken things that need fixing because you broke them while moving fast is a fraction of the cost of not moving fast”. Does any of this apply to Twitter? We don’t know. It could still go in either direction and whichever way it goes in retrospect it’ll seem obvious and inevitable.
- mhoad 4y agoI think your first sentence kind of sums things up here. That isn’t the case for many others especially those who aren’t JUST in the tech ecosystem.
- pvg 4y agothreads 12 hrs ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496808 133 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496822 18 comments
- fabian2k 4y agoThe interesting parts it going to be how many people that are important to keeping Twitter running are going to quit in addition to the fired ones. It's not going to be a nice place to work for, so those people that are financially well off and those that can get good jobs somewhere else are probably considering their options right now.
- nixcraft 4y agoThe whole thing could have been avoided if Twitter/Elon had done it step-by-step instead of terminating staff in bulk. Everyone in tech is reducing headcount, but Elon likes to do stuff on a grand scale. He needs a human Twitter firewall (social media team who can say "NO") to verify each Tweet before sending it, causing chaos every day. But what do I know? I have never been CEO, so I have no idea.
- agubelu 4y agoWell, apparently being a CEO isn't that demanding, considering that you can be CEO of three pretty big companies at the same time and still find some free time to shitpost on Twitter.
- pjc50 4y agoHe just spent $44 billion to eliminate any firewall between him and his audience. His whole thing is turning a dashed off thought on Twitter into a binding commitment that causes dramatic changes.
- uri4 4y ago> it's not going to be a nice place to work for, so those people that are financially well off I beg to differ. People who are crucial to operation will be much better off. Less meetings, less bloat, less bs, probably better salary. I do consulting. Recession is good for business, companies lay off team of 10 developers and replace it with single remote consultant for 40% of cost. Also less taxes, since I work in different country.... You do the math.
- 4y ago
- potro 4y agoAre these fired workers really fired from legal perspective? Or they are suspended and informed that their employment contract will end on Feb 2nd?
- zaarn 4y agoAtleast where I live, when you fire someone that's it. They're fired. Even if they still work for 60 days because that's the minimum notice period. The only way to reinstitute the contract is if both sides sign a new contract to overwrite the termination. And this can be used to amend the employment contract too. So where I live, you'd be in a prime position to negotiate better paychecks because without both employee and employer agreeing, a termination has finality.
- suprjami 4y agoiiuc the California WARN act doesn't let a large company (more than 15 employees) just fire half the workforce, so I guess these people have been locked out of their work accounts with full pay and informed of a future termination date.
- saos 4y agoSorry why did Twitter need 7000. Employees? How many many were engineers?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mkl95 4y agoNot sure, but a good hint is that Twitter make most of their money from ads and data. They could have thousands of sales people.
- willsmith72 4y agoI saw an article that at least 1-2k are on moderation/safety
- Raed667 4y agoHow come they don't they outsource to Accenture the same way Facebook does? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/technology/facebook-accenture-content-moderation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/technology/facebook-accen...
- vntok 4y agoYes that was insane. Exactly one year before Whatsapp sold to Facebook for 19 billion dollars, that is in February 2013, they had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. And not all of those staff members were developers I imagine.
- Maken 4y agoThey have datacenters around the globe and small teams in other countries, both to hadle the local infraestructure and to have always someone on the clock in case some problem arises. For example, in my country they had 11 employes handling the datacenters (which apparently have been also fired).
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
- grecy 4y agoSo I've seen every news agency on the planet run this story, and they either cite each other in a huge circle, or they cite "people familiar with the matter". Do we have 100% concrete first-hand documented evidence this actually happened to more than -let's say- 10 people? Somehow, I highly doubt it.
- Laaas 4y agoIt seems to me that unfortunately there's a lot of "tesla man bad" going around, causing dubious stories to be spread before they're verified. You'll also see lots of people claiming Musk somehow broke employment law by not giving notice of termination, which is unproven, and in direct contradiction with what he tweeted himself (he said everyone gets ~90 days of salary IIRC).
- grecy 4y agoPainting him as reckless and stupid and like he doesn't know what he's doing is a great way to sink TSLA. I certainly don't agree with everything he has said and done, though I can't help but be skeptical people are just jumping on the bandwagon without any concrete evidence/details.
- carabiner 4y agoI can't emphasize how strongly news outlets zero-in on topics that might be inflammatory with almost algorithmic precision. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, there was a story about some Amazon SWE's celebrating the outcome. It's a perfect blend of "Amazon bad + perennial political topic." Amazon has 70,000 software engineers; if some of them weren't politically conservative I'd be very surprised.
- hoseja 4y agoThe intensity of "Tesla man bad" recently has been really astounding. I don't get it. I mean I kinda do but not this frothing mouth rabidity.
- lm28469 4y ago
- IceDane 4y agoThis is going about exactly as terrible as you'd have guessed it would. Usually there is some redeeming thing, but it doesn't look like there is in this case. When they started the layoffs, and with such short notice, I just knew there was a 0% chance that they'd happened properly and with proper preparation. There's going to be so much domain knowledge and expertise that's been lost, and half the teams are probably just adrift and confused because they now either have to do 2x the work or 2x their timelines, at the very least. Doing 2x the work might then also mean doing a bunch of work you're not informed about, so it might actually be 3x or 4x the work for someone coming in. If I had gotten the boot and they were asking me to come back, I don't think I'd be saying yes, unless it was necessary from a financial standpoint. And even then I'd only stick around until I found a new job, at which point I would quit without notice.
- regular 4y ago
- rob74 4y ago> “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Musk tweeted on Friday. The real question here is probably why anyone would pay 44 billion dollars for a company losing 4 million dollars per day. I mean, it's not some promising startup, it's a company that's been around for a while and has only managed to be profitable for 2 years out of the last 12 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income...)?
- pjc50 4y agoTake note of the detailed proposal: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45a-163f-4cba-ad33-68ddc6063fc8.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45... (from https://www.zdnet.com/article/musk-did-not-seek-due-diligence-and-the-44b-deal-will-be-completed-twitter/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/musk-did-not-seek-due-diligenc... ) : page 49 "Mr. Musk also disclosed that his acquisition proposal was no longer subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence" For whatever reason, probably his rising annoyance with Twitter, he decided to skip due diligence and rush the deal.
- stefan_ 4y ago$3M of that daily loss is just in paying interest on the $13B of debt he loaded up the company with to pay off the old shareholders
- rob74 4y agoAh, the good (?) old hedge fund "you pay us for buying you" technique (I'm sure there's a fancier name for it, IANAInvestor).
- manfre 4y agoLeveraged buyout
- implements 4y ago“Leveraged Buyout”. Why other investors allow the buyer to assign the debt to the company being bought rather than the buyer alludes me, as I’d assume this weakens the collateral securing the debt.