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Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

103 points by e2e4 4y ago

makerofthings 4y ago
Quit, take severance , look for a job or don’t quit and look for a job. Guess it depends how fast you think you can get a new job.
Gortal278 4y ago
Who would hang around at Twitter voluntarily? Gotta be out of their minds. I get that are people trapped with responsibilities or by visa/legal status but who would want to hang around?
crazygringo 4y ago
Serious question... why would anyone actually stay? If your hours are being doubled without your salary being doubled, and you'll get three months' severance if you leave... Who in their right mind wouldn't take the severance and go find a job elsewhere with normal hours for the same pay? Nobody's curing cancer or inventing AI here. There's no grand noble mission to convince you to stay. It's just Twitter. Basically everyone who stays is getting their hourly rate cut in half or something like that. And these are all qualified professionals who can find other jobs. Why would anyone stay?
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > Why would anyone stay? It surfaces both the desperate and the spies.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  If a job is meaningful you can get people to stay because they believe in it. I've done it for two projects. That said, twitter isn't that. I imagine he just want to get rid of as many people as he can.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > why would anyone actually stay? People who are on a work visa would likely be hesitant to not click 'yes' at this point. Given all of the recent layoffs there are probably also some people who are afraid of being able to find another job and have medical/family/debt issues. But yeah, if you're confident you could find another gig and have money saved up, the 3 months severance to escape that mess would probably look really good right now.
  - a-priori 4y ago
    If I were on a work visa I would click "yes", then start looking for another job (if I weren't already looking). No need to start the clock on your visa expiring if you don't have to. In any other situation, I'd take the 3 months pay and move on with my life.
- misja111 4y ago
  The good ones will leave, the ones who fear they can't find anything else will stay.
  - TillE 4y ago
    Seriously, even if you're a true believer in Elon Musk's vision for humanity or whatever, the working conditions just sound miserable. Twitter will almost certainly lose a ton of their best workers now, and more in the coming months.
    - tluyben2 4y ago
      Yeah, I get why a younger version of me would click Yes working at spaceX and maybe even Tesla, but Twitter???
- secretsatan 4y ago
  We should stop calling it working hard and call it wage theft instead
  - secretsatan 4y ago
    I can’t remember which investment bank suffered a revolt of their junior workers, but their line was, hard work will pay off, meaning the hardest workers get well paid jobs. But these companies steal wages from the workers who put in hard work and overtime, but don’t get the job, or quit, or get sick. These firms don’t discard the work done, it’s all used. And then they’ll be called quitters or unprofessional. I was just reading about the musician behind much of Doom’s music got treated like that
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- memish 4y ago
  Serious answer to your serious question. Improving Twitter would improve the world. If the people working there are as serious and dedicated as SpaceX employees, they are much more likely to succeed. Serious engineers and designers must be more excited than ever that playtime is over. Destroying Twitter would also improve the world, if you think that's going to happen. So either way it's a win. Whether it blows up like SpaceX's first few rockets or lands when it really matters. Edit. And here's GeoHotz as the first canary supporting this point about serious engineers being attracted to this version of Twitter. https://twitter.com/realgeorgehotz/status/1592955427179765760 https://twitter.com/realgeorgehotz/status/159295542717976576...
  - halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
    Are you speaking as a Twitter employee?
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    But it's not like improving twitter would improve the world like nuclear fusion, better batteries or a cure for cancer would - there are plenty of better investments. It's hard to even establish metrics for what "improvement" or even "success" looks like in the case of twitter. From Musk's standpoint "improvement"/"success" means he makes money (or at least doesn't lose a lot of money) on the deal. There are plenty of alternatives to twitter out there already and probably others being worked on. Twitter could disappear tomorrow and the world wouldn't be negatively impacted at all, in fact it would probably be a benefit.
  - nix23 4y ago
    >Improving Twitter would improve the world. Man that's a massive bubble you life in, no one care's about twitter, especially not the "world"
    - bilvar 4y ago
      Sure, but Twitter cares about you.
      - 4y ago
- bsder 4y ago
  > Why would anyone stay? Because moving suddenly is difficult? Because if you can work remotely your job may be pretty cushy? Because there have been a bunch of layoffs in the sector and jobs aren't just materializing for everyone anymore? etc. Hunting for a job generally sucks no matter how good you are.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    > Because if you can work remotely your job may be pretty cushy? But Musk has already issued an edict saying that everyone will be in the office for at least 40 hours / week. > Because there have been a bunch of layoffs in the sector and jobs aren't just materializing for everyone anymore? Sure, but if someone has a decent emergency fund saved up + the 3 months severance that should get them through long enough to find work on the other side.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      And if you’re a professional and don’t have an emergency fund that is somewhere between six months to two years of expenses then downsize your life until you do. Your emergency fund is fuck you money and the bulk of your leverage when getting out of a bad work situation.
  - dakiol 4y ago
    But that only means people will start to look for another job while working for Twitter. As soon as they find something, they quit. That's even worse than quitting suddenly (because the ones who are looking for a job somewhere else won't have their minds on Twitter anymore).
  - more_corn 4y ago
    Can’t work remotely at twitter.
- linza 4y ago
  Key staff is probably identified by now with high certainty and those can probably negotiate a substantially better deal than what would be possible at old Twitter--if they know their worth... which is not trivial either i imagine.
  - dakiol 4y ago
    That theory doesn't hold. If Musk doesn't have respect for other people's life (and time), why do you think he would offer them more money to stay? In Musk's view, "hardcore mode" is the "normal mode", so no room for negotiation.
- Andys 4y ago
  For shares in a company that might rocket to the moon?
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    How did they handle shares? I thought they just paid them out (or were going to) but it's not a public company anymore. I mean I guess you could still have shares internally if they wanted to go public again...
  - neaden 4y ago
    It's a private company now, I don't believe any Twitter employees are getting any equity.
    - Andys 4y ago
      I saw it mentioned somewhere that he's planning to offer some kind of share bonus similar to SpaceX.
  - drenner 4y ago
    Ignoring the fact that it's a private company now with no publicly traded shares, Twitter loses $4 million per day. Before the buyout, most of its revenue (> 90%) based on ads. But now advertisers are leaving the site en masse and there's no real plan to replace that lost revenue, let alone make the company profitable.
    - more_corn 4y ago
      Also the leveraged buyout saddles twitter with debt. It coats $1B/yr to service (interest). I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I hear a train.
- icytrumpet 4y ago
  A couple theories: * You're a Musk fan boy and want to be noticed by him * Lots of people leaving creates a power vacuum and (in theory) a chance to get that next promotion with less competition * You're close to retirement/ you find the process of assimilating into a new company to be more exhausting than just sticking it out where you're at.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    Suddenly working double hours aka 2 jobs (or more) for the price of one when close to retirement? That sounds pretty awful. Maybe if retirement is 1 December... still why not just quit in that case?
  - jurassic 4y ago
    The new Twitter basically IS a new company. So you're going to have a learn a new company culture and new colleagues either way.
- v0idzer0 4y ago
  You own shares of the company and you want them to be worth a lot? You like your job and work long hours already anyway? You’re excited for the new vision and want to help make it happen? It’s funny how many people here equate voluntarily sitting at a desk in a climate controlled room doing what you love and being paid for it with being oppressed. There was a great article on here about someone who worked long hours at stripe and missed the deep sense of purpose and fulfillment it gave them. Life isn’t all about punching the clock in a job you hate and whining.
  - prirun 4y ago
    > You own shares of the company and you want them to be worth a lot? You like your job and work long hours already anyway? You’re excited for the new vision and want to help make it happen? But none of the Twitter employees own shares now, right? > It’s funny how many people here equate voluntarily sitting at a desk in a climate controlled room doing what you love and being paid for it with being oppressed. If a person is working extra hours as a company owner and expects to be paid back by the company becoming more valuable, that makes some sense. But if the owner says "you will work double hours with no extra compensation, or will be let go", then a) that's not voluntary; b) you got a 50% pay cut, which also was not voluntary and would make me love my work about 50% less. Two founders working their asses off is one thing. Forcing thousands of non-owner employees to work their ass off with no additional compensation is just wrong. If he said "Hey, anyone in a position to work their ass off will be paid time and a half for any hours over 40 a week", that would be reasonable.
    - v0idzer0 4y ago
      Twitter plans to give stock options to everyone just like Tesla does. That includes factory workers with hourly wages at Tesla. Many workers have earned more from their options than all their paychecks combined. Where are you getting “double hours”? Is everyone exaggerating “long hours” into “double hours” in order to justify irrational outrage here? You also keep saying this is mandatory. Yet this article is about how employees have been given the option to accept a generous severance package instead. Any mention of Elon and otherwise critical thinkers seem to cease all critical thinking.
- ID1452319 4y ago
  Maybe working at Twitter has been a complete doss these past few years and people realise they'd have to work twice as hard regardless of whether they stay or move elsewhere? Let's be honest, it isn't as if Twitter is introducing new functionality on a regular basis. I log in once every few months and cannot think of the last time I saw a new feature.
akolbe 4y ago
It's possible to get "high on work" and have a good time doing so – it can be very ego-confirming – but how long for? At some point, there has to be something else happening in your life. Asking employees to either be on that "work high" permanently or pack their bags is inhuman and abusive.
cableshaft 4y ago
To those that work at Twitter. Please just leave. Don't try to stick around and make this work any longer. Don't reward Elon for this behavior.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Will you pay their salaries?
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    Note to admins: I accidentally clicked 'flag' on the parent post when I just meant to click the 'context' link beside it. I find nothing wrong with the comment, sorry about that. So what I was going to say was: I don't need to, Elon will pay 3 months severance. Also they can click the dumb pledge button and stay on until they find another job, whatever. Or they can just not listen to me. I said please, it wasn't a command. I'm not their ward. I just know that I've stuck it out with companies that start screwing with their employees expectations and benefits, and I really shouldn't have stuck around, I should have left the instant that started. I encourage those at Twitter to do the same. It will likely only get worse for the next few years before it gets better, if it ever does.
    - Macha 4y ago
      Note if you click the timestamp, the "flag" link should be swapped to "unflag" so you can undo flagging.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      I guess I could have been a lot more clear myself. I have a lot of compassion for employees that have obligations and choose to stick around, even if they might not like the working conditions. People have financial obligations, and it is far from Clear that people can smoothly transition to an equivalently paying job given the unprecedented Tech layoffs going on right now. If people have f you money, then they already are going to do whatever they want. Either way, these employees are adults and presumably capable of making their own decision. I don't think either of our pleas or caution are particularly relevant or new information to them
hobbitstan 4y ago
[flagged]
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  If this is parody, bravo. If this is OP’s subjective fact, what a terrifying and sad world to live in.
- sidibe 4y ago
  How are there still people that take everything Elon says as facts?
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  Hi Elon.
- neaden 4y ago
  Twitter before this wasn't doing great, but they had cash on hand to last for years. Since taking over Musk has slashed costs by getting rid of benefits and laying people off, but also slashed income by alienating advertisers. Along with doing things like saying in a court hearing that the FTC consent decree on Twitter isn't binding which is opening them up to legal liability. The company is overall in far worse shape now then it was when he took over.
  - timr 4y ago
    > but also slashed income by alienating advertisers. Most of the advertisers left before he took over. He hadn't done anything yet. Say what you will about Musk, but that part in particular strikes me as one of the completely insane parts of the advertising business model. Brand advertisers (the ones that pay the highest rates) are insanely conservative, and would rather pull their ads than risk any negative blowback, no matter how theoretical.
    - neaden 4y ago
      My understanding is that they didn't leave right away, but rather held off on committing to purchasing advertisements in advance until they could speak with him and learn about his plans. It wasn't until the whole fiascos with the blue checkmarks and his call with advertisers going badly that they began to pull back en masse.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Clicking the 'yes' link seems like you're agreeing to an implied contract. The contract being you're going to work as many hours as Musk wants or he's going to fire you anyway (without severance). May as well get it over with now and take the severance.
memish 4y ago
It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX. In both those companies, people die if the software doesn't work right. Do you really think he's not up to managing a social network? https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961
- kalupa 4y ago
  "Hmm, this page doesn't exist"
  - memish 4y ago
    Sorry, fixed.
  - wstuartcl 4y ago
    thought you were talking about twitter.com -- I was like ohh that was slightly faster than expected.
- comrh 4y ago
  Both companies famous for their burn out culture. That the CEO would want all employees to work as much as possible without concern for burnout is completely unsurprising, but that does not make it a good way to run a tech company. Those companies are clearly not in the same position as twitter either. I have no idea why "trust Elon" should just be taken as a given.
  - memish 4y ago
    Not really. They are famous for advancing sustainable transport, re-usable rockets and Starlink.
    - pixelfarmer 4y ago
      Brain work efficiency peaks at about 25h/week. Musk should know this, but obviously doesn't. Why is this important? Because humans make mistakes. And the rate at which we make mistakes raises with exhaustion. Actually working 40h/week (you know, not 40h being at work, but actual focused work) is draining your batteries massively, and I won't go into the 50h/week or more, because this is technically suicide and only works for very short periods (a week, 2 weeks is already a stretch by a long shot). Also note that the time to recover from this takes even longer, assuming you are given the time to actually do that. Sum this all up and Musk is doing a very stupid thing: He tells employees to be more inefficient and create more bugs and problems because they have to work long hours now for ... what exactly? If I were someone looking to do "black hat" things announcements like that are a golden sunrise in the morning, an opportunity in the waiting. From a business perspective this is just many levels of stupid.
smnrchrds 4y ago
If I ever had doubts that all companies, including big tech ones, need unions to protect employees from management abuse, I no longer do.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Seems like post-purchase Twitter would be a great test lab for unionizing a big tech company. What else do (many of) the workers have to lose?
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    Yeah but if everyone works from home is hard to unionize. By the time they all go in it will only be true believers left
    - more_corn 4y ago
      Nobody works from home at twitter.
      - rdtwo 4y ago
        Didn’t musk claim that only 10% show up so meals are 400$
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Didn’t he end WFH a week ago
itissid 4y ago
Does any one know if there an Vision of what this guy wants twitter to be requires war footing like preparation? All I have heard is the paid verification (which was a disaster) and then something about payments. None of those need preparation on war scale or working long hours. If leadership's idea is to throw things at the wall and see what sticks, just run in the opposite direction. Also later if you are fired due to performance reasons are you given any severance time(especially if you are on a work visa)?
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  People who agree to Musk's terms and click the 'yes' link aren't going to be given a severance if he deems that they've not met the terms of his implied contract. Better to get out now and save yourself a lot of mental anguish and burnout.
GoToRO 4y ago
That's so... "revolutionary".
jshzglr 4y ago
I don't really see the issue. If it doesn't sound appealing to you, take your 3 months sev and leave.
pjmlp 4y ago
I am curious how he plans to enforce that on the European sites, most likely will need to fire everyone on this side of the pound.
- guax 4y ago
  He will likely close the offices outside the US where labour laws are strong. No need to keep a european office if you can make us workers do overtime and get people cheaper on other markets on similar timezones. Of course this is short sighted AF but thats his MO for most things when it comes to employees.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Yep, with this attitude closing is his only option.
dakiol 4y ago
And Elon is the guy tech people admire? C'mon, he's not a Davinci or Linus or Jobs or Gates. He's just a clown with money
throwawayyy1 4y ago
> In an email to staff, the owner of the social media firm said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week, Bloomberg reported. meh. He bought a company that isn't making any money that acts like its raking in billions every year, staffed with people who think of it as a lifestyle business.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  According to the 2021 financials, they lost ~$200M but that was after an ~$800M settlement[1] which means they seem to have made ~$600M in 2021 - not a huge amount but definitely not "going down the pan quickly". [1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-130128001.html https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-1301280...
  - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
    Why does the $800M settlement not count against the business under your accounting method? It happened.
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      It does count, of course. But that's a one-off for 2021. If they kept the same financials for 2022 as they had in 2021, they'd have made ~$580m - a very different picture to the "TWITTER LOSES MONEY!!!!" meme.
deleted_account 4y ago
The timing makes this look like a reaction to Musk firing Twitter engineers for criticizing him on social media[1]. It seems like a thinly veiled loyalty test instead of a marshaling the troops for the rough road ahead. The lowest performing engineers ostensibly got the axe in the first round of layoffs. Now Musk wants to root out those employees who aren’t willing to dedicate their lives to the bizarre theater[2] of Total Commitment. Some folks seem content to give this behavior a pass citing Musk’s admission that he works 100 hours a week The self-satisfied joy that the gravy train is over for these “lazy tech socialists” is surreal. When you consider that Musk is literally the richest person on earth, it is physically impossible for Musk to work enough hours — over multiple lifetimes — to reconcile a $193B net worth with what any reasonable person would consider a fair compensation. And to believe that he has a plan for Twitter 2.0 as a “digital town square”[3] strains credulity when he’s been a notorious shitposter. It’s almost as if he insists on sincere engagement from everyone but himself. The Twitter Blue fiasco makes it look like Musk is struggling with his first truly /complex/ challenge. As opposed to, you know, simply complicated shit like rockets and electric vehicles. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitter-engineers-for-correcting-criticizing-him-on-twitter-slack/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitt... [2] https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/1587709705488830464 https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/158770970548883046... [3] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  Not to mention "working 100 hours a week" is very different when you're the boss and set what your output is expected to be. Working 100 hours a week at the top is very different: it's voluntary (meaning he knows he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, which means he won't feel trapped doing it), a lot of those hours are probably things like meetings or reading emails or whatever (not suggesting it isn't important, but it isn't the same as doing more involved engineering work for 100 hours a week by any stretch), etc. And that's assuming we even believe Musk actually genuinely works 100 hours a week. I am sure he is around his businesses and stuff for that time, but I wouldn't be surprised if he took long breaks between doing anything of real value regularly which massively dropped it
hedora 4y ago
I'd be extremely tempted to not agree to the pledge, and instead email HR, letting them know I'll be on the market in three months, and that I'll happily renegotiate my employment contract and comp at that time.
hpen 4y ago
Maybe you care about free speech and what Musk is attempting to accomplish? Maybe that's a possibility
- more_corn 4y ago
  And think he has a chance in hell of pulling it off, and have confidence he won’t randomly fire you for walking by him in the hall (at Tesla managers advise employees to not walk past his desk because of the risk of random firing)
  - yashg 4y ago
    //Tesla managers advise employees to not walk past his desk because of the risk of random firing Really? He's that volatile? If that's true, he's like Aladeen from the Dictator. I would not care what the company's lofty purpose is. I wouldn't want to work for someone that unstable.
- lambic2 4y ago
  All that was needed to obtain Elon Musk's definition of free speech was to fire the content moderation team. I don't see how an engineer working 100hr weeks will "make Free Speech happen". The irony is that Musk is running Twitter into the ground - I guess if Twitter shuts down the people sharing Musk's vision will deem the battle over free speech won since no one will ever again flag their tweet! /s

103 points by e2e4 4y ago

Quit, take severance , look for a job or don’t quit and look for a job. Guess it depends how fast you think you can get a new job.

Gortal278 4y ago

Who would hang around at Twitter voluntarily? Gotta be out of their minds. I get that are people trapped with responsibilities or by visa/legal status but who would want to hang around?

crazygringo 4y ago

Serious question... why would anyone actually stay? If your hours are being doubled without your salary being doubled, and you'll get three months' severance if you leave... Who in their right mind wouldn't take the severance and go find a job elsewhere with normal hours for the same pay? Nobody's curing cancer or inventing AI here. There's no grand noble mission to convince you to stay. It's just Twitter. Basically everyone who stays is getting their hourly rate cut in half or something like that. And these are all qualified professionals who can find other jobs. Why would anyone stay?

jstarfish 4y ago
> Why would anyone stay? It surfaces both the desperate and the spies.
thrown_22 4y ago
If a job is meaningful you can get people to stay because they believe in it. I've done it for two projects. That said, twitter isn't that. I imagine he just want to get rid of as many people as he can.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
> why would anyone actually stay? People who are on a work visa would likely be hesitant to not click 'yes' at this point. Given all of the recent layoffs there are probably also some people who are afraid of being able to find another job and have medical/family/debt issues. But yeah, if you're confident you could find another gig and have money saved up, the 3 months severance to escape that mess would probably look really good right now.
- a-priori 4y ago
  If I were on a work visa I would click "yes", then start looking for another job (if I weren't already looking). No need to start the clock on your visa expiring if you don't have to. In any other situation, I'd take the 3 months pay and move on with my life.
misja111 4y ago
The good ones will leave, the ones who fear they can't find anything else will stay.
- TillE 4y ago
  Seriously, even if you're a true believer in Elon Musk's vision for humanity or whatever, the working conditions just sound miserable. Twitter will almost certainly lose a ton of their best workers now, and more in the coming months.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    Yeah, I get why a younger version of me would click Yes working at spaceX and maybe even Tesla, but Twitter???
secretsatan 4y ago
We should stop calling it working hard and call it wage theft instead
- secretsatan 4y ago
  I can’t remember which investment bank suffered a revolt of their junior workers, but their line was, hard work will pay off, meaning the hardest workers get well paid jobs. But these companies steal wages from the workers who put in hard work and overtime, but don’t get the job, or quit, or get sick. These firms don’t discard the work done, it’s all used. And then they’ll be called quitters or unprofessional. I was just reading about the musician behind much of Doom’s music got treated like that
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
memish 4y ago
Serious answer to your serious question. Improving Twitter would improve the world. If the people working there are as serious and dedicated as SpaceX employees, they are much more likely to succeed. Serious engineers and designers must be more excited than ever that playtime is over. Destroying Twitter would also improve the world, if you think that's going to happen. So either way it's a win. Whether it blows up like SpaceX's first few rockets or lands when it really matters. Edit. And here's GeoHotz as the first canary supporting this point about serious engineers being attracted to this version of Twitter. https://twitter.com/realgeorgehotz/status/1592955427179765760 https://twitter.com/realgeorgehotz/status/159295542717976576...
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  Are you speaking as a Twitter employee?
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  But it's not like improving twitter would improve the world like nuclear fusion, better batteries or a cure for cancer would - there are plenty of better investments. It's hard to even establish metrics for what "improvement" or even "success" looks like in the case of twitter. From Musk's standpoint "improvement"/"success" means he makes money (or at least doesn't lose a lot of money) on the deal. There are plenty of alternatives to twitter out there already and probably others being worked on. Twitter could disappear tomorrow and the world wouldn't be negatively impacted at all, in fact it would probably be a benefit.
- nix23 4y ago
  >Improving Twitter would improve the world. Man that's a massive bubble you life in, no one care's about twitter, especially not the "world"
  - bilvar 4y ago
    Sure, but Twitter cares about you.
    - 4y ago
bsder 4y ago
> Why would anyone stay? Because moving suddenly is difficult? Because if you can work remotely your job may be pretty cushy? Because there have been a bunch of layoffs in the sector and jobs aren't just materializing for everyone anymore? etc. Hunting for a job generally sucks no matter how good you are.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > Because if you can work remotely your job may be pretty cushy? But Musk has already issued an edict saying that everyone will be in the office for at least 40 hours / week. > Because there have been a bunch of layoffs in the sector and jobs aren't just materializing for everyone anymore? Sure, but if someone has a decent emergency fund saved up + the 3 months severance that should get them through long enough to find work on the other side.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    And if you’re a professional and don’t have an emergency fund that is somewhere between six months to two years of expenses then downsize your life until you do. Your emergency fund is fuck you money and the bulk of your leverage when getting out of a bad work situation.
- dakiol 4y ago
  But that only means people will start to look for another job while working for Twitter. As soon as they find something, they quit. That's even worse than quitting suddenly (because the ones who are looking for a job somewhere else won't have their minds on Twitter anymore).
- more_corn 4y ago
  Can’t work remotely at twitter.
linza 4y ago
Key staff is probably identified by now with high certainty and those can probably negotiate a substantially better deal than what would be possible at old Twitter--if they know their worth... which is not trivial either i imagine.
- dakiol 4y ago
  That theory doesn't hold. If Musk doesn't have respect for other people's life (and time), why do you think he would offer them more money to stay? In Musk's view, "hardcore mode" is the "normal mode", so no room for negotiation.
Andys 4y ago
For shares in a company that might rocket to the moon?
- joshstrange 4y ago
  How did they handle shares? I thought they just paid them out (or were going to) but it's not a public company anymore. I mean I guess you could still have shares internally if they wanted to go public again...
- neaden 4y ago
  It's a private company now, I don't believe any Twitter employees are getting any equity.
  - Andys 4y ago
    I saw it mentioned somewhere that he's planning to offer some kind of share bonus similar to SpaceX.
- drenner 4y ago
  Ignoring the fact that it's a private company now with no publicly traded shares, Twitter loses $4 million per day. Before the buyout, most of its revenue (> 90%) based on ads. But now advertisers are leaving the site en masse and there's no real plan to replace that lost revenue, let alone make the company profitable.
  - more_corn 4y ago
    Also the leveraged buyout saddles twitter with debt. It coats $1B/yr to service (interest). I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I hear a train.
icytrumpet 4y ago
A couple theories: * You're a Musk fan boy and want to be noticed by him * Lots of people leaving creates a power vacuum and (in theory) a chance to get that next promotion with less competition * You're close to retirement/ you find the process of assimilating into a new company to be more exhausting than just sticking it out where you're at.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  Suddenly working double hours aka 2 jobs (or more) for the price of one when close to retirement? That sounds pretty awful. Maybe if retirement is 1 December... still why not just quit in that case?
- jurassic 4y ago
  The new Twitter basically IS a new company. So you're going to have a learn a new company culture and new colleagues either way.
v0idzer0 4y ago
You own shares of the company and you want them to be worth a lot? You like your job and work long hours already anyway? You’re excited for the new vision and want to help make it happen? It’s funny how many people here equate voluntarily sitting at a desk in a climate controlled room doing what you love and being paid for it with being oppressed. There was a great article on here about someone who worked long hours at stripe and missed the deep sense of purpose and fulfillment it gave them. Life isn’t all about punching the clock in a job you hate and whining.
- prirun 4y ago
  > You own shares of the company and you want them to be worth a lot? You like your job and work long hours already anyway? You’re excited for the new vision and want to help make it happen? But none of the Twitter employees own shares now, right? > It’s funny how many people here equate voluntarily sitting at a desk in a climate controlled room doing what you love and being paid for it with being oppressed. If a person is working extra hours as a company owner and expects to be paid back by the company becoming more valuable, that makes some sense. But if the owner says "you will work double hours with no extra compensation, or will be let go", then a) that's not voluntary; b) you got a 50% pay cut, which also was not voluntary and would make me love my work about 50% less. Two founders working their asses off is one thing. Forcing thousands of non-owner employees to work their ass off with no additional compensation is just wrong. If he said "Hey, anyone in a position to work their ass off will be paid time and a half for any hours over 40 a week", that would be reasonable.
  - v0idzer0 4y ago
    Twitter plans to give stock options to everyone just like Tesla does. That includes factory workers with hourly wages at Tesla. Many workers have earned more from their options than all their paychecks combined. Where are you getting “double hours”? Is everyone exaggerating “long hours” into “double hours” in order to justify irrational outrage here? You also keep saying this is mandatory. Yet this article is about how employees have been given the option to accept a generous severance package instead. Any mention of Elon and otherwise critical thinkers seem to cease all critical thinking.
ID1452319 4y ago
Maybe working at Twitter has been a complete doss these past few years and people realise they'd have to work twice as hard regardless of whether they stay or move elsewhere? Let's be honest, it isn't as if Twitter is introducing new functionality on a regular basis. I log in once every few months and cannot think of the last time I saw a new feature.

akolbe 4y ago

It's possible to get "high on work" and have a good time doing so – it can be very ego-confirming – but how long for? At some point, there has to be something else happening in your life. Asking employees to either be on that "work high" permanently or pack their bags is inhuman and abusive.

cableshaft 4y ago

To those that work at Twitter. Please just leave. Don't try to stick around and make this work any longer. Don't reward Elon for this behavior.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Will you pay their salaries?
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Note to admins: I accidentally clicked 'flag' on the parent post when I just meant to click the 'context' link beside it. I find nothing wrong with the comment, sorry about that. So what I was going to say was: I don't need to, Elon will pay 3 months severance. Also they can click the dumb pledge button and stay on until they find another job, whatever. Or they can just not listen to me. I said please, it wasn't a command. I'm not their ward. I just know that I've stuck it out with companies that start screwing with their employees expectations and benefits, and I really shouldn't have stuck around, I should have left the instant that started. I encourage those at Twitter to do the same. It will likely only get worse for the next few years before it gets better, if it ever does.
  - Macha 4y ago
    Note if you click the timestamp, the "flag" link should be swapped to "unflag" so you can undo flagging.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I guess I could have been a lot more clear myself. I have a lot of compassion for employees that have obligations and choose to stick around, even if they might not like the working conditions. People have financial obligations, and it is far from Clear that people can smoothly transition to an equivalently paying job given the unprecedented Tech layoffs going on right now. If people have f you money, then they already are going to do whatever they want. Either way, these employees are adults and presumably capable of making their own decision. I don't think either of our pleas or caution are particularly relevant or new information to them

hobbitstan 4y ago

[flagged]

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
If this is parody, bravo. If this is OP’s subjective fact, what a terrifying and sad world to live in.
sidibe 4y ago
How are there still people that take everything Elon says as facts?
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Hi Elon.
neaden 4y ago
Twitter before this wasn't doing great, but they had cash on hand to last for years. Since taking over Musk has slashed costs by getting rid of benefits and laying people off, but also slashed income by alienating advertisers. Along with doing things like saying in a court hearing that the FTC consent decree on Twitter isn't binding which is opening them up to legal liability. The company is overall in far worse shape now then it was when he took over.
- timr 4y ago
  > but also slashed income by alienating advertisers. Most of the advertisers left before he took over. He hadn't done anything yet. Say what you will about Musk, but that part in particular strikes me as one of the completely insane parts of the advertising business model. Brand advertisers (the ones that pay the highest rates) are insanely conservative, and would rather pull their ads than risk any negative blowback, no matter how theoretical.
  - neaden 4y ago
    My understanding is that they didn't leave right away, but rather held off on committing to purchasing advertisements in advance until they could speak with him and learn about his plans. It wasn't until the whole fiascos with the blue checkmarks and his call with advertisers going badly that they began to pull back en masse.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Clicking the 'yes' link seems like you're agreeing to an implied contract. The contract being you're going to work as many hours as Musk wants or he's going to fire you anyway (without severance). May as well get it over with now and take the severance.

memish 4y ago

It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX. In both those companies, people die if the software doesn't work right. Do you really think he's not up to managing a social network? https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961

kalupa 4y ago
"Hmm, this page doesn't exist"
- memish 4y ago
  Sorry, fixed.
- wstuartcl 4y ago
  thought you were talking about twitter.com -- I was like ohh that was slightly faster than expected.
comrh 4y ago
Both companies famous for their burn out culture. That the CEO would want all employees to work as much as possible without concern for burnout is completely unsurprising, but that does not make it a good way to run a tech company. Those companies are clearly not in the same position as twitter either. I have no idea why "trust Elon" should just be taken as a given.
- memish 4y ago
  Not really. They are famous for advancing sustainable transport, re-usable rockets and Starlink.
  - pixelfarmer 4y ago
    Brain work efficiency peaks at about 25h/week. Musk should know this, but obviously doesn't. Why is this important? Because humans make mistakes. And the rate at which we make mistakes raises with exhaustion. Actually working 40h/week (you know, not 40h being at work, but actual focused work) is draining your batteries massively, and I won't go into the 50h/week or more, because this is technically suicide and only works for very short periods (a week, 2 weeks is already a stretch by a long shot). Also note that the time to recover from this takes even longer, assuming you are given the time to actually do that. Sum this all up and Musk is doing a very stupid thing: He tells employees to be more inefficient and create more bugs and problems because they have to work long hours now for ... what exactly? If I were someone looking to do "black hat" things announcements like that are a golden sunrise in the morning, an opportunity in the waiting. From a business perspective this is just many levels of stupid.

smnrchrds 4y ago

If I ever had doubts that all companies, including big tech ones, need unions to protect employees from management abuse, I no longer do.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Seems like post-purchase Twitter would be a great test lab for unionizing a big tech company. What else do (many of) the workers have to lose?
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Yeah but if everyone works from home is hard to unionize. By the time they all go in it will only be true believers left
  - more_corn 4y ago
    Nobody works from home at twitter.
    - rdtwo 4y ago
      Didn’t musk claim that only 10% show up so meals are 400$
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Didn’t he end WFH a week ago

itissid 4y ago

Does any one know if there an Vision of what this guy wants twitter to be requires war footing like preparation? All I have heard is the paid verification (which was a disaster) and then something about payments. None of those need preparation on war scale or working long hours. If leadership's idea is to throw things at the wall and see what sticks, just run in the opposite direction. Also later if you are fired due to performance reasons are you given any severance time(especially if you are on a work visa)?

UncleOxidant 4y ago
People who agree to Musk's terms and click the 'yes' link aren't going to be given a severance if he deems that they've not met the terms of his implied contract. Better to get out now and save yourself a lot of mental anguish and burnout.

GoToRO 4y ago

That's so... "revolutionary".

jshzglr 4y ago

I don't really see the issue. If it doesn't sound appealing to you, take your 3 months sev and leave.

pjmlp 4y ago

I am curious how he plans to enforce that on the European sites, most likely will need to fire everyone on this side of the pound.

guax 4y ago
He will likely close the offices outside the US where labour laws are strong. No need to keep a european office if you can make us workers do overtime and get people cheaper on other markets on similar timezones. Of course this is short sighted AF but thats his MO for most things when it comes to employees.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Yep, with this attitude closing is his only option.

dakiol 4y ago

And Elon is the guy tech people admire? C'mon, he's not a Davinci or Linus or Jobs or Gates. He's just a clown with money

throwawayyy1 4y ago

> In an email to staff, the owner of the social media firm said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week, Bloomberg reported. meh. He bought a company that isn't making any money that acts like its raking in billions every year, staffed with people who think of it as a lifestyle business.

zimpenfish 4y ago
According to the 2021 financials, they lost ~$200M but that was after an ~$800M settlement[1] which means they seem to have made ~$600M in 2021 - not a huge amount but definitely not "going down the pan quickly". [1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-130128001.html https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-1301280...
- SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
  Why does the $800M settlement not count against the business under your accounting method? It happened.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    It does count, of course. But that's a one-off for 2021. If they kept the same financials for 2022 as they had in 2021, they'd have made ~$580m - a very different picture to the "TWITTER LOSES MONEY!!!!" meme.

deleted_account 4y ago

The timing makes this look like a reaction to Musk firing Twitter engineers for criticizing him on social media[1]. It seems like a thinly veiled loyalty test instead of a marshaling the troops for the rough road ahead. The lowest performing engineers ostensibly got the axe in the first round of layoffs. Now Musk wants to root out those employees who aren’t willing to dedicate their lives to the bizarre theater[2] of Total Commitment. Some folks seem content to give this behavior a pass citing Musk’s admission that he works 100 hours a week The self-satisfied joy that the gravy train is over for these “lazy tech socialists” is surreal. When you consider that Musk is literally the richest person on earth, it is physically impossible for Musk to work enough hours — over multiple lifetimes — to reconcile a $193B net worth with what any reasonable person would consider a fair compensation. And to believe that he has a plan for Twitter 2.0 as a “digital town square”[3] strains credulity when he’s been a notorious shitposter. It’s almost as if he insists on sincere engagement from everyone but himself. The Twitter Blue fiasco makes it look like Musk is struggling with his first truly /complex/ challenge. As opposed to, you know, simply complicated shit like rockets and electric vehicles. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitter-engineers-for-correcting-criticizing-him-on-twitter-slack/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitt... [2] https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/1587709705488830464 https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/158770970548883046... [3] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441

mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
Not to mention "working 100 hours a week" is very different when you're the boss and set what your output is expected to be. Working 100 hours a week at the top is very different: it's voluntary (meaning he knows he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, which means he won't feel trapped doing it), a lot of those hours are probably things like meetings or reading emails or whatever (not suggesting it isn't important, but it isn't the same as doing more involved engineering work for 100 hours a week by any stretch), etc. And that's assuming we even believe Musk actually genuinely works 100 hours a week. I am sure he is around his businesses and stuff for that time, but I wouldn't be surprised if he took long breaks between doing anything of real value regularly which massively dropped it

hedora 4y ago

I'd be extremely tempted to not agree to the pledge, and instead email HR, letting them know I'll be on the market in three months, and that I'll happily renegotiate my employment contract and comp at that time.

hpen 4y ago

Maybe you care about free speech and what Musk is attempting to accomplish? Maybe that's a possibility

more_corn 4y ago
And think he has a chance in hell of pulling it off, and have confidence he won’t randomly fire you for walking by him in the hall (at Tesla managers advise employees to not walk past his desk because of the risk of random firing)
- yashg 4y ago
  //Tesla managers advise employees to not walk past his desk because of the risk of random firing Really? He's that volatile? If that's true, he's like Aladeen from the Dictator. I would not care what the company's lofty purpose is. I wouldn't want to work for someone that unstable.
lambic2 4y ago
All that was needed to obtain Elon Musk's definition of free speech was to fire the content moderation team. I don't see how an engineer working 100hr weeks will "make Free Speech happen". The irony is that Musk is running Twitter into the ground - I guess if Twitter shuts down the people sharing Musk's vision will deem the battle over free speech won since no one will ever again flag their tweet! /s