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When you look at balance sheets, financial results, and reviews over on places like Glassdoor it sounds like there is a kernel of truth to this, except maybe th

When you look at balance sheets, financial results, and reviews over on places like Glassdoor it sounds like there is a kernel of truth to this, except maybe the socialism stuff. Lots of talk about very slow progress, work life balance extremely pushed towards the life side of the equation, people checking out for a month on unlimited PTO on a regular basis, dysfunctional management, etc.. Lots of reviews talk about people who had only worked at Twitter and had no idea what work was like at more normal companies. It sounds like it morphed into a pretty mediocre company and Musk is the one caught holding the bag after buying it. This style of company gets the reputation it must be awesome and everything is running smoothly inside with all "A" players simply because it's a trendy B2C company. It's usually not true in big companies.

skinnymuch 4y ago
You're acting like Twitter was some unique company that Musk happened to be caught holding the bag like it could've been any other company. It's completely Elon's fault he has Twitter. It's his fault they don't have cash on hand with less debt any more. He's the one that did a leveraged buyout. Something that does not need to ever happen. Nor is Twitter some major complete failure of a company. It was fine as a public company. Losing money, but not some disaster. > maybe the socialism stuff No maybe needed. Socialist stuff doesn't make any sense.
- ben7799 4y ago
  Definitely Musk's fault he bought it. It sounds like the made the initial offer without due diligence and then realized what he was buying and it was too late. It's just there's this bizarre reaction to all this that everyone at Twitter was awesome and Twitter was on fire executing flawlessly and making huge money. In reality it sounds like it was a company not expecting much of it's team, not making much money, and stuck with leadership team that didn't know what to do. Meanwhile everyone is knee jerk defending everything about Twitter because they think Musk is going to turn it into a MAGA social network. Maybe he is. That doesn't mean the company was perfect before he bought it.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    > It's just there's this bizarre reaction to all this that everyone at Twitter was awesome and Twitter was on fire executing flawlessly and making huge money. Can you show examples of this? I haven't heard this. Many have heard or know Twitter was losing money. Stuff like losing $4M/day have been said by friends who aren't in tech. Twitter being on fire flawlessly is definitely not something that is said much. Nor being perfect.
    - ben7799 4y ago
      Go look at comments at some place like Ars Technica. They are covering/click-baiting all this stuff like crazy. I don't know how clued in commenters are there or if they are actually tech workers but the groupthink there is very strong. I think a lot of it is conflating the perceived political leaning of the company before Musk versus Musk's bizarre trend to the right and assuming any of that has to do with the company's execution.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        I was going to say maybe you’re right. Then I checked Ars Technica. I went to the last two Twitter stories. Which are also Elon stories. No one was saying what you’re claiming. Can you show a few examples or at least point out the news article and roughly where the comment is? I’m sure there are enough of them since I also saw a first comment saying they wish they shorted Twitter when they had the chance. Some one corrected them right after but still it’s not filled with the highest degree of seriousness. — Why would they be tech workers? I know friends who go to that site. One works as a PM in tech. That doesn’t mean much though. The rest don’t. It’s for tech oriented geeks in general. I don’t think they cover anything specific about programming or data science, etc.
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      > Stuff like losing $4M/day have been said by friends who aren't in tech. That's only after the leveraged buyout saddling them with $1bn/year in debt payments. According to their 2021 financials[1] they lost $221m (~$600k/day) after a settlement payout of $809m (which I think means they made ~$588m or ~$1.6m/day, no?) [1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-130128001.html https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-1301280...

skinnymuch 4y ago

You're acting like Twitter was some unique company that Musk happened to be caught holding the bag like it could've been any other company. It's completely Elon's fault he has Twitter. It's his fault they don't have cash on hand with less debt any more. He's the one that did a leveraged buyout. Something that does not need to ever happen. Nor is Twitter some major complete failure of a company. It was fine as a public company. Losing money, but not some disaster. > maybe the socialism stuff No maybe needed. Socialist stuff doesn't make any sense.

ben7799 4y ago
Definitely Musk's fault he bought it. It sounds like the made the initial offer without due diligence and then realized what he was buying and it was too late. It's just there's this bizarre reaction to all this that everyone at Twitter was awesome and Twitter was on fire executing flawlessly and making huge money. In reality it sounds like it was a company not expecting much of it's team, not making much money, and stuck with leadership team that didn't know what to do. Meanwhile everyone is knee jerk defending everything about Twitter because they think Musk is going to turn it into a MAGA social network. Maybe he is. That doesn't mean the company was perfect before he bought it.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  > It's just there's this bizarre reaction to all this that everyone at Twitter was awesome and Twitter was on fire executing flawlessly and making huge money. Can you show examples of this? I haven't heard this. Many have heard or know Twitter was losing money. Stuff like losing $4M/day have been said by friends who aren't in tech. Twitter being on fire flawlessly is definitely not something that is said much. Nor being perfect.
  - ben7799 4y ago
    Go look at comments at some place like Ars Technica. They are covering/click-baiting all this stuff like crazy. I don't know how clued in commenters are there or if they are actually tech workers but the groupthink there is very strong. I think a lot of it is conflating the perceived political leaning of the company before Musk versus Musk's bizarre trend to the right and assuming any of that has to do with the company's execution.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      I was going to say maybe you’re right. Then I checked Ars Technica. I went to the last two Twitter stories. Which are also Elon stories. No one was saying what you’re claiming. Can you show a few examples or at least point out the news article and roughly where the comment is? I’m sure there are enough of them since I also saw a first comment saying they wish they shorted Twitter when they had the chance. Some one corrected them right after but still it’s not filled with the highest degree of seriousness. — Why would they be tech workers? I know friends who go to that site. One works as a PM in tech. That doesn’t mean much though. The rest don’t. It’s for tech oriented geeks in general. I don’t think they cover anything specific about programming or data science, etc.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    > Stuff like losing $4M/day have been said by friends who aren't in tech. That's only after the leveraged buyout saddling them with $1bn/year in debt payments. According to their 2021 financials[1] they lost $221m (~$600k/day) after a settlement payout of $809m (which I think means they made ~$588m or ~$1.6m/day, no?) [1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-130128001.html https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-1301280...