34 ms·

I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. Having said that, he

I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. Having said that, he really made it obvious to me as an eng that the severance is the option I would be taking. Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. But somebody who takes over the company and accrues so much social debt so quickly for no other discernible reason than looking like the smartest person in the room misses the bar for "the right people" by a pretty significant margin.

lost_tourist 4y ago
I really hope it implodes. He has been so childish throughout, he deserves to lose the 44 billion. Sucks that thousands of people are out of work, but maybe this is better for them than a slow painful death of a once okayish company.
- MBCook 4y ago
  What about all the poor people on visas who are now desperately looking for jobs to avoid having themselves and their families deported?
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Twitter wouldn’t shut down completely. The company would continue running…right?
    - MBCook 4y ago
      They already have basically no advertisers except SpaceX, which is a balance transfer in all but name, and maybe some right wing stuff. Real brands are terrified of them. They have no money. It’s not coming in, and only gets worse when the site goes down. They’re facing employment lawsuits over the last two weeks. They’re facing a discrimination lawsuit for requiring an employee with an ADA accommodation to work from home to work from the office (after that announcement). The FTC is mad. Congress is mad. Who knows what other lawsuits/etc will pop up. I just don’t understand how they can survive. Seems like chapter 7. Not “renegotiate the debt and we swear we’ll be fine” chapter 11. Sell every last post-it note and auction off the wall art to pay the creditors chapter 7. I knew he’d ruin Twitter. I never expected anything like this. I expected people to slowly leave (platform and employment) due to new policies and values. This was, and honestly is, unimaginable. Did he really destroy $44B in three weeks?
      - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
        I can't help but think that his buy was funded and supported by some regimes with less than honorable goals.
        MBCook 4y ago
        That may be, but was their goal to destroy it? Or just have influence over what trends/censorship of posts?
      - martindbp 4y ago
        > They already have basically no advertisers except SpaceX Source? Musk claimed a "massive drop" but who knows how much that is, if he exaggerated for effect or whether it's permanent ("paused" doesn't mean permanent, if it makes financial sense advertisers will return). > I expected people to slowly leave Yet number of users increased faster than ever. These kinds of predictions reminds me of the expectations that Trump would be prosecuted any day now thorough out his whole presidency. Maybe Twitter will crash and burn, maybe Musk has absolutely no idea what he's doing, or maybe generally outraged people are bad at predicting the future because they're easily misled by their general dislike of someone's personality.
        dorkwood 4y ago
        > Yet number of users increased faster than ever. Source on this? I've seen reports that the number of "monetizable daily active users" is up, but nothing about the actual user count.
        MBCook 4y ago
        Elon tweeted a graph showing a massive jump. But the Y axis was chosen for that purpose. Someone responded with a graph whose Y axis started at 0. You couldn’t see the “massive jump” anymore. It was actually like 0.5% increase based on the data in Elon’s chart.
      - akiselev 4y ago
  - guelo 4y ago
    Those are not poor people.
    - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      "Poor" can mean unfortunate as well as lacking in wealth.
      - guelo 4y ago
        Either way
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Maybe we shouldn't allow the US government to chain people to a company with no way out.
  - lost_tourist 4y ago
    Like I said I feel sorry for them, I can't imagine that the h1b and other programs don't have good will time for them to find other employment. Twitter doesn't hire hacks, I'm sure they'll be fine. I'm just talking about the overall greater good because I think they -all- will be out of a job soon. I never wanted twitter to die, but if it's just going to be parler with venmo shrug
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Until relatively recently - 2017, to be specific - someone on H1B who lost their job had no grace period to find other employment under the law. Enforcement was another matter, so many people chanced it regardless - but the concern is that overstaying one's visa can have significant consequences for your ability to get new ones long into the future if found out. In 2017, USCIS unilaterally enacted a 60-day grace period as an administrative rule, which is still in effect today. But, given the current US job market in tech, 60 days may not be sufficient. Twitter aside, it should also be noted that, being an administrative rule, it can be changed fairly easily for political reasons, since it doesn't have to go through Congress, and courts generally err on the side of executive agencies' judgment on such matters.
nemothekid 4y ago
>Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. I don't see what it is about the Twitter product that would require going "hardcore". It's a lose-lose situation; I don't think Twitter's problems would be solved by engineering harder; and you will spend 80 hrs/wk where you can end up fired because people aren't as deterministic as cars. It's a completely bewildering move; I'm not sure what Elon was thinking when he even decided to buy Twitter. What's most surprising it seems he has no thesis for the company or how it can be made better or what was so terrible about it.
- snoot 4y ago
- pschuegr 4y ago
  I guess, if you buy the premise that cash flow is problem number one and the company needs a significant pivot, then going into crunch-mode and trying to turn the ship as quickly as possible (at the cost of technical and, uh, sleep debt) is a reasonable solution. Maybe not the best, but reasonable. But it's pretty transparent that the cash flow problem is pretty much a problem because the new owner doesn't really want to own Twitter, or believe it can pay for itself; he wants to own a different product which has as many users as Twitter did. No judgement here, I don't necessarily think he's wrong. But why as an employee would I feel obligated to make his choices my problem?
  - mcphage 4y ago
    > I guess, if you buy the premise that cash flow is problem number one Well, luckily you don't need to buy the premise that cash flow was problem number one—after he bought it, he saddled it with so much debt that it definitely became problem number one!
    - pschuegr 4y ago
      Aha, so overpaying _was_ just part of a grand scheme to light a fire under the employees and the fanboys are right that he's playing 6d chess?
slg 4y ago
>Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. And for the right financial upside. I completely understand going hardcore at a startup in which you have equity. But hasn't Twitter going private removed a lot of the incentive for employees? What is the upside for a Twitter engineer dedicating themselves to the company? Making one of the richest people on the planet slightly richer?
- spamizbad 4y ago
  They could still do RSUs but you’ve got some big creditors who are first in line.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    And… is there even a future liquidity event planned? How helpful is an RSU if there’s no opportunity to turn it into cash at some future date?
    - Balgair 4y ago
      All this would make some sense, but Elon is asking for a blank check from the remaining employees. There is no promise right now, there is no pay off, there are no RSUs, there is no liquidity event, there is ... nothing. Just one of the wealthiest people in history asking people to work 12 hour days every day of the week, forever, for some nebulous reasons that he can't state, just because. Such a radical renegotiation of the employment agreement between the workers and the management requires a LOT of study and time. Not two days and clicking a button that says you agree to something. You'd be crazy to agree to this, and Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work.
      - netsharc 4y ago
        > Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work. Haha, can someone tweet this at him so he sees it. He thinks he'll be getting dedicated loyal employees (let's deem them the Yes-clickers), but if he becomes aware of this flaw in his plan, he's going to treat them with paranoia and mistrust as well. I really munch popcorn hope he twigs that soon.
peterkelly 4y ago
> where EM wants to take Twitter based on his actions to date, the only explanation I can think of is he wants to destroy it
- prawn 4y ago
  I think he's just flailing about, nothing much beyond that. Triumphing with a popular platform and revenue would absolutely be his hope, but he's making rushed, questionable decisions that bring compounding issues. From the start, muddying the existing blue check with the idea of a paid tier seems bizarre and unnecessary.
purpleblue 4y ago
I'd be willing to work "hardcore" if there were enough reward, ie a huge raise and lots of equity in the new company. I have a feeling if I asked him what it would be, he would fire me though. There's no point in working for a mercurial boss like that. No ability to freely speak your mind is a complete waste of everyone's time.
graderjs 4y ago
A culture where being smart gets you social debt may be part of the problem
- godelski 4y ago
  Why are people eager to defend someone who cosplays as a nerd?
  - noobermin 4y ago
    Perhaps because such people cosplay as well.
    - graderjs 4y ago
      I think that’s the nerdiest thing I’ve been accused of. Thank you, I’ve finally been accepted by your elite fraternity… lol
- pschuegr 4y ago
  Arguably, failing to factor human emotions into your leadership techniques does not qualify as smart behavior.
  - graderjs 4y ago
    Agree. Is that what he's doing tho?
    - pschuegr 4y ago
      Are you suggesting that he's pissing people off intentionally for the controversy?
      - graderjs 4y ago
        Is that the only way to read what’s happening?
shagie 4y ago
> Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. This is a death march - no question about it. The book by Edward Yourdon should be required reading for any who are still at Twitter. One of the things that is in the book had in it that I recall was a four quadrant grid of 'morale' and 'likelihood of success'(?). There are indeed high morale high chance of success death marches - and they can be fun to be on. The "we will get this done and it will be glorious" type things. There are also the low morale high chance of success that just drag on and it is a "we will get this done, and then we will all quit." I've been on that one - it was awful. I can only imagine the low morale low chance ones being completely dreadful and people hoping that it gets canceled before too much longer. Amazon says that I got a copy of this on August 11th, 2012... and that was an order in which the book I got was given to my manager at the time. The project rolled out in October (before Black Friday code freezes went in effect) and I started looking for new employment in January after the company did its yearly bonuses.
- CobaltFire 4y ago
  I don’t think the employees staying for Twitter 2.0 will have time for such trivialities as reading a book given the hours being talked about.
- jboy55 4y ago
  One of the things I do to ground myself in situations where I'm facing a death march, or find myself working at a company that does a pivot is listen to the song "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads. If the intro lyrics cut too deep, I start looking. Well, we know where we're goin' But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin' But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want And the future is certain Give us time to work it out https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics
  - gausswho 4y ago
    I'll add On the One Road. Inspired the Irish to join in WWI with pretty devastating consequences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw "We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!"
rednerrus 4y ago
If I'm giving Elon the benefit of the doubt, A. he's intelligent B. He has 20+ years of corporate experience running companies, I would assume that there was some method to this madness. If I had to guess, he came in with the assumption that forces in the company would be hostile to him based on their beliefs. In order to weed those forces out, he engineered some of this madness to shake those people out. Unfortunately it seems like it may be backfiring.
- brookst 4y ago
  I try to leave the “it looks crazy but it’s all part of the master plan that will eventually be revealed as brilliant” stuff to Qanon.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    He has been nothing but transparent about wanting to gut the company. It's just his plainly communicated plan. There is no conspiracy here.
- photoGrant 4y ago
  Yeah, he's said this so many times it's a bore. He deletes. First. After deleting 'LAST'. So he's doing exactly as we all should expect, he's literally said it. I used to delete last Now I delete first.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- noobermin 4y ago
  I'm amazed at how naive some of the people are here. Why not just accept what you're seeing with your own two eyes? Why look for an alternate explanation?
  - poulpy123 4y ago
oska 4y ago
> somebody who takes over the company and accrues so much social debt so quickly What is 'social debt' and how is it (objectively) measured?
- brookst 4y ago
  Think of it as negative goodwill. It is not objectively measured, in the same way that goodwill on balance sheets is not objectively measured. But it’s a real thing. Qualitatively it is the impairment from people not wanting to do business with you. In Twitter’s case, that manifests as decreased advertiser demand, which results in lower ad prices. And to the extent Twitter is losing MAU, that impacts ad inventory.
  - im3w1l 4y ago
    Goodwill on balance sheets is a technical thing and is quite different from common parlance "goodwill". It's the fudge factor introduced when doing an acquisition to make the numbers balance up correctly.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Yes — my point is that goodwill is intended to explain the difference between book value and purchase price. If something is “worth” $500, as evidenced by market cap, why pay $600? Because it’s worth $600 to you. That extra $100 is hand waved away as intangibles. Maybe it wasn’t the best analogy. Was just looking for similar “it’s real but not precisely accounted for” concepts .
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    I thought "goodwill" was routinely assessed and considered in takeovers. It amounts to the goodwill of the customer base, doesn't it? I.e., how many customers are they, how much are they worth, and will the new owner get to keep them?
- hyperhopper 4y ago
  You gotta do a lot of nice things before people will trust you or associate with you
memish 4y ago
George Hotz is interviewing there tomorrow. https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/1593391466981691392 https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/159339146698169139... For a certain kind of engineer, this version of Twitter is far more attractive than the previous one.
- bla3 4y ago
  I don't think this is serious. Hotz's license plate is FUELON, and he runs comma.ai.
  - TigeriusKirk 4y ago
    He's definitely serious about it.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      Elon fired his existing employees for daring to criticize him in a private Slack, he's too thin-skinned to hire anybody who has dared to criticize him in public.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - memish 4y ago
        George Hotz has criticized Elon, yet Elon wants him on board. There is a difference between critiquing your employer or insulting your employer. Try insulting your employer on Slack or Twitter and see how it goes.
        kibwen 4y ago
        > There is a difference between critiquing your employer or insulting your employer. From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twit... : "Several Twitter employees who shared news of Mr. Frohnhoefer’s firing in internal chats were cut, said six people familiar with events. They were told that they had been terminated for “violating company policy,” according to emails seen by The Times." Is there a difference between "insulting your employer" and "sharing the publicly-verifiable actions of your employer"? Elon's trying to spin this as "insubordination" when in truth he's just trying to quash any and all dissent, like the authoritarian he is.
kcplate 4y ago
There is just so much irony all over this, at every level and every side. It’s hilarious. Musk wanted to buy it, then tried to back away. The board tried to prevent the sale, then sued to make it happen. Employees loathed the idea of Musk being their boss, but also wanted his cash for their stock. And as much good a pubic soapbox platform could have been for society, destroying the company seems to me to be the only appropriate karmic justice for all involved, including society because of what Twitter had become and had been used for politically.
- throwaway82388 4y ago
  It’s an unpopular opinion but I find it all funny too, for the reasons you described. The degree to which people are experiencing self-righteous outrage over twitter is in direct proportion to how histrionic and annoying their personas are. Twitter may have had some fine contributors, but I think it was a net negative on culture, and encouraged shallow thinking and moral grandstanding. And there’s an upside. If the people threatening to leave actually do, it will likely make the platform better.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    You are completely right but if not Twitter, it will be something else. There is real demand for these net negatives.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Indeed. People talk about like it a critical major industry is about to go under. It’s Twitter. If it goes under it’ll be missed as much as MySpace.
- SkylockeScarred 4y ago
  I honestly want to see Twitter's financials before it goes. I have a suspicion that a lot of it's revenue was from government sources, especially after Arab Spring.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
gonzo41 4y ago
If you can believe what's on twitter. The whole payroll dept has resigned. So that's a setback.
qotgalaxy 4y ago
rodgerd 4y ago
> I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. He was pretty clear. The bar kicked out the Nazis, and he wants them back in.
- wooger 4y ago
  If you redefine "the Nazis" to include everyone who isn't 100% on board with extreme leftist woke propaganda, sure. Thousands of women banned for not agreeing that men in dresses should have full access to women's spaces for one example.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    We're well aware that people like Elon and yourself what his daughter dead. I guess you're celebrating today!
avl999 4y ago
Exactly, severance was absolutely a no brainer based on that email. I have gone "hardcore" many times in my life working crazy hours but all of that has either been in exceptional circumstances or me doing it because I was having fun. If someone emailed saying that "going hardcore and crazy hours" is the baseline for acceptable performance (note, not even good performance, just acceptable performance), I'd be outta there too. I feel bad for all those who are on visas though and may not have the flexibility to accept the severance offer.
ThereIsNoWorry 4y ago
Elon seems pretty incompetent. He dug his own grave. Good for the (former) employees at Twitter.
bogomipz 4y ago
And it's not even just going "hardcore" his wording was "extremely hardcore."[1]. That sounds devoid of fun to me and possibly a euphemism for exhaustion. The World Cup starts on Sunday, it will be interesting to see if the wheels stay on for that. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/17/23465274/hundreds-of-twitter-employees-resign-from-elon-musk-hardcore-deadline https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/17/23465274/hundreds-of-twi...
- xrayarx 4y ago
  Last sentence in the article: Twitter no longer has a communications department to contact for comment.
random314 4y ago
And he has a history of being a chronic liar. He has no STEM degree at all! https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1593391167718113280 https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1593391167718113280
- bitcharmer 4y ago
  I have no degree at all and my job is pretty advanced research and implementation of ultra low-latency software execution stack in a major market maker. What's your point?
  - gigel82 4y ago
    lying is the point, innit?
  - vkou 4y ago
    Did you lie about not having a degree when you were applying for jobs? The implication is that EM did.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    The point is that all of tech has now collectively decided that Elon Musk is a "phony" and "not that smart". Apparently there was a memo sent to everyone in tech that they have to completely discount his work at Tesla and SpaceX and only evaluate him based on his tweets. I feel like I'm living in bizarro world where overnight, Elon Musk became a dumbass - at least in the eyes of the tech industry.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      If he doesn't want to be evaluated as a dumbass, he can simply stop making dumbass tweets.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        If you were smart, you'd understand that the twitter persona serves a business purpose. I reckon you also think the Kardashian family is "dumb" because of their public persona.
mmarq 4y ago
Musk’s plan is to fire half of the workforce and expect the other half to work twice as much for the same salary.
nazka 4y ago
And then you look at how Zuckerberg is handling his lay off by being so humanly well with all the packages, bonuses, process and the support teams even more for a massive lay off and how all this is going to cost that you wonder if we really knew who they really are.
- matwood 4y ago
  Not only that, but FB are pros at corp communications. Notice they also announced the day of or before the mid-terms. Story popped, then was buried.
type0 4y ago
> to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. He said several times he wants to make it into a western Wechat equivalent, very dystopian with overall negative value to society and positive value for him and the government agencies.
mcv 4y ago
> where EM wants to take Twitter I know people joked about him wanting to destroy it, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that that's the only rational explanation for what he's doing. Even Dilbert's PHB seems mild compared to Musk. Either he's a massive idiot, or he wants to destroy Twitter without looking like he intended to destroy it, and so prefers to look like a massive idiot instead.
LoveMortuus 4y ago
Do you think this could be one of those "There were making fun of me and telling me to quit, but now they call me a genius", kinda like what happened with many YouTubers and entrepreneurs? I personally don't like how negative everyone has been since EM took over. The 44 billion wasn't 100% his money, he got funding, so he's still liable. And since Twitter is known for being hated, very few people have something positive to say about Twitter. I think EM making changes is good. Of course losing your job isn't fun, but I don't think that this amount of negativity is productive or good for anyone. Don't get me wrong, EM makes mistakes, even if he doesn't address them, like HyperLoop, which is not only practical but also not his idea. But like why not wait a bit too actually see what's his vision for Twitter, beyond just saying that he's trying to serve his ego.
carbonatedmilk 4y ago
I'm not saying it's a fair metric, but when I compare Twitter's open output to similarly VC-funded-but-now-public companies, the engineering output doesn't seem particularly exciting. For comparison: Meta / Facebook: * React * PyTorch * Fasttext * Their unsung-but-indispensible-for-humanitarian-orgs Data for Good program Google: * Flutter * Go * Kubernetes * Tensorflow * BERT / Large language models generally * Mapreduce / Hadoop The much-maligned Uber: * H3 Geospatial indexing * Kepler.gl * Manifold Even AirBNB! * Airflow * Superset I use most of these products (or their descendants) every day in my work. When I think of Twitter, all I think of is how they arbitrarily shut off humanitarian access to their APIs (and earlier, the Twitter firehose). There's not a single Twitter-supported open product that I use. Am I the only one? Is there a great Twitter-supported project that I missed?
- antirez 4y ago
  Pellican (caching system), Bootstarp, their unique IDs system, a few more.
- _rs 4y ago
  Bootstrap, though it has been a long time since I’ve used it (and I don’t know if they actively support it)
- doitLP 4y ago
  Bootstrap! It’s the only one I could think of but it certainly had a big impact on lots of people, enabling a lot of devs who were bad at design and responsiveness to make halfway decent looking websites.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  > Their unsung-but-indispensible-for-humanitarian-orgs Data for Good program I'm pretty sure almost all of this team was laid off (certainly the people I knew who worked on it were). > * Airflow This is actually a clone of an internal FB tool (written by the same author after he left FB).
  - carbonatedmilk 4y ago
avidphantasm 4y ago
On principal, I hope it crashes and burns and ruins him. And I know this will cause a lot of people to suffer some. I am so sorry for that. But these piss ant billionaires need to start facing real consequences when they behave so abhorrently. I hope all of his ventures fail similarly. Fuck him and his petulant behavior forever.
- rnd0 4y ago
  Billionares have a support system of other billionares giving one another handsies. I'm sure if Musk was in danger of feeling pain someone like Thiel or Bezos would step up to give him a hand perhaps without interest even. I agree "fuck him", but sadly I doubt he'll suffer much of a fallout of this. That said I am riding the sweet wave of schadenfreude and do hope that twitter crashes and burns (and that everyone who works there gets severance)
  - avidphantasm 4y ago
    Agreed. It is great watching him eat the shit sandwich he has made for himself.
- refurb 4y ago
  Wow. The guy who started sending more rockets to space than NASA and almost single-handedly made electric cars cool is suddenly the most evil man alive. Yikes.
  - elorant 4y ago
    We had electric cars before Tesla and they worked just fine. With better build quality too.
  - avidphantasm 4y ago
    The ends don’t justify the means. And his ends are dubious at best. He didn’t singlehandedly do anything. The successes of SpaceX and Tesla are mostly do to the hard work of thousands of workers.
faangiq 4y ago
Elon is finally getting exposed for having very low IQ. Quite simple really.
- tmn 4y ago
  It's hilarious that people have convinced themselves that Elon Musk is low IQ. The coping is outrageous
  - faangiq 4y ago
    Who needed convincing? Remember this guy thinks AI is a thing.
majani 4y ago
There is nowhere to take Twitter, it is on the tail end of its business cycle. The only move to play here is to go into damage control mode and relist ASAP. That way Elon can minimize his loss to 'only' $10 billion or less
loceng 4y ago
And then if they need you specifically then they offer you more $ and then may offer more flexibility along with that.
random314 4y ago
Musk has also been lying about his college degrees. He has no STEM degree at all https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33651188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33651188
grappler 4y ago
I don't hope the wheels stay on. I hope they come off, as a warning to anyone in the future considering acquiring an organization with the idea that its people are a small part of its value and can be cast out or easily replaced.

lost_tourist 4y ago

I really hope it implodes. He has been so childish throughout, he deserves to lose the 44 billion. Sucks that thousands of people are out of work, but maybe this is better for them than a slow painful death of a once okayish company.

MBCook 4y ago
What about all the poor people on visas who are now desperately looking for jobs to avoid having themselves and their families deported?
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Twitter wouldn’t shut down completely. The company would continue running…right?
  - MBCook 4y ago
    They already have basically no advertisers except SpaceX, which is a balance transfer in all but name, and maybe some right wing stuff. Real brands are terrified of them. They have no money. It’s not coming in, and only gets worse when the site goes down. They’re facing employment lawsuits over the last two weeks. They’re facing a discrimination lawsuit for requiring an employee with an ADA accommodation to work from home to work from the office (after that announcement). The FTC is mad. Congress is mad. Who knows what other lawsuits/etc will pop up. I just don’t understand how they can survive. Seems like chapter 7. Not “renegotiate the debt and we swear we’ll be fine” chapter 11. Sell every last post-it note and auction off the wall art to pay the creditors chapter 7. I knew he’d ruin Twitter. I never expected anything like this. I expected people to slowly leave (platform and employment) due to new policies and values. This was, and honestly is, unimaginable. Did he really destroy $44B in three weeks?
    - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
      I can't help but think that his buy was funded and supported by some regimes with less than honorable goals.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        That may be, but was their goal to destroy it? Or just have influence over what trends/censorship of posts?
    - martindbp 4y ago
      > They already have basically no advertisers except SpaceX Source? Musk claimed a "massive drop" but who knows how much that is, if he exaggerated for effect or whether it's permanent ("paused" doesn't mean permanent, if it makes financial sense advertisers will return). > I expected people to slowly leave Yet number of users increased faster than ever. These kinds of predictions reminds me of the expectations that Trump would be prosecuted any day now thorough out his whole presidency. Maybe Twitter will crash and burn, maybe Musk has absolutely no idea what he's doing, or maybe generally outraged people are bad at predicting the future because they're easily misled by their general dislike of someone's personality.
      - dorkwood 4y ago
        > Yet number of users increased faster than ever. Source on this? I've seen reports that the number of "monetizable daily active users" is up, but nothing about the actual user count.
        MBCook 4y ago
        Elon tweeted a graph showing a massive jump. But the Y axis was chosen for that purpose. Someone responded with a graph whose Y axis started at 0. You couldn’t see the “massive jump” anymore. It was actually like 0.5% increase based on the data in Elon’s chart.
    - akiselev 4y ago
- guelo 4y ago
  Those are not poor people.
  - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
    "Poor" can mean unfortunate as well as lacking in wealth.
    - guelo 4y ago
      Either way
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Maybe we shouldn't allow the US government to chain people to a company with no way out.
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  Like I said I feel sorry for them, I can't imagine that the h1b and other programs don't have good will time for them to find other employment. Twitter doesn't hire hacks, I'm sure they'll be fine. I'm just talking about the overall greater good because I think they -all- will be out of a job soon. I never wanted twitter to die, but if it's just going to be parler with venmo shrug
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Until relatively recently - 2017, to be specific - someone on H1B who lost their job had no grace period to find other employment under the law. Enforcement was another matter, so many people chanced it regardless - but the concern is that overstaying one's visa can have significant consequences for your ability to get new ones long into the future if found out. In 2017, USCIS unilaterally enacted a 60-day grace period as an administrative rule, which is still in effect today. But, given the current US job market in tech, 60 days may not be sufficient. Twitter aside, it should also be noted that, being an administrative rule, it can be changed fairly easily for political reasons, since it doesn't have to go through Congress, and courts generally err on the side of executive agencies' judgment on such matters.

nemothekid 4y ago

>Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. I don't see what it is about the Twitter product that would require going "hardcore". It's a lose-lose situation; I don't think Twitter's problems would be solved by engineering harder; and you will spend 80 hrs/wk where you can end up fired because people aren't as deterministic as cars. It's a completely bewildering move; I'm not sure what Elon was thinking when he even decided to buy Twitter. What's most surprising it seems he has no thesis for the company or how it can be made better or what was so terrible about it.

snoot 4y ago
pschuegr 4y ago
I guess, if you buy the premise that cash flow is problem number one and the company needs a significant pivot, then going into crunch-mode and trying to turn the ship as quickly as possible (at the cost of technical and, uh, sleep debt) is a reasonable solution. Maybe not the best, but reasonable. But it's pretty transparent that the cash flow problem is pretty much a problem because the new owner doesn't really want to own Twitter, or believe it can pay for itself; he wants to own a different product which has as many users as Twitter did. No judgement here, I don't necessarily think he's wrong. But why as an employee would I feel obligated to make his choices my problem?
- mcphage 4y ago
  > I guess, if you buy the premise that cash flow is problem number one Well, luckily you don't need to buy the premise that cash flow was problem number one—after he bought it, he saddled it with so much debt that it definitely became problem number one!
  - pschuegr 4y ago
    Aha, so overpaying _was_ just part of a grand scheme to light a fire under the employees and the fanboys are right that he's playing 6d chess?

slg 4y ago

>Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. And for the right financial upside. I completely understand going hardcore at a startup in which you have equity. But hasn't Twitter going private removed a lot of the incentive for employees? What is the upside for a Twitter engineer dedicating themselves to the company? Making one of the richest people on the planet slightly richer?

spamizbad 4y ago
They could still do RSUs but you’ve got some big creditors who are first in line.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  And… is there even a future liquidity event planned? How helpful is an RSU if there’s no opportunity to turn it into cash at some future date?
  - Balgair 4y ago
    All this would make some sense, but Elon is asking for a blank check from the remaining employees. There is no promise right now, there is no pay off, there are no RSUs, there is no liquidity event, there is ... nothing. Just one of the wealthiest people in history asking people to work 12 hour days every day of the week, forever, for some nebulous reasons that he can't state, just because. Such a radical renegotiation of the employment agreement between the workers and the management requires a LOT of study and time. Not two days and clicking a button that says you agree to something. You'd be crazy to agree to this, and Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work.
    - netsharc 4y ago
      > Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work. Haha, can someone tweet this at him so he sees it. He thinks he'll be getting dedicated loyal employees (let's deem them the Yes-clickers), but if he becomes aware of this flaw in his plan, he's going to treat them with paranoia and mistrust as well. I really munch popcorn hope he twigs that soon.

peterkelly 4y ago

> where EM wants to take Twitter based on his actions to date, the only explanation I can think of is he wants to destroy it

prawn 4y ago
I think he's just flailing about, nothing much beyond that. Triumphing with a popular platform and revenue would absolutely be his hope, but he's making rushed, questionable decisions that bring compounding issues. From the start, muddying the existing blue check with the idea of a paid tier seems bizarre and unnecessary.

purpleblue 4y ago

I'd be willing to work "hardcore" if there were enough reward, ie a huge raise and lots of equity in the new company. I have a feeling if I asked him what it would be, he would fire me though. There's no point in working for a mercurial boss like that. No ability to freely speak your mind is a complete waste of everyone's time.

graderjs 4y ago

A culture where being smart gets you social debt may be part of the problem

godelski 4y ago
Why are people eager to defend someone who cosplays as a nerd?
- noobermin 4y ago
  Perhaps because such people cosplay as well.
  - graderjs 4y ago
    I think that’s the nerdiest thing I’ve been accused of. Thank you, I’ve finally been accepted by your elite fraternity… lol
pschuegr 4y ago
Arguably, failing to factor human emotions into your leadership techniques does not qualify as smart behavior.
- graderjs 4y ago
  Agree. Is that what he's doing tho?
  - pschuegr 4y ago
    Are you suggesting that he's pissing people off intentionally for the controversy?
    - graderjs 4y ago
      Is that the only way to read what’s happening?

shagie 4y ago

> Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. This is a death march - no question about it. The book by Edward Yourdon should be required reading for any who are still at Twitter. One of the things that is in the book had in it that I recall was a four quadrant grid of 'morale' and 'likelihood of success'(?). There are indeed high morale high chance of success death marches - and they can be fun to be on. The "we will get this done and it will be glorious" type things. There are also the low morale high chance of success that just drag on and it is a "we will get this done, and then we will all quit." I've been on that one - it was awful. I can only imagine the low morale low chance ones being completely dreadful and people hoping that it gets canceled before too much longer. Amazon says that I got a copy of this on August 11th, 2012... and that was an order in which the book I got was given to my manager at the time. The project rolled out in October (before Black Friday code freezes went in effect) and I started looking for new employment in January after the company did its yearly bonuses.

CobaltFire 4y ago
I don’t think the employees staying for Twitter 2.0 will have time for such trivialities as reading a book given the hours being talked about.
jboy55 4y ago
One of the things I do to ground myself in situations where I'm facing a death march, or find myself working at a company that does a pivot is listen to the song "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads. If the intro lyrics cut too deep, I start looking. Well, we know where we're goin' But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin' But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want And the future is certain Give us time to work it out https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics
- gausswho 4y ago
  I'll add On the One Road. Inspired the Irish to join in WWI with pretty devastating consequences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw "We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!"

rednerrus 4y ago

If I'm giving Elon the benefit of the doubt, A. he's intelligent B. He has 20+ years of corporate experience running companies, I would assume that there was some method to this madness. If I had to guess, he came in with the assumption that forces in the company would be hostile to him based on their beliefs. In order to weed those forces out, he engineered some of this madness to shake those people out. Unfortunately it seems like it may be backfiring.

brookst 4y ago
I try to leave the “it looks crazy but it’s all part of the master plan that will eventually be revealed as brilliant” stuff to Qanon.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  He has been nothing but transparent about wanting to gut the company. It's just his plainly communicated plan. There is no conspiracy here.
photoGrant 4y ago
Yeah, he's said this so many times it's a bore. He deletes. First. After deleting 'LAST'. So he's doing exactly as we all should expect, he's literally said it. I used to delete last Now I delete first.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 4y ago
I'm amazed at how naive some of the people are here. Why not just accept what you're seeing with your own two eyes? Why look for an alternate explanation?
- poulpy123 4y ago

oska 4y ago

> somebody who takes over the company and accrues so much social debt so quickly What is 'social debt' and how is it (objectively) measured?

brookst 4y ago
Think of it as negative goodwill. It is not objectively measured, in the same way that goodwill on balance sheets is not objectively measured. But it’s a real thing. Qualitatively it is the impairment from people not wanting to do business with you. In Twitter’s case, that manifests as decreased advertiser demand, which results in lower ad prices. And to the extent Twitter is losing MAU, that impacts ad inventory.
- im3w1l 4y ago
  Goodwill on balance sheets is a technical thing and is quite different from common parlance "goodwill". It's the fudge factor introduced when doing an acquisition to make the numbers balance up correctly.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Yes — my point is that goodwill is intended to explain the difference between book value and purchase price. If something is “worth” $500, as evidenced by market cap, why pay $600? Because it’s worth $600 to you. That extra $100 is hand waved away as intangibles. Maybe it wasn’t the best analogy. Was just looking for similar “it’s real but not precisely accounted for” concepts .
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  I thought "goodwill" was routinely assessed and considered in takeovers. It amounts to the goodwill of the customer base, doesn't it? I.e., how many customers are they, how much are they worth, and will the new owner get to keep them?
hyperhopper 4y ago
You gotta do a lot of nice things before people will trust you or associate with you

memish 4y ago

George Hotz is interviewing there tomorrow. https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/1593391466981691392 https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/159339146698169139... For a certain kind of engineer, this version of Twitter is far more attractive than the previous one.

bla3 4y ago
I don't think this is serious. Hotz's license plate is FUELON, and he runs comma.ai.
- TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  He's definitely serious about it.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    Elon fired his existing employees for daring to criticize him in a private Slack, he's too thin-skinned to hire anybody who has dared to criticize him in public.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - memish 4y ago
      George Hotz has criticized Elon, yet Elon wants him on board. There is a difference between critiquing your employer or insulting your employer. Try insulting your employer on Slack or Twitter and see how it goes.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        > There is a difference between critiquing your employer or insulting your employer. From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twit... : "Several Twitter employees who shared news of Mr. Frohnhoefer’s firing in internal chats were cut, said six people familiar with events. They were told that they had been terminated for “violating company policy,” according to emails seen by The Times." Is there a difference between "insulting your employer" and "sharing the publicly-verifiable actions of your employer"? Elon's trying to spin this as "insubordination" when in truth he's just trying to quash any and all dissent, like the authoritarian he is.

kcplate 4y ago

There is just so much irony all over this, at every level and every side. It’s hilarious. Musk wanted to buy it, then tried to back away. The board tried to prevent the sale, then sued to make it happen. Employees loathed the idea of Musk being their boss, but also wanted his cash for their stock. And as much good a pubic soapbox platform could have been for society, destroying the company seems to me to be the only appropriate karmic justice for all involved, including society because of what Twitter had become and had been used for politically.

throwaway82388 4y ago
It’s an unpopular opinion but I find it all funny too, for the reasons you described. The degree to which people are experiencing self-righteous outrage over twitter is in direct proportion to how histrionic and annoying their personas are. Twitter may have had some fine contributors, but I think it was a net negative on culture, and encouraged shallow thinking and moral grandstanding. And there’s an upside. If the people threatening to leave actually do, it will likely make the platform better.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  You are completely right but if not Twitter, it will be something else. There is real demand for these net negatives.
- refurb 4y ago
  Indeed. People talk about like it a critical major industry is about to go under. It’s Twitter. If it goes under it’ll be missed as much as MySpace.
SkylockeScarred 4y ago
I honestly want to see Twitter's financials before it goes. I have a suspicion that a lot of it's revenue was from government sources, especially after Arab Spring.
- seanhunter 4y ago

gonzo41 4y ago

If you can believe what's on twitter. The whole payroll dept has resigned. So that's a setback.

qotgalaxy 4y ago

rodgerd 4y ago

> I hope that the wheels stay on sufficiently to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. He was pretty clear. The bar kicked out the Nazis, and he wants them back in.

wooger 4y ago
If you redefine "the Nazis" to include everyone who isn't 100% on board with extreme leftist woke propaganda, sure. Thousands of women banned for not agreeing that men in dresses should have full access to women's spaces for one example.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  We're well aware that people like Elon and yourself what his daughter dead. I guess you're celebrating today!

avl999 4y ago

Exactly, severance was absolutely a no brainer based on that email. I have gone "hardcore" many times in my life working crazy hours but all of that has either been in exceptional circumstances or me doing it because I was having fun. If someone emailed saying that "going hardcore and crazy hours" is the baseline for acceptable performance (note, not even good performance, just acceptable performance), I'd be outta there too. I feel bad for all those who are on visas though and may not have the flexibility to accept the severance offer.

ThereIsNoWorry 4y ago

Elon seems pretty incompetent. He dug his own grave. Good for the (former) employees at Twitter.

bogomipz 4y ago

And it's not even just going "hardcore" his wording was "extremely hardcore."[1]. That sounds devoid of fun to me and possibly a euphemism for exhaustion. The World Cup starts on Sunday, it will be interesting to see if the wheels stay on for that. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/17/23465274/hundreds-of-twitter-employees-resign-from-elon-musk-hardcore-deadline https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/17/23465274/hundreds-of-twi...

xrayarx 4y ago
Last sentence in the article: Twitter no longer has a communications department to contact for comment.

random314 4y ago

And he has a history of being a chronic liar. He has no STEM degree at all! https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1593391167718113280 https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1593391167718113280

bitcharmer 4y ago
I have no degree at all and my job is pretty advanced research and implementation of ultra low-latency software execution stack in a major market maker. What's your point?
- gigel82 4y ago
  lying is the point, innit?
- vkou 4y ago
  Did you lie about not having a degree when you were applying for jobs? The implication is that EM did.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  The point is that all of tech has now collectively decided that Elon Musk is a "phony" and "not that smart". Apparently there was a memo sent to everyone in tech that they have to completely discount his work at Tesla and SpaceX and only evaluate him based on his tweets. I feel like I'm living in bizarro world where overnight, Elon Musk became a dumbass - at least in the eyes of the tech industry.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    If he doesn't want to be evaluated as a dumbass, he can simply stop making dumbass tweets.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      If you were smart, you'd understand that the twitter persona serves a business purpose. I reckon you also think the Kardashian family is "dumb" because of their public persona.

mmarq 4y ago

Musk’s plan is to fire half of the workforce and expect the other half to work twice as much for the same salary.

nazka 4y ago

And then you look at how Zuckerberg is handling his lay off by being so humanly well with all the packages, bonuses, process and the support teams even more for a massive lay off and how all this is going to cost that you wonder if we really knew who they really are.

matwood 4y ago
Not only that, but FB are pros at corp communications. Notice they also announced the day of or before the mid-terms. Story popped, then was buried.

type0 4y ago

> to get an idea of where EM wants to take Twitter and find out what kind of value it can bring. He said several times he wants to make it into a western Wechat equivalent, very dystopian with overall negative value to society and positive value for him and the government agencies.

mcv 4y ago

> where EM wants to take Twitter I know people joked about him wanting to destroy it, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that that's the only rational explanation for what he's doing. Even Dilbert's PHB seems mild compared to Musk. Either he's a massive idiot, or he wants to destroy Twitter without looking like he intended to destroy it, and so prefers to look like a massive idiot instead.

LoveMortuus 4y ago

Do you think this could be one of those "There were making fun of me and telling me to quit, but now they call me a genius", kinda like what happened with many YouTubers and entrepreneurs? I personally don't like how negative everyone has been since EM took over. The 44 billion wasn't 100% his money, he got funding, so he's still liable. And since Twitter is known for being hated, very few people have something positive to say about Twitter. I think EM making changes is good. Of course losing your job isn't fun, but I don't think that this amount of negativity is productive or good for anyone. Don't get me wrong, EM makes mistakes, even if he doesn't address them, like HyperLoop, which is not only practical but also not his idea. But like why not wait a bit too actually see what's his vision for Twitter, beyond just saying that he's trying to serve his ego.

carbonatedmilk 4y ago

I'm not saying it's a fair metric, but when I compare Twitter's open output to similarly VC-funded-but-now-public companies, the engineering output doesn't seem particularly exciting. For comparison: Meta / Facebook: * React * PyTorch * Fasttext * Their unsung-but-indispensible-for-humanitarian-orgs Data for Good program Google: * Flutter * Go * Kubernetes * Tensorflow * BERT / Large language models generally * Mapreduce / Hadoop The much-maligned Uber: * H3 Geospatial indexing * Kepler.gl * Manifold Even AirBNB! * Airflow * Superset I use most of these products (or their descendants) every day in my work. When I think of Twitter, all I think of is how they arbitrarily shut off humanitarian access to their APIs (and earlier, the Twitter firehose). There's not a single Twitter-supported open product that I use. Am I the only one? Is there a great Twitter-supported project that I missed?

antirez 4y ago
Pellican (caching system), Bootstarp, their unique IDs system, a few more.
_rs 4y ago
Bootstrap, though it has been a long time since I’ve used it (and I don’t know if they actively support it)
doitLP 4y ago
Bootstrap! It’s the only one I could think of but it certainly had a big impact on lots of people, enabling a lot of devs who were bad at design and responsiveness to make halfway decent looking websites.
disgruntledphd2 4y ago
> Their unsung-but-indispensible-for-humanitarian-orgs Data for Good program I'm pretty sure almost all of this team was laid off (certainly the people I knew who worked on it were). > * Airflow This is actually a clone of an internal FB tool (written by the same author after he left FB).
- carbonatedmilk 4y ago

avidphantasm 4y ago

On principal, I hope it crashes and burns and ruins him. And I know this will cause a lot of people to suffer some. I am so sorry for that. But these piss ant billionaires need to start facing real consequences when they behave so abhorrently. I hope all of his ventures fail similarly. Fuck him and his petulant behavior forever.

rnd0 4y ago
Billionares have a support system of other billionares giving one another handsies. I'm sure if Musk was in danger of feeling pain someone like Thiel or Bezos would step up to give him a hand perhaps without interest even. I agree "fuck him", but sadly I doubt he'll suffer much of a fallout of this. That said I am riding the sweet wave of schadenfreude and do hope that twitter crashes and burns (and that everyone who works there gets severance)
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  Agreed. It is great watching him eat the shit sandwich he has made for himself.
refurb 4y ago
Wow. The guy who started sending more rockets to space than NASA and almost single-handedly made electric cars cool is suddenly the most evil man alive. Yikes.
- elorant 4y ago
  We had electric cars before Tesla and they worked just fine. With better build quality too.
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  The ends don’t justify the means. And his ends are dubious at best. He didn’t singlehandedly do anything. The successes of SpaceX and Tesla are mostly do to the hard work of thousands of workers.

faangiq 4y ago

Elon is finally getting exposed for having very low IQ. Quite simple really.

tmn 4y ago
It's hilarious that people have convinced themselves that Elon Musk is low IQ. The coping is outrageous
- faangiq 4y ago
  Who needed convincing? Remember this guy thinks AI is a thing.

majani 4y ago

There is nowhere to take Twitter, it is on the tail end of its business cycle. The only move to play here is to go into damage control mode and relist ASAP. That way Elon can minimize his loss to 'only' $10 billion or less

loceng 4y ago

And then if they need you specifically then they offer you more $ and then may offer more flexibility along with that.

random314 4y ago

Musk has also been lying about his college degrees. He has no STEM degree at all https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33651188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33651188

grappler 4y ago

I don't hope the wheels stay on. I hope they come off, as a warning to anyone in the future considering acquiring an organization with the idea that its people are a small part of its value and can be cast out or easily replaced.