4 ms·

I think there are going to be two levels of shock: 1) Never give people an ultimatum. It basically never works in your favor. That was such a dumb thing by Elo

I think there are going to be two levels of shock: 1) Never give people an ultimatum. It basically never works in your favor. That was such a dumb thing by Elon and his team. I don't think Elon expected the numbers to be so high. 2) Workers often overestimate their own worth within a company or how easily they can be replaced. It's likely that all the people leaving saying Twitter is going to majorly break soon won't be correct, as I doubt the core engineers are the ones posting Emojis in the Slack channels.

mikkergp 4y ago
https://mobile.twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/1593399704636620800 https://mobile.twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/15933997046366... !!! “I know of six critical systems (like ‘serving tweets’ levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.” Could be fake, but assuming true, can Elon take it back? Is a webform like legally binding for severance? Elon did say he could run it with 150 engineers do even if 90% are gone, that leaves 700 thereabouts.
- partiallypro 4y ago
  I think right now emotions are flying high, so people are going to make grand statements (and of course the press, which now hates Musk, is very gung-ho to publish anything.) I'm sure some systems will fail, but as to if the general public will really notice much of it, I have doubts. I could be wrong, but I've seen employees make similar claims after being fired or leaving and generally most everything working out. Interviewing or getting information from people fired up after an event like that are generally not reliable, in my experience.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    You’re absolutely right for any small group of people, but if 88 percent of employees are gone(and you’re right that’s a big if right now) I don’t think there’s a precedent for this?
    - partiallypro 4y ago
      IMO, it really depends what teams they are from. If you lost 88% of your engineers then that would be a big problem, I just don't think that will be correct. I'm sure for people that were deemed indispensable at the moment were offered more money to stay on. That is something I've seen elsewhere during massive reorgs. I could be wrong; I can't speak for Elon. He seems like a loose cannon at times, but I don't think he's making all the decisions alone. I saw an article backtracking on some things reported, with Twitter being a lot more flexible with people deemed "essential," which lends itself to my general view.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    its fine
- phphphphp 4y ago
  10% of Twitter’s engineers is much closer to 150 than 700. The majority of twitters employees were not engineers.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    I was assuming the 90% laid off a disproportionate number of non engineers and only engineers were left but your version is much spicier :-)
- randomsearch 4y ago
  This could be meaningless hyperbole without detail. What are those systems, why are they critical, how many staff did they have and how many staff do they have now and what type of staff are they? They have great reason to be hyperbolic - they've just basically been fired, Elon is accusing Twitter of being an inefficient, lazy, engineering organisation. He has insulted them, they will insult him back and want him to fail.
tracerbulletx 4y ago
I don't think anything like this has ever happened before to a system with this scale, so who can say? But just as an engineer at another company that probably has a vaguely similar architecture it's certainly in a place of extreme risk. It just depends on if they can get people in place to hold together the critical services. Also things are much more likely to break it they start trying to change things, it will take longer for a problem to happen if there is little new feature work.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  I have a hunch that over Thanksgiving the increased traffic will break something, and there will be nobody around to fix it, so more stuff will break. I have a hunch that most of SRE people that would normally be watching the metrics ready to jump on anything starting to look dicey are gone.
  - erk__ 4y ago
    Not just thanksgiving, by the world cup is starting next week as well and that usually drives a lot of traffic
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      And World Cup traffic will be bursty. Big game, big event in game. Could really peak message volume and this is even geographically distributed. So fun times for those left there to fight the fires.
      - _moof 4y ago
        During the 2010 World Cup, Twitter crashed every time a goal was scored. It was a major motivation for the rearchitecture that changed it from a monorail to services. The rock-solid stability during the 2014 World Cup vindicated that effort. With that context, the performance during this World Cup will be especially meaningful.
- ruh-roh 4y ago
version_five 4y ago
I find the colloquial use of "Elon" to be pretty lame, like when people call Mark Zuckerberg "Mark" only. News sources don't do that, it's usually only losers who either want to imply familiarity or refer to him in a vaguely disrespectful way. There are lots of instances where people would be getting upset over way less - here I just think it makes one look like a loser (not singling out the parent, there are lots of these), unless one is really in Musk's circle of friends and talking about him to other friends.
- sidibe 4y ago
  He has a unique first name and likes to interact with regular people online. Internet people have used Elon for a long time even when they liked him. It happens to a lot of famous people with rare first names (e.g. Lebron Kobe Shaq)
  - version_five 4y ago
    His last name is unique as well, and would generally by how e.g a news org would refer to him. I still get the sense there is a certain type of post that uses the first name exclusively, either (maybe less now) a tech-bro-type implying familiarity, or now an outraged tech-adjacent type wanting to mildly show their superiority. Ymmv, it's just the impression I get, especially if you look at the content of posts that refer to him this way I've seen people routinely feign outrage over people not addressed as "Dr" (which as someone with a PhD I think is ridiculous) - even though it's clearly a minor thing, I think people seem fine trying to subtly disrespect Musk through how he's addressed
- voxl 4y ago
  What an incredibly cringe comment. Names are used to reference a person, Elon as a name makes it painstakingly obvious who is being talked about. Mark pointedly does not. To call someone a loser and dribble about this asinine analysis of familiarity. It is infuriating to read. How I wish you had been born in the middle ages with Lord's and Lady's, you would be happier and so would I for never having to know of your existence.
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cmh89 4y ago
>as I doubt the core engineers are the ones posting Emojis in the Slack channels. Why would someone who is capable of being a core engineer at Twitter agree to be overworked after Musk destroys the majority of the company. The most talented people will leave the dumpster fire. The remaining folks are probably going to be the people with the least confidence that they can get a new job in three months
- benjaminwai 4y ago
  I empathize with those remaining with a H1B, they would be worried sick. They would have less choices and would otherwise have less of 60 days to find a new job or to leave the country.
andreyk 4y ago
Wrt 2: "I am going to miss this place. We built something special here, and I do not expect to see its like ever again. I have worked here at Twitter for over 11 years. Back in July, I was the 27th most tenured employee at the company. Now I'm the 15th. I am not going to click "yes"" https://mobile.twitter.com/THISWILLWORK/status/1593376111563771905 https://mobile.twitter.com/THISWILLWORK/status/1593376111563... Twitter is full of employees with 5-10 years of experience sharing that they are leaving. There is no doubt many people with critical knowledge and skills that are not easily replaced are gone.

mikkergp 4y ago

https://mobile.twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/1593399704636620800 https://mobile.twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/15933997046366... !!! “I know of six critical systems (like ‘serving tweets’ levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.” Could be fake, but assuming true, can Elon take it back? Is a webform like legally binding for severance? Elon did say he could run it with 150 engineers do even if 90% are gone, that leaves 700 thereabouts.

partiallypro 4y ago
I think right now emotions are flying high, so people are going to make grand statements (and of course the press, which now hates Musk, is very gung-ho to publish anything.) I'm sure some systems will fail, but as to if the general public will really notice much of it, I have doubts. I could be wrong, but I've seen employees make similar claims after being fired or leaving and generally most everything working out. Interviewing or getting information from people fired up after an event like that are generally not reliable, in my experience.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  You’re absolutely right for any small group of people, but if 88 percent of employees are gone(and you’re right that’s a big if right now) I don’t think there’s a precedent for this?
  - partiallypro 4y ago
    IMO, it really depends what teams they are from. If you lost 88% of your engineers then that would be a big problem, I just don't think that will be correct. I'm sure for people that were deemed indispensable at the moment were offered more money to stay on. That is something I've seen elsewhere during massive reorgs. I could be wrong; I can't speak for Elon. He seems like a loose cannon at times, but I don't think he's making all the decisions alone. I saw an article backtracking on some things reported, with Twitter being a lot more flexible with people deemed "essential," which lends itself to my general view.
- MrMan 4y ago
  its fine
phphphphp 4y ago
10% of Twitter’s engineers is much closer to 150 than 700. The majority of twitters employees were not engineers.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I was assuming the 90% laid off a disproportionate number of non engineers and only engineers were left but your version is much spicier :-)
randomsearch 4y ago
This could be meaningless hyperbole without detail. What are those systems, why are they critical, how many staff did they have and how many staff do they have now and what type of staff are they? They have great reason to be hyperbolic - they've just basically been fired, Elon is accusing Twitter of being an inefficient, lazy, engineering organisation. He has insulted them, they will insult him back and want him to fail.

tracerbulletx 4y ago

I don't think anything like this has ever happened before to a system with this scale, so who can say? But just as an engineer at another company that probably has a vaguely similar architecture it's certainly in a place of extreme risk. It just depends on if they can get people in place to hold together the critical services. Also things are much more likely to break it they start trying to change things, it will take longer for a problem to happen if there is little new feature work.

cratermoon 4y ago
I have a hunch that over Thanksgiving the increased traffic will break something, and there will be nobody around to fix it, so more stuff will break. I have a hunch that most of SRE people that would normally be watching the metrics ready to jump on anything starting to look dicey are gone.
- erk__ 4y ago
  Not just thanksgiving, by the world cup is starting next week as well and that usually drives a lot of traffic
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    And World Cup traffic will be bursty. Big game, big event in game. Could really peak message volume and this is even geographically distributed. So fun times for those left there to fight the fires.
    - _moof 4y ago
      During the 2010 World Cup, Twitter crashed every time a goal was scored. It was a major motivation for the rearchitecture that changed it from a monorail to services. The rock-solid stability during the 2014 World Cup vindicated that effort. With that context, the performance during this World Cup will be especially meaningful.
ruh-roh 4y ago

version_five 4y ago

I find the colloquial use of "Elon" to be pretty lame, like when people call Mark Zuckerberg "Mark" only. News sources don't do that, it's usually only losers who either want to imply familiarity or refer to him in a vaguely disrespectful way. There are lots of instances where people would be getting upset over way less - here I just think it makes one look like a loser (not singling out the parent, there are lots of these), unless one is really in Musk's circle of friends and talking about him to other friends.

sidibe 4y ago
He has a unique first name and likes to interact with regular people online. Internet people have used Elon for a long time even when they liked him. It happens to a lot of famous people with rare first names (e.g. Lebron Kobe Shaq)
- version_five 4y ago
  His last name is unique as well, and would generally by how e.g a news org would refer to him. I still get the sense there is a certain type of post that uses the first name exclusively, either (maybe less now) a tech-bro-type implying familiarity, or now an outraged tech-adjacent type wanting to mildly show their superiority. Ymmv, it's just the impression I get, especially if you look at the content of posts that refer to him this way I've seen people routinely feign outrage over people not addressed as "Dr" (which as someone with a PhD I think is ridiculous) - even though it's clearly a minor thing, I think people seem fine trying to subtly disrespect Musk through how he's addressed
voxl 4y ago
What an incredibly cringe comment. Names are used to reference a person, Elon as a name makes it painstakingly obvious who is being talked about. Mark pointedly does not. To call someone a loser and dribble about this asinine analysis of familiarity. It is infuriating to read. How I wish you had been born in the middle ages with Lord's and Lady's, you would be happier and so would I for never having to know of your existence.

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cmh89 4y ago

>as I doubt the core engineers are the ones posting Emojis in the Slack channels. Why would someone who is capable of being a core engineer at Twitter agree to be overworked after Musk destroys the majority of the company. The most talented people will leave the dumpster fire. The remaining folks are probably going to be the people with the least confidence that they can get a new job in three months

benjaminwai 4y ago
I empathize with those remaining with a H1B, they would be worried sick. They would have less choices and would otherwise have less of 60 days to find a new job or to leave the country.

andreyk 4y ago

Wrt 2: "I am going to miss this place. We built something special here, and I do not expect to see its like ever again. I have worked here at Twitter for over 11 years. Back in July, I was the 27th most tenured employee at the company. Now I'm the 15th. I am not going to click "yes"" https://mobile.twitter.com/THISWILLWORK/status/1593376111563771905 https://mobile.twitter.com/THISWILLWORK/status/1593376111563... Twitter is full of employees with 5-10 years of experience sharing that they are leaving. There is no doubt many people with critical knowledge and skills that are not easily replaced are gone.