5 ms·

All Twitter Offices Closed as Hundreds of Employees Resign

42 points by _jvqe 4y ago

ea550ff70a 4y ago
Wild times fellas
jmyeet 4y ago
To recap this (briefly), in the month or so since Twitter was forced to acquire Twitter after impulsively agreeing to acquire it, Elon has: 1. Fired all the contractors (~40% of staff) 2. Laid off fairly arbitrarily laid off half of the FTEs; 3. Tried to hire back some of those laid off as it became apparent many of these people were necessary; 4. Tried to help cover the $1 billion/year interest payments for purchasing Twitter (a business already losing moneY) introduced Twitter Blue, a much-ridiculed and poorly-communicated feature for essentially selling verified statu at $8/month; 5. Fired employees who (publicly and privately) criticized these moves; 6. At 2:30am sent out an email that work from home was cancelled as of that day. In 2020, Twitter had previously said WFH was indefinite and had hired employees on a permanent WFH basis. This was later clarified to only apply to those who could reasonably come into the office (without defining what's "reasonable") and failure to do so would be taken as resignation; 7. This was partially rescinded on a case-by-case basis. Apparently managers would be held responsible. If a manager said someone was indidpensable and they weren't or was performing well and they weren't, the manager oculd be fired; 8. Told remaining employees that they would be expected to work longer and harder for the same (or less) pay and they were welcome to leave if they didn't agree to it; 9. Managers would be expected to have 20+ reports and spend 20% or more of their time coding; 10. This week employees were asked to agree to these conditions or accept 3 months pay as severance. Anecodtally somewhere between 50 and 80% of employees have chosen to accept the severance. 11. This has caused panic and frantic attempts to retain key senior technical staff. It is believed many of whom have refused; 12. Fearing some form of retaliation, the offices were today closed. Badges have been disabled and offices locked. Apparently this was so indiscriminate that a bunch of employees got trapped in the parking garage in Sunnyvale because their badges were disabled and the team responsible for activating them had been fired or had quit. Elon truly is speedrunning this and has been the best evidence thus far that the meritocracy is a lie (which it is).
- batmaniam 4y ago
  Yea, so anyone here want to tell me again why tech doesn't need a union? Seems like this all could have been fought back to some degree if coworkers had each other's backs (ie, their own voice).
  - anon291 4y ago
    Because Twitter employees are well compensated and can apparently just quit and be fine
    - arcturus17 4y ago
      This, but unironically... Has there ever been a union for those making 200k+?
      - yuppie_scum 4y ago
        Professional athletes, Hollywood actors, Boston police…
      - Rebelgecko 4y ago
        Cops, firefighters, dock workers, harbor pilots, actors, nurses, etc
        arcturus17 4y ago
        OK, I'll bite: cops make 200k+ in the states?
        m-ee 4y ago
        In major cities yes, SFPD for example starts just over $100k base and you can rack up a lot of overtime. https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco&q=police&y=2021&s=-gross https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-fra...
- 4y ago
willt1979 4y ago
I just kept wondering, why in the heck would you want to work there anymore? Is it this amazing devotion to Musk for...what? This just makes me think Musk basically got rich off of other people's ideas and hard work. This guy seems incredibly stupid.
- kccoder 4y ago
  He’s not stupid, he just isn’t as smart as he and all his sycophants think, and certainly not smart enough to overcome his myriad of personality and mental health disorders. Unfortunately for us, after ruining a perfectly fine company and damaging the lives of thousands of employees, he’ll loudly retreat to his lair to sit on his remaining mountain of gold, recharge his narcissistic tank, and then emerge to set something else ablaze. After all, this is what dragons do. And that’s how all of us should think of his ilk, as dragons. They don’t care a lick about who or what or they ruin in pursuit of an ever larger pile of gold.
  - anon291 4y ago
    Twitter was never perfectly fine. It has lost billions of dollars.
    - kccoder 4y ago
      Unless they’ve lost more than 44 billion dollars, it appears they turned a profit in the end. I’m sure twitter’s recently enriched stock holders are pleased with the company’s collective performance.
      - anon291 4y ago
        Operating profit is not the same as being bought for X dollars.
    - nomel 4y ago
      Reference: https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-incom...
soupbowl 4y ago
It'll be nice when hacker news stops being twitter news 24/7.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  I mean the dumpster fire will burn out eventually but someone threw a Tesla battery in this one so it’s the most spectacular one in a while.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

42 points by _jvqe 4y ago

Wild times fellas

To recap this (briefly), in the month or so since Twitter was forced to acquire Twitter after impulsively agreeing to acquire it, Elon has: 1. Fired all the contractors (~40% of staff) 2. Laid off fairly arbitrarily laid off half of the FTEs; 3. Tried to hire back some of those laid off as it became apparent many of these people were necessary; 4. Tried to help cover the $1 billion/year interest payments for purchasing Twitter (a business already losing moneY) introduced Twitter Blue, a much-ridiculed and poorly-communicated feature for essentially selling verified statu at $8/month; 5. Fired employees who (publicly and privately) criticized these moves; 6. At 2:30am sent out an email that work from home was cancelled as of that day. In 2020, Twitter had previously said WFH was indefinite and had hired employees on a permanent WFH basis. This was later clarified to only apply to those who could reasonably come into the office (without defining what's "reasonable") and failure to do so would be taken as resignation; 7. This was partially rescinded on a case-by-case basis. Apparently managers would be held responsible. If a manager said someone was indidpensable and they weren't or was performing well and they weren't, the manager oculd be fired; 8. Told remaining employees that they would be expected to work longer and harder for the same (or less) pay and they were welcome to leave if they didn't agree to it; 9. Managers would be expected to have 20+ reports and spend 20% or more of their time coding; 10. This week employees were asked to agree to these conditions or accept 3 months pay as severance. Anecodtally somewhere between 50 and 80% of employees have chosen to accept the severance. 11. This has caused panic and frantic attempts to retain key senior technical staff. It is believed many of whom have refused; 12. Fearing some form of retaliation, the offices were today closed. Badges have been disabled and offices locked. Apparently this was so indiscriminate that a bunch of employees got trapped in the parking garage in Sunnyvale because their badges were disabled and the team responsible for activating them had been fired or had quit. Elon truly is speedrunning this and has been the best evidence thus far that the meritocracy is a lie (which it is).

batmaniam 4y ago
Yea, so anyone here want to tell me again why tech doesn't need a union? Seems like this all could have been fought back to some degree if coworkers had each other's backs (ie, their own voice).
- anon291 4y ago
  Because Twitter employees are well compensated and can apparently just quit and be fine
  - arcturus17 4y ago
    This, but unironically... Has there ever been a union for those making 200k+?
    - yuppie_scum 4y ago
      Professional athletes, Hollywood actors, Boston police…
    - Rebelgecko 4y ago
      Cops, firefighters, dock workers, harbor pilots, actors, nurses, etc
      - arcturus17 4y ago
        OK, I'll bite: cops make 200k+ in the states?
        m-ee 4y ago
        In major cities yes, SFPD for example starts just over $100k base and you can rack up a lot of overtime. https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco&q=police&y=2021&s=-gross https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-fra...
4y ago

willt1979 4y ago

I just kept wondering, why in the heck would you want to work there anymore? Is it this amazing devotion to Musk for...what? This just makes me think Musk basically got rich off of other people's ideas and hard work. This guy seems incredibly stupid.

kccoder 4y ago
He’s not stupid, he just isn’t as smart as he and all his sycophants think, and certainly not smart enough to overcome his myriad of personality and mental health disorders. Unfortunately for us, after ruining a perfectly fine company and damaging the lives of thousands of employees, he’ll loudly retreat to his lair to sit on his remaining mountain of gold, recharge his narcissistic tank, and then emerge to set something else ablaze. After all, this is what dragons do. And that’s how all of us should think of his ilk, as dragons. They don’t care a lick about who or what or they ruin in pursuit of an ever larger pile of gold.
- anon291 4y ago
  Twitter was never perfectly fine. It has lost billions of dollars.
  - kccoder 4y ago
    Unless they’ve lost more than 44 billion dollars, it appears they turned a profit in the end. I’m sure twitter’s recently enriched stock holders are pleased with the company’s collective performance.
    - anon291 4y ago
      Operating profit is not the same as being bought for X dollars.
  - nomel 4y ago
    Reference: https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-incom...

soupbowl 4y ago

It'll be nice when hacker news stops being twitter news 24/7.

rdtwo 4y ago
I mean the dumpster fire will burn out eventually but someone threw a Tesla battery in this one so it’s the most spectacular one in a while.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]