4 ms·
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 co
by 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 This was partially rescinded on a case-by-case basis.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 agoYea, 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 agoBecause Twitter employees are well compensated and can apparently just quit and be fine
- arcturus17 4y agoThis, but unironically... Has there ever been a union for those making 200k+?
- yuppie_scum 4y agoProfessional athletes, Hollywood actors, Boston police…
- Rebelgecko 4y agoCops, firefighters, dock workers, harbor pilots, actors, nurses, etc
- arcturus17 4y agoOK, I'll bite: cops make 200k+ in the states?
- m-ee 4y agoIn 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...
- nomel 4y ago> 3. Tried to hire back some of those laid off as it became apparent many of these people were necessary; I don't think there's anything particularly notable here, since this happens whenever there's mass layoffs. I've only seen this quantified as "some". With Twitter being such a profitable topic for all the news agencies, I fully expect quantity over quality, for all related reporting.
- mikkergp 4y agoIt almost seems on purpose but that seems like a money and reputation to burn to what, defeat wokeism? Pave the way for truth social? Seems very high risk to assume that Twitter is that essential a source of that influence.
- nomel 4y agoTo try to steel man a mass cut to headcount, and increased focus, note the feature complexity, and time between them, in this history up to 2017: https://blog.interactiveschools.com/blog/the-evolution-of-twitter https://blog.interactiveschools.com/blog/the-evolution-of-tw... What feature set, between 2017 and now, justifies a doubling of headcount, since then?
- mikkergp 4y agoI mean you’re not wrong and it’s not over yet. “ How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one.”