4 ms·

A bunch of people just got axed from Twitter because covid cash dried up? Shit I thought it was because Elon took over and fired anyone who refused to work at t

A bunch of people just got axed from Twitter because covid cash dried up? Shit I thought it was because Elon took over and fired anyone who refused to work at the office instead of at home.

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
The question was why they were hired, not why they were fired...
- subroutine 4y ago
  The unemployment rate in Feb 2020 was 3.5%; by April 2020 it was up to 14%. It has never been lower than 3.5% since then. If there was a hiring glut due to covid it must have been a very industry-specific glut.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    It definitely was industry specific. The need to satisfy a boom in remote working and people bored out of their minds in quarantine drove a ton of hiring in tech. If you had money to invest, tech stocks and companies were among the few places it made sense to pour money into during the pandemic. There have been several front-page posts on HN in the past few weeks about big name company CEOs apologizing for massively over hiring during the pandemic not realizing that it wouldn't pay off once the lockdowns ended and people decided to go back to living their normal lives again.
inferiorhuman 4y ago
Now to be fair, as of last week Musk-o backed off the mandated return-to-office. Turns out that didn't quite go as planned.
- subroutine 4y ago
  What a wild card. Has Musk said why he purchased twitter in the first place? IRL he seems so introverted. It's just odd to me he'd have any interest in a social media company.
  - lmm 4y ago
    He's long been extremely active on Twitter.
  - astrange 4y ago
    He has a unique perspective as someone who's addicted to tweeting and whose account is constantly getting impersonation and crypto bots in the replies. His friends are incompetent VCs and other tech people who are convinced journalists and women with colored hair have taken over Twitter and are hoarding all the blue checks for themselves. He's also extremely divorced, keeps having off the record children with his executives, and is having a midlife crisis.
    - ev1 4y ago
      > children with his executives, Why do people do this? I mean in any industry. Just why? Is there something I don't understand about executives or C-levels or something?
      - subroutine 4y ago
        Probably a combination of a career-first mentality where they don't have the time or inclination to seek / maintain lasting relationships, and also having the means to not raise their own children. To these people children are not burden in the same way as traditional parents because they hardly contribute to raising them; instead they are just another play-thing. There may also be some game of thrones shit going on where if a boss and a mini-boss have a baby it solidifies rank and power.
  - mullingitover 4y ago
    My pet theory is he got roped into it because the SEC was going to hit him for securities fraud (wouldn't have been the first time he'd done it[1]). Earlier this year, he had originally said he was buying a 5% share and would be a passive investor. Later on, whoops it turned out he'd bought over 9%[2] of the company without the mandatory disclosures, potentially defrauding the market of over 100 million that he would've paid in inflated share price if his moves had been known to other investors. With the SEC on his trail he said screw it, and inked a very difficult to escape contract to purchase the company. The SEC gets off his back, and he spends months trying to wriggle out of it but finally is compelled by a dead-end court case to fulfill his obligation. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/27/elon-sec-twitter/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/27/elon-se...

A bunch of people just got axed from Twitter because covid cash dried up? Shit I thought it was because Elon took over and fired anyone who refused to work at the office instead of at home.

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago

The question was why they were hired, not why they were fired...

subroutine 4y ago
The unemployment rate in Feb 2020 was 3.5%; by April 2020 it was up to 14%. It has never been lower than 3.5% since then. If there was a hiring glut due to covid it must have been a very industry-specific glut.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  It definitely was industry specific. The need to satisfy a boom in remote working and people bored out of their minds in quarantine drove a ton of hiring in tech. If you had money to invest, tech stocks and companies were among the few places it made sense to pour money into during the pandemic. There have been several front-page posts on HN in the past few weeks about big name company CEOs apologizing for massively over hiring during the pandemic not realizing that it wouldn't pay off once the lockdowns ended and people decided to go back to living their normal lives again.

inferiorhuman 4y ago

Now to be fair, as of last week Musk-o backed off the mandated return-to-office. Turns out that didn't quite go as planned.

subroutine 4y ago
What a wild card. Has Musk said why he purchased twitter in the first place? IRL he seems so introverted. It's just odd to me he'd have any interest in a social media company.
- lmm 4y ago
  He's long been extremely active on Twitter.
- astrange 4y ago
  He has a unique perspective as someone who's addicted to tweeting and whose account is constantly getting impersonation and crypto bots in the replies. His friends are incompetent VCs and other tech people who are convinced journalists and women with colored hair have taken over Twitter and are hoarding all the blue checks for themselves. He's also extremely divorced, keeps having off the record children with his executives, and is having a midlife crisis.
  - ev1 4y ago
    > children with his executives, Why do people do this? I mean in any industry. Just why? Is there something I don't understand about executives or C-levels or something?
    - subroutine 4y ago
      Probably a combination of a career-first mentality where they don't have the time or inclination to seek / maintain lasting relationships, and also having the means to not raise their own children. To these people children are not burden in the same way as traditional parents because they hardly contribute to raising them; instead they are just another play-thing. There may also be some game of thrones shit going on where if a boss and a mini-boss have a baby it solidifies rank and power.
- mullingitover 4y ago
  My pet theory is he got roped into it because the SEC was going to hit him for securities fraud (wouldn't have been the first time he'd done it[1]). Earlier this year, he had originally said he was buying a 5% share and would be a passive investor. Later on, whoops it turned out he'd bought over 9%[2] of the company without the mandatory disclosures, potentially defrauding the market of over 100 million that he would've paid in inflated share price if his moves had been known to other investors. With the SEC on his trail he said screw it, and inked a very difficult to escape contract to purchase the company. The SEC gets off his back, and he spends months trying to wriggle out of it but finally is compelled by a dead-end court case to fulfill his obligation. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/27/elon-sec-twitter/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/27/elon-se...