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Comment by dymk | Hacker News Reader

The vesting / payout theory makes no sense, firstly Twitter vesting at that point would be quarterly, so the company would be saving at most 1/16th of what those employees had already vested from their initial grant.

Secondly, it's the employees who would have the incentive to leave, not the company to fire them. Assuming a typical 4 year vesting period, it's right at this year when their compensation would have _dropped precipitously_.

Thirdly, the second individual had been at Twitter for more than 4 years, and unless they left and came back (doesn't look like they did), they'd still be vesting their original equity grant. The amount of time they've been at the company isn't even common between the two, so I don't see why you'd use it to establish a theory.

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It's true that there's a lot we don't know. Executive employment contracts are bespoke and quite different to peon contracts. There will be various incentives that might be cash or incentivized stock options ("ISOs") as well as regular compensation that might be RSUs, non-qualified stock options ("NSOs") or both.

But we do know:

1. The acquisition is imminent but not closed;

2. Executive contracts often include bonuses on acquisition and/or accelerations for change of control;

3. There are numerous examples of companies cleaning house to avoid payouts prior to an acquisition closing;

4. Generally a company on the verge of a likely acquisition just keeps the lights on and doesn't make any big moves so things like hiring freezes make sense; and

5. The circumstancial evidence that both executives just happen to be shy of their 4 year anniversary (in their current roles).

Conclusive? No. Kinda sus? Absolutely.

It's not uncommon for companies to "clear house" right before close of acquisitions, especially on exec level. However I don't believe it's for the reasons you mentioned (saving money). Instead it's likely to better align with new ownership (whether perceived or actual alignment) and ensure the company is well positioned for the change.

An established/relatively healthy org like Twitter will likely not be penny pinching at the risk of more fallout/attrition. In fact, I'm sure the convo went something like "if you leave now, you will keep xyz/golden parachute".

This has at least been my experience based on limited experience of being part of a few acquisitions and working closely with execs.

This may be Parag's hail mary play to appease his new master and keep his lucrative job.

I would not be surprised if his next move is to publicly extol the virtues of Free Speech and the First Amendment.

Thats what I was thinking too. It felt weird that Dorsey was replaced with such quiet low profile thinker in the first place. He has no presence on earnings calls or spaces. I’ve listened to him take questions and he seems to handle them no better with no deeper insight then even I could provide. Maybe he was keeping things close to his chest. However, it just made me think they sort of put a puppet in charge for the purpose of acquisition. Parag would be easy to control as a lever into change within Twitter. Attractive feature for a buyer. I thought it would be big tech. Never thought Elon would be the one buying and controlling him. What a plot twist!

There is basically no way that Musk keeps him on, so I don't buy this. He will be replaced in due time once the acquisition is complete.

Even if Musk wouldn't fire him immediately Musk's management style likely will be quite involved and no fun if you don't align with Musk's goals and ideas.

Honest question. Would a CEO be that desperate to keep his job? I imagine Parag can walk away with plenty after the buyout and do something else that he likes.

I imagine it's a pretty intense job that takes up most of your life and permeates your sense of identity. Everything you said can be true and I'd still expect a CEO to be very strongly attached to their position.

CEO jobs aren't plenty like standard SWE jobs.

CEOs typically don't apply for jobs, they can't walk into a company's Career page an apply as a CEO; they are headhunted by specialized headhunter.

Yes, CEO is desperate to keep their job because if they were to let go, they won't score a much higher profile job than their current; they'd be gone to a lower rank companies bidding their luck.

I'd love to read a blog post about CEO movements. One thing they could do is raise money and start a company themselves.

How the hell do you know the vesting period? I get RSU’s at my publicly traded company that vest yearly, in May. This could absolutely been done in order to prevent RSU vesting.

here ya go - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Twitter/salaries/

> At Twitter, RSUs are subject to a 4-year vesting schedule: 25% vests in the 1st year (8.33% every 4 months), then 25% in each of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years (6.25% every 3 months). Every year employees get a new grant that vests over 4 years to bring them up to their target compensation.

it's Twitter, hundreds if not thousands of their employees post detailed compensation information.

Since the company knows the comp will drop at year four, they will give a large grant for the minority they really need to retain. For rank and file employees, those grants are relatively rare and many will stay anyway because they aren’t optimizing their comp. I think at the executive level, not getting such a grant is tantamount to being fired because executives don’t get overlooked.

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