Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks | Hacker News Reader

Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks

businessinsider.com

30 pointsgalaxyLogic83 comments

"I work at Google and they've told me to work 125 hours weeks". In that statement I provided just as much evidence for my claim as the article does their claim. In fact, there's more proof for my claim since it has a username tied to it, whereas the article just cites anonymous "according to internal sources".

And yet, this is an article that how many thousands of people will read, and internalize into their model of reality? How much more hate will such an article foster?

Shouldn't we at least require some SHRED of proof for articles such as these?

Especially when you look at how much journalists have gotten wrong the past few days.

Ligma and Johnson ("They are visibly shaken"), mass layoffs before Nov 1st (nope), unbanned accounts would be back on by Monday (nope), Elon restored Ye's account (it was restored before the acquisition), Saudi Arabia bought into Twitter (they already were shareholders), etc...

NYT said they’ll have mass layoffs by Nov 1 because of stock compensation expiration. It didn’t happen and Musk refuted it outright.

https://twitter.com/austen/status/1587458237414068224

My generous take on this: Media is incompetent and they need to do more due diligence.

My cynical take on this: Media is losing its power and influence, this is the last ditch effort to smear opponents.

Media organizations are distraught over losing control of the gated institutional narrative. The disintermediation process is continuing and many "news" media outlets have debased themselves to the point that they now write low-effort articles about what's trending on Twitter.

To their credit, the New York Times still does a little bit of real investigative journalism. But their standards are low and they tend to uncritically accept anything that matches their editorial bias.

I completely and totally agree. They have been replaced as the gatekeepers for public "information" and are now seen as a sloppy middleman with a penchant for lying and pushing absurd narratives people with common sense wouldn't buy in a heartbeat. Its why trust in these sad institutions are near a record low:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-re...

hey, i didn't know that guy started a new boot camp. what happened to lambda school?

My take is that the person screen-shotted a pretty carefully chosen part of the actual article.

The actual article contextualizes the event as "Elon Musk planned to begin laying off workers at Twitter as soon as Saturday, four people with knowledge of the matter said, with some managers being asked to draw up lists of employees to cut."

So of course this screenshot this person tweeted takes a paragraph from the middle, out of context, which makes it seem like a blanket, unqualified assertion.

If only that article came with a blue check mark :/

I also suspect Musk is intentionally trolling the press at this point.

He'll say random flippant things in meetings he know will get leaked. Those things don't happen. He trains his employees not to trust the news and gets to make a point about news trying to find an axe to grind.

This seems highly likely.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-has-turn...

This is how reporting works. I know Business Insider and believe it is pretty above board. Business Insider is basically citing CNBC, which is pretty above board. These are two of the shrinking list of organizations that actually practice journalism. CNBC, meanwhile, is citing multiple employees who feared to put their names on record for fear of retaliation. CNBC, on top of that, says in the article that they were able to review internal communications.

If that kind of reporting is below the bar for evidence, then a lot of abuses will never see the light of day.

I think people might be missing the point here. Elon probably wants higher turnover.

These are very desirable jobs. People would bend over backwards to work at Twitter. Younger, cheaper people who have strong ideas of how to fix Twitter and would actually try to push these ideas. And these seats are currently filled with older, expensive employees who like things the way they are averse to things breaking. Either that or you are a rough and tumble old timer who can thrive in chaos.

This is very intentionally the model at his other companies. Or places like Amazon where they have almost perfected the art of extracting exactly 3 years of valuable work from young developers.

I don't think Musk actually cares about that 84th hour of work. But I think he is very much trying to signal to current and potential employees that this will not be a comfortable long term career prospect.

>People would bend over backwards to work at Twitter.

Sure, I'd love to work in a company with the guy that couldn't really decide whether or not he wants to go through the agreement he signed, carried toilet furniture in as his first job as the CEO and then is threatening to fire huge amounts of the current employees.

I mean, what could possible go wrong?

I know you are trying to be flip here, but I can almost guarantee you that their number of job applicants has probably exploded as a result of these shenanigans.

I seriously doubt that their volume of qualified applicants has exploded. Working at Twitter just isn’t competitive anymore, in terms of comp, WLB, and basic human decency. Unless he’s going to start paying people twice as much, most good engineers will go elsewhere. Maybe he can get away with it for something like self driving cars or rockets, but you want me to work overtime under the threat of a layoff for below market wages for a social network? Laughable.

I don't see any problem here, those who don't want to do this are more than welcome to leave. You can fire your employer, instantly. This isn't slavery.

There are already examples of his companies: SpaceX and Tesla. People are willingly rallying behind his vision and are being compensated for that through prestige/stock/pride/whatever.

If it was a minimum wage job, I’d have issues with this. But, these employees have $300k TC and have plenty of buffer. They had 6 months of heads-up to leave.

These are very desirable jobs.

s/are/were

I understand your point, but if he even gets a fraction of the talent they have to turn down at SpaceX or Tesla he'll do just fine.

Still a lot of Musk fanboys.

And it's still a large, complex, big-name Tech company; experience with working on problems at that scale could open doors later, regardless of who is calling the shots at the top.

There are lots of hungry developers around that world that would kill to work 12/7 and take home 200k USD

> These are very desirable jobs. People would bend over backwards to work at Twitter.

Every sane person I talk to has the opinion that there are not enough money in the world to deal with an asshole like Musk.

Time change but history repeats itself . It’s always right wing nuts and generally people who fall for cults who end up in the bunker where they discover that the person whom they thought was god , in reality just a human

> Every sane person I talk to has the opinion that there are not enough money in the world to deal with an asshole like Musk.

Yes. To the people you and I talk to. But if you talk to a 4th year computer science student at Cal Tech who is already putting in 90 hours of work a week for professors he hates, Twitter just popped on their radar.

Based on what? Why wouldn’t that student go work somewhere with great WLB, more pay, and less stress? What does Musk’s Twitter have to offer?

I won't speak for others but I didn't give a crap about WLB in my 20s. Or job security. I didn't have to be in school anymore!

If the job was fun and you got to work someplace cool that's just gravy - I was more than happy to cut into my video game time.

But even to this day, working 60 hours a week for a place where you can arbitrary push code into production and see what happens IS ALWAYS going to be more fun and rewarding than sitting in a team meeting reviewing the wording on BRDs for 20 hours a week.

> to this day, working 60 hours a week for a place where you can arbitrary push code into production and see what happens IS ALWAYS going to be more fun and rewarding than sitting in a team meeting reviewing the wording on BRDs for 20 hours a week.

This only works for subscale businesses. Once a company becomes big enough, that kind of approach ends up causing production outages, private data spillage, or PR / customer / regulatory shitstorms about changes that went in without anyone else being briefed about them. It's fine if you don't have a lot of demanding users or social relevance but I don't think this would be a wise direction for something the size of Twitter

Seriously, there’s zero chance of Twitter being some cowboy coder paradise where anyone who wants to can just arbitrarily push code to production, not with billions at stake. It’ll still have large company bureaucratic bullshit.

And if is that cowboy coder paradise, that’ll make me even less likely to climb in a self driving car or a rocket from one of Musk’s companies than I already am.

> Every sane person I talk to has the opinion that there are not enough money in the world to deal with an asshole like Musk.

You don't talk to any poor people. They already have a bad boss that underpays them, a bad boss that pays them well is a massive upgrade.

Those people can’t do the work in question, or they’d already be employed somewhere doing it. Twitter has paid well because they have to in order to hire good talent, and that won’t change.

.... you don't actually believe that do you? There are very few positions in rich, big companies and many many people competing for them. Many people could do those jobs but are unable to get in for a variety of life reasons.

That’s fair, when I said they “can’t do those jobs”, I meant a combination of “they can’t do and / or can’t get hired for those jobs”, and I don’t see why Twitter slashing staff, requiring more work, and likely paying less is going to change that.

Why would a job at Twitter be more accessible to someone in 2023 than it was in 2021?

> Younger, cheaper people who have strong ideas of how to fix Twitter and would actually try to push these ideas.

That's... horrifying, to be honest. Imagine the kind of young, cheap, starry-eyed people who think they know how to fix Twitter. Now, imagine a subgroup of these people who look at Musk's antics and decide "Oh this is the kind of company I'd love to work for."

Well, at least the eventual Netflix documentary is going to be legendary (assuming Netflix survives until then).

the word I think we might be searching for is predatory.

take people with no experience, no peers left to tell them better, and construct a complete new reality bubble with no continuity & no lessons of the past remaining. do what thou wilt with them.

> I think people might be missing the point here. Elon probably wants higher turnover.

It certainly is. But this is a shitty and stupid way to go about it. You ruin the lives and health of those who can't afford to give you the finger, for no actual benefit to anyone. (Say... they have family who needs their paycheck. Or they're on an H-1B.) Of the remainder, you chase away everyone who is competent and confident enough to work elsewhere.

These actions prima facie render one a bully and an idiot. All because Musk has a point to prove and wants to do it ASAP out of his own vanity.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-has-turn...

If that is such a great idea then why didn't the earlier owners think of it? They are experienced business-people as well I would think. Were they just dumb? Or is this just the ego of Musk trying to generate the maximum of mentions of himself in the media?

"Let's see how many people we can get to quit before we have to pay severance or unemployment insurance."

He's always pushing his population collapse agenda and urging people to have children... Guess it's all about having them, not raising them.

Well he wants the state to raise them so they can be trained into thinking all there is to life is pleasing a boss, while being farmed in crowded offices and not owning anything.

"Twitter managers have told some staff to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week "

"Staff worry that their careers at Twitter could be over if they don't complete their tasks by the early November deadlines, CNBC reported."

I would be more worried my career wouldn't be over.

Yeah if I were at twitter I would accept these deadlines with a smile on my face, turn around and start applying to competitors 12 hours a day until I got a job that valued me as a human being.

Does America not have the concept of constructive dismissal?

I don't think we do. I've had jobs in the USA since 1984, and I've never heard that term.

In California, you don't need to construct a dismissal. It's an "at-will" employment state, which means you can be fired at any time without any reason or any reason (so long as if there's a reason, it's not because of a minor list of things.)

In practice what this means is, in tech at least, you're thrown a nickle or two in exchange for an agreement, among other things, that you won't sure the company for violating your rights later.

You don't need to but companies would still much rather you walk away from an HR perspective.

That "minor list of things" you allude to becomes very problematic for the company if someone even tries to claim it your underlying motivation was tied to it.

So people willingly leaving because of a blanket decree removes that aspect entirely.

100% - have been involved in a few of those and it's very expensive to deal with: even an unsubstantiated/dubious claim both in time and lawyers.

It does! Generally if you quit you can't collect unemployment insurance, but if your boss places unreasonable expectations on you or creates a hostile work environment you can argue it was constructive dismissal and collect unemployment even if you quit. The current Twitter situation is ripe for such claims.

Criteria from Wikipedia: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has provided a 3-part test to determine whether or not a constructive discharge has occurred: (1) a reasonable person in the complainant's position would have found the working conditions intolerable; (2) conduct that constituted discrimination against the complainant created the intolerable working conditions; and (3) the complainant's involuntary resignation resulted from the intolerable working conditions"

In my (blue) state if you quit and file for unemployment due to hostile/unsafe work environment, they ask the company if that was true and take the company at face value and reject your unemployment claim.

Yes, America has a concept of constructive dismissal. If an employer drastically changes the employee's working conditions or assignments and the employee then resigns, they might still be able to claim unemployment insurance as if they had been laid off. Authorities look at several criteria when making that determination but it's kind of a judgment call depending on the facts of a particular case.

If anyone wants to know how this applies to their particular situation then they should really consult a labor attorney. You're unlikely to get completely accurate legal information here.

Wow. IF (if!) this is true, I really hope every single Twitter employee sends Musk an email saying "fuck you" and walks out. There's just now call for treating people like this.

EDIT: let me expand this to say, it might not be as bad as it sounds if there's some massive reward (beyond just "keeping your job") tied to this or something. And I have no problem working 80+ hours a week.. I do it all the time myself. It's just that approximately every hour past 40 that I work in a week is working on my own project, not working for my employer. But that's something I choose to take on and where the potential reward if I'm successful (arguably) justifies it. It's hard to imagine any company paying a routine salary that would even come close to justifying working hours like that though, at least for me. But hey, everybody is different. So I guess I'd amend my post to say I hope almost every single Twitter employee ...

Well, that’s his intention. To force resignations

Well, to a point. It could be self-defeating if enough people quit. Worst case it could effectively end Twitter as an ongoing concern. I doubt that would happen, but ya never know.

Extremely doubtful. There is no shortage of people looking for work.

Except the lowest unemployment numbers in USA. That might be an issue.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036160/the-unemployment-r...

To be fair, NPR is state media and the state has a motive for stating certain things that mispresent the truth.

LMAO, the earth is flat too, right?

LMAO, no, but your reasoning is.

> state has a motive for stating certain things that mispresent the truth.

If you want to cast doubt on some reporting you should provide some evidence not just say you think state has a motive for "stating certain things". Else people will reasonably wonder whether you have a motive for "stating certain things".

> NPR is state media

No, its not. VOA, Radio Free Europe, and other US Agency for Global Media outlets are US state media. NPR neither has government editorial control or predominant government funding (direct and indirect government funding amounts to around 10% of its total revenue).

Treating people like what? Asking them to be productive and get shit done? Should Musk hand out hugs and participation trophies? Maybe little "You can do it!" stickers?

There are 7500 employees at twitter and nobody seems to know what they are working on. The bureaucracy at Twitter was poison and the entire company had lost billions under the old management.

The free lunch, wheatgrass smoothies, and safes paces are coming to an end. Get to work. That's why you're there. Don't want to work? Go pretend to work someplace else. It really is that simple.

The people who want to work will stay.

This is not how you get people productive. This is how you grind them into burnt out husks of themselves and massively hurt company in the long run.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but at the same time, if you want to make $140,000 to $250,000/year working for someone else, then at times you will need to burn bright.

So does working like Elon does count? So spend time tweeting stuff?

Yeah, I think you can spend 2/3 of your time working for someone else.

I am glad that I am living in Europe. The moment my boss would try such shenigans I would be laughing at his face and then continue with my 8 hours / day work time.

Musk seems to be a bit of a clueless guy, thinking of his earlier demand that everybody print out last 30 days of code, and of how much he overpaid for Twitter and then tried to weasel out of the deal.

In US there has been a lot of talk of "quiet quitting" lately. That means you do the minimum you need to stay in the job, don't try to excel in it. Just doing long hours is not the same as excelling, it can be part of the quiet quitting.

So one approach would be to work overtime as much as asked, demand to be paid for it but not do much. Only the minimum.

And isn't it illegal to be forced to work overtime without compensation? So that might be a strategy as well, do what they ask and then later sue them. Or gladly work overtime you do get paid for it but again do only as much as is needed.

The problem with Musk's actions I think is it immediately creates a confrontational atmosphere in his company.

Can people be for cause fired for working only the stipulated 40 hour weeks at this point? And if it’s for cause do you get severance?

I doubt those employees have contracts which stipulate 40 hour work weeks. They are salaried exempt employees. They can be fired for cause (although depending on the exact facts of a particular case the employee might still be able to file for unemployment insurance). There is generally no legal requirement to pay severance to terminated employees, unless it falls under the WARN Act and the employer failed to give sufficient advance notice (expect some litigation on this issue).

You can legally ask someone to work 24/7 everyday or fire them without severance?

I'm both saddened and excited. Saddened because this abuse is all too common in capitalist corporations led by megalomaniacs. And excited because my company is hiring and we don't ask anyone to work more than 40 hours a week. Hoping we can interview some people from Twitter soon so that they don't have to worry about finding new work after layoffs

It's never too late to unionize.

Why didn't Twitter employees look into that (or did they?) from April onward?

I don't know, I'm not a twitter employee. Probably ideology.

Musk is a bully.

Like any bully, he is doing this to find out who is easy to pick on, and will keep them around, while dismissing those who are willing/able to fight back.

Life will continue to be miserable to those he keeps around.

My advice to all engineers feeling this pressure -- start looking now. Leave as soon as possible. You are more valuable than what Musk thinks of you.

Those who are in a position to do so -- punch back. Do no, or negative work (if it does not harm teammates who cannot afford to be laid off). Force him to lay you off and give severance.

Bullies do not deserve your time. They deserve to be crushed.

Well, it’ll be interesting to assess the results in a few years.

I agree that his actions are likely to create a hostile work environment, at the same time I have no doubt Twitter will be a much more valuable business after he’s done.

These tactics are likely temporary to trigger many resignations, yes. Unlikely to the be the expectation in the long run.

Twitter has been horribly mismanaged for years, and now needs to be restructured. It was simply a vehicle to siphon ignorant investor capital to an unproductive employee base.

Tech employees at large are about to learn that they aren’t quite as special as they thought

Any Twitter people not looking for a new position already probably should have their heads examined, honestly. Writing is on the wall.

> Force him to lay you off and give severance.

If you're gonna do this I'd make sure you CYA, considering he's already let people go for cause.

The best engineers in the world working at SpaceX and Tesla disagree.

Here's Andrej Karpathy's (ex-Tesla, even better) take from a couple days ago on Lex's podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE

Honestly, when you’re paying employees $300k packages, arguments that can be made for an Amazon warehouse worker just doesn’t apply here.

I kind of want to apply to Twitter tbh. Sounds like a fun place to work, probably eliminating 90% of the bureaucracy and HR bullshit. Stock alone would be worth it, working with brilliant and motivated people in a high pace environment is becoming rare. Silicon Valley used to do this and it was awesome in the 80’s up until 2000’s.

What stock?

> working with brilliant and motivated people

Are you expecting that Musk demanding people work 100% overtime will make them "highly motivated"?

Acquisition Musk is clearly different than Tesla (I have friends that work at both, day to day experience is nothing alike), maybe Twitter gets to what Karpathy describes, but I'm not convinced his big hammer approach to turning it back into a startup instantly is going to work.

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