Twitter now asks some fired workers to please come back
moneycontrol.com
moneycontrol.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496808 133 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496822 18 comments
When they started the layoffs, and with such short notice, I just knew there was a 0% chance that they'd happened properly and with proper preparation. There's going to be so much domain knowledge and expertise that's been lost, and half the teams are probably just adrift and confused because they now either have to do 2x the work or 2x their timelines, at the very least. Doing 2x the work might then also mean doing a bunch of work you're not informed about, so it might actually be 3x or 4x the work for someone coming in.
If I had gotten the boot and they were asking me to come back, I don't think I'd be saying yes, unless it was necessary from a financial standpoint. And even then I'd only stick around until I found a new job, at which point I would quit without notice.
This is par for Musk corps, literally the day after my interview at Fremont they laid off 9% of total staff in 2018 [0] because of how poorly Model 3 launch had fared in the beginning.
I can't go into specifics, much of which are public now, but it was so disheartening after having been so well received and cordial and enthusiastic; everyone was completely there because how important 'the mission' was only to be told 'don't come back' in incredibly uncouth manner.
When they sent the message out the next day, which is how many found out they've been laid off, calamity struck and it was clear that this was a deliberate tactic to re-shuffle and quell not just the rumors of Model 3's shortcomings amongst the rank-and-file staff, but to sweep the poor safety record in the factory under the rug and the have intimidation creep for those who sought to Unionize--at the time I was not in favour of it, but as time went on and I got more insider information from other team members I soon realized that it was likely needed despite my initial apprehension.
In short, I want to see the demise of social media's influence on the Internet (aka Web2.0) and if this represents how the most lauded CEO in SV handles things then I think we're nearing the end sooner rather than later. I think it's a commonly held sentiment that Social Media ruined most of what was magical of the early Internet and ushered in what has been the worst eternal September phase. I just hope it's not too late to correct this as Zuck is killing his corp in an equally embarrassing and out of touch manner.
0: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619426602/tesla-lays-off-9-pe...
It’s like standing on a crowded square and everyone just shouts out whatever they think.
Unfortunately running ads and thoughtful, curious, spacious and timely discussion (and listening!) do not go well. Too often algorithms where (are?) tweaked for drama engagement.
You and almost the whole world. There are still some people left believing him to play some kind of genius 4D chess. Same thing happens for Trump and Ye.
Its also a visible background pattern in almost all larger tech investment - build technology that can not be used for exponential damage in the wrong hands and make humanity resilient to catastrophic change.
Example: Youtube videos containg tutorials that survive all of humanity dieing of that knew a certain technology.
That’s not true-processing speed is just one component of IQ. Some people can have below average processing speed but be in the gifted range in other IQ components. (e.g. on WISC-V, high GAI but low PSI). It is actually reasonably common among people who are gifted but also have ADHD/ASD/OCD/etc
Robert Zubrin - aerospace engineer
> Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.
Kevin Watson - Head of Avionics, Launcher
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
For now, however, I would prefer a video of the many interviews he takes instead of quotes of people that have a lot to gain from praising Elon (and a lot to lose if they criticized him). Is there any quote from any of the people in that thread that paint Elon in a bad light? I know for sure there are many things bad Elon, from his direct actions. Do they ever comment on that or would they lose their livelihood within a day if they did?
The two people I quoted don't work for Elon so it doesn't seem like they have much to gain or lose either way. Same with John Carmack, Liam Sarsfield and Eric Berger.
> any quote from any of the people in that thread that paint Elon in a bad light
I haven't read the biography or anything like that on Musk, so I'm not sure. I imagine though their opinions of him aren't all positive. The thread I posted selects for the positive ones to prove that Musk is indeed chief engineer at SpaceX.
I think it’s important not to piss off your existing and upcoming workforce. He doesn’t.
Is he obviously wrong? Time will tell.
With something like Twitter the tech is more or less invisible. Users care about trust and relationships, and so do many of the engineers.
Musk isn't just utterly clueless about those, he's hostile to the culture that values them.
This is not going to end well. Odds are excellent it's going to turn into another of those legendary loss-making acquisitions like AOL and MySpace.
He is not running SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is. He’s just the part-time CEO, very adept at self-promoting.
These people and quite a few other experts in this field disagree with you.
> When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people.
Robert Zubrin - aerospace engineer
> Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.
Kevin Watson - Head of Avionics, Launcher
Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so.
- John Carmack
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
If you have evidence to support your insinuation, I'll be glad to see it.
Zubrin? One now very badly decaying hab at MDRS? Oh, and I think he might have chipped in for the observatory via the 'Musk foundation.'
My point of contention is that how can you expect to be taken serious as the 'Chief Engineer' at SpaceX, and be abreast of all of the mintua of Starship/Starlink/Falcon etc... when you're also the CEO of all those other corps and still on Twitter shitposting all day and then getting into countlesss legal battles and that result on buying Twitter and showing up with a sink.
None of this makes any sense in a practical level, and it seems like we're being trolled by the channer who broke the matrix and actually made it big for his own enjoyment; what it has done is allow him to cultivate the very typical Silicon Valley slight of hand of making himself to be able to walk on water and turn everything he touches turn to gold which makes for good marketing. Which is what I think he does well, despite being perhaps the worst public speaker and CEO of so many unicorns.
Which leads me to believe that most of it is an act, and he is perfectly well aware of what and how he is doing: and it's worked thus far, but whether it's pumping and dumping in the crypto markets or buying useless social media companies I think it's clear that most are seeing the writing on the wall about him, these latest escapades with Twitter are just making what was likely kept in secret now public--lets not forget the accusations from the flight masseuse and his distorted perception of reality where he is seemingly trying to re-populate the Earth with as many women as possible just like the most deranged cult leaders.
> how can you expect to be taken serious as the 'Chief Engineer' at SpaceX, (...)when you're also the CEO (...) and still on Twitter shitposting all day (...)
And that somewhat explains the rest of the personality: skip enough hours of sleep and you’ll finally end up as an over-sensitive, selfish bro.
Not exactly saying the above is a sane way of living and doing things that should be praised, but I personally respect him for the passion/time he puts in the process, which at the end of the day is the reason why some like-minded engineers are working for/with him on his bold visions, even if they don’t have as much skin in the game as him, financially speaking.
I mean, he’s not faking it, and that goes a long way when selling a narrative and embarking your next partner, whether a banker or an engineer.
I've said it before but I think he is PT Barnen 2.0: that doesn't mean he hasn't taken immense financial risk, it's just that he is marketer cosplaying as 'aerospace engineer' and will pick and chose what he is a savant depending on what meds he decided to take that day--no one asked him to make a submarine to save children in Thailand.
Which is what was necessary to get the masses interested, sure, but has ultimately back-fired at this point.
Ignoring everything else, if a manager at your company has coined a term like "Elon’s rage firings", I don't need to know anything else about the work environment.
I'd say Tesla/SpaceX achieve cool things not because of him, but despite of him.
I'll rest my case.
Gwynne Shotwell is COO, and in my view is the best in the business, and she handles the day to day SpaceX not Elon.
(TBH I'm not even sure who the previous owners were...)
Source: https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/28/who-owned-twitter-before-elon...
From what I've observed over the years, his real goal is to receive attention from as many people as possible. I doubt his sincerity on his stated goals, this is most likely just self-marketing bullshittery.
People still believe in that ?
What will advertising revenue look like going forward?
How many employees have been asked to return, how needed are they, and was it mismanagement or just an expected outcome of necessary, decisive decision making?
First of all, the vast majority aren’t just going to move. The celebrities won’t because their followers are still on it. Everyone else won’t because by all accounts Mastodon isn’t as easy to signup with as twitter (I’ve not tried, and don’t care enough to to). And they rest of us just kinda read twitter and frankly don’t care if it crashes and burns.
All the big accounts I follow, simply started cross posting. So I expect nothing much to happen.
However given how much attention Twitter gets, even appearing in the news, and possibly swaying public opinion, I might be eating my words if it maintains popularity but turns into a dumpster fire.
You don't make a formal offer as a troll
He's always been an awful person; the cult that has developed around him just inflated his ego. Here's the result.
So where I live, you'd be in a prime position to negotiate better paychecks because without both employee and employer agreeing, a termination has finality.
Any place that can “accidentally” fire you is a place you should stay away from.
Getting called back immediately after a layoff seems like a pretty strong indication you can get away with a lot. Also, the quality of the organization's work on your layoff should indicate the quality of work the organization should get. Just take it easy and make sure you don't give them any key knowledge they need in a decipherable way.
Do we have 100% concrete first-hand documented evidence this actually happened to more than -let's say- 10 people?
Somehow, I highly doubt it.
You'll also see lots of people claiming Musk somehow broke employment law by not giving notice of termination, which is unproven, and in direct contradiction with what he tweeted himself (he said everyone gets ~90 days of salary IIRC).
I certainly don't agree with everything he has said and done, though I can't help but be skeptical people are just jumping on the bandwagon without any concrete evidence/details.
Personally, I'm in the "tesla man has some good and some bad camp."
It’s incredibly obvious by now that Elon and his crew of weirdos currently running the show (David Sacks and Jason Calacanis etc) were just marinating for years in an echo chamber of right-wing propaganda full of resentment against Blue Checks, fantasies of "shadowbanning", resentment of rules against hate speech, and lies about politics and other topics.
They are just making things up as they go in what is quickly becoming the new textbook reference of the Dunning-Kruger effect (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect)
“Move fast and break things” is a viable strategy some of the time. Works for MVPs. Doesn’t work for surgeons.
The corollary is “the cost of fixing broken things that need fixing because you broke them while moving fast is a fraction of the cost of not moving fast”.
Does any of this apply to Twitter? We don’t know. It could still go in either direction and whichever way it goes in retrospect it’ll seem obvious and inevitable.
That isn’t the case for many others especially those who aren’t JUST in the tech ecosystem.
The real question here is probably why anyone would pay 44 billion dollars for a company losing 4 million dollars per day. I mean, it's not some promising startup, it's a company that's been around for a while and has only managed to be profitable for 2 years out of the last 12 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income...)?
"Mr. Musk also disclosed that his acquisition proposal was no longer subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence"
For whatever reason, probably his rising annoyance with Twitter, he decided to skip due diligence and rush the deal.
Why other investors allow the buyer to assign the debt to the company being bought rather than the buyer alludes me, as I’d assume this weakens the collateral securing the debt.
Sure, "laid off by mistake" is a way to describe incompetence...
I would assume the executing people were still people form Twitter before Musk. Or not?
I beg to differ. People who are crucial to operation will be much better off. Less meetings, less bloat, less bs, probably better salary.
I do consulting. Recession is good for business, companies lay off team of 10 developers and replace it with single remote consultant for 40% of cost. Also less taxes, since I work in different country.... You do the math.
- Elon said there are 10 managers for one engineer. We can argue about numbers, but I am pretty sure there are no 10 engineers for 1 manager
- Web UI is crap, it is slow to load etc... If twitter would accept pull requests, I would fix it myself. I am pretty sure tech people are frustrated by situation.
- I do not see any research from Twitter into federated networks, cryptography... I did interviews with twitter in 2012, this stuff was all cut latter... I think Musk may sponsor this type of research just to push his Dogecoin BS.
- Read how "hostile takeover" looks like. It is mess, also it is very very sensitive week. "work the whole weekend" is irrelevant. Things will look very different in two weeks!
- Key people will be able to renegotiate their contracts, with much much better salary. You probably need 100 people to run twitter. See Whatsapp...
I'm not sure Twitter is in this particular boat yet, but if I was working at Twitter right now, I would definitely be brushing up on my plan B pronto.
Business people in Twitter did not generated any profits (sales, positive PR...). I totally understand Elons position.
If that one consultant can do a better job they're literally a 10X programmer.
I suspect that's true very rarely.
Typical consultant. Get other people to do the work while you take all the praise ;-)
Let me know when you find more than a dozen of them.
They should have him on All In this week, since both Jason C. and David S. are assisting with that process and they keep he narrative that the ship is being turned around and cleaning house is what really needed to be done in order to pivot from growth to profit.
If you can't even take into account what staff members you had cause to layoff, after having the former CEO escorted off the premises after having brought in a sink 'for the lulz' than something needs to be done. Then again, it's a private company and he doesn't respond to anyone anymore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/technology/facebook-accen...
And not all of those staff members were developers I imagine.