Posted on 11/17/2022 9:20:06 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I don’t think we’re about to see Twitter implode but if you’re on Twitter this evening there are a lot of people suggesting everyone who works there has quit. This latest round of departures started yesterday with an email Musk sent to the remaining work force (about half had been fired earlier this month).
Early Wednesday morning, the world’s richest man and newly installed Twitter CEO emailed the site’s employees with an ultimatum, obligating them to commit to an “extremely hardcore” work ethic or leaving the company.
Musk argued that Twitter must be ready for a more “increasingly competitive world” and therefore employees must be ready to give more. CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan provided a screenshot of Musk’s surprise email.
In it, Musk wrote, “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
After mentioning that Twitter will become “much more engineering-driven,” he gave his employees a choice to get on board with his ambitions or leave the company. He added, “If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,” adding, “Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.”
And according to this tech reporter for Fortune, most people have decided to leave.
As we’re all very aware, folks on visas are stuck, so thats who makes up most of the roughly 25% (or less than 1,000….) expected to stay. The actual impact is not yet known — there have been no internal comms about what comes next. We’re nearly 2 hours post deadline.
— Kylie Robison (@kyliebytes) November 17, 2022
Lets put this into perspective — at the beginning of this month, Twitter had 7,400 employees. Barely half way through the month, if 75% do actually stick to their decision today, the company will have shrunk by a whopping ~88%.
— Kylie Robison (@kyliebytes) November 18, 2022
Some employees posted a countdown video to 5pm. It sounds like all of these guys were leaving or expecting to be fired.
It’s been a ride pic.twitter.com/0VDf5hn2UA
— Matt Miller (@brainiaq2000) November 17, 2022
The NY Times is reporting the company is in disarray.
Hours before a Thursday deadline that Elon Musk had given Twitter employees to decide whether to stay or leave their jobs, the social media company appeared to be in disarray…
All the while, two people said, resignations started to roll in. By the deadline, 5 p.m. Eastern time, hundreds of Twitter employees appeared to have decided to depart with three months of severance pay, the people said. Twitter later announced via email that it would close “our office buildings” and disable employee badge access until Monday.
Others are predicting it’s imminent demise.
From one of the remaining Twitter employees: “It (Twitter) has about a week left before it’s dead.”
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) November 18, 2022
Musk himself seems to still be in a good mood.
How do you make a small fortune in social media?
Start out with a large one.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
But Twitter itself is awash in people predicting the end is near. Here’s what the trending topics sidebar looks like right now:
So lots of people are jumping in with predictions that Twitter may implode at any moment. Some are saying goodbye.
Hoping this doesn’t happen ⬇️ but just in case: it’s been wonderful tweeting with y’all! 🐣
As a backup, follow me on Instagram, same handle: @AOC – it’s really me there, as it is here.
Or sign up for emails, where I’ll share any other platforms I join: https://t.co/Tt9J3IlWW8 https://t.co/xfe7HNvEW1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 18, 2022
Wait, we’re all saying goodbye to each other? This is really weird.
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) November 18, 2022
Twitter can’t end. There are so many people I haven’t talked shit to.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 18, 2022
I imagine this is what it will be like in the final days before the giant meteor or the Yellowstone eruption.
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) November 18, 2022
Others are just having fun with memes.
Goodbye twitter, been a good run. #RIPTwitter pic.twitter.com/fkkUZWz2oQ
— Bish 🗽 (@thebishundercov) November 18, 2022
Twitter HQ next fall #RIPTwitter pic.twitter.com/DCLnpGHPPb
— Zombae (@ZombaeVT) November 18, 2022
The Cat Memes will live on…
#RIPTwitter #CatsOfTwitter pic.twitter.com/lfWJb1sgvY— Cat Cosplay 🐈⬛ (@Cat_Cosplay) November 18, 2022
Somebody at Twitter HQ has pulled out a projector.
Someone is projecting multiple messages onto Twitter headquarters building in SF from a neighboring building.
pic.twitter.com/VuFqLvDyxT— Gia Vang (@Gia_Vang) November 18, 2022
But the reality is it’ll probably still be there in the morning.
It'll be very awkward when after hours of eulogizing this site doesn't actually go down, it'll be like saying goodbye to a date and then realizing you're walking to the same subway station
— Keef Girgo (PARODY ACCOUNT) (@CaseyMalone) November 18, 2022
Update: So true…
Nice to see Twitter going out as it lived: Hysterically overreacting to the latest news development, compulsively sharing false viral tweets that confirm its priors, and repeatedly mistaking satirical accounts for real ones. Godspeed.
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) November 18, 2022
Also:
And … we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
If they quit Elon doesn’t have to pay them severance or benefits.
It’s really dumb but hey, it’s their life.
Generation Child gonna child.
In my opinion,, an employee who CANNOT see an obvious opportunity for themselves is potentially NOT a GOOD employee.
SMART AWARE people just don't allow themselves to be caught up in a stampede.
Bfl
Sissy assed drama queens. F’em.
Very accurate statement.
Those bent on DESTRUCTION usually end up destroying themselves and their own opportunities.
Eggzackly.
YES!
After telling people to vote R in the election, he’s lucky we won the house.
Or he’d be there twice a week answering questions the next two years :)
YES!
After telling people to vote R in the election, he’s lucky we won the house.
Or he’d be there twice a week answering questions the next two years :)
If you are in a company that loses 50% or more of its workforce and your new CEO does not give a clear plan for how to get iut if the rut, then you leave
They aren’t. But yo replace staff who know your systakes months of proper knowledge transfer. At a pinch a month. Musk didn’t plan for that KT
Good to see you back again, Old Brother. Hope all has been well with you?
Is Musk aware of it?
Point being, Twitter operates globally and in every country it operates in there are different tax regimes, employment regulations, work ethics, work-life balance, esg mandates, and of course hybrid working in the tech sector is vastly more productive than bean bags and foosball in the office. Lots of region offices would be needed to get everyone sat at a desk FOR NO DISCERNABLE REASON.
His insistence on everyone going to the office to work hard with no play is like dot-com seppuku. Hybrid working is far more sensible.
I’m working from home on a large European project from 7am to 1pm and helping an American project from 5pm to 11pm. If I had to commute 2 hours a day just for the sake of old fashioned presenteeism I’d have to drop one of those projects and the firm would have to refit an office building at the vost of millions to make their desk set-up anywhere near as good as my home office (3 curved ultrawide monitors, luxury chair, whiteboards, conference phone, virtual round table... All at my own expense but paid for by not having to bloody commute).
I physically couldn’t do both jobs from our regional office without having an 18 hour working day, and at my age that workload would burn me out in months.
And yet I’ve managed it just fine since 2019 - up at 6:30, work till midday, take 3 hours to decompress and do non work stuff, then use 2 hours for collaboration stuff before hitting the other project. No burnout.
I can’t wrap my head round Musk’s party-like-its-1997 mentality. Unless he intended to kill Twitter it just doesn’t make sense.
The reason Twitter employees are up in arms about Musk is that he is going to turn Twitter into a business the foundation of which is a free speech forum. The idiot employees of Twitter don't like the idea of it being a business and they sure as hell don't like the idea of it being a place for the honest exchange of ideas.
That last point--Twitter being a marketplace for the honest exchange of ideas--is the reasons for Musk's acquisition of Twitter. He figured that a market for the exchange of ALL ideas would be much larger, healthier, more profitable, and more durable as a business than an echo chamber of Woke Whinings.
You’re sounding more like a butthurt former Twitter employee to me that an opinion poster.
Probably just leftist over population in a leftist bent Corporation.
A demographic report would be interesting.
I can only hypothesize that this is a form of self winnowing and separation of the chaff from the wheat.
The malcontented 50% were probably under performering slackers anyway. 50% of Gov’t employees have the same attitude.
And hey, walk offs under these circumstances are in effect a Human Resource Managers dream come true. Very little paperwork to follow.
One would hope that they cleaned their desks out before departure.
Brilliant strategy to use their own faux righteousness indignation against them.
Love it.
“Hire conservatives!”
That was my first thought as well. Apparently the company pays well. I would think conservatives who see the First Amendment as important for the free exchange of ideas would be lining up to work for Musk at Twitter.
Nope, never worked for them - or any social media company. Just know how complex these systems can get.
And seen management run companies to the ground - as in HP/HPE/DXC.
Musk trolled Twitter initially with his buyout plan. The board of directors KNEW they had a lemon on their hands and a prankster who made the mistake of voicing his joke of buying them.
So they sued him to buy them out — at $54 per share it was overvalued. He overpaid for a lemon - looking at its architecture it looks like it was in bad need of rewriting.
Now he could have still made this work by
1. Reassuring the advertisers - keep the money flowing
2. Killing off the censors slowly - so as to not have any media noise chasing off #1
3. Brought back Trump - more users, so more #1
4. Spent 2 months evaluating the company - what works and what doesn’t.
5. Firing slowly and in pieces, so as not to get employees spooked
6. Cut off the “no wfh” - but encouraged people to come back and then in a few months start the build back to the office —> or better yet, to save money, move the HQ to wyoming and let everyone wfh
7. his latest “sign this to work 80 hour weeks or leave with 3 months severance pay” is a master class in misreading people.
This is just bad leadership/management
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