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
How many people does it take to keep a piece of software running?
Very shrewd, if that was his intent (as I suspected).
Knowledge silos.
Elon only has to tweet “hiring moderates!” and he’d get a flood of engineer applicants.
The world did OK without all of that. It is true, I have direct memory of that.
All good news. Commie staff all quit major commie-only propaganda tool because they can no longer promote their lies and fellow liars. Propaganda tool dies.
All good.
That depends entirely on the scope of the software system. A single embedded application in a test instrument can easily be handled by a single person. A global information exchange system chock full of features requiring fast database access and 5K transactions per second does not fit the above model. Not by a long shot.
We don’t have too few workers in America. We have too many working for the government. We could add a million or two high skilled workers back to the workforce if our government weren’t so bloated.
Yet it’s still humming along with a 20% workforce. Me thinks they were a bit bloated.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4110134/posts
Running with 50 key people, down from 7,500.
Nobody has a single "problem" with them leaving. We're laughing at them. Especially as they flounce out of Twitter declaring the company is dead without them.
If only Musk took over government.
I made and sold two software startups. The first was me as the coder, an admin guy with industry contacts and a sales guy. That lasted a year. Then we hired 6 more coders. after another year we hired 6 more client facing people. Now you can put all your infrastructure in the cloud. Most of your user interface is easy web programming. The next one had me in charge with a partner and we hired the first 6 coders. We started in homes then took whatever cheap available space we could get. We stayed light on rules. People worked well into the night. When your staff is giving you their all, there is no reason to sweat the small stuff. Once you get your first outside investor the fun ends.
Imagine the sort of people who would be proud to put those titles on their business cards! Yikes.
I’m very sure it was a bloated workforce as well. My experience has been that just a few capable people do all of the work while the rest gossip, talk politics, cruise the ‘net, or play video games.
Perfect!
And I have to wonder if this isn’t the reactions of a smallish number of malcontents, amplified by a woke media who are sympathetic to their whines.
Just a point of triviality, I personally don’t like to be saddled with the term “coder”. Of course, I cut my teeth in the days when that was slang for “key punch operator”.
You are older than I. And I am old. We used to call ourselves programmers. Then it became developers. I have lots of kids who are coders. Some are real CS degreed programmers. And some are faking it hackers with engineering or math degrees. Lots of people write lines of code in some high level language without knowing a stitch about computer science or even logic. I tell all my kids to learn SQL and some sort of Java or C language. They have, but as soon as they get good they become managers.
last I heard twitter was down to 50 employees and doing just fine. the twitter universe is expanding.
I’ve long had the feeling that EM has plans for Twitter that go far beyond the public, self-aggrandizing bitch-box that it presently is.
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