One ongoing thread might be better, but it's hard to argue that this is not big tech news. HN users cut through the noise of Twitter replies, and I enjoy reading what they have to say, so I'm having to search "Twitter" in HN's search and sort by "last 24 hours."
Same.. but HN has opportunity to grow and adopt to different styles of communities. I believe eventually people here will find a different home that doesn't "censor" what is on the front page while at times allowing a bunch of PR-based posts to trend.
This is all over twitter, one of the biggest tech stories in a long time while very relevant to corporate culture in general - but there´s almost dead silence here?
That said the story and musk shenanigans in general is also quite annoying at this point.
I've been wondering the same thing. It's the first time I've ever noticed something like this. But Twitter stories appear to be getting buried for some reason.
It was overwhelming the site a few days ago, but I assume the mods weighed it down to make room for other, better stories. Rubbernecking the slow train wreck that is the collision of Elon Musk's ego with the brutal reality of his technical limitations may be fun and cathartic for a certain kind of personality, but it isn't exactly gratifying to intellectual curiosity.
Sounds like everyone can work from home now, because he said only exceptional work is a passing grade.
Finally the first piece of good news coming out of Twitter. Why didn’t he just start with this email rather than anonymously laying off half the company and picking fights with engineers on Twitter, though now I guess people have a crystal clear picture of the culture they’re choosing to stay at, it would have been much more humane to start with this.
Sounds like a lot of people will choose this path, I wonder how many will be left.
Absolutely. He has the freedom to abuse; they have the freedom to walk away. Americans seem to think this leads to a virtuous circle instead of a vicious one.
As for what it does in this case... we'll see. Will he get a bunch of superhero 10x programmers sleeping under their desks? Or will all the superheroes leave, reducing him to the ones who are afraid of finding a new job and being bad at it until he fires them?
Thus far he seems all stick and no carrot, but perhaps he's got something up his sleeve.
I was Six Sigma trained in a former job. It's a lot of statistical process control, defect reduction, and process redesign. You could certainly use it to create a dystopia for your workforce, but it's not in any way intrinsic to the method. Where I was trained it was mostly used in a Toyota-like way to get relatively junior employees engaged in making things work better. Empowering rather than the other way around, I'd say.
The only chance of him being lionized is if he turns Twitter into a high profit generating enterprise. It doesn’t look like the chance for that is high at the moment.
I don't envy the remaining folks at Twitter at all.
Imagine employees getting this survey and thinking I want to get out but what if this is trap? By opting for leaving I would be outing myself as not 'hardcore'.
Mr. Musk gets a database of self declared 'disengaged' employees. He chooses to scrap the offer (there is no legal binding) and then over next few months pressures them to quit without any severance.
This is why you build up a healthy emergency reserve. If I were a Twitter employee, I'd take the severance instantly. If it pays off, great. If it doesn't, then I'm financially comfortable enough that I can leave a rudderless organization and I take my services elsehwere.
I find it highly doubtful anyone would damage their employment prospects by accepting severance and leaving. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere that thought this way.
>Musk added that Twitter would be “much more engineering-driven” under his ownership and that “those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team”.
Hard to think that those writing great code would be open to be abused, giving how in demand their skills are.
He keeps firing even the engineering staff that survived the first wave of layoffs. It seems like a stretch on his part to think that those left (who, again, just watched a ton of their colleagues/friends be laid off or summarily terminated) are going to put up with the promise of even worse treatment going forward.
> Hard to think that those writing great code would be open to be abused, giving how in demand their skills are.
Are they? The layoffs in tech have been... extensive. Engineers are more in demand than journalists right now, but the climate now is pretty dubious compared with only a few months ago.
Surely if they're the best, they can get a job somewhere else, probably for lower pay, where they aren't abused, regardless of the macroeconomic situation.
If you are relying on the medical insurance and have extra factors like having a family leaving without having another job lined up already is quite a risk, both actual and perceived.
Does severance include any upcoming stock grants? If no, could be another reason to try and stick it out hoping for some sanity to prevail.
Readit News
This is all over twitter, one of the biggest tech stories in a long time while very relevant to corporate culture in general - but there´s almost dead silence here?
That said the story and musk shenanigans in general is also quite annoying at this point.
For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 where dang has a "overheated discussion detector" to try to give things a chance to cool off.
Too much material on a single topic likely also gets down rated (similar to how posts about politics get less visibility).
Not everybody cares to hear a play by play of every inappropriate fart that Elon Musk passes.
Finally the first piece of good news coming out of Twitter. Why didn’t he just start with this email rather than anonymously laying off half the company and picking fights with engineers on Twitter, though now I guess people have a crystal clear picture of the culture they’re choosing to stay at, it would have been much more humane to start with this.
Sounds like a lot of people will choose this path, I wonder how many will be left.
https://fortune.com/2022/11/14/elon-musk-only-exceptional-tw...
He said exceptional is the baseline and only exceptional twitter employees can work from home, ergo all employees can work from home.
As for what it does in this case... we'll see. Will he get a bunch of superhero 10x programmers sleeping under their desks? Or will all the superheroes leave, reducing him to the ones who are afraid of finding a new job and being bad at it until he fires them?
Thus far he seems all stick and no carrot, but perhaps he's got something up his sleeve.
On the other hand, Eddie Lampert used a weird libertarian method and ran Sears into the ground.
I think there's a lot of survivor bias in how business leaders are treated.
But hailed by who in this case? Himself?
Imagine employees getting this survey and thinking I want to get out but what if this is trap? By opting for leaving I would be outing myself as not 'hardcore'.
Mr. Musk gets a database of self declared 'disengaged' employees. He chooses to scrap the offer (there is no legal binding) and then over next few months pressures them to quit without any severance.
Nightmare!
Hard to think that those writing great code would be open to be abused, giving how in demand their skills are.
Are they? The layoffs in tech have been... extensive. Engineers are more in demand than journalists right now, but the climate now is pretty dubious compared with only a few months ago.
Does severance include any upcoming stock grants? If no, could be another reason to try and stick it out hoping for some sanity to prevail.