Elon Musk is a nice chap

[xrunner]

Musk is now asking “anyone who codes” at Twitter to submit screenshots of ten examples of their code to him and then have a personal interview with him. I kid you not.

Maybe if the code is of genius quality they will be sent to the space outfit. 

[james_s]

You could ask that about trading in most internet companies. You aren't getting many real assets, and most of the material things you get is equipment with a very short replacement cycle. You buy it as a going concern, and Twitter was going to run out of other people's money to run its systems at some point. Many people act like its impractical to replace the incumbents, so you need to buy them. However, history say the dominant player in any area of internet activity has a clock ticking on their 15 minutes of fame. Yahoo is so dominant it could never collapse. Myspace is so dominant it could never collapse. Wash, rinse, repeat.

When you buy a company, you are buying in addition to physical assets and IP, the employees and the customer base. Sometimes layoffs are necessary and there is no really good way to do it but there are certainly better and more tactful ways than he did. In the process he has pissed off the customers too, advertisers that generated the bulk of their income have fled and with this very public debacle unfolding many of them will likely not come back. Users are also fleeing, yes some new people will join, but it's unlikely to even come close to the number that left.

I never liked Twitter or saw any use for it personally but if you're going to buy a company you better have a viable plan, and so far all I'm seeing is chaos.

[floobydust]

I've ridden through many acquisitions and they are always a messy disaster. Two corporate cultures collide, and the purchaser is totally clueless about how the company they just bought works, its technology, how it was grown. Then the redundancies and helm change add to the train wreck.
Twitter is not a car manufacturer. Musk and his team have zero experience with acquisitions. That's kind of obvious now.

Yes he's asking to meet personally with S/W engineers, fly in to San Francisco and...
"Musk ordered employees to email him a summary of what their software code has "achieved" in the past six months, "along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code."... "There will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack"

Now he thinks code cuteness is proof of their abilities? The loyalty problem is the bigger one I think.

[coppice]

When you buy a company, you are buying in addition to physical assets and IP, the employees and the customer base.

If you are buying the employees, you probably want to keep that secret. There are laws about that. You can't buy a customer base, only contracts in progress. If you keep the business running smoothly, you hope the customer base will stick with you. That's a key part of it being a going concern. The customer base - the advertisers and people being supplied with data, not the plebs exchanging messages - wasn't paying the bills for the wasteful employees, so the company wasn't actual bought as a going concern..... other than going bankrupt.

[coppice]

I've ridden through many acquisitions and they are always a messy disaster. Two corporate cultures collide, and the purchaser is totally clueless about how the company they just bought works, its technology, how it was grown. Then the redundancies and helm change add to the train wreck.

They aren't always a disaster, but even the ones that work out OK in the long term go through serious pain in the short term.

[james_s]

If you are buying the employees, you probably want to keep that secret. There are laws about that. You can't buy a customer base, only contracts in progress. If you keep the business running smoothly, you hope the customer base will stick with you. That's a key part of it being a going concern. The customer base - the advertisers and people being supplied with data, not the plebs exchanging messages - wasn't paying the bills for the wasteful employees, so the company wasn't actual bought as a going concern..... other than going bankrupt.

What are you talking about? I've been through multiple acquisitions and the employees were always one of the major assets and they went to lengths to retain them. Sure there were layoffs due to redundancy but if you lay off everyone that knows how things work the whole thing collapses. I've seen that happen too, company acquired another, canned too many employees, the dominoes started to fall as others fled, the product deteriorated, customers fled and eventually the carcass was sold off for pennies on the dollar. You don't literally buy the customers, but you buy the company that has customers and hopefully you get those customers to keep buying from the new company.

[coppice]

I've been through multiple acquisitions and the employees were always one of the major assets and they went to lengths to retain them. Sure there were layoffs due to redundancy but if you lay off everyone that knows how things work the whole thing collapses. I've seen that happen too, company acquired another, canned too many employees, the dominoes started to fall as others fled, the product deteriorated, customers fled and eventually the carcass was sold off for pennies on the dollar. You don't literally buy the customers, but you buy the company that has customers and hopefully you get those customers to keep buying from the new company.

It can work both ways. If Boeing had laid off more of the McDonnell Douglas management, instead of letting them run the combined company, Boeing might be in better shape today.

[james_s]

It can work both ways. If Boeing had laid off more of the McDonnell Douglas management, instead of letting them run the combined company, Boeing might be in better shape today.

You're moving the goalposts. If they laid off ALL the employees what would they have left? Employees are an asset that is part of a company, if you acquire a company you had better figure out which of those employees you need in order to do what you're trying to do. If Boeing had recklessly laid off half the company including the engineers and machinists causing many of those left to leave, they'd be left with a bunch of IP and machinery. Would that be worth what they paid? I don't know, it depends on the specific details, if they just wanted to eliminate a competitor maybe so.

[Stray Electron]

I've ridden through many acquisitions and they are always a messy disaster. Two corporate cultures collide, and the purchaser is totally clueless about how the company they just bought works, its technology, how it was grown. Then the redundancies and helm change add to the train wreck.
Twitter is not a car manufacturer. Musk and his team have zero experience with acquisitions. That's kind of obvious now.

Yes he's asking to meet personally with S/W engineers, fly in to San Francisco and...
"Musk ordered employees to email him a summary of what their software code has "achieved" in the past six months, "along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code."... "There will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack"

  Frankly I doubt that many employees would comply with a demand like that!  And my next question would be: Who the hell is Musk going to get that can competently evaluate said code?  That is a lot of evaluations that would have to be made and in a very short amount of time and in what I'm sure is a rather specialized field.  I wonder if anyone outside of Twitter or one of the other SM companies would be able to evaluate the examples?  And Musk sure as hell isn't going to bring in someone from one of the other SM companies and let them see twitter's code! So what the hell was he thinking?

   Musk's actions in reducing the number of employees is probably entirely justified from a legal and business prospective but should have been done gradually and after proper evaluations but this more resembles the last flight of a Japanese kamikazi!

   The evening news tonight is quoting The Washington Post as saying that 3/4 of Twitter's employees have quit!!!! 

[coppice]

It can work both ways. If Boeing had laid off more of the McDonnell Douglas management, instead of letting them run the combined company, Boeing might be in better shape today.

You're moving the goalposts. If they laid off ALL the employees what would they have left? Employees are an asset that is part of a company, if you acquire a company you had better figure out which of those employees you need in order to do what you're trying to do. If Boeing had recklessly laid off half the company including the engineers and machinists causing many of those left to leave, they'd be left with a bunch of IP and machinery. Would that be worth what they paid? I don't know, it depends on the specific details, if they just wanted to eliminate a competitor maybe so.

I'm staying on point. You have to get rid of the destructive forces. I think it was a real reckless, if public spirited, move for Musk to buy Twitter. However, having bought it, it has to be turned into something sustainable. That clearly required major changes. If he had taken the Boeing route that most certainly would not have happened. There's a good chance will crash, but its a given without drastic change.

[Bud]

  I think the departures may have already reached a critical mass, the aircraft has lost too much altitude and recovery from the stall is impossible no matter what the crew does, but we'll see.

Good riddance. World was a better place before facebook and twitter. People actually met and talked to each other in person.

[coppice]

The evening news tonight is quoting The Washington Post as saying that 3/4 of Twitter's employees have quit!!!!

Quit or gone? If they quit that would save Musk a lot of severance payments. If would also self select most of the problem people, simplifying things considerably.

[Stray Electron]

   What is absolutely astounding to me is that the x-Twitter employees are taking to social media en masse to complain. But guess what platform they're using?  You got it.  Twitter!!     

[james_s]

The evening news tonight is quoting The Washington Post as saying that 3/4 of Twitter's employees have quit!!!!

Quit or gone? If they quit that would save Musk a lot of severance payments. If would also self select most of the problem people, simplifying things considerably.

The offer he gave them was to click Yes to accept the new terms, otherwise they would be terminated and given 3 months of severance pay. I'm not a lawyer but I believe that written offer entitles them to severance. He could have just laid out his expectations and told people to resign if they no longer wanted to work there but that isn't what he did.

[james_s]

  I think the departures may have already reached a critical mass, the aircraft has lost too much altitude and recovery from the stall is impossible no matter what the crew does, but we'll see.

Good riddance. World was a better place before facebook and twitter. People actually met and talked to each other in person.

I agree, but I'm skeptical that Musk paid $44b to wipe out Twitter.

[Stray Electron]

The evening news tonight is quoting The Washington Post as saying that 3/4 of Twitter's employees have quit!!!!

Quit or gone? If they quit that would save Musk a lot of severance payments. If would also self select most of the problem people, simplifying things considerably.

   The news said quit but I'm not sure that is correct.  I might be wrong but I don't think that Musk's demand deadlines had been reached yet so I don't think that anyone would be terminated by the company yet.  This looks more like most of the employees did not comply with his demand for work examples and simply walked off of the job before his deadline.  In companies that I've worked for, they'll let you get away with that for two work days but as of the third day if you're not there then you are fired for cause. In every state that I'm aware of, that automatically means that you can't get unemployment compensation.  It will be interesting to see what happens in a couple of business days and see how many employees come back to Twitter with their tails between their legs.

[vk6zgo]

I ain't no Muskovite, but hell yah, aboot time someone send a rocket up the sector.

Wearing my (tweed) business modelling hat here, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, Insta, Google and a whole flight lounge of Crypto startups, are what I term Campus Corporations.

The Campus Corporation is a business with a culture matching the laid back campuses from whence their employees originate. Rather than being a place where people come to work, it's the place where dudes come to hang out. And dudettes, if they can stand the geek banter.

I remember visiting a 'major internet startup' in central west London and leaving the place wondering, why the hell do they need a slide in the lobby? Is the answer because, that's what they did at Stanford? Okay, it was to keep their employees happy, but who the hell employs five year olds?

One place I worked had regular Barbecues for the staff, but wouldn't buy stuff we needed to do our jobs properly, nor would they take advice from people with years of experience in Electronics----just from the "in group"!
It was, in reality, just a "startup" that got too big for its boots.

Whether you call them a new media, web based or pure digital business, regardless of how many thousand over keen and super excitted employees slash interns fill their Jungle Book themed gym for puppy yoga, there will only ever be three people in that organisation that will be able to deal with your problems in an effective way.

Elon almost certainly would have sacked them first!

Elon may have his head in some weird molniya orbit around reality, but he might just be on the right trajectory.

I have little faith in Entrepreneurs---their record in Oz has been pretty poor!

[Stray Electron]

  I think the departures may have already reached a critical mass, the aircraft has lost too much altitude and recovery from the stall is impossible no matter what the crew does, but we'll see.

Good riddance. World was a better place before facebook and twitter. People actually met and talked to each other in person.

I agree, but I'm skeptical that Musk paid $44b to wipe out Twitter.

  I agree.  I don't know how he would have stood to gain if Twitter went out of business.

[james_s]

   The news said quit but I'm not sure that is correct.  I might be wrong but I don't think that Musk's demand deadlines had been reached yet so I don't think that anyone would be terminated by the company yet.  This looks more like most of the employees did not comply with his demand for work examples and simply walked off of the job before his deadline.  In companies that I've worked for, they'll let you get away with that for two work days but as of the third day if you're not there then you are fired for cause. In every state that I'm aware of, that automatically means that you can't get unemployment compensation.  It will be interesting to see what happens in a couple of business days and see how many employees come back to Twitter with their tails between their legs.

The article I read said that the deadline was yesterday at 5pm EST and that as the deadline approached the internal Slack channels got flooded with goodbyes. I haven't seen official data on the numbers but what I did see claimed that the number of people that accepted his offer to stay was far lower than expected, under 50% of the remaining staff. It may take some time to find out how accurate that is.

[Stray Electron]

  OK. I thought Musk's deadline was 5 PM today and I assumed that that meant local time.

     None the less, if the employees simply left when the deadline passed and did not notify the company that they were quitting (and possibly be required to give two weeks notice before they actually left) then the company probably has the legal right to say that the employees summarily quit without giving notice and could legally refuse to give them severance pay and to dispute them getting unemployment compensation.

    I'm not saying that that is how Musk and Twitter will handle this but that is legal and is Standard Operating Procedure in every company that I've worked for.  And there is a LOT of money at stake here!  3 months severance pay for however many thousands of employees that left is a LOT of money by itself but also any approved unemployment claims against Twitter will also drive up the amount that they have pay into the state operated unemployment fund for everyone that they employ in the future.

   If the employees had simply given notice (and worked the two weeks if required) when the deadline passed then they would have probably gotten both unemployment compensation and severance. But simply walking off of the job in order to make some grand FU gesture to Musk could cost them a lot of money.

   Technically, Musk could have just made his demand for code samples and set a deadline and then terminated anyone that didn't comply and never offered to give them severance pay.  He may have made what we see as an unrealistic demand but he did, very generously IMO, offer to give severance pay to anyone that wasn't willing to comply.

[EEVblog]

The article I read said that the deadline was yesterday at 5pm EST and that as the deadline approached the internal Slack channels got flooded with goodbyes. I haven't seen official data on the numbers but what I did see claimed that the number of people that accepted his offer to stay was far lower than expected, under 50% of the remaining staff. It may take some time to find out how accurate that is.

That's his plan, bet your bottom dollar. And he's not done yet.
His plan is obvious, he thinks Twitter can be run by maybe a few hundred highly dedicated and productive people tops, and he's probably right.
I saw a thing from some who worked at one of the huge gaming companies (Blizzard?) that said they kept the whole ship afloat with like a few dozen people.
He wants to slash staff 95% and become instantly profitable, and then have only the most dedicated and talented people working for him, and he'll get it whether people like it or not.

[EEVblog]

  I think the departures may have already reached a critical mass, the aircraft has lost too much altitude and recovery from the stall is impossible no matter what the crew does, but we'll see.

Good riddance. World was a better place before facebook and twitter. People actually met and talked to each other in person.

I agree, but I'm skeptical that Musk paid $44b to wipe out Twitter.

He didn't. He wants it to be the most profitable company in the world.
If he adds a payment system like PayPal/Stripe and adds video and monetisation like Youtube then it's game over for every other platform.
And that's just for starters. Anything that links off-site that can be added to Twitter, that's what you add.

[Stray Electron]

  I think that the two critical questions for Musk and for Twitter are going to be be: 1) Will the employees that left wreck Twitter either by their absence or by physically damaging the computers and other equipment?   And 2) Will the advertisers keep supporting Twitter even after the employee walkout?

  My guess to the 2nd is that they will. I point to the fact that even the x-Twitter employees are still using Twitter to complain. So the advertisers still have an audience.  Second, many of them many be in contracts with Twitter so they will be forced to continue using it. I would watch for Nike or some other large Woke corporation to announce that they will no longer advertise on Twitter. If that happens it might open a floodgate of others leaving.

  The first question is harder to answer.  I would expect that some of the former employees have, or will, attempt to wreck the company and/or it's equipment in some fashion.  So it may depend on what support the new Twitter can get from other outside companies including temporary job staffing companies to keep it in operation.

[EEVblog]

  I think that the two critical questions for Musk and for Twitter are going to be be: 1) Will the employees that left wreck Twitter either by their absence or by physically damaging the computers and other equipment? 

No. He already prented that by locking them out. Standard business practice when letting go employees with access who can do damage to the company.

And 2) Will the advertisers keep supporting Twitter even after the employee walkout?

The advertising problems have nothing to do with employees leaving.
And they will return, they are just virtue signaling.

I would watch for Nike or some other large Woke corporation to announce that they will no longer advertise on Twitter. If that happens it might open a floodgate of others leaving.

You must have missed the news, that's already happened, huge advertising deals put on hold. This was before the layoffs.

The first question is harder to answer.  I would expect that some of the former employees have, or will, attempt to wreck the company and/or it's equipment in some fashion. 

They can't they have no access. There are countless images of ex-employees locked out their accounts.

[Bud]

  The first question is harder to answer.  I would expect that some of the former employees have, or will, attempt to wreck the company and/or it's equipment in some fashion. 

This would be a criminal and punishable action. That previously did not work well for those ex system admins locking their company routers or erasing databases, did it?