Elon Musk is a nice chap

[AndyBeez]

I have NEVER come across a single company, big or small, that knew how to do downsizing right. When it comes to headcount decluttering the following criteria often apply:

Sack the expensive staff, but not their managers.
Sack all over 35 aged staff, but not their managers.
Sack staff with high pension contributions, but not their managers.
Sack the most experienced staff, but not their managers.
Sack the most respected staff, but not their managers.
Sack the professional qualified staff, but not their managers.
Sack a low grade manager without any staff left, but not their managers.
Sack the wiseguy who put Dilbert Cartoons all over the company website, but not their managers.

Then... move all clueless idiots who really ARE clueless AND idiots, into managment. Now wait a couple of months for the economic recovery to snap into maximum effect and achieve the INSTANT REHIRE OF SKILLED STAFF! What, no one wants to work for you now because you're managed by clueless idiots? Not even as a work from home contractor? Oh well, time for some more headcount decluttering. Anyone left who matches the above criteria?

  I'm too old and too cynical for a day job

[Bud]

You don't retain and recruit top talent by being volatile and impulsive and making unreasonable demands.

I'd like to flip this around and say as an employee you don't make your life easier by being impulsive and making emotional based decisions. I'd speculate most of the workforce at twatter is a yonger audience in their 20s-30s, still with irrational thinking. I do not think many employees who are 40 years old and over have resigned. Not because of fearing for their future but because they think as mature people with some wisdom in their bagage.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I have NEVER come across a single company, big or small, that knew how to do downsizing right. When it comes to headcount decluttering the following criteria often apply:

You forgot one:

Sack the knowledgeable, experienced staff, and then, after realizing the company can't function without them, immediately rehire them as consultants at 2-3 times their previous salary.

[floobydust]

A billionaire's problem is they get surrounded by sycophants and advisors that go along with their eccentricities. "Oh Emperor, your new clothes look great!" He seems to want total control, there's no Board of Directors or content moderation council that I have heard of.
Of course the guy has Twitter 2.0 all in his head, he can see the plan in the blink of an eye- but implementation is going rough unless Twitter was really that fat, obese corporation and he's now doing liposuction lol.

Mass layoffs and threats scuttling morale and causing resignations, likely the death knell for obtaining critical mass of talent. Musk is not some deity that working for him gives you superpowers or divine abilities. I suppose many noobs would go for it, new grads/interns don't yet have family and a mortgage and can tolerate his unstable mess. I think this is one of his big mistakes, repelling experienced mature talent and instead filling up the place with "genius" noobs that will go along with his ways, work like it's Silicon Valley circa 2000.

[coppice]

Well, that's the theory. Many studies show that in layoffs its usually the very best people who move on, because the people with get up and go find it relatively easy to do so.

You seem to be confusing layoffs with resignations. Layoffs are involuntary, it's true that people often resign around the time layoffs are occurring but that is a separate issue.

I'm not confusing them at all. You misunderstand the problem if you think layoffs and the best people walking out are separate issues. They are closely tied together. If companies truly laid off the dead wood, the productive would be delighted, feel things will probably improve, and will stay. That is not what generally happens, unless new and much more positive people replace the most senior management.

[coppice]

I have NEVER come across a single company, big or small, that knew how to do downsizing right. When it comes to headcount decluttering the following criteria often apply:

Sack the expensive staff, but not their managers.
Sack all over 35 aged staff, but not their managers.
Sack staff with high pension contributions, but not their managers.
Sack the most experienced staff, but not their managers.
Sack the most respected staff, but not their managers.
Sack the professional qualified staff, but not their managers.
Sack a low grade manager without any staff left, but not their managers.
Sack the wiseguy who put Dilbert Cartoons all over the company website, but not their managers.

Then... move all clueless idiots who really ARE clueless AND idiots, into managment. Now wait a couple of months for the economic recovery to snap into maximum effect and achieve the INSTANT REHIRE OF SKILLED STAFF! What, no one wants to work for you now because you're managed by clueless idiots? Not even as a work from home contractor? Oh well, time for some more headcount decluttering. Anyone left who matches the above criteria?

  I'm too old and too synical for a day job

That's a long way of saying a badly run organisation gradually accumulates more and more overheads, towards the day when an army of dead wood is driving one poor sucker to do everything that matters. Obviously the organisation will crumble before reaching that end point.

[james_s]

I'd like to flip this around and say as an employee you don't make your life easier by being impulsive and making emotional based decisions. I'd speculate most of the workforce at twatter is a yonger audience in their 20s-30s, still with irrational thinking. I do not think many employees who are 40 years old and over have resigned. Not because of fearing for their future but because they think as mature people with some wisdom in their bagage.

I'm over 40 and I'd have either resigned or would be in full blown job search mode. When I was in my 20s I could do 70 hour weeks for a while and it was ok, at this stage in life I have no interest in that. Work is good but I work to live, not live to work. I have enough experience to know that I can find another job if I need to, and I have enough money saved up that I don't need to be in a big rush.

I think a lot of people are enjoying seeing the Twitter employees suffering, but I think very few of them with that attitude would actually want to work there.

[coppice]

Do you think anyone is going to enjoy working in a place where they've seen more than half of their colleagues let go and where others are fired at the drop of the hat for saying the wrong thing? A place where they are expected to work long hours and exceptional work is merely a "passing grade"? I don't think so. I've never worked at Twitter or had any desire to do so but I have almost my entire career in the software industry and I know the industry better than most of the armchair quarterbacks out there commenting on it. You don't retain and recruit top talent by being volatile and impulsive and making unreasonable demands.

The people you want to keep are the ones who are delighted if the dead wood is pruned. For the productive it makes the place feel so much better day to day, and the future feels more positive. The problem is that over and over companies drive or push out more productive than non-productive people.

[AndyBeez]

That's a long way of saying a badly run organisation gradually accumulates more and more overheads, towards the day when an army of dead wood is driving one poor sucker to do everything that matters. Obviously the organisation will crumble before reaching that end point.

Very succinct 

Electronic engineers have been left swinging from the dead wood branches of management trees for decades. But dead wood is a relatively new thing in the digital industry sector. I wonder what the job descriptions of the ex-staff at Twitter and Meta were?

You forgot one:

Sack the knowledgeable, experienced staff, and then, after realizing the company can't function without them, immediately rehire them as consultants at 2-3 times their previous salary.

I've seen that for real on a few occations. As long as the headcount target is acheived, no one cares if those persons come back costing more than they did as salaried staff. I remember a system manager responsible for servers and PCs in a sales and customer support real estate, received (as we say in Britain) a brown envelope. She was 'rehired' next day for her now 'redundant' job - by transferring her skills to a management consultancy. In truth, the consultancy charged her to her ex-company at five times her original salary, but she only received a minor percentage of this. Sick of the BS, she left for a Dubai gig wage in property sales, 100% tax free.

Confucius say, you piss off your best people and they always piss off.

[coppice]

Electronic engineers have been left swinging from the dead wood branches of management trees for decades. But dead wood is a relatively new thing in the digital industry sector. I wonder what the job descriptions of the ex-staff at Twitter and Meta were?

Really? Are you too young to remember the dot com bubble bursting?

[Leeima]

The "problem" with EV cost is that you pay more up front. So if you compare them at face value, EVs are more expensive. The fact that you win back during the lifetime of the vehicle is either not well understood or doesn't change the fact that people can't affor the higher up front cost.

perhaps a good example of it being "expensive to be poor"

[AndyBeez]

Electronic engineers have been left swinging from the dead wood branches of management trees for decades. But dead wood is a relatively new thing in the digital industry sector. I wonder what the job descriptions of the ex-staff at Twitter and Meta were?

Really? Are you too young to remember the dot com bubble bursting?

If only. The 'Pop Com' bubble burst when the world was using Netscape Navigator and dial up. Very Internet 1.

Now we are in the freakin' omnispace of the Web3 metaverse. Whatever that is?

MetaWeb3 is a virtual Deadwood City: What for example is a Digital Tokenomics Consultant? And why do we need to hire one at $1200 a day?

[Stray Electron]

I've been following the news, and it's been quite comical. I hope others will realize who they have been working for. I guess we can conclude at some point that 95% of Tesla's success is done by the engineers putting in the countless hours of unpaid overtime, often during the weekend with the treat of being fired if you don't work 10 hours on a Sunday.
I mean the guy just fired 50% of the workforce, and told the rest that they have to do mandatory overtime now.

    That's pretty much true of all large business mergers.  Buy two companies, merge them, then lay off a significant number of the employees and keep the remaining workers in constant fear for their jobs (and working mucho unpaid overtime) so that they keep the same production output, raise the cost of the product or service = PROFIT! 

    I've seen this happen so many times that now I expect it anytime that a company merges or is bought out!

   From an employee perspective it really, really sucks when a large company lays off a huge number of employees (with roughly the same job skills) all in one area!   The chances of getting another job, in that area, and in the same field anytime in the near future are virtually zero. 

   
   Been there, done that.  (on the receiving end)

[metrologist]

You've listed one other company that let go around 10%, now realize there are literally thousands of tech companies in the Bay Area and PNW. Layoffs are common in tech, it comes in cycles, 10% is clearing out the dead weight. It may take a bit of time but I think most of the people that were let go or resigned from Twitter will find something else without too much difficulty.

It's better thought of as eliminating redundancies or resizing the company to match business levels.

[Sal Ammoniac]

received (as we say in Britain) a brown envelope.

Interesting. I've never heard that term before. Here is the States the equivalent is a "pink slip".

[Stray Electron]

You don't retain and recruit top talent by being volatile and impulsive and making unreasonable demands.

I'd like to flip this around and say as an employee you don't make your life easier by being impulsive and making emotional based decisions. I'd speculate most of the workforce at twatter is a yonger audience in their 20s-30s, still with irrational thinking. I do not think many employees who are 40 years old and over have resigned.

   I've been in this position and I have to say that employees in the ~40 and over age range effectively CAN'T quit!  Most of them have homes and a mortgage or an apartment with a lease (contract), and car and other "toys" with a mortgage or a lease, and have kids in school, etc etc and are so tied down with monthly payments that quitting simply is not a realistic option for them. And usually moving to a new area isn't realistic either. And I'll add that the companies know that and, in my experience, they take FULL advantage of the situation. 

  Before I hit that 40ish milestone (age 33 for me) I did just throw all of my clothes in a car and drove across country to an entirely new area and started over completely; several times.  But after you marry, have kids, buy a house, get a dog, buy a boat (and a metric tonn of TE); all of that changes! 

[Stray Electron]

A billionaire's problem is they get surrounded by sycophants and advisors that go along with their eccentricities. "Oh Emperor, your new clothes look great!" He seems to want total control, there's no Board of Directors or content moderation council that I have heard of.
Of course the guy has Twitter 2.0 all in his head, he can see the plan in the blink of an eye- but implementation is going rough unless Twitter was really that fat, obese corporation and he's now doing liposuction lol.

Mass layoffs and threats scuttling morale and causing resignations, likely the death knell for obtaining critical mass of talent. Musk is not some deity that working for him gives you superpowers or divine abilities. I suppose many noobs would go for it, new grads/interns don't yet have family and a mortgage and can tolerate his unstable mess. I think this is one of his big mistakes, repelling experienced mature talent and instead filling up the place with "genius" noobs that will go along with his ways, work like it's Silicon Valley circa 2000.

  Well said and I agree completely, but I wonder if Twitter isn't one of those "too big to fail" companies?   (Like GM who still seems to be floundering around and who still can't come up with a decent product.)

[Stray Electron]

I have NEVER come across a single company, big or small, that knew how to do downsizing right. When it comes to headcount decluttering the following criteria often apply:

Sack the expensive staff, but not their managers.
Sack all over 35 aged staff, but not their managers.
Sack staff with high pension contributions, but not their managers.
Sack the most experienced staff, but not their managers.
Sack the most respected staff, but not their managers.
Sack the professional qualified staff, but not their managers.
Sack a low grade manager without any staff left, but not their managers.
Sack the wiseguy who put Dilbert Cartoons all over the company website, but not their managers.

Then... move all clueless idiots who really ARE clueless AND idiots, into managment. Now wait a couple of months for the economic recovery to snap into maximum effect and achieve the INSTANT REHIRE OF SKILLED STAFF! What, no one wants to work for you now because you're managed by clueless idiots? Not even as a work from home contractor? Oh well, time for some more headcount decluttering. Anyone left who matches the above criteria?

  I'm too old and too synical for a day job

That's a long way of saying a badly run organisation gradually accumulates more and more overheads, towards the day when an army of dead wood is driving one poor sucker to do everything that matters.

    FWIW In the US that is known colloquially as "All Chiefs and no Indians".

[Stray Electron]

Musk forcing employees to work 24/7 is a clickbait BS.

    There are labor laws,

  Umm. No. There's not! Not if you're in the US and on salary!  California may have state laws regarding 40 hour+ work weeks for salaried employees but not as far as I know.  But I have worked in several US states were we worked 7 days per week and 80+ hours. On one memorable job we routinely worked 12 hour days, 7 days per week. I worked there for 4 months but that was in place before I got there and for several months after I left.

   FWIW I knew a guy that worked on building the Alaskan oil pipeline in the 1970s and he showed me his pay stub one time.  He was PAID for 24 hours per day and 7 days per week and was paid hourly!  I'm not joking, his pay stub showed 164 hours for one week!  I don't remember his hourly rate but he made more money in a week than I made in several months!  I don't remember but he may have been paid for overtime as well.

[james_s]

The people you want to keep are the ones who are delighted if the dead wood is pruned. For the productive it makes the place feel so much better day to day, and the future feels more positive. The problem is that over and over companies drive or push out more productive than non-productive people.

How many of those do you think are on the Twitter workforce? I'd wager less than 10% of those that haven't left already. There seems to have been very little planning in the layoffs at Twitter. Rather than using a scalpel to surgically remove the redundant and unproductive workers he went in there with a machine gun, metaphorically speaking, and threw the baby out with the bath water. I can only imagine the ones that are left are probably all assuming they'll be next. I've survived numerous layoffs in the past and it has always been extremely stressful and a huge hit to morale and productivity.

[james_s]

   I've been in this position and I have to say that employees in the ~40 and over age range effectively CAN'T quit!  Most of them have homes and a mortgage or an apartment with a lease (contract), and car and other "toys" with a mortgage or a lease, and have kids in school, etc etc and are so tied down with monthly payments that quitting simply is not a realistic option for them. And usually moving to a new area isn't realistic either. And I'll add that the companies know that and, in my experience, they take FULL advantage of the situation. 

  Before I hit that 40ish milestone (age 33 for me) I did just throw all of my clothes in a car and drove across country to an entirely new area and started over completely; several times.  But after you marry, have kids, buy a house, get a dog, buy a boat (and a metric tonn of TE); all of that changes! 

Age discrimination is definitely an issue, but not completely insurmountable, and they're in Silicon Valley, there are thousands of tech companies, even companies not traditionally about tech often have an app and tech infrastructure. Also I don't have any actual stats but I suspect a large portion of the Twitter staff is in their 20s and early 30s.

[coppice]

The people you want to keep are the ones who are delighted if the dead wood is pruned. For the productive it makes the place feel so much better day to day, and the future feels more positive. The problem is that over and over companies drive or push out more productive than non-productive people.

How many of those do you think are on the Twitter workforce? I'd wager less than 10% of those that haven't left already. There seems to have been very little planning in the layoffs at Twitter. Rather than using a scalpel to surgically remove the redundant and unproductive workers he went in there with a machine gun, metaphorically speaking, and threw the baby out with the bath water. I can only imagine the ones that are left are probably all assuming they'll be next. I've survived numerous layoffs in the past and it has always been extremely stressful and a huge hit to morale and productivity.

The problem with surgically removing people, when you initially can't trust anyone there, is it takes so long that things rot along the way. A swift crude move may be better. At least in the Twitter case a lot of the useless people could be made to easily self select.

[james_s]

The problem with surgically removing people, when you initially can't trust anyone there, is it takes so long that things rot along the way. A swift crude move may be better. At least in the Twitter case a lot of the useless people could be made to easily self select.

But you have to be careful to keep the ones that you actually need. Otherwise what exactly did he buy? Some IP and a bunch of office furniture? I almost think he would have been better to stay on course until the money runs out, declare bankruptcy and let everyone go then start over from scratch with a new startup, but $44b is a lot to pay for that.

Personally I think Twitter rubbed him the wrong way, he got pissed off and decided to purchase it out of spite, then he had second thoughts and tried to back out but was eventually forced to go ahead, and now he's flailing and throwing everything at the wall hoping something will stick. 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.

[coppice]

Otherwise what exactly did he buy? Some IP and a bunch of office furniture?

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.

[Sal Ammoniac]

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.