Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter

[jon-nyc]

[jon-nyc]

Eli Lilly is pulling its millions in ad spending on Twitter after last week’s fake posts debacle, according to a news report.

When an imposter Lilly account with a “verified” blue check mark touted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now,” it set off a mad scramble inside Lilly to reach Twitter and get the post taken down, according to the Washington Post and its sources inside the pharma. The problem, however, was made even worse when no one at Twitter responded for hours, likely due to new owner Elon Musk’s massive staff layoff.

And in the hours that the fake post remained up Thursday afternoon, others joined in with “verified” imposter Lilly accounts with even more fake commentary. Lilly apologized on Friday at its official account@Lillypad over the “misleading message from a fake Lilly account.”

However, the real damage had already been done. By Friday morning, Lilly stock had dropped by more than 5% from the day before. The Twitter stunt pulled down the stock price of other diabetes drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. Lilly’s stock has yet to recover and, on Monday morning, remained down more than 4% over the past five days.

https://endpts.com/eli-lilly-pulls-millions-in-twitter-advertising-after-fake-account-debacle-report/

[xenon]

Maybe Elon truly is a hero after all - burning twitter down from the inside.

[jon-nyc]

I really don’t know why they didn’t include some basic verification for the $8 a month. They used to do it for free. (At least Twitter didn’t charge, maybe employees did)

Basically for $8 of revenue from this fake account Elon is losing millions from a global pharmaceutical company.

[Axtremus]

Elon/Twitter may have fired everyone who used to verify applicants for the blue check marks, or the subscription software has simply streamlined away the verification process.

[Horace]

I assumed the "verified" label was deprecated. Lots of websites have "pro" or "supporter" tags on profiles, and I thought that's what Elon's version of the blue check was.

[Doctor Phibes]

He clearly didn't have time to figure out what everybody who he fired actually did for a living.

In any company, there's all the funny little jobs that get done by a small number of people - it might not be well-documented, or even documented at all. So, some rich twat comes in, takes a look at the company from 10,000 feet, and fires all the people he doesn't think are needed. But he doesn't actually know what some of them do - he can't. And he leaves a bunch of people still working there who are going to be totally demoralized.

Dumbass.

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

[Copper]

We used to say "indispensable people get fired".

Some did, some didn't

[jon-nyc]

“The graveyards are filled with indispensable men.”

• Charles de Gaulle

[Klaus]

@jon-nyc

@jon-nyc said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

“The graveyards are filled with indispensable men.”

... and women. He meant to add that.

[George K]

Musk: "Work hard or get out."

Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to Twitter employees Wednesday morning: commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave the company with severance pay.
Employees were told they had to a sign a pledge to stay on with the company. “If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,” read the email to all staff, which linked to an online form.
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Anyone who did not sign the pledge by 5 p.m. Eastern time Thursday would receive three months of severance pay, the message said.
In the midnight email, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Musk said Twitter “will need to be extremely hardcore” going forward. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
The pledge email, paired with a new policy mandating a return to the office, is expected to lead to even more attrition at a company whose staff Musk had already reduced by half. Musk said Twitter would be more of an engineer-driven operation going forward — and while the design and product-management areas would still be important and report to him, he said, “those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.”

The horror.

First no free lunches.
Then you have to show up at work.
Then, you actually have to work!

I imagine all those foosball tables will rake in a handy profit on ebay.

[Horace]

I’ve spent decades trying to understand what project managers actually contribute. I suspect Musk has pondered that question as well.

[Mik]

@Horace said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

I’ve spent decades trying to understand what project managers actually contribute. I suspect Musk has pondered that question as well.

Amen. I was on the team that oh so painfully developed a health system's project management office guidelines and tools. It was two and a half years of hideously boring meetings to come up with something I could have told them in ten minutes. It doesn't make any freaking difference what project management methodology you use. You just have to have one.

Over the years everyone has tried to make me a PM. I'm good at it, such as it is, because I'm not hesitant to challenge people who aren't doing what I want. I'd be an even more effective dictator. But it's an awful, thankless job with little if any personal satisfaction. You become in most cases a professional beggar, hoping people will actually do what they committed to doing.

[jon-nyc]

Seems like he’s trying to create a startup culture or change-the-world culture his other ventures have.

Probably tougher to pull off at Twitter since it doesn’t fit into either category.

[Copper]

@jon-nyc said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

Seems like he’s trying to create a startup culture

I thought the same thing

@Horace said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

I’ve spent decades trying to understand what project managers actually contribute. I suspect Musk has pondered that question as well.

I always told my managers that I wanted 2 things from them.
A raise
Help finding my next position
That's it, they can keep the management team-building, social nonsense

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

Seems like he’s trying to create a startup culture or change-the-world culture his other ventures have.

Probably tougher to pull off at Twitter since it doesn’t fit into either category.

I suspect it has long since passed on into "most employees here have only a vague connection to how the business makes money" phase.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Mik said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:

Over the years everyone has tried to make me a PM. I'm good at it, such as it is, because I'm not hesitant to challenge people who aren't doing what I want. I'd be an even more effective dictator. But it's an awful, thankless job with little if any personal satisfaction. You become in most cases a professional beggar, hoping people will actually do what they committed to doing.

I did the first year of a Master's in Project Management back in the 90's - all paid for by the company I worked for. Thankfully I was saved by a job offer in Canada.

[jon-nyc]

In my experience there are often executives in charge of a big program and they are the ones that often have to wrestle it to the ground and are heavily involved and have the political power to remove obstacles.

Then there are “project management office” types that run around with gant charts and spreadsheets and ask people when their milestone will be met.

There are a lot more of the latter than the former.

A colleague of mine used to call them project management bunnies. That was politically incorrect even then.