Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter
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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.
Make your technology a force for good. Sign up for The Tech Friend newsletter with Shira Ovide.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.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@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.
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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.
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@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 -
@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.
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@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.
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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.
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@George-K said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:
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.
Make your technology a force for good. Sign up for The Tech Friend newsletter with Shira Ovide.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.
He should personally sign them and authenticate they came from Twitter HQ. Would likely add a lot of value…
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@jon-nyc said in Elon Musk buys a big chunk of Twitter:
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.
There is a certain correlation with genetic phenotype which is difficult not to notice.
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From: Elon Musk
To: Team [at Twitter]
Subj. A Fork in the Road
Date: Nov. 16, 2022 [time stamp removed]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.
Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.
At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so l think this makes sense.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
[Link removed]
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.
Elon
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At no point in my career would I have reacted to that in a positive way.
Massively rich d-bag asks me to give up my private life so he can make even more obscene amounts money in the hope of a yet-to-be-specified reward of some sort?
How does 'fuck off, Elon' grab you?
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