Do you think more CEO from startup going to try to emulate Elon? To be extremely demanding of employees in a very abrasive manner, basically the opposite end of the spectrum of how most tech companies cater to employees the past decade.
I have a feeling many CEOs, of all company sizes ,will try to be like Elon. Like how many CEOs were trying to be "Steve Jobs" back then, it was trendy to be pixel-perfect to the minute details.
One of the great things about tech culture is that management can’t just openly dominate engineers. “Because I told you so” is not an answer that engineers will accept. If you treat engineers this way (without world-class compensation) then they will just leave.
My guess is that a lot of founders are rooting for Elon here. To them, “because I said so” is a perfectly valid reason to do what I say, because, well, I’m the boss. Who are they to question me? Who are they to complain?
I sincerely hope that Elon fails, if only to temper the egos of would-be petty tyrants everywhere.
EDIT: I realized that it is uncharitable of me to wish for failure. I don't wish ill on any of Twitter's employees. I'll restate it: I hope that Elon is forced to reverse course on his management style.
I think that what you’re describing is a dogmatic / authoritarian leadership style, which in tech can signal incompetence, but that’s not neccesarily what Elon is doing. He is being demanding and brash, and somewhat arrogant.
I'm not sure he is worth emulating unless he manages to dramatically turn Twitter around. In this short period of time he has lost significant ad revenue, while dramatically increasing expenses due to the debt load.
The way he’s acting is consistent with having flipflopped his way into the deal and resenting the whole thing slightly. He seems very worried about the money aspect. This fits with having tried to back out. If this is the case then he’ll need to get a handle on that.
Whether or not he succeeds, I can see that the approach is worth trying. It takes some balls, but coming out and saying, ok, who wants to get serious and work, otherwise leave, is a great way to get at a committed core team. There are huge risks (too many actually good people leaving) but it also solves one of the biggest problems in tech right now which is a coddled workforce that only wants to do what they want. It had to end at some point, and just ripping off the bandaid is as good a thing to try as any.
Edit: I agree with the other post that there should be a clear upside for those who stay, not just keeping their jobs. I don't know enough about what was offered to comment myself
"I can see that the approach is worth trying" - It's been tried since forever and literally goes back to the beginning of slavery.
I have walked away from several employers who berated their employees. And I didn't wait for them to berate me. I wouldn't never put up with any kind of strong arm tactic that threatens me. I would always make the choice to leave as soon as that was attempted.
I would probably walk away from an employer that treated me in a way I didn't like as well. But we are not their target audience. I'd also be unsuitable anywhere that had a rigid authority structure, like the military. That doesn't make it a universally bad model, just one that automatically selects for a certain type of person. As a deliberate bet by leadrship, such selection could be worth trying.
I'd have to agree that may be a good model for some endeavors and the military is a very good example. I have doubts about it being good for Twitter, but maybe aspects of SpaceX would work well with it.
I think the approach was poor. Laying off half the company then trying this is a recipe for disaster. If at first, instead of laying off half the company he had said "Look, the company is in rough shape, we are going to turn it around, here is the vision... It's going to get hard but you can leave now" then I could get behind it. But this is just insane, you'll just end up with people who can't leave.
I'm not sure I'd personally get behind Elon Musk as a leader, but people respond to vision and are willing to put in work and ensure hardship, to be part of a compelling vision. Not everybody is just going to work to collect their pay cheques.
Have you at any point seen Elon provide anything close to a compelling vision for Twitter? I haven't.
Other than trollish comments about free speech that he's since walked back, he's given no sign of having any coherent vision whatsoever.
The problem here isn't just that he's a terrible person; it's that it becomes clearer by the day that he's really just winging it. Smart, capable people don't want to work around that.
The vision is working in a cult of personality centered around placating the whims of a narcissistic, psychopathic toddler. Apparently this is attractive to some people.
I am no expert on this. But I believe in the case of a buyout, all the outstanding options and RSUs would be automatically vested and exercised. Lockouts wouldn't make any sense now that the company is no longer public.
Everyone is acting like this is a totally unintentional reduction in headcount...
Let's wait to see exactly how many people are left (if we ever even hear this number?), but it seems nobody remembers the reports from a month ago saying he wants to reduce it by 75%?
I highly doubt a shady overseas consultancy is a viable replacement for things like infrastructure, engineering, UX and product design, etc. Maybe he can cut costs as far as moderators, but I don't believe it's possible to reduce a company like Twitter by 80–90% and maintain service and product quality.
I don't see how he gets out of this, honestly. Even if he appoints a CEO with actual social skills, it's hard for me to imagine that anyone would want to work for a company that he has any influence over.
The last company I saw implode like this was named Enron.
He banned the three guys? There is a joke in industrial automation, that if a machine builder has a problem and contracts that work out to some external experts, it's always the same three guys, walking into the car company with different shirts.
The world is really small, if a job has nasty hours, bad conditions and needs expertise. Basically 3 idealists and Noone else.
I would love to see all of twitter leave and have that be the major reason for the implosion of twitter, even musk could be possible, with all the notoriety. I'm not sure we're going to see it (there's actually a lot stacked against that IMO), but you never know. With sex harassment (assault?) stuff people in high places could start really taking aim at him; and if he harassed one staffer, isn't it possible to see him get canceled, if there was more of a coalition. Not saying he would fade into obscurity, but maybe a bunch of people won't deal with him.
I think that twitter will be able to pull in some talent. Now you don't want mediocre engineers, but tbh there's probably room in some area, for someone that's just technical and experienced.
Lots of people, possibly even myself would roll the dice on twitter. As much as it would suck, I think it has a real chance to slingshot me into a new industry (I do software, but there's a substantial percent of the market that's really off limits ATM). You never know man, it's a moonshot.
I think for me it would definitely unlock a bunch of new avenues. So what if it goes under, and I watch it fall? If Elon fires me is that really going to look so bad? There's probably plenty of talented people that are willing to take the risk.
Obviously, the biggest part is whether this new workforce will stack up... it certainly won't, but it might be able to keep things a float. Twitter was in such bad shape I wouldn't be surprised if it failed, even if the remaining 50% (10%?) were a solid crew of grizzled veterans, obsessed with his hardcore ways... even full crew, motivated might not be able to save twitter from becoming a much more popular (but still quite small) version of voat.
He didn't really want the yacht; he was forced to buy it. Now he's taking revenge on the people who work in the yacht. Publicly ridiculing the quality of their work and firing them if they defend their work.
I guess I'm quibbling over what he was forced to do, so maybe we're talking past each other.
He _chose_ to buy it, with very few conditions. Presumably he was advised by very skilled lawyers during this transaction. He was _forced_ to honour his agreement.
If he didn't want to buy it, he could have not made an offer. Or he could have made an offer with conditions.
Instead, he chose to tweet repeatedly about how broken Twitter was, and how he would fix it once he owned it.
He had no "agency." There were stipulations that could allow him to get out and he tried to bullshit his way through making it seem like the situation matched, then panicked and stopped fighting it when the prospect of further discovery in the case threatened his ego.
No one forced him to sign a binding agreement to buy Twitter. He chose that for himself.
What happened next was he got cold feet when he decided that he didn't like the deal he himself had proposed and agreed to, and then he spent six months trying to back out of it.
The engineer who was summarily terminated after publicly pushing back on Elon's tweets about app performance responded to the news that he had been fired (also via tweet) with the salute emoji. Seems like it's become a meme among Twitter employees headed for the exits.
Didn’t have to be but I respect it. Best thing to do is to dismantle everything you can from the previous regimes and replace it with your own loyal people.
Everyone knows the score now and everyone that stays or joins going forward will be dedicated to the new vision and mission.
