I'm having a real hard time watching what is going on with twitter, are you? I mean, what kind of thought process has you quit a good paying job, with an entrenched ground-floor opportunity to turn something kinda good (and actually pointless IMO) into something with the potential to be groundshaking and great (referring to his statement that he wants to turn twitter into something like wechat (which is awesome BTW)) all because you don't agree with the owner's POLITICS (even though he has a track record of success) and the fact that there is a potential that USERS with different politics than yours may start using the app? I don't get it - does that make me old, or just not sufficiently self-entitled? I have worked for lots of folks who's politics I don't agree with, on apps that I don't like many times in my career.

The owner literally asked employees to work hardcore massive overtime and devote your life to the company basically all for very likely the exact same pay; that alone is stupid.

That, IMO, was a test and they failed miserably; and really, that's a problem? for what is essentially a start-up?

I work 40hr per week and nothing over. Personally, I think Elon and your attitude towards work is old school crap and I'm by no means young.

It's not "essentially a start-up" though. Thousands of employees worked for Twitter, many for several years under an agreed upon set of conditions. Elon "moved the goalposts" drastically. For people that have families or desire any quality of life, the new working conditions are unacceptable.

I work for myself on my own schedule. I work 20 hours some weeks, 80 others. Depends on what the job is and what I am trying to get done. I aint young either

And that's your choice. No one other than yourself is dictating that you work 80 hours a week. If my employer doubled my work week, I wouldn't stay either.

Not even for a chance to make something groundbreaking and relevant? That's the part I don't get. If it was "we are gonna refactor cuz I think the code is sloppy", I am 100% with you, but for a chance to create something great? I'd put in the work

Good for you. For many, their job or career, while fulfilling, doesn't define their life. The job (and career) are a means to an end: providing for their family and their eventual retirement. Again, if Twitter was actually a start-up, then I would expect people who desire to "be part of creating something great" to apply for those jobs. But Twitter hasn't been a start-up for more than a decade - it was an established tech company with the fairly formal structure and well-defined roles. Musk essentially ran a bulldozer over the entire structure. Imagine the same thing happening to Amazon or Microsoft. There are people who have been working for those companies for one or two decades. If the management suddenly demanded everyone work double the hours people currently work, there would be a similar mass exodus.

Well then, maybe he did the right thing by cleaning house and rebuilding from the ground up. I would have stayed, 6 months to a year of long hours is just a blip of time, even now at 58. But I have been addicted to this computer and coding for a long long time.

Listen, I've met him. He's... well, let's just say he's not great. It isn't a politics thing (his politics is whatever is shiny currently, trust me here). He's crazy smart (its actually annoying lol), but also has the social skills of a very spoiled child. If you choose to work yourself like a rented mule, that's cool. My schedule starts at 6 or 7am and I'm often still online past 10pm. Like tonight. I probably won't get to bed till midnight tonight. That's how it goes for me, and has always gone for me. I was a professional athlete twice before I turned 21. When I went into tech full steam I didn't slow a bit. But I CHOOSE to do this. Because I love CF. And JS. And tech. All of it. This shit is my cocaine. I'm just stupid or crazy enough (or maybe its hubris I dunno) to think I can make a difference. Which might be your point, but it is exactly why Elon has no damn clue about Twitter. You can't force this level of passion. Just like the best Twitter accounts are organically built because they provide real value, over years and years. I'm probably exactly the type of person Elon would want at Twitter and I wouldn't touch that with a 69' pole. Then again, 25 year old me probably would have. Which, I think, tells you something.

the wechat payments stuff is DOA, just like with FB libra, coz it all comes down to trust

if you think this is about politics alone, you're not paying attention.

"Something groundbreaking and relevant" isn't Twitter. It never will be. It's my family. My friends. My hobbies. I'm guessing Elon has none of those. I dunno. I went through the dot-com boom, worked crazy hours and basically missed a few good years of spending time with my daughter growing up. Made some cash but was it worth it? Nope.

This just comes down to different people having different priorities. For me, I wouldn't want to be a part of a "start-up" or high-pressure type of environment again.... I've done it, and a big part of me actually enjoyed that experience, however my physical health went downhill (weight gain from not enough exercise / poor eating due to stress, high blood pressure, etc), and my marriage suffered. I chose to leave that behind in 2007 (missing out on a big payout a couple years later when the company was sold, but I am now about to celebrate my 23rd anniversary which is much more valuable to me than any amount of money). Not EVERYONE is the right fit for that kind of work environment, and that is OK. My impression is that Elon wants to create a high pressure environment at twitter. The moves he is making will weed out the people who don't like that type of environment and attract the people who do. Intel comes to mind, I have an ex-brother in law who got a job at Intel and chose to spend all of this time at Intel and none of his time with his wife... that is why he is my EX-brother-in-law because my sister-in-law wanted a husband who was actually home sometimes.

@Marc Funaro What am I missing? I expect you are right, I pretty much quit paying attention to the news when that Malaysian airliner crashed years ago and I realized that its all about the eyeballs. When my twitter feed exploded with all kinds of new stuff a few weeks ago I got curious. So yeah, there is a strong likelihood I am missing something.

The dude is a billionaire asking for peasants to growth his wealth for the same pay and endless stress and time; less to no benefit to the worker. Also teasing with "possibly" letting them earn "shares" of the business. And no one wants to work in a chaotic environment where you dont know if you will have a job tmrw when you were working in a well structured business prior for that pay you were receiving.

@Michael Gillespie -- I'm having a real hard time watching what is going on with twitter, are you? Not even a little. Mainly because as soon as he walked in with a sink in his arms and that smarmy smile, I knew the company was royally screwed anyway. It's pretty much like irresistible rubbernecking at this point. -- I mean, what kind of thought process has you quit a good paying job, with an entrenched ground-floor opportunity to turn something kinda good (and actually pointless IMO) into something with the potential to be groundshaking and great (referring to his statement that he wants to turn twitter into something like wechat (which is awesome BTW)) This "ground-floor opportunity" (which it's really NOT - company's been around forever in internet years, and none of his new ideas come even close to "ground floor" quality) is the equivalent of hard working rock bands being asked to play "for exposure" instead of, you know, PROPER COMPENSATION, like the rest of the world works. It's a vacuous statement at best, equivalent to "hopes and dreams" and "thoughts and prayers." And WeChat already exists... so what's so groundbreaking? In fact, NOTHING this guy does is "groundbreaking." There hasn't been any good ground broken in a lonnng time in any of the areas he's had his hands in, and he's not doing much to change that - unless you're one of those billionaire-worshipping fools that simply thinks he can Do No Wrong, simply because he's rich and famous. -- all because you don't agree with the owner's POLITICS (even though he has a track record of success) I doubt anyone quit because of his "politics" (which are...?). Also, define success. -- and the fact that there is a potential that USERS with different politics than yours may start using the app? There's different politics, then there's different levels of CIVILITY. You may want to learn the difference. -- I don't get it - does that make me old, or just not sufficiently self-entitled? I have worked for lots of folks who's politics I don't agree with, on apps that I don't like many times in my career. We've all worked for people with whom we politically disagree. Very few of us are willing to work long-term for sycophantic billionaires with no grip on the realities that the common human faces, no clue how we do our jobs or what our challenges are, and no sense of common decency in how to treat a workforce, instead reducing them to replaceable drones who's sole purpose in life is to live and die at work, for a fraction of a fraction of the money that would be made by said billionaire, only to be fired by f%^king TWEET when you "step out of line" or are no longer considered "worth it." Is any of that "politics"? Hardly. Ask any of the people who've left (or just hit up Blind for the full story from any one of them) - Pretty sure you'll find they're not listing "political affiliation of the new boss" as the reason they're giving up all the things you've already recognized they once had, and making a life-altering change on such a whim. The premise of your statement is pretty flawed, and reeks of a lack of human decency or perhaps just an ignorance of the situation these people were forced into. It's disgusting. In closing... certainly, Musk is well within his rights to "optimize" the company he just paid so much to acquire - if the workforce truly had grown too bloated and too inefficient and too any-of-the-other-things-a-good-business-person-is-watching-for, then of course it's practically their obligation to fix it. A good leader will fix it in a way that (1) maintains respect for all the people that have dedicated years of their life to the betterment of the company, regardless of whether they are staying or departing; (2) provides a way for those that must be let go to depart with dignity and good references; (3) does so for the betterment of EVERYONE that is able to remain on the team, not just for their own ego and bottom line; and (4) in this case, preserves the services in such a way that doesn't screw the non-employee/contracted/independent companies and people who depend on the company in indirect ways on a daily basis. A bad leader will do... what Musk has done to date, and is likely to keep doing. I'm not saying he won't succeed - only that he'll do it in a way that is disgusting, somewhat immoral, certainly inhumane, and very much like the other fascists that this society seems to be more and more keen on worshipping. There's nothing "genius" about what he's done - any knob end can use a wrecking ball to solve all problems. The guy is a tool, regardless of his "politics." My lunch-hour 2c.

You probably could have made your argument without having to chastise me personally, but you make valid points regardless. I'll def create a Blind account and take a look. "Define Success" PayPal defined payment processing on the internet - look at the spin-offs and where that has led. Tesla is full of incredible engineers that are making innovative products. Space-X did in a few years what NASA, ESA nor Roskosmos could do for decades, build a re-usable and landable first stage - another company full of talented engineers. I can't imagine that Twitter wouldn't also be a place where great engineering happens. His first move, that I saw was to "lay off" a huge chunk of the workforce - locked out of the code, but getting a paycheck and 3 months to find a job - above and beyond what was required of him.. and then Twitter went nuts. Are you sure his last move wasn't just an "Oh fuck this, it will be cheaper and easier to start over"? Again, basing this off of what I am seeing on Twitter and the occasional "news" article that pops up when I start FireFox each day.

I'd counter and say Twitter was brilliantly engineered, super stable over the last few years

@zackster totally agree; use it almost every day, almost never post, though, just lurk

If you ask me to do something, and supports me while doing it, I'm happy. If you tell me to do something, and offer no support (or in Elon's case threats), well screw you LOL. I've been very lucky these last few years to work on a few very good teams. If there was an incident and someone asked me if I could work some extra hours over the weekend to fix something I'd be there because I would know the entire team would be there for support. If someone walks in the door and tells me I need to crank out 80hrs + or leave - well, bye!

This is the actual email that was sent (I think) hard to find one that is not bulleted or paraphrased

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 I 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:

[Google form link] 

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.

The fact he doesn't understand the critical importance of product managers & designers (not to mention cough DevRel/Evangelists) tells me all I need to know. The best possible way to absolutely blur fuck a product into tiny little shards on the floor is to let engineering run the thing.

@Mark Takata (Adobe) This says to me that he does understand the importance, but also wants to give engineering a voice too - insinuating that maybe they didn't have much of one before?. "*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." In other words, engineering suggestions won't fall on deaf ears (as happens a LOT in my experience).

When engineering drives the bus, you end up in the river lol. Engineers don't think about scale, profit, devex, CX, UX, QA. Engineers ENGINEER, but a product is so much more than that. I've learned this lesson the hard way over the last few decades. A brilliant piece of code or idea or method or piece of hardware is a critical component to success, but if that's all you have, you fail. Ask me about the $2m my last startup burned trying to get our product built. We had brilliant programmers, great design, some incredible people. But we didn't have the product architects that knew the landscape. It would be like building the world's best car and making it 13" wider than the available roads and parking spaces. God, if I had a time machine lol.

You probably could have made your argument without having to chastise me personally, but you make valid points regardless. Guilty as charged. I think I've had too many hostile Musk fanbois coming at me to remain as objective as I should be in that regard. I'll try to be nicer =) "Define Success" PayPal defined payment processing on the internet - look at the spin-offs and where that has led. Sure - many years ago, and certainly not all on his own. And where has it lead today? PayPal's policies that include rampant seizure of funds/accounts with no accountability and very poor means of arbitration. Go ahead and do a quick search for the number of folks who've lost money - often a great deal of money - because PayPal decided they were nefarious in some way even if they weren't. People often use PayPal because they have to, less often because they want to. And I guess the innovation is over on this one, because PP hasn't had any real innovation at all in decades. But I'll give you this one - it certainly helped him make a fortune, and still does. Tesla is full of incredible engineers that are making innovative products. Small think, IMO. Not to denigrate those awesome engineers, but there's nothing innovative about electric cars. They still require electricity derived from fossil fuels. They still require the same storage mechanism we've relied on since the first Duracell D rolled off the line. They still run on tires that are manufactured as they've always been. The self-driving /driver assist features are still untrustworthy IMO - because even one death as a result of a failure or miscalculation in those systems is one too many. The electric car is an advancement, but hardly innovative. (Pretty sure you can thank our government for holding back progress in this area as well, especially in the area of seized patents for "national security reasons", but I digress.) For the money poured into what is essentially a tired idea at best, and for the amount of time humanity has had to solve this issue, we're still leaning on the oldest core concepts that look nothing like true innovation. Space-X did in a few years what NASA, ESA nor Roskosmos could do for decades, build a re-usable and landable first stage - another company full of talented engineers. Again, these are advancements, but hardly innovative. We still launch things using burning chemical reactions, made out of the same core materials, with the same amount of lifespan to them. The fact that a private company is doing it is not really innovative, they just have the benefit and recognition of beng "first." I'm sorry if I can't be more impressed, but we are essentially doing the same sh$% we've done since April, 1961. Private industry always does things better than government, there's nothing innovative about that either. So now we just reuse the fuel tank (when it doesn't slam its ass spectacularly into the ground -- which I admit, IS fun to watch now and then)... yay. I can't imagine that Twitter wouldn't also be a place where great engineering happens. Well... used to. His petulance has chased off most of the great engineers. I'm sure he'll find more - younger, willing to work for peanuts and the endless corporate promises to go with the corporate greed and dignity-sucking policies; there always is. I feel bad for them, but when you're young, it's "cool" to work for a place like that somehow, so it's certainly up to them to decide how they want to live their lives and be treated. Just don't expect more experienced employees to have that same level of tolerance, or that younger workforce to be as "loyal" or have less turnover. His first move, that I saw was to "lay off" a huge chunk of the workforce - locked out of the code, but getting a paycheck and 3 months to find a job - above and beyond what was required of him.. Forgive me if I'm not impressed. He treated people like animals the moment he walked in the door. If money and time to find a new job are all that show up on your radar in evaluating good leadership, my point is clearly still lost. EDIT: And, his ham-handed methods put the entire platform and its users at risk - a point I made earlier, demonstrating truly poor leadership skills or simply an ignorance that is borderline psychotic. and then Twitter went nuts. Are you sure his last move wasn't just an "Oh fuck this, it will be cheaper and easier to start over"? It is NEVER "cheaper and easier to start over." Ever. And the bigger the thing is that you're starting over, the harder and more expensive it is. A good leader, with any REAL technical background at all, would know this. It's well within his rights to do so, but the fact that he's doing it, and with all of the diplomacy of a tasmanian devil on crack, is anything but impressive. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I've wondered if complete collapse of the platform was 100% intentional... a plaything for him to run into the ground to "own the libs" or "create general chaos" or some other thing billionaires have a tendency to do when they get bored. Twitter 2.0 sounds an awful lot like "metaverse" with extra steps. How much will it be worth the effort if it can be overrun with fake accounts, fascist misinformationers, and all the other things that were kept at bay by qualified employees that are now gone, likely never to be replaced? Interesting times.

I'm getting the vibe that Marc doesn't like Elon Musk

I dislike the idea that our society places way too much value and praise on billionaires - increasingly driving us into the ground.

Agreed there.... I think a lot of them are benefactors of good timing and good connections more than them being particularly gifted as an individual. I also think that, unfortunately, some of these people who were blessed with good timing and good connections (combined with better than average intellect or business instinct) also have a tendency to get a bit of a "God complex"... then they think they are the answer to all the worlds problems. There are definitely smarter people in the world than Elon Musk or Bill Gates, or whoever, but you don't hear about them because they aren't rich & famous, or don't have Egos or interest in being the center of attention.

@Scott Bennett (or twitter accounts)

Ego is an interesting thing... I constantly find that I have to put my own Ego in check.... Ego can propel you into doing great things, but it can also make you a big a-hole.

And notice that I didn't point out PayPal as the great product, but more of a defining moment, what followed is the good stuff. PayPal is a fine example of what bloat and complacency does to a product. Making Tesla profitable and relevant is another defining moment. Launching, landing and re-using a rocket by a private business, another defining moment. Hopefully Twitter will be one too.

Social media (in my opionion) plays havoc with people Egos

And I still don't see how he mistreated anyone, he laid his cards on the table and said "choose". I wonder how many will come to regret theirs?

come on, he treats ppl like shit and then fires them for providing factual answers

Social media is the haven of narcissists

Okay, so because billionaires and their bullshit run the show, and that's just a fact of life, then there's no point in calling out this strange desire humans have to be controlled and actually worship the controller, accept their behavior, and be okay with all of it? All on the basis of their apparent success and the power they get from it? Now THAT just sounds like religion with extra steps. EDIT: And we apply labels like "smart" and "talented" and "genius" to these folks, and then we defend them as if they are gods. It's really no wonder they think that they are. And about as useful.

@zackster people or person? And was it for the answers or for trying to make him look like an idiot on social media? Right or wrong, that's pretty insubordinate and businesses don't run to well fueled by that

I actually have a lot of work to do right now but instead I am doing this:

Marc, I 100% agree with you, its bullshit. And we are free to rant and try to change it; but it won't change because we don't have the POWER to change it, only shift it.

that was the internal twitter culture, to speak fearlessly (i'm only defending the factual retorts here)

Yeah, me too @Scott Bennett 😄

Well, Twitter will either burn to the ground or somehow rise like a phoenix despite itself. The important thing is to buy the dip on Tesla now before the market inevitably corrects itself when things get back to business as usual. 😉

And I don't agree we are powerless to change how we view and tolerate billionaire bullshit.... I'm more likely to agree we're powerless to change our own behavior, our need to worship bullshitters and give them the power they enjoy.

You got that right Mark!

but i guess you're right, since as long we're worshipping gods and billionaires, we're not getting very far as a species anyway.

but hunter biden's laptop!

BAHHAHAHAAHAHA

They aint worshipping gods and billionaires in China; how do you think the average person fares there?

(great thread, I'm watching Aus v France in the world cup at the same time)

It all sucks Marc, you just gotta figure out if you want to put on boots and slog quietly through the shit, or splash it all over you. I washed off about 15 years ago and donned boots (today being an exception it seems😁).

If you're implying that I'm advocating for Communism over Capitalism, nothing could be further from the truth. Both are shit, IMO. And of course, generationally, we have to play the hand we've been dealt. But the "nobody wants to work" nonsense we hear bossmen complaining about is exactly what one would expect to see when an economy goes south due to greed and rampant money printing, combined with bossmen that expect workers to "have it as rough as they did" or some equivalent. It's the same backwards mentality as parents who insist their kids experience "how rough they had it, growing up" as some sort of character-building fuckery.... when in an evolved, civilized society, we should WANT the next generation of worker, child, and grandchild to have it better and easier than we did. I'm sorry, but no matter the goal, a perpetual 80 hour work week is not only inhumane, it's counter-productive as a species and it should be called out for what it is, and shunned. If everybody recognized the damage such bullshit does in the name of making a billionaire richer, and ACTUALLY REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE, there'd be no wish for the power to control these asshats - we'd have it in spades.

not implying that at ALL - just pointing out that the -ism is just a label for a different kind of "sucks to be a "we the people" How do you refuse, and still eat? Is that what folks are doing when they quit the corporate world and start homesteading, or opening their own business. People ARE refusing, but it will never be enough. In our country, at least, we are supposed to have a voice and the power to change it, but the asshats we elect get bought and paid for by - guess who - the billionaires and corps that grind us down. I don't know any parent who doesn't want it to be easier on their kids than it was on them

lol you obviously don't live in upstate NY 🤣🤣🤣🤣 you should hear the way some of these folks talk to and about their kids.

well this slack channel is definitely the place to start changing the world!

clearly we have all the answers 🤣🤣🤣🤣

You know what I haven't had in a long time? Big League Chew.

I like lettuce

I like turtles!

I prefer lasagna

OK getting hungry now.

or pretty much any combination of bread and cheese

please sir, can i have some more

There's a little shop on the CA coast called "Two Fish" bakery and I think they actually sell it lol.

but if you area purist and don't want one of those newfangled gumbalss, then this.. https://www.amazon.com/Fun-Express-Original-Pouches-Shredded/dp/B07RW7SHLP/ref=sr_1_[…]ocery%2C108&sr=1-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

YASSSSSS now you're talking sir!

message has been deleted

That and some gum cigarettes and I'm back to my childhood

Sorry about leading you to ANOTHER one of those billionaire websites though..

message has been deleted

🤔

you read the story about all Elon and other c-suiters having children to further the human race with their superior genes?

lol. no.

lol V2T doesn't do symbols well does it?

what was that movie with matt damon and jodie foster - about the rich living above the earth?

Elysium

@Marc Funaro today I learned the word “smarmy”, thanks!

✅ Civic Duty