Elon Musk has made a serious mistake

[Grumblenuts]

Misogyny perhaps?

 

[krichton]

Twitter still up and running?

Yeah...

Game. Set. Match.

So.... I'm still waiting. Game. Set. Match.

 

[The Duke]

I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff, but it's becoming clear that firing all these engineers was a monumental mistake, which may sink Twitter, Tesla, and his wealth.

Gergely Orosz​

4h • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Bookmark Save as PDF My Authors
What I'm hearing from inside Twitter:

Several people who were let go on Friday, then asked to come back were given less than an hour as a deadline.

Software engineers who got this call I know of all said "no" and the only ones who could eventually say "yes" are on visas.

Also:
Many people got a phone call with this "offer", and a short deadline. Lots of people stopped answering unknown numbers to avoid this.

Inside Twitter, managers I hear are getting desperate, trying to call back more people. People are saying "no" + more sr engineers are quitting.

None of this is surprising. As a rule of thumb, after you lay off X% of people, you get an additional half attrition. Lay off 10%: expect another 5% to quit. Lay off 50%... not unreasonable to expect another 25% to quit.

Calling back people you just fired rarely works.
Why it's a problem that senior people are quitting and people don't want to come back:

Twitter has a complex architecture *for a reason.* And it needs some level of institutional knowledge to maintain.

This institutional knowledge both got fired + is walking out the door.

In practical terms: software engineers who are with the company are now put on oncall rotations for systems they have no idea about. I mean, they can figure it out... easiest to talk with someone who knows these.

The problem is when there's no such person left.

Talking with engineers, some things people don't realize about Twitter:

- On prem data centers
- Lots of infra-level advanced stuff. Eg multi-level infra feature flags
- Advanced infra-level incremental rollouts to avoid outages that were caused by infra changes in the past
Unless the institutional knowledge is somehow retained, in days/weeks/months, we should, sadly, expect to see a lot more outages.

The straightforward option to reduce damage is:
1. Retain experienced folks, at least mid-term
2. Hire and onboard new people with these seniors

I know that on Twitter it's fashionable to mock how "slow" Twitter was to ship.

But the more I learn about the internal systems, and why it was built in a way, the more impressed I am. Eg Twitter onboarding to k8s was extremely challenging (+brilliant) thanks to legacy infra.

Twitter has no nuance to discuss Twitter tradeoffs. But as I understand, there were many: some workaround of legacy decisions, some deliberate.

This doesn't change that Twitter is a complex system, and it's complex for good reasons. I really hope enough people stay who know why.

Also, thank you to both people who built these systems Twitter runs on, and especially those staying and maintaining them.

Keeping Twitter running became far more challenging overnight for no fault of ppl doing all this difficult work.

Thanks for keeping the lights on and more!

One thing that continues to bug me:

Elon Musk is an experienced operator and no stranger to layoffs (and their impact). He has a team of advisors from the VC world.

Surely they expected all this to happen. So, why did they do it? Or is this the plan?

Unroll available on Thread Reader

A timely comic from a former Twitter software engineer - several people told me he was one of the most productive web engineers -, who was also Twitter's unofficial Chief Cartoonist.

So a bit more of an insider view:



Worth linking how the author of the above comic got fired at Twitter.

He was working on a high-priority project at 9pm on Tuesday (after Elon bought Twitter). Disconnected and fired mid-work-meeting. No justification as to why.

Now he's suing Twitter.

Boy, you are derp.

 

[BackAgain]

I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff, but it's becoming clear that firing all these engineers was a monumental mistake, which may sink Twitter, Tesla, and his wealth.

Gergely Orosz​

4h • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Bookmark Save as PDF My Authors
What I'm hearing from inside Twitter:

Several people who were let go on Friday, then asked to come back were given less than an hour as a deadline.

Software engineers who got this call I know of all said "no" and the only ones who could eventually say "yes" are on visas.

Also:
Many people got a phone call with this "offer", and a short deadline. Lots of people stopped answering unknown numbers to avoid this.

Inside Twitter, managers I hear are getting desperate, trying to call back more people. People are saying "no" + more sr engineers are quitting.

None of this is surprising. As a rule of thumb, after you lay off X% of people, you get an additional half attrition. Lay off 10%: expect another 5% to quit. Lay off 50%... not unreasonable to expect another 25% to quit.

Calling back people you just fired rarely works.
Why it's a problem that senior people are quitting and people don't want to come back:

Twitter has a complex architecture *for a reason.* And it needs some level of institutional knowledge to maintain.

This institutional knowledge both got fired + is walking out the door.

In practical terms: software engineers who are with the company are now put on oncall rotations for systems they have no idea about. I mean, they can figure it out... easiest to talk with someone who knows these.

The problem is when there's no such person left.

Talking with engineers, some things people don't realize about Twitter:

- On prem data centers
- Lots of infra-level advanced stuff. Eg multi-level infra feature flags
- Advanced infra-level incremental rollouts to avoid outages that were caused by infra changes in the past
Unless the institutional knowledge is somehow retained, in days/weeks/months, we should, sadly, expect to see a lot more outages.

The straightforward option to reduce damage is:
1. Retain experienced folks, at least mid-term
2. Hire and onboard new people with these seniors

I know that on Twitter it's fashionable to mock how "slow" Twitter was to ship.

But the more I learn about the internal systems, and why it was built in a way, the more impressed I am. Eg Twitter onboarding to k8s was extremely challenging (+brilliant) thanks to legacy infra.

Twitter has no nuance to discuss Twitter tradeoffs. But as I understand, there were many: some workaround of legacy decisions, some deliberate.

This doesn't change that Twitter is a complex system, and it's complex for good reasons. I really hope enough people stay who know why.

Also, thank you to both people who built these systems Twitter runs on, and especially those staying and maintaining them.

Keeping Twitter running became far more challenging overnight for no fault of ppl doing all this difficult work.

Thanks for keeping the lights on and more!

One thing that continues to bug me:

Elon Musk is an experienced operator and no stranger to layoffs (and their impact). He has a team of advisors from the VC world.

Surely they expected all this to happen. So, why did they do it? Or is this the plan?

Unroll available on Thread Reader

A timely comic from a former Twitter software engineer - several people told me he was one of the most productive web engineers -, who was also Twitter's unofficial Chief Cartoonist.

So a bit more of an insider view:



Worth linking how the author of the above comic got fired at Twitter.

He was working on a high-priority project at 9pm on Tuesday (after Elon bought Twitter). Disconnected and fired mid-work-meeting. No justification as to why.

Now he's suing Twitter.

Worry about it, Syndi.

 

[San Souci]

As someone in that thread mentioned, this would be a good time for Tesla employees to unionize. They have a lot of leverage right now.

Musk could outsource to Mexico ,India ,or Taiwan. Screw Unions. A guy worth 250 Billion does not have to compromise with Union scum.

 

[yidnar]

We like free speech, we just don't want to put up with racist, anti-Semitism and misogamy to get there.

like Farrakhan ,Sharpton ect ...? the left has defined hate speech as anyone with an opposing viewpoint ... for example saying only biological women can get pregnant is now considered hate speech by the left .

 

[Lastamender]

Sure they can. That’s why they are leaving and choosing new platforms instead sitting around whining about it.

I don’t feel sorry Musk. His monumental arrogance is to blame.

His arrogance cannot compete with the arrogance of our elected officials and the bureaucracy behind them.

 

[DudleySmith]

Sounds like gossip and bullshit.

 

[San Souci]

Sure they can. That’s why they are leaving and choosing new platforms instead sitting around whining about it.

I don’t feel sorry Musk. His monumental arrogance is to blame.

Good riddance. Musk does not need Commie Libs.

 

[Synthaholic]

Once more for the slow-witted.

 

[Synthaholic]

It's tweets like this that are going to rightfully bring Senate attention and hearings. This is the purpose of those committees.

 

[beautress]

I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff, but it's becoming clear that firing all these engineers was a monumental mistake, which may sink Twitter, Tesla, and his wealth.

Gergely Orosz​

4h • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Bookmark Save as PDF My Authors
What I'm hearing from inside Twitter:

Several people who were let go on Friday, then asked to come back were given less than an hour as a deadline.

Software engineers who got this call I know of all said "no" and the only ones who could eventually say "yes" are on visas.

Also:
Many people got a phone call with this "offer", and a short deadline. Lots of people stopped answering unknown numbers to avoid this.

Inside Twitter, managers I hear are getting desperate, trying to call back more people. People are saying "no" + more sr engineers are quitting.

None of this is surprising. As a rule of thumb, after you lay off X% of people, you get an additional half attrition. Lay off 10%: expect another 5% to quit. Lay off 50%... not unreasonable to expect another 25% to quit.

Calling back people you just fired rarely works.
Why it's a problem that senior people are quitting and people don't want to come back:

Twitter has a complex architecture *for a reason.* And it needs some level of institutional knowledge to maintain.

This institutional knowledge both got fired + is walking out the door.

In practical terms: software engineers who are with the company are now put on oncall rotations for systems they have no idea about. I mean, they can figure it out... easiest to talk with someone who knows these.

The problem is when there's no such person left.

Talking with engineers, some things people don't realize about Twitter:

- On prem data centers
- Lots of infra-level advanced stuff. Eg multi-level infra feature flags
- Advanced infra-level incremental rollouts to avoid outages that were caused by infra changes in the past
Unless the institutional knowledge is somehow retained, in days/weeks/months, we should, sadly, expect to see a lot more outages.

The straightforward option to reduce damage is:
1. Retain experienced folks, at least mid-term
2. Hire and onboard new people with these seniors

I know that on Twitter it's fashionable to mock how "slow" Twitter was to ship.

But the more I learn about the internal systems, and why it was built in a way, the more impressed I am. Eg Twitter onboarding to k8s was extremely challenging (+brilliant) thanks to legacy infra.

Twitter has no nuance to discuss Twitter tradeoffs. But as I understand, there were many: some workaround of legacy decisions, some deliberate.

This doesn't change that Twitter is a complex system, and it's complex for good reasons. I really hope enough people stay who know why.

Also, thank you to both people who built these systems Twitter runs on, and especially those staying and maintaining them.

Keeping Twitter running became far more challenging overnight for no fault of ppl doing all this difficult work.

Thanks for keeping the lights on and more!

One thing that continues to bug me:

Elon Musk is an experienced operator and no stranger to layoffs (and their impact). He has a team of advisors from the VC world.

Surely they expected all this to happen. So, why did they do it? Or is this the plan?

Unroll available on Thread Reader

A timely comic from a former Twitter software engineer - several people told me he was one of the most productive web engineers -, who was also Twitter's unofficial Chief Cartoonist.

So a bit more of an insider view:



Worth linking how the author of the above comic got fired at Twitter.

He was working on a high-priority project at 9pm on Tuesday (after Elon bought Twitter). Disconnected and fired mid-work-meeting. No justification as to why.

Now he's suing Twitter.

"Worth linking how the author of the above comic got fired at Twitter. He was working on a high-priority project​

at 9pm on Tuesday (after Elon bought Twitter). Disconnected and fired mid-work-meeting. No justification as to why.​

Now he's suing Twitter."​

He's suing Mr. Musk because he encouraged dirty tricks and using the business for his firing squad on Republicans? His house of cards are already missing enough base cards
to tumble flat. Cheese Louise, Mr. Synthaholic. What the man did was illegal. Elon Musk did the right thing, and he did it promptly as it came to his attention. The MSM is
keeping the details under their hat so they can spray inanities on Mr. Musk's fence because they approve of Democrats using the Alinsky Method to ensure free people in America
will become their Marxist slaves. I don't think Mr. Musk is "arrogant." Every third word in his speaking is "uh," which has "humble" written all over it. He doesn't have to be humble, either because he is not only the richest man in the world, he didn't get that way by committing constant character assassination on honest people. His effect on Twitter will be that those he keeps will play fair to everyone.

Some say that lying for profit is ungentlemanly, not to mention that their character is most weak. Elon Musk does not want a CEO of such startlingly weak character he disobeys ethical leadership not to mention it weakens the American Constitution, which is a red flag against freedom and human rights.

 

[Synthaholic]

Just like with Hunter's laptop, everything here with Musk/Taibbi/Weiss is cherry-picked and distorted and corrupted data. No transparency. Because that would give people the full context.




Oh, and he's not a doctor. MD are his initials. But he wants any random Twitter browser who sees his tweets to think he's a doctor.

 

[Synthaholic]

Destroyed.

Elon Musk's Self-Described "Crime Scene" - emptywheel

As Elon Musk went from pondering that "Anything anyone says will be used against him in a court of law" to labeling his own site a "crime scene," he ratcheted up attacks on people who tried to prevent some of that crime.

www.emptywheel.net

 

[Grumblenuts]

It has no stock. Dumbass. It is PRIVATELY OWNED.

.. Yeah, holy cow
.. For a whopping two months now
.. Perhaps because, as I said,
.. It's been "delisted"
.. But also because ==> Elon Musk
.. has now literally jumped the shark
.. Thus this topic
.. Ya think?
.. Clearly not
.. Ya kneejerk reactionary FOOL.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Destroyed.

Elon Musk's Self-Described "Crime Scene" - emptywheel

As Elon Musk went from pondering that "Anything anyone says will be used against him in a court of law" to labeling his own site a "crime scene," he ratcheted up attacks on people who tried to prevent some of that crime.

www.emptywheel.net

While the premise appears plain enough, I don't get why Marcy spends the bulk going after Matt. I think they're both great journalists who should try very hard not to criticize each other without compelling reason.

 

[westwall]

.. Yeah, holy cow
.. For a whopping two months now
.. Perhaps because, as I said,
.. It's been "delisted"
.. But also because ==> Elon Musk
.. has now literally jumped the shark
.. Thus this topic
.. Ya think?
.. Clearly not
.. Ya kneejerk reactionary FOOL.

It hasn't been "delisted". ALL of the stock is now wholly owned, so the stock was simply removed.

Delisted has negative connotations. You can still be publicly traded, and be delighted.

But you knew that, you just try and stir shit up by lying.

 

[Synthaholic]

Lol!

 

[Synthaholic]

Lol!

 

[Synthaholic]