Elon Musk buys $3 billion stake (9.2%) in Twitter and is now the platform's largest shareholder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The app is already acting super buggy today.

Tweets are starting to load just a bit slowly for me. Coincidence maybe. But it's noticeable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The app is already acting super buggy today.

Tweets are starting to load just a bit slowly for me. Coincidence maybe. But it's noticeable.

Whenever I try to search for a user, the app starts flickering and I need to force stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

Those shareholders sold their shares to Elon for an inflated price. Elon and a few others are now the shareholders who will suffer in the coming bankruptcy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rumor is that there are 238 employees left (from about 7,500 in August). It’s just a matter of time before it goes down (not in a temporary outage way). It’s so interwoven in how the world communicates now so this is going to be a pretty unprecedented event.

Agree. For all those who say that Twitter is nbd, people can just move to Insta or Mastodon or whatever, those people are really not thinking. Twitter, and instant access to news and to people, famous and just regular people, all over the world, is a big part of our lives - whether you use Twitter yourself or not. When Twitter is gone, in the near future, it's going to be very different.

You mean like way back in 2007? I don't seem to recall having trouble eating or sleeping in those days.

Yes, I mean the world since 2007 - do you remember 2007? People still had Blackberries and they hadn't rolled out 3G yet.

I think smartphones and their ubiquitousness are a mixed blessing. Maybe we'll be able to go back to the world of 2007 after Twitter dies. Maybe that's a good thing.

Define “use Twitter.” Lots of police departments, departments of transportation, politicians, schools, etc make announcements via Twitter. I don’t have an account on Twitter but I read it quite a bit (or did, anyway). How many more people are there like me?
Only 23% of adults in the US use Twitter. I doubt a 10th of that number are daily users. So for the majority of people Twitter is not a thing.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He's finished, finished! lol. You saps don't realize the choreographed astroturfed pushback is from the Silicon Valley machine which is full of freeloading deadweight who don't want their a**es to be next on the employment line. How could you not watch those viral TikToks of worthless sorority girls bragging about doing LITERALLY nothing all day at their "tech job" and realize the entire industry was full of dead weight?

Everyone’s on Twitter because they want to be there at the moment the lights inevitably go out. You get that, right? Please tell me you don’t think that “oops we fired the people who control access so we had to lock everyone out of the building” is some form of 3D chess.

Do you think websites only "stay up" because a webmaster is peddling a bicycle? You think DCUM's owner and his wife take turns peddling a bicycle 24 hours a day?

Like…what? You think a platform like Twitter doesn’t need people to run it?

Like twitter, the owner of DCUM on record says most of his work is automated.

Most of my work is automated but the part that is not is still a lot. It's a very full time job. In fact, the most important part of any social media site (which apparently DCUM is considered these days) is the content moderation which is not easily automated. Google, one of the leaders in the field of being able to evaluate content automatically, is absolutely terrible at being able to identify "adult content". I suspect that you could be more accurate blinding throwing darts at a dart board than Google's AI is at identifying adult content. Most importantly, automated systems work until they don't. When they don't, nothing beats experience when trying to fix them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

Those shareholders sold their shares to Elon for an inflated price. Elon and a few others are now the shareholders who will suffer in the coming bankruptcy.

As of October 28: Twitter's largest institutional shareholders are: Vanguard Group (8.95 percent), BlackRock Fund Advisors (4.66 percent), SSgA Funds Management (4.28 percent) and Fidelity Management & Research (2.76 percent).

Have they all sold?

https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/elon-musk-twitter-share-price-shareholding-pattern-major-shareholders-15036191.htm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rumor is that there are 238 employees left (from about 7,500 in August). It’s just a matter of time before it goes down (not in a temporary outage way). It’s so interwoven in how the world communicates now so this is going to be a pretty unprecedented event.

Agree. For all those who say that Twitter is nbd, people can just move to Insta or Mastodon or whatever, those people are really not thinking. Twitter, and instant access to news and to people, famous and just regular people, all over the world, is a big part of our lives - whether you use Twitter yourself or not. When Twitter is gone, in the near future, it's going to be very different.

You mean like way back in 2007? I don't seem to recall having trouble eating or sleeping in those days.

Yes, I mean the world since 2007 - do you remember 2007? People still had Blackberries and they hadn't rolled out 3G yet.

I think smartphones and their ubiquitousness are a mixed blessing. Maybe we'll be able to go back to the world of 2007 after Twitter dies. Maybe that's a good thing.

Only 23% of adults in the US use Twitter. I doubt a 10th of that number are daily users. So for the majority of people Twitter is not a thing.

Define “use Twitter.” Lots of police departments, departments of transportation, politicians, schools, etc make announcements via Twitter. I don’t have an account on Twitter but I read it quite a bit (or did, anyway). How many more people are there like me?

Exactly. How will important information be disseminated post-Twitter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He's finished, finished! lol. You saps don't realize the choreographed astroturfed pushback is from the Silicon Valley machine which is full of freeloading deadweight who don't want their a**es to be next on the employment line. How could you not watch those viral TikToks of worthless sorority girls bragging about doing LITERALLY nothing all day at their "tech job" and realize the entire industry was full of dead weight?

Everyone’s on Twitter because they want to be there at the moment the lights inevitably go out. You get that, right? Please tell me you don’t think that “oops we fired the people who control access so we had to lock everyone out of the building” is some form of 3D chess.

Do you think websites only "stay up" because a webmaster is peddling a bicycle? You think DCUM's owner and his wife take turns peddling a bicycle 24 hours a day?

Like…what? You think a platform like Twitter doesn’t need people to run it?

Maybe <10% of the aces at twitter did any real work. Elon sought out those whales who do all the work, then culled the deadweight. Now the whales get to help decide the few who get to come back. I mean seriously, do you think all of those viral worthless idiot sorority girls who were posting tiktoks about drinking smoothies and doing yoga at their "tech jobs" are necessary? It was pointless bloat x1000s.

That only works if the whales don't leave. The choices where three months severance plus a job at a competitor or staying with longer hours and fewer perks to work for a private company that is hemorrhaging money (not great if you expect to be compensated with equity). It appears that many of the whales have left.

+1. DH works in tech and has been through several acquisitions. Generally, they freeze most hiring and firing for about 90 days to get in and really study the structure of the company and the individual teams and departments and make a long term business plan. After that, layoffs may happen quickly. But they have a purpose in line with the business plan. Not “if you don’t like it, leave”.

His company has been getting resumes from talented tweets and is hoping to hire some. It appears that most of those left behind aren’t whales— they can easily get a new job and not have to deal with the chaos and cr*p. It’s immigrants with Visas tied to Twitter who can’t be out of status. Those folks are shopping around too. They just couldn’t walk away yesterday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The app is already acting super buggy today.

Tweets are starting to load just a bit slowly for me. Coincidence maybe. But it's noticeable.

+1. I’ve lost the number count on replies, retweets and mentions. It’s just a blue dot. And I’m going long periods without any ads. Like hours. Then getting 5-6 in a row. No idea what’s up with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

I believe he took it private. There are no shareholders. Just his investors. The second largest investor after Musk is Saudi Arabia. Who I’m sure is in it only for the profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

Those shareholders sold their shares to Elon for an inflated price. Elon and a few others are now the shareholders who will suffer in the coming bankruptcy.

As of October 28: Twitter's largest institutional shareholders are: Vanguard Group (8.95 percent), BlackRock Fund Advisors (4.66 percent), SSgA Funds Management (4.28 percent) and Fidelity Management & Research (2.76 percent).

Have they all sold?

https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/elon-musk-twitter-share-price-shareholding-pattern-major-shareholders-15036191.htm

Presumably. That was the requirement of the deal. Everyone except a few shareholders had to sell to Elon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

Those shareholders sold their shares to Elon for an inflated price. Elon and a few others are now the shareholders who will suffer in the coming bankruptcy.

As of October 28: Twitter's largest institutional shareholders are: Vanguard Group (8.95 percent), BlackRock Fund Advisors (4.66 percent), SSgA Funds Management (4.28 percent) and Fidelity Management & Research (2.76 percent).

Have they all sold?

https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/elon-musk-twitter-share-price-shareholding-pattern-major-shareholders-15036191.htm

Presumably. That was the requirement of the deal. Everyone except a few shareholders had to sell to Elon.

Okay. Then I guess by Monday, those last 200 folks will be gone and that will be the end of Twitter and $44b.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that there is a reduction in workforce. The problem is how he went about it. There was no identification of roles that can be eliminated, so that it can be done in a systematic way. HR and compliance people aren't writing code, but those people essential to the functioning of a company.

Let's say that they did due diligence, when they cut the initial workforce, and what they're left with is people they wanted to stay (that's the point, right?). Now they were given an ultimatum, and bunch of the remaining people, the ones they identified as 'keepers' also left. So, who is going to do the job of these people?

Now, look at it from the perspective of the employee. Every day you log into work is a fire drill, and your new boss expects you to work 16 hour days to fulfil his vision, with no promises of anything tangible. IF you are someone with marketable skills, would you stay? And if you're someone without marketable skills, aren't those the very people Twitter wants gone?

At the end of the day, how he's doing this, is nearsighted. It shows leadership that is incompetent at best, and injecting so much volatility is going to cost you clients. Now, revenue is down, and you're stuck with people without marketable skills. AND you have a fairly substantial debt that needs to be serviced. You're MUCH worse off than you were, when you had a relatively stable platform run by a bloated workforce.

What exactly was bloated about the workforce? What was the problem?

The big problem was that Musk said something dumb about buying the company and then the board did something dumb by letting/making it happen.

What the board did was very smart for the shareholders since Musk’s offer was like three times what the company was worth. It was just very dumb for the actual company.

Not sure how killing the company, as Musk is doing ("Bankruptcy is possible"), is good for the shareholders...

The shareholders cashed out already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rumor is that there are 238 employees left (from about 7,500 in August). It’s just a matter of time before it goes down (not in a temporary outage way). It’s so interwoven in how the world communicates now so this is going to be a pretty unprecedented event.

Agree. For all those who say that Twitter is nbd, people can just move to Insta or Mastodon or whatever, those people are really not thinking. Twitter, and instant access to news and to people, famous and just regular people, all over the world, is a big part of our lives - whether you use Twitter yourself or not. When Twitter is gone, in the near future, it's going to be very different.

You mean like way back in 2007? I don't seem to recall having trouble eating or sleeping in those days.

Yes, I mean the world since 2007 - do you remember 2007? People still had Blackberries and they hadn't rolled out 3G yet.

I think smartphones and their ubiquitousness are a mixed blessing. Maybe we'll be able to go back to the world of 2007 after Twitter dies. Maybe that's a good thing.

Only 23% of adults in the US use Twitter. I doubt a 10th of that number are daily users. So for the majority of people Twitter is not a thing.

Define “use Twitter.” Lots of police departments, departments of transportation, politicians, schools, etc make announcements via Twitter. I don’t have an account on Twitter but I read it quite a bit (or did, anyway). How many more people are there like me?

Exactly. How will important information be disseminated post-Twitter?

Facebook, RSS feeds and organizational websites/google. Not sure what the big deal is.