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Notes -
The thing is, where are all these people quitting because they don't like the new boss and the new rules going to get jobs? Comparable jobs, at least.
I'm reading stories all the time recently about Amazon/Meta/Google are cutting jobs, shutting down projects and the like. So if you decide you are going to give up your decent-paying job at Twitter because ugh, Musk - where are you going to go?
I see arguments that the big dogs putting in hiring freezes is good for the industry as a whole, since it means smaller firms will now have access to a pool of talent that they couldn't get previously. But part of that "couldn't get previously" is "couldn't match the pay and conditions". If the Twitter people expect to walk into the same or better job elsewhere, (1) are those jobs still out there? (2) how will they feel about "have to move to Michigan for a job with a medium-sized company or bank"?
Musk may be running Twitter into the ground, but amongst all the glee and jeering I see online, nobody seems to be addressing that (a) Twitter is not the only place laying off or cutting costs (b) maybe Twitter needed the fat trimming and if Musk wasn't the one who bought it but somebody the Tumblr and others love, that guy or gal would still be making swingeing cuts to bring costs down.
I've seen this pointed out, and I think it's quite correct. Twitter was losing money in a boom market; they weren't prepared for a bust. But:
The seemingly-intended implication of "Musk is making wise decisions now" isn't supported. Even when cuts are necessary there can be better ways and worse ways to make them and there's at least circumstantial evidence he's deep into "worse ways".
The seemingly-intended implication of "Musk was making a wise decision to buy Twitter to fix it" is almost outright contradicted. Imagine if he'd had the patience to wait a little longer, until Twitter was already running low on operating funds and making drastic cuts internally. First, the cuts probably would have come out better, since without an ownership change acting as a Schelling point for layoff timings, there wouldn't be a conflict between "need to make a lot of cuts at once to avoid losing the best people to preemptive job changes" and "need to deliberate over who to cut to avoid losing the best people to poor firing choices". Second, he could have been seen as the hero (coming in to save the failing Twitter! outside funding bringing an end to the layoffs!) rather than the villain (coming in to destroy Twitter! laying off people who were totes going to have 20 year careers here otherwise!). Finally, he could have bought it at fire sale prices, rather than "peak of a bubble right before a crash" prices.
Don’t forget the time pressure on him to buy it. It was getting bottier, leftier, and tankier by the week, and had he waited long enough to make it a viable business, he might have himself been banned.
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