What a contrast in leadership when you compare the way Twitter is doing this (rumor is right before bonus/stock vesting and cold impersonal email) and how Stripe is conducting their layoffs (empathy, 14 weeks severance, bonus payouts, etc.)
Which company is going to have an easier time hiring after the dust settles and they have a growth stage again?
> Which company is going to have an easier time hiring after the dust settles and they have a growth stage again?
The one with the better offer, taking a possible layoff payout into account. The comp ranges can be so drastically different between companies that a possibly generous layoff (that is no means guaranteed if Stripe has to do this when circumstances are more dire) is negligible financially.
Without questioning you specifically, I doubt any substantial number of others would feel the same. Few would pass up a even a 20% pay bump for the same role, so forget about it if it’s a 200% bump.
It genuinely depends on the person. In some places, WFH policy difference can alone amount to 10K difference not spent on childcare or traveling. You might be right on average, but I would assume most people do basic internal calculus of whether the move is worth it.
For me, knowing Musk's reputation for demanding workaholic mentality.. %20 might not be enough and that is before WFH issues.
>> Twitter would have to pay me something like 3 times more than Stripe for me to consider it, if I were back in the market and had those two.
Twitter was a public company with quarterly vests where you could get liquidity on your compensation (and from what i understand you were cashed out at buyout.) Stripe remains private and much of your money remains locked. Not sure if they issue RSUs, options, or what, but quite possibly you lose a lot or your historical compensation 3mo later. They were two different beasts. (Of course, now both are private, so going forward they might be similar.)
Are we deluding ourselves here? Why do you think hundreds of thousands of extremely bright people work for horrific/products companies like Facebook, Palantir etc? Money. Money talks and talks very loudly.
Most people have a price at which they will sell out. Those who don’t, are too few to make any significant difference
Because despite you thinking they are horrific companies many other people don't.
Billions of people love and use Meta products every day and their tech stack is one of the world's best with technical challenges almost no other company faces.
Palantir also has many parts of their business that benefit society e.g. combating human trafficking etc.
Also neither of those companies are necessarily known as terrible places to work. I know people who'd be miserable in most 9-5 jobs who are happy in Meta.
Working at Twitter now means a daily grind means being subject to the whims of an increasingly petulant emperor who does not respect anyone's expertise. What good does it for your career if he's just going to drop the ball at a moment's notice anyway?
If that were actually true, why do so many people love working at Tesla/SpaceX? Clearly they don't have the same view of Elon's management style as you do.
The reality is that Twitter as a business (and, imho, as a product) was sorely in need of a course correction. Layoffs, if they need to be done, should be done crisply and thoroughly so that remaining employees don't feel like the other shoe is about to drop.
You rip off the bandaid, it sucks, then you refocus on the work ahead.
I don't know why people work for Tesla/SpaceX. I can take a guess though - there are only a handful of companies that work in space related field and only a few companies that make electric cars. So it is somewhat understandable, if one really wants to work at these places.
Twitter is different - there are other big companies that provide as much tech challenges or more (whether they are better/worse than Twitter is another question). Twitter employees have many more options (relatively speaking) than SpaceX employees
Working at Tesla/SpaceX puts you at the cutting edge of your field. It's probably worth a few trade-offs - and I'm sure it pays a hell of a lot more.
Working at Meta/Google doesn't necessarily do that. I'm almost certain most of these companies' moonshot divisions are not as well-run as many startups, nor are these companies assured success in these areas.
Their main products are already at a "don't fix it if it ain't broke" stage, even though many will claim these are broken. I doubt it's exciting work.
Working at Tesla or SpaceX will be like working on a moonshot that's actually taking off. I'm sure it's a thrill. But increasingly, I don't think Musk is level-headed enough to be trusted with such things.
It takes time to reject nitwitted leaders, so we can't expect employees to abandon ship overnight just to prove my point.
> Because despite you thinking they are horrific companies many other people don't.
Thats exactly how a lot of people will view Twitter. You might think its horrible and they are terrible for laying of people, but plenty of good engineers ready to fill those roles for the money without the need of having free snacks, free coffee, rest booths, ping pong area, LED illuminated reading rooms, etc etc etc. Twitter will be fine.
lol. Suppose their salaries reduced to half of what they are making today, how many of them do you still think will continue to work at these places, for the technical challenges and whatever else they have told themselves is the real reason for them to work there in the first place?
I don't doubt the technical excellence of these companies. They are technically very capable because of the talent they hire, and they are able to hire top talent because of the high salaries they pay, not because of some altruistic or egoistic reasons
I agree that "good company" and "bad company" are a reflection of personal preferences, but the fact that FAANG comp is much higher than elsewhere tells us that the companies strongly suspect that a lower salary will not be enough to attract such a strong talent pool.
No. The companies feel they can afford to pay top drawer wages so they do so in order to hire what they hope is among the top talent, subject to among other things the randomness of their hiring processes.
A workplace can actively kill humans and still treat its employees very good.
You are mixing very different factors together here.
Prestige, to name another example, is very important to a lot of people. Having "worked at FAANG" on your resume opens many opportunities afterwards that don't have anything to do with money.
> extremely bright people work for horrific/products companies like Facebook, Palantir etc
For what it's worth those companies have not brought any real innovation in the last 10 years, give or take, because if they had they would have been on top of the world (quite literally). Which makes me hopeful that some of the real geniuses out there (today's von Neummanns and the like) might still avoid those companies out of principle.
I certainly have a price at which I will sell out, but if they aren't offering "retire decade(s) earlier than normal", it's unlikely to make a long term difference to me compared to the alternatives. Yes, a 20% bump for a few years would be nice, but paying half of my paycheck in therapy bills for a decade cancels that out and then some.
Basically, if they aren't offering "f** you money", pay has a diminishing effect on my employment choices. And if they are offering that kind of money, I'm assuming that'll come with even more consequences. My resume is alright, but it's not enough for an offer of way more money without strings attached.
I can't speak for everybody of course, but I think not heeding the above leads to burnout.
Pornhub, Exxon, Smith and Wesson, all the big tobacco companies, the guys that manufacture fentanyl, infowars, they all have IT staffs. Some have extremely sophisticated IT staffs. Money talks, but there other factors. when you’re working on migrating from .net to cloud native at Exxon and you’re building some kind of new container registry or something you probably don’t spend your days pondering climate change; you get paid every two weeks, you are learning some cool stuff and you’re building some cool stuff. Most people need jobs too.
A pay check and some sort of plausible rationalization is all that is needed. “Twitter is free speech” sounds pretty strong. “Twitter connected Ukrainians during that invasion” sounds strong.
> Which company is going to have an easier time hiring
The one that people want to work for and don't have to "sell out" to do it.
> Most people have a price at which they will sell out.
Sure. Agreed. But now you've tripled your OpEx vs your competitors. And the people that sold out aren't in any way loyal, so will bounce. But if they aren't offering substantially more, the money doesn't matter. It's all basically the same anyways.
And then you have to consider financials and leadership. Twitter financials got substantially worse (20x) from my understanding after Musk took over because of the debt he now has.
And as far as leadership goes: he was forced to buy it. That really doesn't look good.
> The one that people want to work for and don't have to "sell out" to do it.
Nope, this is wrong if the company can afford to pay more. Just look at companies like Jane Street, HRT, etc. The high comp they are willing to pay makes them harder to get into than Twitter, Meta, etc by a long shot. They have a far easier time hiring.
Does the pay by itself mitigates some of the following shitty behavior:
- Timing bathroom breaks
- Requiring lengthy security check prior to entering work location
- Micromanaging and invasive monitoring
Just small things that would drive some people livid regardless of pay. Scratch that, at the higher end of the spectrum it could easily drive them away.
Timesheets, Security and Command and Control management has been a constant at every job I have worked. I have never heard of some one working on a job where these three things where not an issue.
The only time those things haven't been an issue is when I do charity work which isn't really work as I don't get paid for it, which I think is the only reason the charities take what they get and are happy with it as they have no other choice.
I was lucky enough to work in both types of places. Ones where the manager was hovering over me and literally micromanaging my every interaction. It was beyond maddening. But I also worked in places like now, where my output matters, but I have a lot of autonomy on how I get there.
Oddly, my most recent volunteer gig was very.. structured. It may not help that it is sponsored by corporate so maybe they started demanding a lot of data.
> Is the only thing that determines whether you take a job the salary ?
If that ain't a major reason why people relocate from all over the world to SV, then I am missing something. Of course the salary is one of the major factors.
The day to day work life is probably the same level of huge contrast as these layoffs. I think that matters more to people than a few thousand dollars difference in pay, when that pay is likely to be in top 2-3% of all US jobs (over 200k).
Are there no laws about minimum notice or severance pay?
I’m glad Australia has decent laws to protect workers. It’ll be interesting to see if Australian Twitter staff who are locked out of their accounts have been laid off and what happens next.
In cases like this typically they'd just fire you and pay the salary through the minimum notice period without requiring nor allowing you to show up. I see no reason to think that's not the case here.
Yeah there are laws : https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/termination/plantclosings. Probably state laws as well. These require notice of severance or post payment and protect against discrimination. Twitter can try to claim that they’re all being fired for cause, but that’ll just end up paying a whole lot of lawyers.
I don't see more empathy from Stripe. And since no one has come out of the process of mass layoffs yet, we don't know if Twitter isn't going to provide severance and bonus payouts and etc.
On the other hand, Stripe was much more productive and is workforce wasn't so inflated.
I was thinking it over, and one way Stripe nailed Twitter is communication. Stripe’s severance was clearly communicated up front. Twitter’s leadership is like the proverbial headless chicken.
It’s quite the contrast. I think there’s a lesson here. A well-drafted email could’ve saved twitter a lot of heartache.
Then again, maybe the email drafter got laid off too.
Hell I don't like what Elon does most of the times but you have to admit he did built successful companies from ground up in fields no one was even looking into.
Twitter might succeed or it might fail but Twitter in its current form both as a company and social media paltform was bad.
You have to admit that he invested in some companies in fields that no-one was looking into. He's made a few big bets that have paid off extremely well. That's not nothing, and is impressive but it's not building a company. By all accounts he's a bit of a micro-manager, but I suspect there's only so much he could micro-manage or actually contribute directly in ventures like SpaceX or Tesla (he did make a door-handle patent tho).
Twitter on the other hand is another matter - no huge technical barriers stopping him from getting his hands dirty, no lives are at stake or regulatory bodies that are going to tell him "no that is dangerous" - so we're finally seeing what Elon unleashed looks like. So far it can probably be described as "chaotic" at best, it remains to be seen whether this chaos will disperse and Twitter will emerge leaner and better.
My belief is that he doesn't understand Twitter and its users quite as well as he thinks, and that Twitter will slowly get a bit more annoying and less profitable until he loses interest or gets distracted by something else. We will see, I use Twitter a lot so I hope that I'm wrong.
Musk took over Tesla by firing the founder CEO, and took another 4 years to ship a car to production. The car had already been built when Musk took over. He only needed to build a production pipeline.
It’s almost like both companies need metric tons of money to do anything remarkable - isn’t that the point of YCombinator as well? That’s just venture capitalism.
He just has the ego of a manchild and bought the title of “founder” as wellz
Are you saying musk’s role in SpaceX and Tesla is as an investor? That seems so disingenuous that it’s impossible not to conclude this post is purely emotional.
If you hate Musk, fine, but please just stick to the facts and articulate why you hate him.
I don’t understand why there is so much emotion around Musk. He has done good things and bad things. He has done incredible, near possible things. He works ridiculously hard. He’s rich. He has said and posted things he shouldn’t. I don’t feel that I am in a position to say he is a terrible person. I don’t even know the guy. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without SpaceX and Tesla. I am genuinely fascinated by this hatred.
I’ve tried to compile a list of why people might hate him:
- posted a conspiracy theory on Twitter (which he did then delete)
- childishly insulted a diver
- is a shameless self promoter
- fires staff brutally
- makes huge and sometimes
unreasonable demands on his workforce
- disagreed with covid policy, partly on the argument that the fatality rate is low and there’s not much you can really do about it
Ok, these are bad. But he’s hated as if he is the new Hitler. I don’t get it. I’d really appreciate it if someone could rationally explain why Elon is deserving of such great hatred.
IMO - my theory is that 5 years ago Musk was successful enough that regular people in the tech industry admired him, but not so successful that most people who admired him realised he was substantially more successful than they were ever going to be.
These days though, it’s quite clear to the 250k a year tech-guy that, even though they’re making bank, they’re never going to be “Elon rich”, and so the jealousy disguised as virtue has come out in full swing.
Is he perfect? Of course he fucking isn’t… we work in tech, we all work with atleast one “brilliant ass-hole”… they’re the ones that make our days a little bit more painful but also write the fucking insane code that makes most of our workplaces profitable.
> they’re the ones that make our days a little bit more painful but also write the fucking insane code that makes most of our workplaces profitable.
People like to think that but in my experience there are far more brilliant nice people than brilliant assholes. This is the mythos antisocial engineers tell themselves to justify their poor social skills.
And it takes some emotional evolution to realize that. I too once upon a time was the former, until I realized that such a person is the most annoying and unremarkable personality ever. I wouldn’t hang out with me 8 years ago, was kind of a grade A douche, and my code wasn’t great. But I made money, so I always thought the ends justified the means.
Alternatively, 5 years ago the reaction was "oh, the tesla/spacex guy? those are cool companies, guess he must be pretty cool", but since then he's made himself more of a celebrity which comes with much more visibility on those actions. As a result people are now judging based on actions they've heard about rather than the top line of a bio summary
There are a lot of people here very clearly articulating the issues they have with Musk - usually related to some bad tweets, but also more serious things like the sexual harassment - so there's no need to speculate that it's in any way related to his political leaning. Besides, it was only recently that he declared himself to be a supporter of the GOP, long after the tide of public opinion started to turn on him (and even perhaps because of it)
Doesn’t negate, but it is such a huge boost that it is basically playing the tutorial vs on hard mode.
And regardless of wealth, Elon’s only actual contribution was paypal, which is.. well, paypal (I quite literally left some money in that because it was so scammy I couldn’t even rescue it by donation..), and funding tesla (not inventing anything!). The latter is pretty much impossible without some form of privilege.
Whose father _claims_ to own an emerald mine, for which there is no actual proof. Not to mention that it is well established that Musk does not have a good relationship with this father, so whatever wealth Musk Sr. may or may not have, doesn't help Elon. So what's your point other than trying to spread misinformation?
Yep, sure. We all know how humble Elon is and is absolutely not the type of person who would sell this “self-made men” image of himself to the public to look better? “He came to the US with a few hundreds dollars and everything is his accomplishment”…
Even if family wealth only helped him through insanely good relations to other people in the top 1%, it is still all that much more than you will likely ever achieve/get. And I frankly don’t buy this “daddy doesn’t love me” BS.
This is preposterous, a tech worker is never going to be as wealthy as Elon in 2010, unless they starter thinking of themselves as a founder instead of a worker.
I will admit to having a few feelings of jealousy of the founders I know who have done far far better than o have on the game of building big companies, but that is also mixed with happiness for them.
With Musk, it's different. It's sadness and disappointment, to see someone throw away so much goodwill and be such a horrible person. Some of this is the media becoming adversarial with tech, while at the same time profiting off the hype bubble that the media itself created for Musk. But I view him as a lost man that needs a better support network and a slightly better filter so that he stops looking so foolish all the time.
So the 250k tech guy thought he could level up to the 20B elon musk, but once musk crossed over the 200B mark they got jealous?
Personally, I thought he was a cool guy building a revolutionary car.
But once I saw his hour long talk on how he was going to build a Mars colony, the fact that he was actually a Tesla investor - not a founder(the super fast LI ion lotus had already been demonstrated to him when he invested) and his absurd claims about AGI - I realized he was completely out of his mind. I have been skeptical of his personality since 2014, even as I held TSLA shares.
Yes he is able to manage and productionize probably the best car on the road right now and maximize Tesla shareholder value, but he is a shell of a person beyond that.
I don't like Musk, but he's done more for Ukraine than you can dream of. But he also sent a few stupid tweets that he took back, so that's a good enough excuse for virtue signalers to feel superior.
> SpaceX has said it pays for about 70 percent of the services used by Ukraine, offering all the terminals in that country the best possible option, valued at USD 4,500 per month even though most have contracts signed only for the USD 500-per-month service option.
According to Musk, Starlink has spent $80-120 million to subsidize Ukraine. He could be making this up, but this is supported by a letter SpaceX sent to the Pentagon even before Musk's infamous Ukraine tweets.
I don’t think his proposal was pro-Russia as much as it was anti-more-dead-people.
There’s no way Russia loses this war if it doesn’t escalate beyond local conflict. The objective now is (or should be) minimizing casualties and human suffering, not lines on maps from 2015.
Stopping recurring monthly donations of something very expensive is also not “blackmail”.
> I don’t think his proposal was pro-Russia as much as it was anti-more-dead-people.
I believe this topic has been discussed more than enough since February, by people with way more expertise than Musk. Ukraine has made it very clear that they do not intent to let their country be oppressed by the foreign aggressor. It is their decision to make.
Asking Ukraine to bow to Russia now that they are successful in their defense is a pro Russia stance. Claiming otherwise is just dishonest.
Especially since he was attempting to imply that anything close to a proper voting process would even be possible in that region now.
His statement means he is either incredibly stupid, or malicious. Both possibilities are dangerous. And Musk fans will vehemently disagree with the former.
If you're a spectacularly famous, influential and anti-more-dead-people the message you should be blasting out to your hundred-million followers is: Russia out. That's it.
> I don’t think his proposal was pro-Russia as much as it was anti-more-dead-people.
It was anti Ukrainian lives on occupied territories and pro Russian soldiers lives. It was also pro next invasion once Russia recovers at which point Russia will argue that Ukraine is failed stated due to having destroyed infrastructure.
>The objective now is (or should be) minimizing casualties and human suffering,
The causalities are not minimized by rewarding Russia for invasion and letting it continue with genocide.
> not lines on maps from 2015
The issue is not so much lines on the map as actual consequences of those maps. The torture, genocide, suppression of Ukrainian identity and so on. And obviously favorable position for next invasion again and again, until whole of Ukraine is taken.
I hate almost everything Musk does, but I am aligned on his Russia plan. Biden must negotiate with Putin to end the war. Europe is buying more than enough oil from Russia to sustain the war for a decade.
At a meta level, I consider Musk and Trump both to have the same approach to media: say whatever you want to create publicity. Words mean nothing, in the sense that there are no repercussions large enough to outweigh the created buzz/fame. Outrage works extremely well to that end (look at this thread.)
Because he says things helping both extreme sides (lovers and haters,) all they have to do is latch on to whatever fuels their fire, and ignore the other words. And it is well-know that confirmation bias is a thing among humans. This causes polarization that fuels the debates, creating a spiral of even more debates, buzz and fame. Even sparks meta-debates.
Edit: Another side of this is that it seems that everything must be classified as good or bad. Both on HN and elsewhere, commentors go to extraordinary lengths to argue why something has one abstract label or the opposite. Does everything have to have emotions assigned to it? Does everything have to be categorized in the very coarse good and bad buckets? It would be nice to read comments where the author tries to explain both sides, instead of just arguing for one.
I don't think I made any statement here about whether he is good or bad. I've said that I find his public persona to be annoying, justified why I think that, and have said he's probably not as responsible for everything he's credited for than many of his supporters believe. I think that's a really reasonable comment to make - there are people frothing mad about him and there are people who are rabid supporters of him. But I haven't seen either in this thread.
Edit: ok I just saw someone call him “Elongated Muskrat” so now there is someone who is mad at him in the thread :-)
Yepp, it wasn't a reflection on your comment. I just think the good/bad dichotomy ties in to my argument about polarization. It doesn't happen with every comment, but when it does, it adds fuel to the fire.
Sorry if that wasn't clear.
... I wonder if polarization can be seen as a market spread, and that more polarization causes higher volatility, which leads to more "trading" to close the spread. I.e. discussions follow some version of the efficient market hypothesis? Need to do a PhD on this. :)
> , I consider Musk and Trump both to have the same approach to media:
I think you've hit on more here. I think Musk has become associated with Trump. I think that might be because Trump is the champion of the losers of globalisation, and Musk is also a hero to those people because (a) he has created a lot of manufacturing jobs and (b) is creating a sense of patriotic pride in some of his achievements... just see SpaceX staff chanting "USA USA". I'm not criticising anyone, just drawing a connection.
So I think after reading these posts and talking to others, that Musk is hated because he is part of the war between left and right. To praise Musk is to praise Trumpism, and to hate Musk is to show you are against Trump.
Major world powers invaded Germany, tore the country in two, and Hitler killed himself. Musk is a complete dick in public and people are right to criticize him, but you are being plainly ridiculous when you say "he’s hated as if he is the new Hitler."
That's a fair criticism of me using a lazy shorthand, but it really is quite difficult to capture the level of vitriol against Musk. It's at a level I've never seen against anyone in my lifetime. People certain express strong hatred towards him than, say, Putin or Xi.
Obviously in reality Musk has done nothing to be compared to Hitler, however as far as how much hate he gets in 2022, I would say he easily surpasses Hitler by at least a factor of a thousand. Very few people even talk about Hitler anymore, so it doesn't really capture the sense of hate either.
I think a good comparison in the US would be Trump and I think more people hate Trump than Musk.
Eh, guess I just don't know enough about SpaceX then. If you read my comment and interpreted it as "hatred" then that is odd. I don't think it's possible to hate someone you don't know. I mean, every time he has popped up in the last 5 years or so he's been saying or doing something dumb or annoying so quite a lot of people have gradually gotten tired of that. But it’s not hatred at all.
He's not treated like the next Hitler by any stretch of the imagination. He's more like a village drunk who just keeps showing up doing stupid things like peeing on your doorstep or passing out in your garden. You don't hate that person, you're just like "[sigh] ok I guess we have to deal with him again..."
He’s also built rockets that land themselves, scaled electric car manufacturing, launched a world-wide low-latency satellite internet service, and made more progress on self-driving vehicles than literally any other company in that same time.
If your town drunk is doing that much good for the world, I think you’d forgive them for pissing on your doorstep once or twice a year.
Well this is the other side of the public opinion on Elon Musk. His companies have done a bunch of things, ranging from impressive to bad. As outsiders all we know is that his involvement with, say, a rocket that can land itself is somewhere between "Elon single-handedly designed, constructed and assembled every part of it" and "Elon told someone the rockets re-usable". There's no way to know, but you and a legion of people seem to be portraying his involvement as closer to the former (literally "He’s also built rockets that land themselves..." - come on)
Honestly this discourse has played out a thousand times over. Some people love him, attribute all his companies' wins to him and memory-hole any of the fuck-ups or gaffes. Some people acknowledge his business acumen, don't quite believe the hype on the company-level achievements that get attributed to him personally and find his personality as portrayed on traditional and social media to be grating.
I'm clearly in the latter group and I think that's a pretty uncontroversial position to take.
Edit: would the drive-by downvoters care to explain?
He does seem to be a lot more hands-on with the technical stuff than most C level execs, and for SpaceX there are reports that he is actually doing the work that comes with his role as Chief Engineer:
>"Elon single-handedly designed, constructed and assembled every part of it" and "Elon told someone the rockets re-usable". There's no way to know, but you and a legion of people
I think that's missing the point, which is the question of whether these innovations (the re usable rockets, scaling e cars) would have happened without his involvement. If the answer is no, then the question of whether 'someone else did it and he took credit' seems irrelevant. That's what leadership is, driving results, not pulling up your sleeves and doing it yourself.
If someone says those words - that he helmed a company and pushed them to deliver re-usable rockets then ok. Saying he built that is an absurd fantasy.
At Tesla, Elon is a manager like any other CEO. At Space X, he clearly is not and Gwynne Shotwell with decades of experience in Aerospace engineering runs the show.
As much as people would like to believe that Elon musk, a materials science graduate with his only career experience being online payments with PayPal, is actually responsible for the core founding engineering of SpaceX and Tesla is crazy.
Musk made bank with PayPal and has been an investor in many companies including failures like Neuralink, boring company etc. He has both invested and managed Tesla.
Thanks for posting links, that's the kind of answer I'm interested in.
(Thanks also to whoever un-downed me, as it is from genuinely wanting to understand).
The last link is paywalled, but I doubt that is really his motive. It sounds silly. There was plenty of outspoken criticism against that highspeed rail link without a Musk conspiracy theory. He gave an interview on the BBC where he was similarly bemused by how poor our high speed efforts were, and his criticism was fair.
I'm not sure we can see incidents in very large organisations as indicative of the character of the CEO. For sure he is ultimately to answer for them, and has a responsibility to sort them out, but Tesla employees about 100 000 people and in any sample of people that large you'll have some horrible ones.
Someone else told me about the harassment suit today, now that is directly attributable to Musk and awful. Are there other such incidents?
Still, doesn't seem to explain the sheer hatred for the man. I do have a different theory about that having spoken to others, which I'll post elsewhere...
The hyperloop article is sourced directly from his own statements in text messages turned over during discovery.
I'm always amazed at the double standard where musk is solely responsible for the success of multiple companies, but any fault is attributable to someone else. He claims to have slept in the factory! He's this hands on car-building ubermensch. How can he be completely oblivious to safety and discrimination issues?
According to whom? His internet comments are sci-fi libertarian mainstream with a dash of NWO.
His business accomplishments are impressive, but he's rather boring, no pun intended.
I think the only argument against Musk's success is that he enjoyed unfair regulatory advantages.
PayPal's KYC was non-existent for years, you could send money with little more than an email. Amazon had similar miraculous regulatory exceptions. No State sales tax until it had a near-monopoly network effect.
I found that time he called a diver who was trying to save those kids a pedophile to be pretty revealing. Also, calling himself "Lorde Edge" was pretty awful. I suppose if you're asking "who has the right to tell him not to say that?" the answer is "no one", but I find it hard to respect the guy when he acts so childishly.
Don’t forget his initial support for Ukraine and then his attempted about face with star link terminals. I’m very curious why all of that intrigue seems to have dried up. How did Musk know the Crimean peninsula was dry and needed water guarantees from Ukraine? It’s weird and i believe the critics, he actually talked to Putin and felt like a big man so he started shilling for russian “peace”.
I thought he was just a lucky cult like futurist before but now I think of him as what he truly is - a billionaire narcissist that craves adulation from the mob.
>You have to admit that he invested in some companies
Yeah sure, he just invested in Paypal, then invested in Tesla, then invested in SpaceX.
I'm not even sure if I'm answering real people or bots anymore, everyone sounds the same now: "Elon good, because environment and space and he made reusable rockets and tesla cars are so good etc.", (Elon starts saying wrongtalk about the media and other sensitive subjects), "Elon bad, because he called some diver years ago a pedophile, and he just invested in tesla and spacex no biggie easy for anyone".
But hey who cares right? I've been getting insulted by everyone here for saying Youtube censors videos and google censors results etc. yet just a couple days ago some leaked documents showed the DHS with the help of tech giants are planning to push the censorship even harder.
Flagged this. There is a reasonable discussion to be had here, and it was being had. But you're calling me a bot, you're misrepresenting what I've said and launching into an unrelated rant about censorship.
Twitter was a mixed bag, but it was genuinely useful for news, niche interests, and helping under served issues and communities get more prominence. It's where the kind of open source intelligence that helped to expose Russia trying to cover up its role in the MH17 shoot down emerged, coalesced, and achieved prominence, as one example.
I worry much of that will be lost without having a natural new home with the same reach and impact.
Musk might be good at building and running engineering companies, but Twitter is not that. The social aspect is far more important than the underlying technology, and Musk and his advisors are terrible at that. I don't see any way out of this that leaves Twitter better.
> Musk might be good at building and running engineering companies, but Twitter is not that. The social aspect is far more important than the underlying technology, and Musk and his advisors are terrible at that.
I was talking about private space company. I mean who thinks like I'm going to start a private space company that will launch freaking rockets in space. I don't think any private company did that before SpaceX
Like United Launch Alliance, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, Virgin Orbit, etc?
Also, SpaceX would not exist were it not for a US government decision to fund and develop private spaceflight launch capabilities for NASA and the US Air Force. In fact the idea was given to Musk by Mike Griffin who at the time headed up In-Q-Tel, the CIA's investment arm and could also source the right technical experts to form the core engineering group. Shortly after he became NASA's administrator and gave SpaceX a huge development and launch contract before it had flown anything.
The idea that SpaceX emerged from nothing and bootstrapped its way to success has always been false. That doesn't mean they don't deserve praise for doing a ton of things right and having an impressively bold engineering strategy, of course.
Well, lets skip the fact he didn't build those companies. Both companies rely heavily on government subsidies. He's in part 3 of his dependence on big government, demanding they start subsidizing Starlink
Remove those subsidies tomorrow and the companies fold, all of them
Can Elon figure out a way to get the government to subsidize Twitter? Maybe, but it's going to be harder
Don't tell Elon then, because he definitely paid a growth multiple for Twitter. If Twitter never grows beyond its current size then his investment is a giant failure no matter how much he manages to cut costs.
We don't know details yet, so it's hard to contrast anything. The pre stock vesting rumor was before 11/1. That date has passed.
It's also interesting that nearly every tech person I read thought Twitter was over-staffed prior to Musk taking over. Now he's doing something about it, and people are pearl clutching.
Twitter's loss in 2020 was over $1,100,000,000. In the last 10 years, twitter has lost almost $4,000,000,000, posting profits in only two years (2018,2019).
Twitters losses in 2021 were over 221MM, and 250MM to 700MM between 2013 and 2017.
So the myth that Twitter was a healthy company is only promulgated by agenda driven opinions, not factual ones.
And this year (and all years here on out), Elon Musk in his brilliance added $1,300,000,000 to that loss, because he took on a $13,000,000,000 loan to buyout the company.
That's all I'm saying. The $1.3 billion/year in interest payments alone is a magnitude more loss than Twitter ever had before.
Isn’t the difference that Slack is profitable while Twitter is not?
I worked for a couple startups and the severance package for companies losing money was pretty bad. The package for profitable was ok. And the package for insolvent was “your last paycheck was your last.”
Add to this, rumor has it Elon fired the 3 executives (CEO, CFO, chief legal counsel) with cause to try and avoid paying out the golden parachutes (eg the CEO would otherwise get $40-60m+). I guarantee that'll end in a lawsuit and probably a settlement for less. But I expect that to impact executive hiring.
As for hiring peons, it's hard to say. A bigger factor (IMHO) is Elon himself. Fans will probably go there. Those who don't like him probably won't. I expect that to have a far bigger impact than firing a bunch of employees right before bonus time several years earlier.
My read of the situation is that Elon never really wanted to buy Twitter. I mean he did try and get out of it but the Twitter board crafted a good contract and I believe Elon realized he was going to get dumpstered by the Delaware Chancery Court.
So what does he do now?? The private equity playbook is my guess. He'll massively cut costs, repackage it somehow, claim victory (for "free speech" or whatever) and then sell off a minority stake or even the whole thing. He may even try and do the tech thing where he sells most of the equity but retains all the voting power.
In such an environment, short term hiring probably isn't on the cards.
Here is one possible outcome: Elon splits up Twitter into two parts:
1. An infrastructure element that creates an open API/protocol for sharing/pushing messages, contacts and media between content/social media platforms. The basic idea is to have a generic interface similar to email.
2. A content company that provides aggregation, search, moderation (possibly based on user preference) and possibly editorial features, as well as a front-end for users. Basically what gmail is to email.
As soon as Republicans gain control of congress (and possibly the presidency), he starts lobbying to make it mandatory for all social media platforms to allow their users to connect through the API/protocol under (1) with a generalized account, similar (or identical, at least in form) to email addresses.
This would kill the monopolies of Facebook, Insta, Tik-Tok, etc, by allowing a user to use only one of them to connect with user on all of them, similar to how they can use an email client of choice.
Twitter could then charge some small fee for communicating over this protocol, or could simply sell the protocol company to the government, who could make the protocol publicly owned, like email/smtp.
Would this make him a huge profit? Not likely. At best he would get his investment back, perhaps. But it could help break down some echo chambers and counteract some of the crazy polarization that's currently going on in the US.
And if I'm reading Musk correctly, profit is no longer his primary motivation, if it ever was. Rather, it seems that he has some Messiah complex where he wants to be seen as the guy that saves the world.
Whether you see that as a sign of genuine altruism, a severe case of Narcissism or just a sign that he's really an insecure nerd that seeks social validation, is up to you.
First, I don't see this kind of split ever working. How do you monetize it? Email is federated and has huge problems because of it. Moving a centralized service to federated would be a massive destruction of value. Let's not forget Elon is on the hook for $44 billion so I expect him to protect his investment first and foremost. Why do you think one of his first actions was to apease advertisers?
In politics corporate interests transcend politics and cross party lines. There is no shot any Congress would destroy the value of all these American companies that way.
> But it could help break down some echo chambers ...
Nobody wants this. The idea that any of this is about free speech is a complete myth. The idea that an "echo chamber" is even a thing is problematic. People are going to engage in content they like and not engage with content they don't like. It affects what websites you go to, what TV you watch, what channels you subscribe to and so on.
The post on HN yesterday from the ex-CEO of Reddit was great in this regard. He put forth a cogent argument that none of this is about content. It's simply a user behaviour problem.
So when Kanye goes on Twitter and launches into an anti-semitic screed he gets banned. Not because of the content per se but because he's annoying and he's making the experiene worse for everyone else. Whenever conservatives (in particular) talk about "free speech", they really mean "hate speech" and wanting to avoid getting silenced even when everyone else just wants them to stop being anti-semitic, homophobic, transphobic, racist or whatever.
> First, I don't see this kind of split ever working. How do you monetize it? Moving a centralized service to federated would be a massive destruction of value.
Maybe Elon can afford to take a loss to achieve this?
Or maybe the platforms ARE able to find ways to split add revenue (and other revenues) in ways that don't really destroy value.
> In politics corporate interests transcend politics and cross party lines.
How much financial support is Meta and Tik-Tok giving to Republicans? In fact, I think it's primarily Meta that has a lot to lose from this, out of the American companies. Alphabet/Youtube may actually benefit, as they are specialists when it comes to video, and if Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are forced to permit sharing of Youtube videos through their platforms, they may gain traffic at the cost of native video alternatives.
> Nobody wants this.
Well I do, for one.
> The idea that any of this is about free speech is a complete myth.
I'm pretty sure quite a few people care about free speech, and even more are worried about American polarization. Even many non-Americans, like me.
> The idea that an "echo chamber" is even a thing is problematic.
That's an interesting point of view. You're not only saying that they don't exist, but actually that the mere IDEA is problematic? Isn't 4chan an echo chamber?
> People are going to engage in content they like and not engage with content they don't like.
I agree. People should be able to filter content they find problematic, just like we do with email spam or how we can restrict porn in browsers, etc.
> So when Kanye goes on Twitter and launches into an anti-semitic screed he gets banned.
I watched Kanye's appearance on Lex Fridman's podcast/youtube a few days back, and it was mostly sad, tbh. Lex, being Jewish himself, pushed back pretty hard when Kanye started his Anti Semitism. But Kanye WAS allowed to speak, and neither Spotify or YouTube have take it down.
> It's simply a user behaviour problem.
On Twitter, maybe that's what it looks like. But if you sit through the podcast, maybe your conclusion is that this is more of a symptom that Kanye is going through a very rough time than some intent to be evil. Obviously he DOES have racist thoughts when it comes to Jews (or, depending on your definition of Racist, they would be if Blacks had as much power as Jews, or if he were white).
But then again, the basic conspiratorial pattern he's using doesn't seem very different from how BLM talks about "white" people. One could argue that white people have some obligation to avoid Anti Semitism due to the Holocaust. But the left seems to be quite accepting with Anti Semitism that comes from Palestinians, since they're "punching up". Aren't African Americans also "punching up" in this case?
Anyway, Kanye is a lot more than his prejudice against Jews. It IS interesting to hear his story and point of view, even if it did make me quite sad.
So, in conclusion. Let's say social media gets a protocol similar to smtp, they would be able to add optional moderation/spam filters against content like this. But I think users should be able to check their "junk folder" and whitelist content they don't think should be block listed, as long as the content is not illegal.
I've seen no evidence Elon is willing to burn Twitter to the ground to make a political point. to the contrary, he tried to back out the deal he hastily entered into and only went through with it when it became clear he was going to get railed by the Delaware Chancery Court.
Even if he is, it's a massive risk. Another platform that he doesn't own could simply rise and take its place.
> How much financial support is Meta and Tik-Tok giving to Republicans?
The Trump administration tried to block Tiktok (briefly). Many officials and politicans call it a national security risk, most recently the FCC chair just this week. While there are noises made about a break up of Meta, I suspect it's going nowhere.
> You're not only saying that they don't exist, but actually that the mere IDEA is problematic?
I'm saying anywhere people can in any way filter their experience, what they see will differ from the unfiltered view. Even if they see the same things, they will engage with things they like. Basically, this is inevitable. The problematic part is this only tends to get lablled an "echo chamber" when people filter in such a way that the criticizer doesn't like.
> But Kanye WAS allowed to speak, and neither Spotify or YouTube have take it down.
In case you didn't see it, I encourage you to read this HN submission from yesterday [1]. I'll also bring up the Paradox of Tolerance [2]. Free speech absolutism is the extreme view where anything can be posted. Not even 4chan has this. So when I say "nobody wants this", I mean everyone agrees there are and should be limits on speech so it's just a question of what those limits should be.
Any site that has attempted unmoderated free speech descends into a cesspit of Nazis and racists where everyone else leaves. Moreso, advertisers (who still pay for the platform) don't want to be associated with it so they leave too.
As you mentioned, Kanye still got an incredible amount of exposure for his views between various podcasts and the right-wing media (eg Tucker CArlson, Ben Shapiro) so it's not like he's been silenced. There's just one thing out of many he couldn't do because Twitter didn't want to be associated with it.
> But then again, the basic conspiratorial pattern he's using doesn't seem very different from how BLM talks about "white" people.
Free speech is fundamentally a political issue, otherwise I'd try not to get into this topic. I understand your confusion, which I certainly believe to be in good faith. I'll scratch the surface of this as neutrally and briefly as I can.
"Whiteness" and "blackness" as concepts are not equivalent. "Blackness" is an invented concept for various people who were robbed of their heritage, culture and language through chattel slavery. It's why we say "African-American" for black people but "Italian-American" or "Polish-American" or whatever for white people.
"Whiteness" as a concept is defined by two properties: 1) The proximity to power and 2) Not being black. It is a concept rooted in white supremacy. Who counts as "white" also changes. Ben Franklin, for example, didn't count Germans as "white". Now we count Italians as "white". That wasn't alwyas the case.
You are correct in that part of this is "punching up" vs "punching down" but you should also know that this idea of equivalent concepts is used by white supremacists. "White power" was a reaction to "black power" as an emancipating force in the 1960s. "White Lives Matter" (and even "All Lives Matter") are the same response to "Black Lives Matter" (BLM). They're also insidious because they imply that BLM means white lives don't matter. It's more accurate to say "Black Lives Matter Too" even though no one was suggesting white lives don't matter.
Kanye is actually pushing white supremacist views. You don't have to be white to be a white supremacist.
> But the left seems to be quite accepting with Anti Semitism that comes from Palestinians
Anti-semitism (hatred of Jewish people) isn't the same as anti-Zionism (opposition to the policies of the state of Israel). People try and conflate the two to deflect any criticism of Israeli actions. There are very valid criticisms to be made of Israel's treatment of Palestinians (eg [3]). The ADL is extremely active in American politics and spends a lot of money in races to defeat candidates critical of Israel.
> I've seen no evidence Elon is willing to burn Twitter to the ground to make a political point. to the contrary
Not burn to the ground, simply build something with a lower monetary value today, if he thinks it can lower tribalism. Consider something like linux. It's precicely the fact that it's not monetised that ensures the near monopoly in the server OS space.
> Any site that has attempted unmoderated free speech descends into a cesspit of Nazis and racists where everyone else leaves.
My take is that anything that is within the law should be allowed to be posted, but extremist propaganda (especialy when fueled by hate), whether it's from the left or right, should be supressed hard unless the reader explicitly disables such suppression.
Btw, one sign that someone is close to one of the extremes is that the person stops recognizing that there IS indeed dangerous extremism on both sides.
> "Blackness" is an invented concept for various people who were robbed of their heritage, culture and language through chattel slavery.
I'm not American. I live in a place with a different history and context. Generally, though, it seems that most "normal" people seem to assign identity to themselves and other based on how they appear, and that this happens at an early age.
Precisely how this forms categories tends to vary with time and space, like for almost all other categories. Even basic things as the number of the colors in the rainbow varies between cultures. For instance, in Islam, the rainbow only has four colors. The truth is that colors form a one-dimensional spectrum, while ethnicity forms a multi-dimensional spectrum.
> "Whiteness" as a concept is defined by two properties: 1) The proximity to power and 2) Not being black.
For me, this is not a useful way. When I meet people from around the world, I associate them by origin to some extent, but at a much granular level, even within countries. Hamburg is different from Munich, Manchester different from Brighton, Chongqing is different from Shangahai, And Dehli is different from Bengaluru. Africa is similar. Egypt has a distinct identity, especially in the big cities up north. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya each have theirs. Together these countries have a lot in common, and also a lot in common with Southern Europe. Nigeria or Mozambique are both quite different from North Africa, but also very different from each other, and so on.
When you meet people from most of these places, they will have a word to label "people of European descent". For instance, in Thailand, the term is "Farrang". When these people speak English, they may use terms such as White, Black or Asian, but in their minds (as in mine) they will keep the same meanings as they assign at home.
Someone of the Chinese elite in Singapore definitely don't think of themselves as "White", nor are they "Black". If their status is high enough, they may not even allow their daughters to marry someone of European descent.
> You are correct in that part of this is "punching up" vs "punching down" but you should also know that this idea of equivalent concepts is used by white supremacists.
It absolutely is. This way of thinking is precisely what leads to much of the most extreme racial hatred. Hitler saw the Jews as oppressors. The Hutus saw the Tutsies as oppressors, just to name a couple.
You mention the Paradox of Tolerance. I definitely do not think we should tolerate racial/ethnic hatred, whether it comes from someone with ancestors from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India or China. "Punching up" should not be a valid excuse. The only way we can coexist in a multi ethnic and multi cultural society is by demanding tolerance of everyone, and be intolerant of those who do not.
I believe that we actually do not have a choice about this, if the culture we live in is to survive. If we tolerate racial prejudice, I belive there will eventually be some kind of physical conflict likely to end up with a really bad outcome, either genocide or ethnic cleansing/balkanization.
In fact, I think it may be impossible to sustain a multi ethnic/multi cultural society forever. A culture of tolerance may keep tribal conflicts at bay, but unless we can merge into One People (through cross-marriage), there will be a day in the future where some even or charismatic person will cause a massive conflict.
> Kanye is actually pushing white supremacist views.
I recommend seeing the podcast with Lex. Kanye seems quite confused, but if anything, it seems he identifies with the "gang" (his term), and that he simply has come into conflicts with some number of people that happen to be Jewish. He does NOT seem like a puppet of Maga republicans as far as I can tell. He simply seems to think there is a conflict between people like him (basically "gang members" in the music industry) and "Jews".
> Anti-semitism (hatred of Jewish people) isn't the same as anti-Zionism
Obviously not, but I didn't mean only anti-Zionism. Not all arabs, especially in and around Palestine are making that distinction. In fact, the books "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" and "Mein Kampf" are both popular books in Palestine and to some extent other Arab countries. The hatred does NOT seem to be limited to Israel and Zionists.
In Northern Europe, using the word "Jew" in as a derogatory term was strictly taboo 30 years ago. Now, however, after considerable immigration form Arab countries and Pakistan, the term has come back. Mostly in immigrant communities, but it is also starting to come back in working class locals that go to the same schools as the muslim immigrants. You do NOT want to walk around dressed like a orthodox Jew in the rougher neighborhoods of Northern Europe.
Frankly I am pretty sure there is a long list of talented execs who don't care how Parag was fired and would love to work for Musk.
He's too successful now with too many fans for this to have an impact. People know he demands a lot and can do crazy things. That's just part of the package.
If I remember correctly, the rumor about layoffs ahead of vesting said he was going to do it before Nov 1st. That part at least, seems to have just been a rumor.
Take this: You take over a company that was full of bad behaving managers and employees. The previous CEO supported this situation. The new CEO who bought the company need to quickly turn the ship around. Severance, bonus payouts? Yes, if the staff you take over was really good and they deserve it. Is it the same case with Twitter? Can we compare Stripe and Twitter on this level?
From a neutral point of view, if the behavior of current employees is the result of the management grooming them to behave like this, is the resulting behavior is employees' fault?
I don't know internals of Twitter. I'm just asking a theoretical question.
> Which company is going to have an easier time hiring after the dust settles and they have a growth stage again?
Not all companies die after massive layoffs. Sometimes all you need is to contract before building a better place again. Whoever is hired next by Twitter is going to be coming for the future potential, not for what happened during the layoffs.
Nah, people do remember what companies do and many avoid shitty companies. I work in HR, and on macro scale this is clearly visible. Some of our clients have a hard time filling roles despite paying competitively or even generously. Sure, for some people thats not an issue, but it is a thing, and it gets more visible with engineering roles, for some reason.
Google does not have reputation for particularly toxic workplace. They are not super clean of course as you mentioned, but their reputation is not bad at all. And while Apple has worst reputation then google, it is still fairly good one.
Take for instance booking.com. They unceremoniously dumped lots of their employees at the beginning of the pandemic despite being flush with cash. Then they tried hiring people back. Guess what, lots of people didnt want to even hear how much they are offering. There are other such companies.
But yes, there are people who would not, for instance, work for AWS due to their, shall we say, internal culture.
Sure, my point was that "past behavior" barely matters. Compensation, social status and work expectation is what makes people go for or avoid companies. If Google didn't pay as much, fewer people would bother jumping through hoops. If Apple had an oil-industry level social status, Californians would think twice about working there (or they'd get a cover job to use when talking to neighbors and friends).
How they fire people means very little, because very few people in tech think of themselves as the ones being fired in the near future (most likely also why few people in tech are into unions, they don't feel as replaceable as factory workers).
But that is the thing, I dont think you are right. You picked up companies with good reputation as examples ... they pay well and have good reputation, of course people want to work there.
There are companies with actually bad reputation and they either have problem to find staff or have to pay a lot more while still having issues.
They literally formed an illegal conspiracy to harm their employees by suppressing salaries -- this type of thing apparently simply doesn't matter much if they keep offering some of the highest salaries in the industry. And neither will this behavior at Twitter, I believe.
> They literally formed an illegal conspiracy to harm their employees by suppressing salaries
Yes and that is bad. And still, if you work inside one of those companies, the environment does not have reputation of being toxic. It just dont, in case of google the reputation is that they treat you well most of the time, but it is slower speed then, say facebook. And facebook does not have toxic reputation either.
Their reputation is not bad, actually. People who work there criticize some, but also are generally content and happy. Because, even with that agreement, neither company is overly toxic.
I have seen multiple people making decision of "this place pays more, but the environment looks toxic" or "this place pays more, but the business seems borderline unethical" and taking lower offer. I think that is why famous toxic places had to have very high salaries - cause the people were not interested otherwise.
People will do this in a good job market. In a bad one, even crappy employers will have their fill of willing employees. Too many in her have never experienced a bad market
I dont think it would make you sharp. It would train you for ugly politics, back stabbing and general chaos. But it would not train you for good performance. You can actually hide incompetence very well in chaotic companies if you can talk well and take others credit. And competence without political clout gets punished (because it is easy).
Being sharp as in the positive performance terms requires sharp leadership and decision making. It means leadership that actually knows what is going on and that requires trust. That is not the same as rage layoff after you impulse bought company you dont want while trolling on social medias.
For me, if I were at beginning of my career I would have definitely joined Twitter. Because I have to work harder, compete harder, learn faster just to save my job. I think that sort of culture would make you sharp than others in your field very early in your career.
Then when you go and work at company like stripe, its easy.
And good luck to Twitter if they are looking to implement a Hunger Games style culture. However this type of attitude to work is extremely immature, counter-productive and proven to be harmful to both individuals and the company.
People are most productive over the long term when they feel encouraged, supported, self-motivated etc.
Positive emotions not negative ones like fear, coercion, hostility etc.
SpaceX and Tesla would have crashed and burned had it not been for government, of all levels, subsidizing them. Something that, now that he has benefited from it, Musk is against others having.
and the established automakers with billion dollar war chests didn't have access to the same subsidies if they had innovated and made electric cars that didn't suck? The established military industrial complex companies like Boeing and Lockheed that have failed in their space endeavors aren't subsidized?
Elon shows all the signs of thinking he can do absolutely no wrong because his fan base keeps telling him so.
Nothing about this acquisition as been impressive or promising. I see no sign of that changing. A mass disrespectful layoff like this is going to backfire, hugely.
While I do rather think that tesla and spacex has an unhealthy work cultural based on the limited things I read about it, these two ideas are just ridiculously dump to the point where a 3 years old wouldn’t have come up with “cars in a tunnel”.. they are ridiculous.
I would go to work for Twitter, if only to work for Elon. It would be better than any comparable education. Maybe I last a month, maybe I last my career, but I will probably learn a lot.
You want to learn from an egoistic manchild who managed to make a terrible deal and forced himself to actually go through with it to buy a company that has yet to turn a profit, and I’m almost sure it will never, because he is the owner?
> Because I have to work harder, compete harder, learn faster just to save my job. I think that sort of culture would make you sharp than others in your field very early in your career.
That's a great way to get a bunch of cowboys in their 20s who think they are hot shit after five years in the industry while kicking out the people with deep experience because they actually like spending time with their families. Now you've got hyper-trendy software design everywhere with nothing supporting it.
I think there are some very rational reasons for hating or at least strongly disapproving of the new owner.
For example, if the new owner of the company I worked for demanded on a Saturday that a new feature needs to be ready for testing by Monday, I'd be pretty upset.
Or, if I was on a team working on the problem of trust and ethics, and the new owner personally and un-ironically posted a completely false and inflammatory "news article" about a current event, and then several days later laid off my entire team, I wouldn't consider it irrational to be quite upset.
Which company is going to have an easier time hiring after the dust settles and they have a growth stage again?