minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minoanmiss) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
agonyaunt2022-12-05 11:49 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-12-05 11:49 am
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: Update from Twitter Employee
Now former. I'm posting this here in part in case Alison is forced to take it down.
Remember the letter-writer who worked at Twitter and was wondering what to do as the company imploded? Here’s the update.
I started drafting an update a while ago and then Elon sent that email about clicking on the button if you want to remain at Twitter and everything just became so surreal and chaotic. It’s been a couple weeks and I feel like I’m just starting to process things. (Ed. note: That’s a reference to Elon Musk’s email giving Twitter employees a short deadline to click yes if they agreed to work long hours and be “extremely hardcore” … and saying that anyone who didn’t would be let go with severance.)
I don’t think any of us were expecting things to be good when Elon took over, but everyone was just so incredibly surprised at how quickly things went downhill. I wrote everything out in chronological order since that felt like the best way to make some sense of the chaos.
→ 10/27: During the first Halloween party Twitter had held since the pandemic, Elon fired most of the senior leadership team.
→ 10/30 (Sunday): Several of us were added to Slack working groups because Elon had decided to launch Twitter Blue Verification, meaning that anyone would be able to be verified as long as they paid for it (what were we “verifying” then? I do not know).
• We spent the next two weeks dismantling the verification program we had built over the past several years. It wasn’t a perfect program (or even close to it), but it was carefully and thoughtfully built and I was very proud of it.
→ 11/3 (Thursday): An email from Twitter was sent out saying layoffs would happen and we’d all know by 9 am the next day if we were “safe” or not. About three hours later people started losing access, and this continued all night/into the early morning hours. Mass panic ensued.
• During the layoffs, the product manager of Blue Verified hosted a meeting/check in at 9:30 pm. I still think about this — as our colleagues were losing their jobs, she kept pushing the work on this worthless product forward. I think about this moment a lot — it perfectly captures the difference between the “before Elon” Twitter and the Twitter we have now. As an example of olden day Twitter, I had an infant when the pandemic hit, and all the daycares in my area had closed down. Twitter worked with me to ensure my schedule was flexible enough that I could get my work done and still care for my baby.
• The next day no one (including managers) knew who was left — our online directory was removed so people would just ping people on Slack to see if they were still at Twitter.
→ The next couple weeks were full of reorgs as managers tried to consolidate who was left, people getting fired for speaking out against Elon in Slack, and people resigning. Twitter Blue Verification launched and was then rolled back because of the disastrous impact it had (the exact same impact Trust & Safety and the Human Rights teams had predicted).
→ 11/9: The infamous “everyone must return to the office, starting tomorrow” email was sent. Three heads of teams resigned (Data Privacy and Compliance among them).
→ 11/10: Word got around that Elon was hosting an all-hands for some orgs, and everyone started joining in via a Google hangout link. He didn’t say anything useful and didn’t answer questions about the return to office email aside from saying “if you can be in an office and do not come in, I’ll consider that your resignation.”
• The next week, my team and I prioritized a proposal to roll back a decision Elon had made that was resulting in a lot of accounts getting suspended. We were able to put something together that I think would have resolved the concerns that prompted him to make the decision he did while still preventing suspension for this set of accounts. However, before we could send it to him, he sent the “push the button email” at midnight on 11/16.
→ 11/16: Even more panic — everyone was asking everyone else if they were going to push the button or not.
• Alex Spiro (Musk’s lawyer) came over to our area and started talking to a couple folks at the desks. At this point, we had heard nothing aside from what was in Elon’s ultimatum email and people were desperate for answers, so they started gathering around him. Alex said that it was good that people were gathering around since he wanted to share his thoughts with everyone.
• He started talking about how Elon had launched rockets before, so we should trust his vision and we should all push the button and stay. One of the people on my team asked what Elon meant by “exceptional performance” in the email — in particular, how would this be evaluated for our team members?
• At this point, Alex told everyone that he had not yet read Elon’s email, and someone had to pull it up on their phone and show it to him so he could read it. He then explained how the email was intended to be motivational in nature and we just weren’t used to getting emails from Elon yet but he was and “this is just how Elon talks.”
• People started asking more questions, and then one employee started getting visibly upset and started having a panic attack — she was crying and was on the floor. Alex didn’t know how to handle the situation so pretty much ignored her and the conversation essentially ended at that point.
• Hearing from one of Elon’s closest advisors that he had not actually read the email himself but that we should nonetheless trust Elon made people feel even more uneasy and panicked about the decision (if that’s even possible).
→ 11/17: Our team saw a strange calendar invite pop up at around 11:50 am for a meeting that was taking place at noon.
• When we joined the meeting, it was to hear similar lines about how we should all stay/we should all push the button and we should trust Elon/he has launched rockets into space before, etc. etc.
• A lot of people asked if we could have more time to make a decision like this, but the question was ignored.
• When 2 pm came, almost no one on my team pushed the button. Those that did push the button were mainly people who needed healthcare, were about to go on maternity/paternity leave/etc.
I also didn’t push the button and am now on the outside of a company I’ve been at for a decade. On some level I know I couldn’t have pushed the button, but I feel so sad nonetheless. I still have close friends there, and I miss my team and the work we got to engage in so much. It still hits me at weird moments that I don’t work there anymore. I got emotional about it today for the first time in a week.
Anyway, that’s my update in as succinct a way I can manage to provide it. Yoel Roth, the head of Trust & Safety who resigned over Elon’s changes, also talked at a Knight Foundation event and he captured everything way better than I have in this email. It’s a long talk but so accurately describes what it was like living through the past few weeks.
Remember the letter-writer who worked at Twitter and was wondering what to do as the company imploded? Here’s the update.
I started drafting an update a while ago and then Elon sent that email about clicking on the button if you want to remain at Twitter and everything just became so surreal and chaotic. It’s been a couple weeks and I feel like I’m just starting to process things. (Ed. note: That’s a reference to Elon Musk’s email giving Twitter employees a short deadline to click yes if they agreed to work long hours and be “extremely hardcore” … and saying that anyone who didn’t would be let go with severance.)
I don’t think any of us were expecting things to be good when Elon took over, but everyone was just so incredibly surprised at how quickly things went downhill. I wrote everything out in chronological order since that felt like the best way to make some sense of the chaos.
→ 10/27: During the first Halloween party Twitter had held since the pandemic, Elon fired most of the senior leadership team.
→ 10/30 (Sunday): Several of us were added to Slack working groups because Elon had decided to launch Twitter Blue Verification, meaning that anyone would be able to be verified as long as they paid for it (what were we “verifying” then? I do not know).
• We spent the next two weeks dismantling the verification program we had built over the past several years. It wasn’t a perfect program (or even close to it), but it was carefully and thoughtfully built and I was very proud of it.
→ 11/3 (Thursday): An email from Twitter was sent out saying layoffs would happen and we’d all know by 9 am the next day if we were “safe” or not. About three hours later people started losing access, and this continued all night/into the early morning hours. Mass panic ensued.
• During the layoffs, the product manager of Blue Verified hosted a meeting/check in at 9:30 pm. I still think about this — as our colleagues were losing their jobs, she kept pushing the work on this worthless product forward. I think about this moment a lot — it perfectly captures the difference between the “before Elon” Twitter and the Twitter we have now. As an example of olden day Twitter, I had an infant when the pandemic hit, and all the daycares in my area had closed down. Twitter worked with me to ensure my schedule was flexible enough that I could get my work done and still care for my baby.
• The next day no one (including managers) knew who was left — our online directory was removed so people would just ping people on Slack to see if they were still at Twitter.
→ The next couple weeks were full of reorgs as managers tried to consolidate who was left, people getting fired for speaking out against Elon in Slack, and people resigning. Twitter Blue Verification launched and was then rolled back because of the disastrous impact it had (the exact same impact Trust & Safety and the Human Rights teams had predicted).
→ 11/9: The infamous “everyone must return to the office, starting tomorrow” email was sent. Three heads of teams resigned (Data Privacy and Compliance among them).
→ 11/10: Word got around that Elon was hosting an all-hands for some orgs, and everyone started joining in via a Google hangout link. He didn’t say anything useful and didn’t answer questions about the return to office email aside from saying “if you can be in an office and do not come in, I’ll consider that your resignation.”
• The next week, my team and I prioritized a proposal to roll back a decision Elon had made that was resulting in a lot of accounts getting suspended. We were able to put something together that I think would have resolved the concerns that prompted him to make the decision he did while still preventing suspension for this set of accounts. However, before we could send it to him, he sent the “push the button email” at midnight on 11/16.
→ 11/16: Even more panic — everyone was asking everyone else if they were going to push the button or not.
• Alex Spiro (Musk’s lawyer) came over to our area and started talking to a couple folks at the desks. At this point, we had heard nothing aside from what was in Elon’s ultimatum email and people were desperate for answers, so they started gathering around him. Alex said that it was good that people were gathering around since he wanted to share his thoughts with everyone.
• He started talking about how Elon had launched rockets before, so we should trust his vision and we should all push the button and stay. One of the people on my team asked what Elon meant by “exceptional performance” in the email — in particular, how would this be evaluated for our team members?
• At this point, Alex told everyone that he had not yet read Elon’s email, and someone had to pull it up on their phone and show it to him so he could read it. He then explained how the email was intended to be motivational in nature and we just weren’t used to getting emails from Elon yet but he was and “this is just how Elon talks.”
• People started asking more questions, and then one employee started getting visibly upset and started having a panic attack — she was crying and was on the floor. Alex didn’t know how to handle the situation so pretty much ignored her and the conversation essentially ended at that point.
• Hearing from one of Elon’s closest advisors that he had not actually read the email himself but that we should nonetheless trust Elon made people feel even more uneasy and panicked about the decision (if that’s even possible).
→ 11/17: Our team saw a strange calendar invite pop up at around 11:50 am for a meeting that was taking place at noon.
• When we joined the meeting, it was to hear similar lines about how we should all stay/we should all push the button and we should trust Elon/he has launched rockets into space before, etc. etc.
• A lot of people asked if we could have more time to make a decision like this, but the question was ignored.
• When 2 pm came, almost no one on my team pushed the button. Those that did push the button were mainly people who needed healthcare, were about to go on maternity/paternity leave/etc.
I also didn’t push the button and am now on the outside of a company I’ve been at for a decade. On some level I know I couldn’t have pushed the button, but I feel so sad nonetheless. I still have close friends there, and I miss my team and the work we got to engage in so much. It still hits me at weird moments that I don’t work there anymore. I got emotional about it today for the first time in a week.
Anyway, that’s my update in as succinct a way I can manage to provide it. Yoel Roth, the head of Trust & Safety who resigned over Elon’s changes, also talked at a Knight Foundation event and he captured everything way better than I have in this email. It’s a long talk but so accurately describes what it was like living through the past few weeks.