Tech Thread

[Montana]

What was the penalty for backing out again? 1 billion?

Good money after bad. He should have taken the hit. Not only would he be way richer, he’d still be rocket-boy.

Nah, he’d have paid a billion in a heartbeat to walk away from the deal….the $1B penalty was if something outside their control forced them to mutually walk away from the deal.

He had no outs….he was going to get sued and forced to pay it all regardless,

 

[Montana]

Ehhhh...they might be after his brother

Even more effort should be put into investigating Epstein, the black book, and everyone truly guilty of Epstein level crimes….but it is kinda shit that anyone that had any business dealings, etc with him get dragged into being branded quasi-pedos just through association,

Mind you, many of them continued being around him after the first arrest…so fuck those people.

 

[Montana]

it's what everyone told him in the first place before he decided to destroy the place.

I don’t know what you’re trying to argue,

 

[zeke]

I don’t know what you’re trying to argue,

hmm.

let me try again - what's funny about him saying that is that what he's saying now is exactly what everyone was saying to him when he was firing all those people to "fix woke twitter".

 

[Montana]

All I heard him say was he had to quickly fire a fuckload of people to get costs under control (and do so in large blocks to loudly signal as much to wall street).

Its pretty common practice after a takeover....and you’ll invariably lose good people because of that rapidity of it, but you make hires down the road to rectify them.

 

[MindzEye]

Firing 70% of the worforce within like 45 days is common practice after a takeover?

Short answer: No

Long answer: lol noooooo

 

[Montana]

All I heard him say was he had to quickly fire a fuckload of people to get costs under control (and do so in large blocks to loudly signal as much to wall street).

Its pretty common practice after a takeover....and you’ll invariably lose good people because of that rapidity of it, but you make hires down the road to rectify them.

He also was forced to way overdo it, by virtue of his own forced error of vastly overpaying for it,

 

[zeke]

Firing 70% of the worforce within like 45 days is common practice after a takeover?

Short answer: No

Long answer: lol noooooo

and then hoping they aren't too mad about being fired because they need to re-hire them all.

 

[Montana]

Firing 70% of the worforce within like 45 days is common practice after a takeover?

Short answer: No

Long answer: lol noooooo

That’s why I never said that…..said mass firings post takeover are often par for the course, and good people are always let go in those instances and often end up rehired or replaced with similar valued hires poached from elsewhere.

Elon was in a unique position of having seen a fuckton of value fly off the board and needed to cut quickly and more ruthlessly as a result….paying upwards of $300m every quarter in interest, and Twitter was on track for a -$3b cash flow.

Again, his own doing but its value tanking and him getting squeezed on both ends made drastic cuts required,

 

[zeke]

wait you are actually congratulating Musk for a savvy layoff and rehire strategy?

 

[Montana]

wait you are actually congratulating Musk for a savvy layoff and rehire strategy?

Nope…I’m saying what I said, in the clip posted I agree with him, generally. It’s pretty standard fair.


It’s nothing remotely like the other clips, in terms of dunking on him or anything,.

 

[zeke]

except it goes against everything he was saying when he did it, and is now agreeing with exactly what everyone else was saying at the time (and he mocked them for it).

 

[Montana]

A lot of these tech companies did a fuckton of hiring over the pandemic years, and many just fired their way back to pre-pandemic levels, as the market tanked. Then Elon had the added ding of covering his overpay, and cutting further to compensate for the pre-acquisition bleeding, and then cutting further to compensate for his $300m in interest every quarter.

A huge slaughter was coming as soon as he agreed to the purchase price he did….the was compounded by tech crashing.

 

[MindzEye]

He also was forced to way overdo it, by virtue of his own forced error of vastly overpaying for it,

Nah, purchase price didn't do this. The structure of the debt was part of it, but by far the biggest part was his own self created clusterfuck with his advertisers after he took over.

I took a look at Twitter's fins from just previous to the purchase and with the new debt payments baked in, had Elon touched nothing, he had 10-12 months to figure out how the business functioned, who to keep, who to fire, etc before twitter would have needed some sort of financing to keep the lights on. He didn't. He came in screeching that it was broken, needed more hardcore and fired the vast majority of people he needed to run the place.

Don't buy into this retcon bullshit he's pulling now. This is a series of unforced own goals that he did to himself. Twitter was fine. He broke it.

 

[MindzEye]

It’s pretty standard fair.

There is nothing standard about 70% staff reduction.

 

[zeke]

and he didn't just fire them, he publicly and privately humiliated them.

 

[Montana]

There is nothing standard about 70% staff reduction.

you can keep saying what I didn’t say….but I provided the context of what was standard fair, and why he had to go beyond that.

 

[MindzEye]

you can keep saying what I didn’t say….but I provided the context of what was standard fair, and why he had to go beyond that.

But layoffs due to corporate restructure (common after buying a company), and a 70% reduction in staff simply aren't the same thing. Stop conflating them if you want me to stop pointing out the obvious. One is standard fair, the other isn't.

 

[MindzEye]

and he didn't just fire them, he publicly and privately humiliated them.

Refused to pay severance, etc, etc, etc

 

[Montana]

Nah, purchase price didn't do this. The structure of the debt was part of it, but by far the biggest part was his own self created clusterfuck with his advertisers after he took over.

it all played a part…he came in at a price well above market, and the stock had collapsed by the time it was going through.

x% of the layoffs were unquestionably a result of the market, just like it was across tech

I took a look at Twitter's fins from just previous to the purchase and with the new debt payments baked in, had Elon touched nothing, he had 10-12 months to figure out how the business functioned, who to keep, who to fire, etc before twitter would have needed some sort of financing to keep the lights on. He didn't. He came in screeching that it was broken, needed more hardcore and fired the vast majority of people he needed to run the place.

I don’t particularly care what he says, that’s almost always performative ….but the reality is cuts come with almost any big purchase/merger, the tech market as a whole had big cuts coming across the board as the marker went down and pandemic hiring gains were cleaved, and his were amplified by overpaying on the pre-deal market price as it was….add in he had a $300m bill coming end of quarter, and its not mind blowing he made the level of cuts he did.

Don't buy into this retcon bullshit he's pulling now. This is a series of unforced own goals that he did to himself.

I mean, you quoted me saying it was his own error.

Twitter was fine. He broke it.

agreed,…but I think many of the things he implemented/changed played a bigger part in that. His ideas for twitter suck balls,