.....where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
Twitter owner Elon Musk continues wreaking havoc on his new company. After firing half the workforce Musk implemented a loyalty oath to an extremely hardcore Twitter 2.0.
...employees needed to show their desire for working at his new "extremely hardcore" "Twitter 2.0" by clicking a signup link before 5 pm ET Thursday. Those who do not sign up, Musk said, will be considered to have resigned from the company.
Using a loyalty oath link to drive away talent...that's exceptionally bad leadership.
As the deadline passed, less than 50% of Twitter's employees had signed up for Musk's Twitter 2.0
That means Twitter lost 75% of its workforce since Musk took over as owner. Twitter's Trust and Safety Team has been hollowed out. One news report stated six critical systems no longer have any engineers.
I expect debt holders are screaming, however they may not have anyone to speak with as most of the finance department, including payroll, is gone.
Twitter...where interest costs have ballooned, advertisers are not customers and the few employees remaining are all exceptional.
Thank heaven the CEO is brilliant in creating new bigger problems, so the old ones don't look so bad.
Update: Twitter may be on life support given:
Elon Musk ordered the temporary closure of the company's offices. The company told staff in a memo overnight that it had shut down all its locations "effective immediately", raising concerns about the effective running of the business amid reports of a mass staff exodus.
Musk has done in three weeks what takes most private equity underwriters years and a down business cycle. Debt holders and those who rolled over major equity stakes should be livid.
After closing the office Musk summoned engineers to Twitter headquarters.
Update 11-19-22: Elon Musk is the nightmare manager many people have endured. As Dr. W. Edwards Deming noted
“Every theory is correct in its own world, but the problem is that the theory may not make contact with this world.”
Profound knowledge incorporates Deming's theory of psychology, systems, variation and knowledge, as well as their interaction. It is missing from today's world.
Update 11-20-22: Fortune reported:
Elon Musk is "well outside his depth" at Twitter and a "bullying management culture" won’t work there, says a former Facebook executive.
Reuters added:
"This is essentially Game of Thrones between Musk and the Twitter employees," says Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. "This is really a quicksand situation that he's trying to fix. And the more he does, the more damage he does."
"I think there's a feeling right now that this situation is just continue to go more and more into a train wreck," said Ives, "And I think it's something even Musk himself underestimated."
Musk restored the account of the Great Retaliator after a Twit thumbs up/thumbs down poll. No content moderation council needed.
Game of Thrones is not Profound Knowledge.
Update 11-24-22: Polling is not Profound Knowledge. One can poll their way to a hellscape.
Update 12-8-22: Billionaire Elon Musk asked employees to envision themselves as a crime victim to increase productivity.
He also invited Twitter employees to not leave the workplace by providing beds in conference rooms.
Update 12-11-22: Musk asked employees to sign yet another loyalty oath, the non-leaking version..
Update 12-14-22: Twitter debt holders are writing down the value of their debt/notes.
The biggest chunk of the debt -- $10 billion worth of loans secured by Twitter's assets -- might have to be written down by as much as 20%.
Update 12-15-22: Musk suspended the Twiter account that tracked his private jet flights.
Update 12-16-22: Twitter's Elon Musk, the free speech absolutist, banned a number of journalists. That got a warning from the European Union. Censorship by whim or retaliatory impulse is so 2022.
Update 12-20-22: Management by poll got a process change after Twitter users voted for Elon to step down as CEO. Now only paying Twitterheads votes will count.
Update 12-26-22: Free speech absolutist Musk turns out to be a corporate autocrat. Visitors must wait for an hour and can only speak after Wizard Elon.
Update 12-29-22: In the midst of widespread technical problems shared by Twitter users Musk wrote "Works for me." Hellscape achieved.
Update 12-30-22: More evidence of Twitter's new Hellscape under Musk:
Some Twitter employees are bringing their own toilet paper to work after the company cut back on janitorial services.
The company's San Francisco headquarters have been left with dirty bathrooms and the office is in disarray, per the publication. The stench of leftover takeout food and body odor is present throughout the premises.
Zero based budgeting has returned to Twitter. That brings a special hell for employees.
Update 1-1-23: Horror movie is close to Hellscape:
...the Twitter situation-- it's a nightmare on Elm Street that doesn't end.
Update 1-29-23: Hellscape achieved says many Twitter workers. WoBeHere.
Update 2-6-23: A former Twitter employee said:
"We wanted to make people's lives more pleasant and more productive. And all of that went to garbage when Elon bought the company."
Update 2-19-23: Investor Elon made a Tesla co-founder's life a hellscape for two years after ousting him from the company.
Update 3-8-23: A laid off former Twitter manager who strongly supported Elon Musk tweeted "Cruelty is the worst" and stated supporting Musk was mistake.
Update 3-18-23: Musk joins the list of petulant billionaires unwilling to pay vendors and landlord, in this case Twitter suppliers. "Let them sue" Elon uses equity investors to negotiate supplier discounts.
Pablo Mendoza, a managing director at Vy Capital – who funded $700 million of his $44 billion Twitter takeover – has helped to negotiate some bills down by as much as 90%. Mendoza sometimes plays on vendors' emotions, telling them that his job is at risk if bills are not cut.
That is absolutely bizarre.
Update 3-26-23: Musk lost more than half the value of Twitter under his leadership.
...stock grants were based on a "$20b valuation." Musk paid $44 billion to take control of Twitter in late October.
No wonder equity investors are doing operations level work.
Update 4-8-23: Journalist Matt Taibi quit Twitter after Elon Musk made the platform unusable for Substack content creators.
Update 5-26-23: Elon Musk experienced Twitter's failures during a Ron DeSantis presidential campaign announcement. He is furious over the debacle. The next day Gov, DeSantis signed a bill granting liability protections for space flight entities in Florida. Let's hope the liability shield performs better than the Twitter app.
Update 5-31-23: Fidelity valued its Twitter holdings at 1/3 of Elon's purchase price. That's serious value destruction.
Update 7-4-23: One person wrote about their experience with Elon's Twitter leadership:
Elon Musk keeps finding creative ways to make the platform he paid $44 billion for less attractive to the majority of people.
Twitter, like our democracy, keeps taking away rights.
Update 7-16-23: Elon said Twitter is still losing money due to heavy debt and declining advertising revenue.
Update 8-2-23: Musk sued a nonprofit who cited an increase in disturbing content on Twitter, now X, after Elon purchased the company. The nonprofit called Musk's move straight out of the authoritarian playbook.
Update 8-27-23: Twitter X is now the home of the "blue tick" scammer. Wait until Musk turns it into a super app with digital payments. The scamming opportunities could be "next level."
Update 9-9-23: A former Twitter executive described working with Elon.
Musk’s moodiness made the job difficult, creating “a culture of fear” since he was so quick to fire people.
“I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct,” the post said, “and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it.”
Dr. W. Edwards Deming noted the importance of "driving out fear" in his quality teachings. He put his learnings together into a system of profound knowledge late in his career. Dr. Deming worked until weeks of his death at the age of 93.
Update 9-25-23: Musk's biographer paints a disturbing picture of his subject in an interview with Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington.
Update 3-7-24: Musk slammed MacKenzie Scott for donating to causes that advance women and minorities.
