The Burn It Down Theory Of Management

The other day I noted that Elon seems to be making things up as he goes along with Twitter, and recent developments aren't changing my mind. This story goes into considerable detail about how last week's layoff process went down. Earlier, I quoted Musk on how if you think a policy would make a great Dilbert strip, it might be a bad policy, but the problem there is that Dilbert is supposed to be funny, and this saga is turning out to be anything but.

Friday’s layoffs had been brutal for all involved, including those involved in planning them — many of whom themselves lost their jobs. While the process varied by team, some managers were asked to submit to Musk’s team two sentences about all of their direct reports: one sentence explaining what the employee did, and one sentence justifying their continued employment at Twitter.

Wait a moment. "Those involved in planning them"? The new boss takes over and gives the company one week to lay off half its workforce? How do you "plan" any such thing?

As I was the first to report on Saturday, within hours of the layoffs, some managers were already being told to ask select laid-off employees if they wanted their old jobs back.

. . . “Sorry to @- everybody on the weekend but I wanted to pass along that we have the opportunity to ask folks that were left off if they will come back. I need to put together names and rationales by 4 PM PST on Sunday,” one such message from a manager to employees read. “I’ll do some research but if any of you have been in contact with folks who might come back and who we think will help us, please nominate before 4.”

. . . Some employees are nervous that if Twitter can’t get them to return voluntarily, the company will formally rescind the notice they received Friday laying them off. Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, businesses with more than 100 full-time employees are required to give 60 days notice if they lay off 33 percent or more of the staff. At Twitter, that notice included a promise to pay people for the next 60 days and give them a month of severance.

Now workers fear that if they they refuse to return voluntarily, Twitter will fire them for abandoning their jobs, depriving them of what otherwise would have been three months’ pay.

Some workers have begun to consult with lawyers over their options in the event that they are recalled. Others are in open revolt, tweeting public threads about various aspects of the organization that have been broken after the ready-fire-aim disaster of Musk’s layoffs process.

As of this morning,

Twitter’s most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner has departed the social media giant.

Kissner announced the move in a tweet on Thursday, saying they [sic] made the “hard decision” to leave Twitter, but did not say for what reason they resigned. Elon Musk completed a $44 billion takeover of Twitter two weeks ago, resulting in layoffs affecting more than half of the company and the departure of senior executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Legal Policy chief Vijaya Gadde.

News of Kissner’s departure was first reported by Casey Newton. Twitter’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran has also resigned, and reportedly so has chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty, according to Newton, citing messages shared in Twitter Slack.

Here I think there's a real probability that Musk is cutting meat. Cybersecurity is critically important to a social media company; you simply can't have the accounts of prominent people getting hacked, with the hackers using the online IDs of politicians, celebrities, and others to make posts that destroy their reputations. The mere inkling of any such risk will make people flee the platform. The most I can think is that before you replace the manager in charge of that team, you need to do a very, very careful review -- and I can't imagine that being done within a couple of weeks.

The same applies to compliance. Any corporation is bound by all sorts of government rules and regulations. Any sort of discontinuity, even just a perception, will hurt the company. Again, it's possible that everyone at the top is incompetent and needs to go, but at minimum, Musk has to maintain an impression of continuity. If the heads of cybersecurity and compliance quit in protest or frustration, though, so much the worse.

Nor do I find this reassuring: The Right Is Cheering Latest Twitter Move Concerning Head of 'Trust and Safety':

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, he seemed to give his imprimatur to Yoel Roth, the guy who had been the head of “Trust and Safety” for the site. “Trust and safety” dealt with things on the site like abuse, harassment, and “election security” in the past, before Musk came in.

But many pointed out to Musk that perhaps Roth wasn’t the best guy to render objective judgment on the platform, given the things that he has previously tweeted. They certainly indicate there could be a big problem in how he would exercise that judgment.

On Thursday, there were multiple reports that Roth, as well as the head of sales, Robin Wheeler, were no longer with the company.

. . . Did someone finally get the message that perhaps there could be a problem there? Folks on the right certainly found his leaving another positive sign.

So let me see. As of Monday, we had a reassuring tweet from Roth himself, which I linked here on Wednesday, that "trust and safety" were doing business as usual. This followed an October 31 tweet linked in the story from Musk expressing confidence in Roth. But by yesterday, that had all changed, and Roth was out the door. Maybe you can say that this shows Musk will listen, Musk will admit he's made mistakes, but why did Musk make a snap decision right after taking over that Roth was a good guy, but less than two weeks later, he was fired? Isn't there something wrong with this whole process?

And of course, Musk can change his mind again. He can still call up Roth over the weekend and threaten to revoke his severance if he doesn't report to work on Monday. If I were any of Musk's ten kids, I'd be looking to lock up my inheritance now.