The difference is those events were chosen. If you are forced to remain at your company (due to visa issues for example) being forced by your CEO to stay at work until 1am is atrocious.
This is not a profession where being at the office this late is the norm and it's not typical for the environment.
Twitter is not a startup in any way shape or form. It was clearly just valued at 44 billion dollars, no startup is worth that much ;).
This is an executive abusing his power, forcing individuals to do as they say. There is little choice and free will being exercised.
Maybe some of the people do want to be there and are happy to do so; I don't believe this is the case. It is naive to think it would be.
Hackathons, staying up late working on a passion or hobby by choice can be fun. Being forced to for your profession and by the new CEO who has fired and caused over 70% of the company to leave doesn't fall under that category.
All-hands-on-deck after hours work is ALWAYS done under duress.
Twitter itself has already been built. What new thing would they be building? A slightly different content moderation system? Slightly tweaked steps for verifying accounts? I'm not sure I see anything hardcore about any of this.
And no H-1B is not the reason. You can find new jobs under an H-1B. You're not restricted to a single company and can change companies.
The world seems to be full of these people. It’s hard to see a way out.
A startup sized team working on a platform with twitters scale for a boss with capital and a willingness to consider new ideas? Once in a lifetime opportunity.
Willingness to consider his new ideas. Not your new ideas. He's the idea man, your job is to implement it. And if you tell him why the idea may not work as intended, you're fired.
You're as important as him, regardless of your bank account.
(Just not sure if you’re aware.)
At a short notice summon the handful of engineers who survived the purges to the office at 2pm on a Friday and to bring 10 screenshots of code they've written "for review". With that implicit threat, have them wait until 6pm. Then keep them around until 1am to give a tutorial level introduction to the Twitter infrastructure to Musk (who could have gotten this months ago). There's just no legit justification for it; it's pure bullying and a loyalty test.
And then to top it off, have your pet venture capitalists post fawning tweets about how this really shows the classic SV energy.
I wasn't able to read many of the collapsed comments since I don't have a teamblind account. Is that actually the context of this picture then?
You got startup CEOs (not just Elon Musk brownnosers) talking about how some of the most innovative things get built at startups.
Which is true! Big, world-changing ideas, don't get built 9-5. And especially if you have some competitive advantage, you need to rush to market, to beat the others.
But Twitter is (was) a 40+ Billion dollar company. None of the people in this photo have any reasonable equity (the kind that makes people work nights and weekends in the hope that an IPO makes them a millionaire). And Twitter has a massive network effect of the kind meaning that if you don't screw it up (and god is Elon trying), none of these people are going anywhere.
I can understand that it's in Musk's interest to create a reality distortion field and convince the employees that they need to stay and go Hardcore so that he can create the American Weechat, or whatever he's got in mind.
But what do the other CEOs that are swooning over this have to gain except a dry run for also starting to treat their employees like garbage...
What if what he has in mind is attempting to undo the negative effects that social networks have had on our society and democracy and instead attempt to rebuild this particular network in a way that can have a positive effect on society? It seems like that is a technological possibility and also something he could plausibly be interested in.
And what about the positive effects that twitter was already having? I'm part of something adjacent to and with overlap into the canadian disability rights movements; they are devastated by what's happening with twitter and widely considered it to be a unique and unprecedentedly powerful space for community and organization for them. It's not all shitposts and fascism you know.
I'm sorry, is this a cult or a workplace? Why is this a good thing?
> This is how shared mental models are built, shit gets done
I get why Elon wants people to work until 1am, but what's in it for the employees? Why work 2x as hard and 2x as long and get 2x shit done if you're not getting paid 2x as much?
There are many contexts where some amount of suffering is a prerequisite for achieving great things. For example, from personal experience, both startups and mountaineering require some amount of suffering to achieve great things. The bonds formed from shared suffering are like top 25th percentile.
Shared mental models are built in tough times in the trenches,
The engineers chosen to be there! It’s not a slavery,
It’s like you said People just dont grasp Elon’s vision. I’m glad there’s someone who understands innately
I can't imagine there would be a large funnel looking to work there after this.
My note: I am aware of someone at Meta attempting to reach out to these folks to interview for offers to transfer their visas. Very kind of folks willing to do so.
Source: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...
Meta is firing 11K people and freezing hiring right now.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/meta-to-lay-off-more-than-11...
Twitter will bounce back. For the people who are staying, this is a giant career opportunity to get a good executive job as the result. I'd stay in a heartbeat, even if it means spending one terrible year or two there.
Like in this case.
Those who peaced out made the right decision. This is beyond office heroics or hustle porn - this is just a rich, long-time former coder, way out of his depth, trying to relive the former glory of the mad days of the Internet boom, abusing people because he is having fun with this.
But that's because I really enjoy watching weird shit happen, and there's so much weird shit happening there right now. It would be a win-win for me, odds are I'd emerge in a few months, maybe a year, with some great stories about watching a bizarre implosion of a foundational tech company as well as experience a billionaire self destructing. Or, way less likely, but possible I suppose, I would help that crazy billionaire reinvent the tech company and walk away pretty rich.
I don't think the time of day matters much. I've been in the office at that time of the day a number of times. As long as it's only an occasional thing it's fine.
This is nothing but ego and hubris still.
At a minimum, Musk should have done this _before_ deciding which 50% of the company to lay off, and then scaring the majority of the remainder with an ultimatum.
Musk has said Americans are lazy compared to those not in the US… Maybe that picture shows it… Work balance over changing the world type of work or your stuck cause no job your out of the country. Maybe it's a mix of both
Maybe musk could force more truth on the Internet, somehow through the blue checkmark and verification of each user… Create a reputation system, or may be crazy if you're going to spread lies how much of your own money you gonna back up that silly political lie with (so much drama in politics it driven by emotions more then logic).
Identifying what you want to fix should be written down but the structure of the app should not be what is being discussed at 1am
The only whiteboard I see is on the right hand side at the back, mostly obscured by people, and I certainly can't make out what's on it.
Electric cars, space travel, large-scale drilling, Twitter 2.0, etc. This is a man history will remember.
I’m not giving up time with kids and getting shot so boss can meet a deadline.
This ^ or the fact that such hours usually yield low productivity so are a waste of time. Working long hours just because is not my thing.
Unless I was given a ton of liquid equity for it, I would not assume it was in my best interest.
So you are the owner of the company? I was raised to put "our family" as a priority, and that means working for money, but doesn't include working like crazy and not getting compensated for it because it's in the best interest of "our company".
”I can’t do this because I have to be with my family in the evenings.”
”This sort of thing wouldn’t work for me due to commitments I’ve made outside work.”
”I personally wouldn’t do this.”
What you said instead is pretty packed in terms of a guns-blazin’ take which, while understandable here, reminds me of something much less constructive: how often I encounter people who share your sentiment at my current workplace.
Specifically, the tone with which you say it is what rings true. “We” instead of “I”, refuse-to instead of decline-to, poking at a lack of family or social life, and the need to tell everyone about a personal preference — reasonable in your case, in the context of a discussion, although I note yours is a top level comment so not exactly a reply to anything anyone here has said.
I think I understand the anger. Some people can’t take part in extra curricular work stuff, or want to express solidarity that would normally be expressed through a union, or feel that an employer who tolerates and even encourages work-outside-of-work is immoral and must be challenged.
These are valid feelings. They probably indicate being in the wrong field (bleeding edge knowledge work) or the wrong sized company (small, highly remunerated, with high growth expectations.) Neither of these apply to Twitter.
I agree, I wouldn't stay till 1am for anybody... but if the world's richest man just bought the company I worked for, then personally came to work with us through the night... I would definitely consider it (also not an Elon fan btw)
https://www.theblaze.com/news/twitter-day-in-life-video
Having worked in both types of environments, I can tell you only the 1am types survive and become profitable.
> She pans the camera to three women in a meeting room. She also shows several bookshelves filled with books, but otherwise shows nothing about the meetings they held or the "projects" they may or may not have been able "to knock out."
I mean, of course someone's not going to record an internal company meeting and post it on TikTok!
The number of people saying all of these completely unsubstantiated things about Twitter, and everyone believing them without any questions is weird.
In addition, how could this person know if mostly H1-B workers are present. I certainly can't tell who is and isn't on a H1-B. Or is it because the bulk of the people are not white that this person assumed they were? That seems like an immensely racist assumption.
Also, is nobody asking questions? I've seen multiple people doing so, including you.
Also, in your accusation of racism, you are making assumptions about assumptions.
Also, is positing that there are H1Bs among non-white tech workers "immensely racist", or is that dramatic?
What I see in the picture is organic connection. It's really easy in tech for everyone to get siloed, working on assigned tasks without communication. Greatness comes from the shared spark <and then> head down focus.
I bet elon is trying to recreate the environment that worked at paypal and tesla and spacex. Scrappy, energetic, get shit done, not 100 managers with 100 tiny fiefdoms.
It would seemingly be a huge gamble as to whether it is disorganized with constantly shifting priorities or increased operations overhead but if there is a vision and the plan is to go balls to the wall to get it done, that’s awesome.
