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Elon Musk’s latest actions are jeopardizing Twitter, experts say : NPR


People walk outside Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, Friday, November 4, 2022.

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People walk outside Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, Friday, November 4, 2022.

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Eric Frohnhoefer thinks his tweets are for the Twitter CEO (and boss) Elon Musk explains why having problems with the platform’s speed is innocuous enough.

musk tweeted“I want to apologize for Twitter being so slow in many countries,” blaming “poorly orchestrated RPCs” (remote process calls).

Frohnhoefer replied to this post and said the billionaire was confused about the cause of the slow application. He also suggested potential solutions.

Frohnhoefer was once a software engineer staff at the company for eight years, has specialized knowledge of Android system. In other words, he knows a thing or two about how the site works.

Frohnhoefer told NPR: “I feel like I haven’t crossed the line. I feel like I answered appropriately. And yes, they clearly saw it differently.”

There are several people on social media who have seen Frohnhoefer’s exchange with his boss and see it as problematic and possibly an offense that can result in dismissal. But Frohnhoefer notes that part of Twitter’s culture, at least before Musk, was about being able to flag issues and disagree when the company’s product has problems.

Musk clearly viewed it poorly. On Monday, Musk tweeted that Frohnhoefer was fired. Musk later deleted the tweet.

“So that’s how I found out. From that tweet,” he said.

Frohnhoefer learned about being fired by another colleague who saw Musk’s tweet. He verified with the company he left Twitter and that’s it.

The Twitter spokesperson could not be reached.

But Report from Platformer, speaking with Frohnhoefer for the first time, suggests he’s not the only one fired along these lines. The outlet said others were terminated for “their behaviour.”

In addition to this week’s public firing of Frohnhoefer, Musk also issued an ultimatum to the employee: They must commit to long, stressful hours in an “extremely demanding” company by Thursday afternoon or leave, with three months of severance.

An employment lawyer and tech PR expert told NPR that Musk’s latest, very public antics are not only hurting his employees, but also their ability to operate smoothly and efficiently. profit of the platform. Musk’s actions are also likely to cost the company more money and qualified talent in the long run.

“Creating an environment where workers are afraid to raise issues with a product for fear they will be fired by a tweet in the middle of the night will discourage people from wanting to work there,” said Catherine Fisk. , a professor of law at Harvard University. UC Berkeley Law School, said. “That wouldn’t encourage people there to want to dedicate themselves to the job or to question whether there’s a better way to get something done.”

Musk was fired for laying off a large portion of the workforce just a week after he took over. Twitter is sued one day before the worker is fired for fear that he or she will not receive the 60-day notice of dismissal required by law. (In fact, Twitter made a three-month severance offer.)

“He continues to act with blatant disregard for the engineers at Twitter,” said Ed Zitron, who runs a media consulting business for tech startups. “It’s remarkable that Twitter has remained active over the past few weeks, considering all the hype Musk has gone through.”

Elon Musk’s Twitter page is seen on a computer screen on April 25, 2022.

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Elon Musk’s Twitter page is seen on a computer screen on April 25, 2022.

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Employees care deeply about Twitter, says Frohnhoefer

Before Musk, Twitter has always been a place where employees care about the product, work hard, help each other, and try to do the right thing, Frohnhoefer said.

“If you think something is not right or not wrong, you say something. And if you think something needs to be done, you say something,” he said of the pre-Musks era. “I think anyone’s worldview about Twitter would be that we’re just a bunch of lazy people. But we work hard.”

After Musk took over, employees waited to learn about his next steps. The first communication the company received was about mass layoffs.

“No one signed [the email]”, he said. “That’s how they act cowardly and they clearly don’t trust us. And people don’t trust management. And it basically destroyed everything in less than two weeks.”

Frohnhoefer said his former colleagues are still looking for each other as many face life after Twitter.

“I know people choose to stay for a variety of reasons. But I know a lot of people who don’t have a visa, or they need to pay their bills, or they have a mortgage to pay,” he said – and they will move on. working at a very different Twitter.

Experts say Musk risks advertising dollars and employee benefits

Traders gather around a post as Twitter stock continues to trade on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on October 4, 2022.

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Traders gather around a post as Twitter stock continues to trade on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on October 4, 2022.

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Both Zitron and Fisk describe The way Musk has taken over Twitter is “crazy” and “crazy”.

The company’s financial outlook is bleak as many advertisers have “wait and see approach” That moment. Under Musk’s control, Negotiating about the company going bankrupt circulated.

“Advertisers are the only way back to Elon. If he can’t get those advertisers back, he’s dead,” Zitron said.

Musk’s new belief that employees should adopt a “hard” approach to work would make things worse, Zitron said.

“There’s a lot of research that says if you overwork people, it actually kills them,” he said. “And now he turns to the rest of them, many of whom I’m sure have a terrible survivor’s guilt, who have to sit there and work these obscene hours to creating products they know probably won’t generate the money Elon Musk needs to keep them employed.We’re looking at one of the worst financial deals in history, and possibly one one of the worst executives in history.”

Twitter has the potential to add more legal trouble to the mess, Fisk noted.

“We know that Twitter has been sued for this sudden layoff, which means that they will pay 60 days compensation to all the people who are laid off. That is a huge amount to pay the people who do. things that the company doesn’t do to get the benefit of,” she said. “And then you add arbitrary or retaliatory shootings, like [the Frohnhoefer firing] maybe.”

Notably California, there are labor laws makes it illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee, for a variety of reasons.

“That’s a lot of seemingly unnecessary litigation,” Fisk said.

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