Host of Uncanny Valley. Soon to be Director of Business & Industry at WIRED. Author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter.
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Mar 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
New: For months, Twitter has maintained a list of VIP users, including LeBron James, Glenn Greenwald, Ben Shapiro, AOC, and Marc Andreessen, that it monitors and gives increased visibility to on the platform. 1/ platformer.news/p/the-secret-l…
If Twitter engineers identify segments of the ranking system where tweets from these accounts are “dropping,” they can tweak the code to ensure the tweets are always shown. 2/
Mar 25, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Elon Musk sent Twitter employees an email about the state of Twitter 2.0. He acknowledged the company has been through a period of radical change but said the changes were necessary… 1/
Because Twitter was previously about 4 months away from running out of money. Now, he says, the financial incentives of employees should align with the company. 2/
Mar 14, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Microsoft laid off one of its responsible AI teams tasked with assessing the risks associated with integrating OpenAI’s technology into consumer products: platformer.news/p/microsoft-ju… 1/
Last year, Microsoft’s corporate VP of AI reorged the team, saying “the pressure from [CTO] Kevin [Scott] and [CEO] Satya [Nadella] is very very high to take these most recent openAI models and the ones that come after them and move them into customers hands at a very high speed”
Mar 9, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Twitter is rolling out its “freedom of speech but not freedom of reach” policy later this month, according to a Trust & Safety all hands meeting yesterday. 1/
This will result in more violative speech staying up — but without algorithmic amplification. 2/
Dec 13, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Twitter currently does not have admin access to some of its GitHub repos. These repos contain Twitter source code (much of it is open source; some is not). This includes code for companies Twitter acquired, like Smyte. 1/
Why? Well, the company fired a bunch of employees who had access. On Slack, one engineer said the TwitterDev org on GitHub has 519 members, most of whom do not work at Twitter anymore. Some still have owner permissions — like the ability to rename or delete an org entirely. 2/
Dec 10, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Elon Musk is threatening to sue Twitter employees who leak confidential information to the press. He's asking staffers to sign a pledge indicating they've understood. Here's the email:
As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company's interests and in violation of their NDA. 1/
Nov 29, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Twitter engineers have received another late night email laying out Elon Musk’s expectations. Managers are expected to “identify low performers on a regular basis.” Those employees then have “up to” 4-weeks to improve or they’re out. 1/
Software engineers and managers are expected to ship code every week. “Analytics, documentation…& helping teammates are considered a fundamental part of the job but not a replacement for writing code.” 2/
Nov 24, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hearing that roughly 50 Twitter engineers were abruptly fired last night and dozens more received warnings:
Like the other recent emails, this one was unsigned. It says simply: “as a result of the recent code review exercise, it has been determined that your code is not satisfactory, and we regret to inform you that your employment with Twitter is terminated effective immediately.”
Nov 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
New email from Elon Musk to engineers: “please be prepared to do brief code reviews as I’m walking around the office.”
That’s it — that’s the whole email.
The email was sent to all Twitter employees.
Nov 18, 2022 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Email from Elon to the engineering team: "Anyone who can actually write software, please report to the 10th floor at 2pm today. Before doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the past 6 months" 1/
Elon Musk is also asking for up 10 screenshots of the "most salient lines of code" from Twitter engineers 2/
Nov 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Twitter just alerted employees that effective immediately, all office buildings are temporarily closed and badge access is suspended. No details given as to why.
We're hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company. Also, they're still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for.
Nov 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
We’re hearing that a lot of Twitter employees have not signed Elon Musk’s hardcore job offer. Now, it appears he’s relaxing the remote work policy:
In the email, Elon Musk says Twitter employees can work remote if their manager says they're doing excellent work. But they have to attend in-person meetings "ideally weekly, but not less than once per month." Then comes the threat:
Nov 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Elon Musk sent Twitter staff an email with the subject line “a fork in the road.” He said: “to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mens working long hours at high intensity.” 1/
“Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. Twitter will be much more engineering driven. Design & product will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.” 2/
Nov 11, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Twitter has suspended the launch of Twitter Blue and is actively trying to stop people from subscribing "to help address impersonation issues," per an internal note. 1/
The announcement was posted on Slack: "An update on what we did tonight: hid the entry point to Twitter Blue, added the 'official' label for ONLY advertisers. Note: here is at least one way for users to sign up for Blue. Legacy Blue users can go to subscriptions and upgrade" 2/
Nov 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Elon Musk is doing an all hands with Twitter employees. They got a one hour notice and he showed up 15 minutes late.
Elon Musk just told Twitter staff: “If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted."
Nov 10, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: A senior member of Twitter’s legal team just posted this message in Slack:“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.”
“Twitter is a remote-first workplace, and has operated as such for years. It is a fundamental change to our employment contracts to require a 40hr a week in-office requirement. I do not, personally, believe that Twitter employees have an obligation to return to office.”
Sep 17, 2021 • 15 tweets • 2 min read
Here's what we're hearing from the Apple all hands this morning 🧵:
Tim Cook says women made up 50% of leadership new hires this year, but admitted there's more work to do.
Aug 31, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Apple employees were just barred from creating a Slack channel to discuss pay equity. Here's what Apple HR had to say about it: 1/
"Although this request is aligned with Apple’s commitment to pay equity, it doesn’t meet the requirement for Slack Terms of Use. Slack channels are provided to conduct Apple business & must advance the work, deliverables, or mission or Apple departments & teams." 2/
Aug 30, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
New: Apple employees say the company hasn't done enough to protect their personal privacy. Now, they're pushing back against norms & rules that encourage them to use personal Apple IDs & iCloud accounts for work — making it nearly impossible to keep personal & work files separate
Apple employees have to sign an employment agreement that gives the company the right to conduct extensive surveillance, and “search your workspace such as file cabinets, desks, and offices (even if locked), review phone records, or search any non-Apple property..."
Jul 27, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Apple's internal debate about remote work is continuing to rage. Here's a little thread with news that hasn't been reported yet:
The last letter Apple employees wrote advocating for remote work sparked a bit of controversy internally. It included a proposal for location-based pay cuts for fully remote employees. Some felt like this could unfairly disadvantage women and people of color.
