It’s like the internet — or rather the leadership running these platforms — never learns. Yahoo’s poor management of Tumblr led to the latter’s downfall, and now history is set to repeat itself. Following Elon Musk‘s ultimatum on that Twitter employees have to sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or leave, hundreds of key staff had reportedly left the company by the deadline of Thursday, 5pm ET (18 November, 6am SGT).
In a poll on the workplace app Blind, which verifies employees through their work email addresses and offers anonymity, 73 percent of nearly 250 individuals opted for the severance package over staying.
According to Kylie Robison, tech reporter at Fortune, the total headcount would be down 88 percent since Musk’s takeover if the reports are true. Twitter later notified remaining staff that it will close its offices and suspended badge access for employees. At the time of reporting, that’s currently underway and is expected to end on Monday (or Tuesday, for those in the Asia regions).
The departures include many engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages, leading to slow speeds on the internal version of the Twitter app used by employees. As per Reuters’ source, the platform is at risk of breaking as soon as tonight.
The exodus has prompted genuine fears over its survival for the long term, with the #RIPTwitter, #GoodByeTwitter, and many similar hashtags trending on the app-slash-website. Tumblr is also on the list, and it’s possible that users are looking to return to the once-thriving platform again.
In typical Twitter fashion, the latest event has spawned gallows humour and plenty of viral posts such as the following:
Of course, it’s entirely possible that Twitter will be all well and good, but with Musk at the helm, it will never be the same. We’re talking about the same man who fired (without warning) a veteran engineer who gave valid criticism on the company’s Slack channel, and have zero empathy or care for his employees, after all.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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