Writes Kevin Roose in "Elon Musk, Management Guru? Why the Twitter owner’s ruthless, unsparing style has made him a hero to many bosses in Silicon Valley" (NYT).
The writer John Ganz has called this worldview 'bossism' — a belief that the people who build and run important tech companies have ceded too much power to the entitled, lazy, overly woke people who work for them and need to start clawing it back....
The writer and crypto founder Antonio García Martínez, for example, has hailed Mr. Musk’s Twitter takeover as 'a revolt by entrepreneurial capital' against the 'ESG grifters' and 'Skittles-hair people' who populate the rank and file at companies like Twitter...
They admire him for ruling Twitter with an iron fist and making the kinds of moves that tech executives have resisted for fear of alienating workers — cutting jobs, stripping away perks, punishing internal dissenters, resisting diversity and inclusion efforts, and forcing employees back to the office.
These bossists believe that for the past decade or so, a booming tech industry and a talent shortage forced many C.E.O.s to make unreasonable concessions.... perks like lavish meals and kombucha on tap... chat apps like Slack, which flattened office hierarchies and gave junior workers a way to directly challenge leadership.... D.E.I. workshops, flexible remote work policies, company wellness days... Instead of trying to ingratiate himself with Twitter’s workers, Mr. Musk fired many of them and dared the rest to quit....
For many people, Mr. Musk’s moves seemed like a case study in how not to manage a company. But for some Silicon Valley elites, they were a lightning bolt — a long-awaited answer to the question, 'What if we just treated workers … worse?'"
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118 comments:
They are rooting for him, but won’t go on the record? Inspiring.
"'a revolt by entrepreneurial capital' against the 'ESG grifters' and 'Skittles-hair people' who populate the rank and file at companies like Twitter..."
"...a booming tech industry and a talent shortage forced many C.E.O.s to make unreasonable concessions.... perks like lavish meals and kombucha on tap... chat apps like Slack, which flattened office hierarchies and gave junior workers a way to directly challenge leadership.... D.E.I. workshops, flexible remote work policies, company wellness days..."
"Also, bad men constantly seek the society of others and shun their own company, because when they are by themselves they recall much that was unpleasant in the past and anticipate the same in the future, whereas with other people they can forget. Moreover they feel no affection for themselves, because they have no lovable qualities. Hence such men do not enter into their own joys and sorrows, as there is civil war in their souls; one part of their nature, owing to depravity, is pained by abstinence from certain indulgences while another part is pleased by it; one part pulls them one way and another the other, as if dragging them asunder. Or if it be impossible to feel pain and pleasure at the same time, at all events after indulging in pleasure they regret it a little later, and wish they had never acquired a taste for such indulgences; since the bad are always changing their minds."
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 9, Chapter 4
Ruthless is an interesting word. As in, one without ruth, though you never hear it said that way. It's an archaic word that has lived on in its negative form. We still use all the root words of the other negative "lesses": Careless, helpless, homeless, worthless.
But now we only hear about the ruthless. So sad for ruth.
The NYT is apparently being run by the recent college graduates on the reportorial staff. How's that working out?
from the article: " But for some Silicon Valley elites, they were a lightning bolt — a long-awaited answer to the question, 'What if we just treated workers … worse?' This should read 'what if we treated workers - like employees'.
"What if we just treated workers … worse?"
LOL. What if we treated workers like... workers? The notion that people who don't run the company should... run the company... is bizarre.
In the 80s and 90s, I worked as a freelance techster for start-up law firms and tech companies. No intermediaries between me and the owners. Often, just me and four other guys. We got a lot done. Many of those start-ups later sold out to huge companies.
As soon as one of my clients started to develop a bureaucracy, i.e., hired an HR guy, I quit and moved on to the next one.
This was a great period in my life. No dealing with lazy, useless idiots. No rules except “Get the job done.” Great pay.
Employees, particularly entitled ones who want benefits and security, are useless pains in the ass. Best shunned.
This culture started back with Apple under Steve Jobs. He was fired way back when, the company nearly went bankrupt circa 1997, and it developed a reputation for 'failing to herd its cat-like employees.' Jobs was brought back for vision, had then had a string of wild successes including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Rainbow-logo proto-Woke Apple became the model for all others. Then Jobs died early because he treated his cancer with a loony fruit diet.
Silicon Valley gets like this when the creatives have a winning streak and confuse their current efforts with the general technology of the era, efforts that were already in progress, and their prior successes. Don't rest on your laurels or Woke results.
"...the entitled, lazy, overly woke people who work for them..."
Although the "work" idea is lost on some of them, too.
Anyone who grew up in a large law firm in the 1970s and 1980s knows that the work doesn't get done by itself, and if you won't do it, someone else wants to and will.
For too long tech companies have been run by a bunch of baboons at the bottom of the totem pole and oblivious upper level folks with a short attention span. Looks like a course correction to me.
So, its a return sanity then? The coming economic apocalypse is going to make it imperative that companies cut cost. So, its time to fire the unproductive and useless. And why do you think companies are abandoning the requirement for bachelor's degrees? It allows them to hire employees that have not been indoctrinated into woke nonsense for four years. People with degrees in various 'studies' are worse than useless, and nobody is going to pay anyone to sit on a committee which puts out a report that tells everyone that the terms "whitelist" and "blacklist" are racist and they should use the terms "allow list" and "deny list."
" ... I've been surprised ... "
Shows how far the NYTs' fingers are from the pulse of successful business.
a belief that the people who build and run important tech companies have ceded too much power to the entitled, lazy, overly woke people who work for them and need to start clawing it back
Sounds like the same thing that has happened on college campuses. The tax and tuition payers have ceded too much ground to the boated number of woke administrators. Their presence drives up cost and student debt, while at the same time lowering the real educational value of a degree. That's why colleges concentrate on selling prestige instead of knowledge.
Colleges should clean house too. Of course the Ivory Tower liberal shrieking would be unbearable. Problem is where do you put all the displaced people who are part of the bloat? I'm not sure they are willing to get real jobs.
The new Trump for a new year.
Nope. The true mantra is “What if we just treated workers … like workers?”
A dippy young college hire who was onboarded three weeks ago should not be directly challenging corporate leadership. He or she should be endeavoring to convince their direct supervisor that they were not a hiring mistake.
The writer and crypto founder Antonio García Martínez, for example, has hailed Mr. Musk’s Twitter takeover as 'a revolt by entrepreneurial capital' against the 'ESG grifters' and 'Skittles-hair people' who populate the rank and file at companies like Twitter...
Twitter was particularly egregious because so many of its employees had no coding skills(!) and the employees were doing a job -- censoring people -- that anybody with a high school degree could do. You don't need to go to Harvard to learn how to shut people up.
I remember hearing a talk by Tom Ricketts, whose family bought the Chicago Cubs from the Tribune Company. He described the situation when they took ownership as like trying the clear the world's worst house party: the door was open and the windows were broken, the curtains were pulled off the walls, there were people passed out on sofas, people draining some half-empty bottles of whiskey in the music room, people whose names you didn't know and people who didn't know their own names, the pitching staff was in tatters, and you had Alfonso Soriano in left field riding out an 8-year, $136 million contract.
Twitter was rather like that when Musk showed up, "one person coding, ten people managing."
In other words, Musk is not letting the inmates run the asylum.
$44 billion experiment in labor relations. What they really want to see is Delaware Chancery Court approve his $55 billion Tesla compensation package.
Harsh management style? What a bunch of pussies journalists are now. They’d shit their pants reporting on Chainsaw Al or any of the managers in Romney’s old gig. Three month severance ain’t harsh in historical terms. But then business reporting always has the vibe like the writers were born yesterday and in Rhodes’ famous summation “they LITERALLY know nothing.”
Just noticed “ruthless” in the NYT headline. Need I say more?
You know what “harsh management” really looks like?
“Get the jab or lose your job,” is what it looks like. “Forego your hard-earned Air Force pension and go penniless” is pretty fucking harsh.
We'll see. All in good time.
I didn't "click for more", because it is the NYT. I haven't seen a history of accurate reporting on Elon Musk from the newspaper, and the reason is the overt bias provided in the headlined pull quote: "I've been surprised by how many are rooting for Mr. Musk". The NYT went looking for a negative story because they believed one was out there.
"As I've called around"
I'm stumped that anyone would take his calls. Or any phone calls. Whatever happened to "Tell him I'm busy"?
Musk is running several start-up companies simultaneously, so he still has that start-up mentality of people working very hard, not getting paid a lot of money, but getting stock options that might prove super-valuable down the road.
That's his mindset. So you can see why he'd be annoyed with people getting paid a lot of money to do easy work.
And censoring people is easy as shit!
Any MLB team that doesn't have someone who can hit 60 home runs in a season is Ruthless.
a long-awaited answer to the question, 'What if we just treated workers … worse?'"
After owning and running a small business (40 employees) for 45 years I'm mystified by this sentence. It's obvious the writer has zero knowledge nor experience.
I see this as a revolt against Woke politics, but also a revolt against the Ivies and useless degrees that cost a lot of money.
When Musk was 24 he moved to California to attend Stanford University. After two days, he dropped out. Co-founded an online city guide software company, Zip2. Four years later he sold it to Compaq for $307 million.
I read the history to mean that he felt that Stanford wasn't teaching him anything, and he had no patience for it. (Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard for similar reasons).
I can see why he'd be impatient with employees who stayed to get that Ivy League degree so they could be paid $200,000 a year to preach the Woke gospel.
What courage! A few days ago, we’re treated to M. 0bama’s “dressing with a new sense of freedom” and today hear of the brave Captains of Commerce who support Musk but won’t go on the record.
Yay Democrats!
and "deny list."
The preferred term is "blocklist".
They are rooting for him, but won’t go on the record? Inspiring.
Would you like to be treated the way Musk is being treated?
As usual, the legacy media isn't entirely to be trusted, but there's a cycle at work here. "Bosses" and owners can be arbitrary and quirky, so managers step in and rule by consensus. The consensus becomes conformist and cowardly, so there's something to be said for the bosses and owners coming back -- until they overstep again and it's the managers' turn once more.
Last month or so, you posted an article that portrayed this conflict as a class struggle between the privileged bosses and the downtrodden employees, but in organizations like Twitter or the Times, everyone in managerial positions, everybody not actually blue collar or clerical or janitorial, is pretty darned privileged, and the organizations themselves are highly privileged filters for what people learn about the world. But today's left is more focused on what entry-level journalists living in Brooklyn think and feel and want than on the rest of society.
But as I’ve called around to C-suite executives and influential investors in Silicon Valley over the past few weeks, I’ve been surprised by how many are rooting for Mr. Musk
The Woke mob is powerful and a huge pain in the ass. Challenge them and you'll be called fascist, racist, sexist, and your reputation will be destroyed. Character assassination is what they do best.
I wonder how many people at the NYT wish their bosses would be tougher with the Woke mob?
"What if we just treated workers … worse?"
You mean, like, they have to produce or something? Show up for work? Ditch the prog shenanigans?
Readering: "$44 billion experiment in labor relations."
$44B exercise in maintaining freedom of speech despite the opposition of the New Soviet Democraticals.
And if you were wondering how it's going so far:
Is Tesla stock a Buy, Sell or Hold?
"Tesla stock has received a consensus rating of buy. The average rating score is and is based on 60 buy ratings, 24 hold ratings, and 13 sell ratings."
That's on top of a 2021 2-for-1 split AND a 2022 3-for-1 split with a current stock price of around $150 (it was around $400 before the 3-for-1 split this year).
Here's a bit more:
"What are analysts forecasts for Tesla stock?
The 97 analysts offering price forecasts for Tesla have a median target of 769.07, with a high estimate of 1,580.00 and a low estimate of 155.00."
PM: "The new Trump for a new year."
The lefty media know the formula to turn their GOPe squish allies against anyone if the lefties just keep pushing hard enough.
Thanks to BarrySanders20
I looked up the story of Ruth. She is revered because of her kindness and loyalty to her mother in law--well after her obligations had ceased.
I'm pretty sure that had Ruth been as loyal to a man, feminists would trash her as lacking in self-worth. Who knows, maybe they still would, even though her loyalty was to a fellow woman.
From a Housman poem
"Some with ruth and some envy come"
There's lot's of envy about just now and perhaps a shortage of ruth, although I don't the majority of dismissed Twitter employees are deserving of much ruth.
I bet they don't like all the attention he's drawing to the tracking of private jets.
It's not always possible to use the law firm mantra "eat what you kill" when there are pockets in corporate structures where output is difficult to measure.
That said the other corporate mantra "You manage what you can measure" is useful. If you can't measure someone's output, then show them the door. They are not doing anything useful for you.
Given the recent round of layoffs in tech, for which other companies were happy to be able to use the drama at Twitter as cover, I suspect a reckoning was a long-time coming in that industry.
A lot of these companies are using Musk as cover to fire a bunch of their grifters. WaPo, yesterday. They are going to be more polite about it than Musk, who pretty clear said, The people I am firing are the useless ones.
Leave quietly, employees, if you are wise, or your employers will explain why. But they are not the least bit wise.
Interesting. A couple days ago, Scott Adams was saying how he finds none of his wealthy, CA neighbors support "Woke"....privately. But they adhere to the catechism in public comments. So don't think these Silicon Valley people won't be at the front of the mob when it comes for you if you speak out of turn.
Jack Welch to the white courtesy phone please.
All small companies that grow large go through the bloat phase. Where the founders hire their friends into do nothing VP jobs, waiting for the buyout cash out. Also the lower tiers are flooded with zero-marginal-productivity workers who float on the strong cash position of the firm.
The cleanup happens when either the firm is bought or the cash starts to dry up.
Twitter is nothing special. Our media just thinks it is gossip worthy.
Blogger Readering said...
I bet they don't like all the attention he's drawing to the tracking of private jets.
Did you mean John Kerry or Pete Buttplug ? I think Musk, like Trump, is paying his own bills.
"Employees, particularly entitled ones who want benefits and security, are useless pains in the ass. Best shunned."
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason. We need to return to making employees into indentured servants. That'll make 'em man up!
Off topic (But whatever):
I've been wondering about the Trump NFT thing. It occurs to me that, while if he used it to raise campaign funds it would seem to be a likely basis for an inevitable claim (and in Trump's case, an inevitable prosecution, impeachment, banishment, tarring and feathering, and whatever else they can come up with), he can use it to pay for legal defense fees for the many lawfare prosecutions and suits that they are pursuing and will pursue, as well as legal fees for his own lawsuits. And those who want to support him but want to do so anonymously or without running afoul of campaign finance laws can do so.
And he's trolling everyone while doing it.
Just a thought.
My last wasn't entirely off topic, because it relates to people with lots of $$ who support Trump but don't want to get cancelled. Like the people who support Musk but don't want to get cancelled.
Drago, thanks for the investing advice. Trying to recall last time I saw forecast range between $155 and $1580. Compare to $99 NFT....
Squirrel!
Both magicians and con artists use diverse and subtle tools to convince us of the miracles they seemingly perform, but the one indispensable method they all share is misdirection.
John Ganz is participating in a misdirection operation, energetically pointing at an irrelevancy in order to distract us from the disgusting story of corruption and criminality Elon Musk continues to expose. It's a desperation move intended to buy a little time while NYT's army of lawyers creates an obfuscation strategy ahead of the Congressional hearings on the Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy set to open in a matter of weeks.
RNB writes, "The NYT is apparently being run by the recent college graduates on the reportorial staff. How's that working out?"
One assumes they're having a lot of trouble making their verbs and pronouns agree.
Yes. Elon Musk is doing what so many are going to have to do moving forward. The 'heady' days of exorbitant salaries, multiple chefs for meals, slack work days- or nights- or whenever, and a questionable productivity level are over. The reason? The days of overvaluation of tech start ups is over. And the stock pricing for existing companies is going to quickly start reflecting reality for many of these companies. What follows is that start ups will be facing lowered valuations as they move forward, and therefore will have lowered amounts of capital infused. And the existing companies are going to have to produce strong bottom lines to fight for the investor dollars.
Play days are over and it's going to be a shock to an entire generation of entitled people with degrees that are tech-directed. Tech will still pay well. But it'll come back to earth. And 50 or 60 hour work weeks will not be so rare. Like any small businesses, it'll be those who put in the work that make their place. And the companies that run a tight operation will be the ones who not only survive, but attract investor dollars.
Musk is running a business. Not a daycare center.
"For many people, Mr. Musk’s moves seemed like a case study in how not to manage a company."
Is that like Obama's, "Many people say"... BS?
Yeah, that Musk couldn't run a lemonade stand.... unless it also sold the top EV, launched rockets or a satalite communication system the likes of which have never been seen.
What a loser.
That reporter ought start a few companies and show him how it's done. Start with HR and a well staffed Rquity Department.
Labor arbitrage. Environmental arbitrage. Redistributive change. DIE. Now, they care.
Labor arbitrage. Environmental arbitrage. Immigration reform. Coups without borders. Redistributive change. Progressive prices. Political congruence. DIE. Now, they care.
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits,
Always useful to see the Marxist point of view.
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason.
If they are actually contributing to the employer's profits then they aren't very likely to be "fired for any or no reason."
I remember reading an article, way back during the dot com craze, where a venture capitalist stated that one of the things he looked at when evaluating a start-up was its facilities. If the start-up's management was spending money on expensive furniture and paying high rent so that they could be in a prestige area he figured they didn't have their priorities straight and gave them a pass.
What a bunch of cucks.
Readering: "Drago, thanks for the investing advice. Trying to recall last time I saw forecast range between $155 and $1580.
Sorry to hear risk profiles frighten and confuse you.
readering: "Compare to $99 NFT...."
Why?
I'm starting to understand better why investment assessments and strategies flummox you so.
In previous economic downturns the bratty relentless entitled staff would have been the bad guys…
In previous economic downturns the bratty relentless entitled staff would have been the bad guys…
Michael K: thought of applying to write headlines for Breitbart or alt-right site?
"Always useful to see the Marxist point of view."
I knew the Dyspeptic Doc would stand up firmly for indentured servitude!
Cowards. We have all become cowards when faced with the current stasi we have allowed to fester. Rough times ahead, thank god for courageous men and women like Musk and JK Rowling.
And yet no reporting on the Twitter files. Why anyone would support the NYTines propaganda rag is beyond me.
Readering said...
Drago, thanks for the investing advice. Trying to recall last time I saw forecast range between $155 and $1580. Compare to $99 NFT....
Go back and re read what he wrote. It wasn't advice.
"If they are actually contributing to the employer's profits then they aren't very likely to be 'fired for any or no reason.'"
Do you think when companies execute mass layoffs/firings, they're actually examining each individual to determine who deserves to be made redundant and who to keep? (If so, I've got some extra-special, ultra-rare Trump grift cards to sell you at below cost.)
The business of business is still about making $. Twitter and companies going woke have forgotten that, at their peril.
Not only were there thousands of useless employees, Twitter was incredibly, terribly, badly run. I came across tweets from Avid Halaby with the details. Employees were allowed to install their own software, including spyware. There was no development cycle for software, despite the claims by company officials. Coders were modifying software on the fly in live systems (instead of sandboxing it to root out the bugs, then introducing it into the system). Governments such as India forced Twitter to hire their own agents with access to sensitive parts of the infrastructure.
Amazing.
https://twitter.com/AvidHalaby/status/1602128747225923585
Robert Cook said...
"Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits..."
It looks like Elon is doing exactly what you recommend. Those who contribute negatively can expect to become un-compensated.
Someone I know asked several tech guys at Twitter what they thought of Twitter under Musk. All like it better. Said they actually get to do their jobs and not spend half of every day in pointless meetings. All are politically left too.
Musk is going to prove that "one man with courage makes a majority". Being a big believer in the pendulum-like swings of history I believe that Musk's acquisition and management of Twitter will be noted as the moment when the current liberal madness of trans this and that, wokeism, willingness to put up with antifa, difference of opinion as "disinformation", suppression of "misinformation, etc. began to recede and 'normal" people began to take back control of the polity.
If Musk could fire 90% of employees without bringing the site down it's a sign that Twitter was EXTREMELY poorly managed before he took over. One doubts the rest of the Tech sector performs much better.
Robert Cook said...
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason. We need to return to making employees into indentured servants. That'll make 'em man up!
Employers do not enjoy firing employees that actually contribute to their profits.
That would be really stupid.
There are some stupid employers but they go out of business pretty quick.
Mostly the problem is you are just generally ignorant of how business actually works just like everything else in the world.
And then when your stupid policies that you generated out of ignorance fail you marxists just tent to start killing people.
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason. We need to return to making employees into indentured servants. That'll make 'em man up!
If the boss and/or job is so bad, nobody's forcing them to stay, Cook.
Why should I - as the owner - suffer because of shitty, lazy or worthless employees? I owe them nothing but a paycheck for work performed. If that's not good enough? They're more than welcome to hit the road for something better.
You have this entire employer/employee thing completely backasswards.
compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits
Twitter lost $220m over 2021, which was better than the $1b loss over 2020. 2019 was their last profitable year.
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason.
@Cookie, and what if their contributions net out to zero, or even negative? Would it be okay in your view if the corporation proceeded to claw back the value of the salary snd benefits of these individuals who are a net drag on the enterprise?
It's funny that the same people who purport to support labor as a core value also support the importation of millions of scabs per year over our open border, willing to do the work Americans won't do for the wages on offer.
Ruthless and unsparing. You mean he's union busting like Bezos Or shutting down coffe shops that unionize like starbucks. Or importing cheap labor via massive, million per year immigrants and illegal aliens?
Suddenly, the liberal/left doesn't like Billionaires. Gosh, how Amazing.
“Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits,”
A couple weeks ago, an employee posted a video about a Day at Twitter. Between the stops for yoga, visits to the red wine tap, and meetings for the sake of meetings, how much work was actually being accomplished? How much profit was that employee generating? How representative was that employee of the former cast of thousands “working” at Twitter?
As someone who grew up in a small law firm in the '70s and '80s, the work doesn't get done by itself. I would think there are more places to "hide", the larger the firm.
Blogger Ron Winkleheimer said...
. . .
If they are actually contributing to the employer's profits then they aren't very likely to be "fired for any or no reason."
. . .
You never want to be a seller in a commodity market. This is because the only basis on which you can compete in a commodity market is with price.
Businesses want to buy labor as a commodity, while businesses will go to great lengths to avoid selling in a commodity market. They want to sell their product as a monopoly (copyright, trademark, and patents grant a limited monopoly to the seller). Businesses will work very, very hard to avoid selling in a market where they can only compete on the basis of price.
This is what I learned in a class that was literally called Econ 101.
Most Americans may not know this but the Feds require large companies to file annual reports showing a racial breakdown of employees, including the count of Blacks and other minorities in managerial jobs.
I don't know what happens if a "bad" report is filed (such as zero Blacks in management) but I'm sure it isn't pretty.
Many people may not know that large US companies need to file a report annually with the Feds showing the racial breakdown of employees, including how many Blacks hold management jobs.
Don't know what happens if you report zero Bs in management but it cannot be good.
They are not "treating workers worse." They are treating them like mature adults instead of the perpetual adolescents they have been allowed to become. If "boss-ism" can cause a whole generation (or two) of what should be our best and brightest to grow TF up, there may be hope for the Country yet.
I know that when I'm looking for advice on how to run a business, I rely on Marxist fools like Comrade Marvin instead of a man who has literally built 6 successful businesses from scratch, one of which sold for $300 million, one sold for over a billion dollars, and the remaining four are worth at least $200 billion in current net worth while becoming the world's richest man along the way.
The EEOC is already planning how they are going to rein him in.
Companies can, when doing large employment reductions, cut muscle rather than fat, but in general, this isn't the way it actually works out. In any organization, it actually isn't hard to figure out who is doing profitable work and who isn't. If you got fired, it is far more likely than not that you were a net drain on the company's cash flow.
Robert Cook- do you work in government?
Economics tells you that if you pay workers $10/hour, you will get an average of $10/hour worth of labor out of them, all else being equal. Some employers try to to add value to their workforce by continually firing the bottom performers. If the scheme works, employers might push the average value that they get from their work force above $10/hour, in the short term. But in the long term, the workers, who realize that they are doing work that should be paid $10.50/hour will quit and go to work for a more generous employer. Another lesson from econ 101.
The course textbook, when it described management/labor relations, took it for granted that management and labor worked at cross purposes. It was a generic textbook, MacMillan or something like that published in the 1990s. It was very pro market.
There is a sentimental view that management & labor have the same goals -- prosperity -- so they are not rivals but partners.
In reality this is not true.
Management and labor are no more partners than you are partners with the bank when you negotiate a mortgage.
Robert Cook said...
"Employees, particularly entitled ones who want benefits and security, are useless pains in the ass. Best shunned."
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits,
The point is that they make NO "contributions to the employer's profits", but they expect to get paid well and treated with respect they've never earned.
And Musk is calling BS on it
"Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason."
Would these be employees who expect to be able to quit the job (IOW- instant dismissal of their employer at any time) for any or no reason?
Asking for a friend...
Cook sez..
indentured servitude!
I like reading Cook's comments. It's a window on what is being taught (or not taught) in schools today.
James Graham @ 5:00 PM: "Many people may not know that large US companies need to file a report annually with the Feds showing the racial breakdown of employees, including how many Blacks hold management jobs.
Don't know what happens if you report zero Bs in management but it cannot be good."
I don't see the problem. Isn't one's race a matter to be determined by oneself, never mind extrinsic evidence? When it comes time to fill in the report, just cruise the C Suites and determine who is self-identifying as Black, Hispanic, Trobriand Islander, etc. For extra points, get people on the spectrum, sexually confused, etc.
Who's going to challenge you? How dare they!
Posted elsewhere...
Leftists in 2020: We need a recession to defeat Trump.
Leftists in 2022: You're firing me ?!
“Leftists in 2020: We need a recession to defeat Trump.
Leftists in 2022: You're firing me ?!”
Very perceptive. This in fact lead to the next recession.
I knew the Dyspeptic Doc would stand up firmly for indentured servitude!
I used to have some respect for your opinions Cook because you are not just a simple minded Democrat shill. There is a superficial layer of intellectual honesty to your comments.
However, it is pretty clear that you are a well meaning socialist (i.e, a Communist with manners and a good line of bullshit) who plays the propaganda game fairly well.
I am glad that I am getting older. You guys will turn us into Soviet Russia in the next 20 years.
Enjoy!
Before I became self-employed, I used to regularly fill out those race reports saying the workforce was 100% human race. I don't never heard anything about it. I suspect those reports which are filled in by hand are in a big warehouse somewhere and there's an someone earnestly trying to figure out how to convert the information to some useful form under the supervision of a political appointee who rarely comes to the office.
I like reading Cook's comments. Good ratio of instigation to information.
"Twitter’s new headquarters is the first workspace designed specifically for the company, with the intent to reflect and nurture the Twitter culture, enable creativity, and appeal directly to Twitter’s bright and passionate staff. The multi-story location gives a new twist to the term “urban campus” and sets the bar for all comers.
The space is subtly branded throughout with the use of the Twitter logo and signature blue, natural wood, and a frequent twig motif. The once cavernous open space, including the building’s original concrete columns, has become a great expanse of white benching systems, punctuated with informal seating areas, large and small conference rooms, break areas with pantries, banquettes, and easily reconfigured lounge areas, all complimented by art from local artists. A yoga studio, fitness room, and two very popular game rooms are also part of the mix. This variety of options takes full advantage of the huge floor plates and natural light at the window walls. The overall effect is edgy yet polished, complimented by an array of art by local artists.
An enormous cafeteria and gathering space known as the Commons offers an impressive menu and includes a stage for group meetings and entertainment. It opens onto the park-like roof garden that covers almost half an acre and offers impressive skyline views – a great place to hang out by day (blankets provided for those chilly Bay Area afternoons) and a dramatic venue for nighttime events."
https://officesnapshots.com/2014/01/21/inside-twitters-san-francisco-headquarters/
"Twitter, Inc. Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. Twitter, Inc. is based in San Francisco, California and has more than 25 offices around the world."
The perfect employee would be paid just enough for them to to remain physically healthy such that they keep maximizing work output. And they’d only stop working just enough such that their brains keep maximizing work output, instead of them being too tired or mentally ruined such that they don’t maximize work output.
Sure it sux for employers when employees are, for one reason or another, able to diverge from this ideal. But Roose thinks this is news?
Yes, how selfish and unreasonable are employees who expect to be decently compensated for their contributions to the employer's profits, without worry of instant dismissal at any time for any or no reason. We need to return to making employees into indentured servants. That'll make 'em man up!
Way late to the party, but -
Cook, you are (as is often the case with those seduced by the Marxist line) confusing "contributions" (which are too often measured in units of time and "effort") with profits. If your "contribution" does not directly redound to the bottom line, you are not a profit center. That's fine, but it's not the same as being a profit center.
I have worked as a not-profit center: I did environmental work, required by law and regulation, for a small oil and gas jobber (meaning they didn't drill or refine, they distributed petro products). My job was to minimize the cost to my company of work required to keep the company in compliance with state and federal environmental laws and regulations.
At no time did I consider that I had a claim on the company's profits - I don't even know whether they turned a profit. My job was to keep the execs out of jail and the company from paying punitive fines. They paid me sufficiently, in the field I chose, to do with they needed me to do. I did that work. They paid me for it. They didn't fire me, in fact - as I said - they paid me well, because I was a necessary evil, and I knew what my purpose was.
HR, at Twitter, should have restrained itself to that which is required by statute, and to that which was needed to retain critical employees. It's quite clear that they didn't. Things like that "safety" group - they were just redefining words to make themselves appear necessary.
The numbers being what they were, maybe some wheat was caught up with the chaff. But it seems pretty clear that Musk was clearing chaff.
Dude1394 said...
And yet no reporting on the Twitter files. Why anyone would support the NYTimes propaganda rag is beyond me.
*************
Yet it and WaPo are Miss Ann's go-to sites when she returns breathless from her morning runs.
Go figure.
Readering: "I like reading Cook's comments. Good ratio of instigation to information."
Leftist praises marxist's "contributions".
I did not see that coming....
What a ridiculous article. Demanding that people be good at their job is a good thing.
As Ace likes to say, all these grifters needed a Trump Economy so companies could afford no-work jobs. They ain't liking the Biden economy they created very well.
Jamie @ 11:47: great comment.
Agree with Owe wrt to Jamie. I’ve also worked oil and gas. They pay very well, but that pay is an agreement. The only compensation based on profit is if they don’t make any, they don’t compensate you. They lay you off. Twitter wasn’t making a profit. It was sold at a fraction of earlier valuation. People are losing their job because they did not contribute to Twitter.
Management and labor are no more partners than you are partners with the bank when you negotiate a mortgage.
What burns my ass is how Marxists are oblivious -- utterly oblivious -- to how the American model has turned workers into owners.
Many workers own shares in their company. While I haven't read any of Marx's literary output -- I don't have time to read stuff that got millions of people killed -- it's simply wrong to say that workers never "own the means of production." Hello! Stock options!
I'm a capitalist and I love the entrepreneur model of rich people risking their capital to bring new companies (and jobs) into existence. They do this way, way, way, way better than governments who risk other people's money and don't give a shit how much money they lose.
Capitalists like Musk try to reduce risk by paying smart people a lower wage. And they pull that off by sharing ownership (i.e. giving stock options to high-value employees). This union of management and labor gives all the players the same motivation. If the company succeeds and profits, the stock price will go up, and we will all profit together.
Tesla, for instance, is an automaker that employs over 100,000 people and uses stock options to motivate them. No union at Tesla, which is typical of tech companies in general.
You would think Marxists would love stock options and be 100% behind the idea of workers owning shares of the company where they work. It's a genuine insight to recognize that ownership is the path to major wealth.
Marx and Engels, in fact, both owned stocks(!)
What's nice about taking an ownership stake in a company is that you soon realize you could lose your capital. This is the same fate that happens to capitalists every day. Unfortunately your average Marxist is oblivious to the risks in starting up a company and paying wages to workers. In other words, simply owning "the means of production" doesn't actually mean you will become rich. You have to compete and win against other players. And it's far, far better to be unified in that task, as opposed to the civil war of union battles and office politics.
If they can defeat the skittle haired people -- what a saver that line is -- good people can get back to their job definitions.
Which is all anyone wants.
Backstory: my brilliant dad, abandoned as an infant to a Dickensian orphanage/workhouse in Rochester (yes, they existed that recently), lived in a freezing barn and worked fields.
He was a white cis male, so of course he wasn't oppressed or anything. He punched the clock and feared complaining so he could raise his family and support his disabled son. And he was also disabled.
33 fucking years of submission, of earned but denied advancement, and increasingly grotesque abuse for being white and male and heterosexual that ate at his soul and tortured him and ruined his chances to advance by hard work and merit. So I'm sorry, Ann, when you find fleeting ghost pseudo-homophobia in a Breitbart headline. Get the fuck over it: you and your children are in the protected, lucky, identity privileged class grossly overpaid with our hard-earned tax dollars for much easier work with unbelievable amounts of time off.
His lack of credentials, a GED, Navy, and no college, stunted him for 33 years and threatened his employment, though he came from a long line of physicists (male and female) and academic (no surprise there) mathematicians who lacked the heart to take him in but rose to the Manhattan Project and other honors, as he watched pathetic, vicious and incompetent affirmative action hires advance at IBM and boss him around and poach his work.
He never complained. Your classical liberal pseudo-meritocracy presumptions have hidden behind your cushy lifestyle without facing the reality of the harm you have done to keep the flim-flam going to your benefit (benefits) until you retired.
And even now you express no comprehension of how credentialism grossly warped by reverse racism has destroyed America. As it benefited you to keep quiet all those years, and as you and your peers did, including most suddenly-iconoclast, conveniently retired tenured academicians riding the current waves available on the Right (oh sorry, "independent") than I can count.
You had the unique job protection and affluence and skills to speak out. You didn't until you retired, fat and happy on the taxpayer's dime, including yours, but, come on. You had power and a front seat to the destruction of academia, and you did nothing brave that you have ever mentioned. You cowered. There is nothing objective about this; it is indeed cruel, but that's just a typical law professor, emotional smoke shield. Reality lived outside your classroom.
Try to fix what you failed to do then, now. Please. Musk is half-cocked but it's better than spinelessness or toxic faux objectivity.
"The point is that they make NO 'contributions to the employer's profits," but they expect to get paid well and treated with respect they've never earned."
The work of every employee contributes to the employer's profits.
Who are you referring to who have not earned respect? Some particular individuals? I'm talking about employees/employers in a general sense, not referring to a particular situation. This aside, any person deemed worthy of hire is presumed to be worthy of respect...until they prove through poor job performance that respect should be withdrawn and their employment terminated.
"The work of every employee contributes to the employer's profits."
That's a howler! It's the kind of thing an employee in HR would write, without a hint of irony. If you want to see lots of employees who do not contribute to the employer's profits, go to the HR department. Their main function is to impose useless bullshit and meetings on productive people, and hire more people with bullshit titles to do the same.
"Would these be employees who expect to be able to quit the job (IOW- instant dismissal of their employer at any time) for any or no reason?"
Responsible and conscientious workers give their employers advance notice they will be leaving. Some employers will ask them to leave immediately, others will have them work out their time.
"Twitter lost $220m over 2021, which was better than the $1b loss over 2020. 2019 was their last profitable year."
Sounds like terrible management, or a bad business plan. (How does Twitter make money? I'm not a user of Twitter and have no interest in it.)
"How does Twitter make money?"
It doesn't, but its primary business, like all social media, is advertising. Social media also serves an important function as a censorship platform, and quite often that role takes precedence over "making money."
Interesting take by the writer - "...What if we just treated workers … worse?" That's one point of view. What if Musk had not purchased the company and it went on to declare itself bankrupt and filed for Ch. 11? Probably end of everything Twitter. The entire "Progressive Cult" is not only undermining America's Economic System but also has made CEOs overpaid because they are afraid of making the hard decisions. Not one word from this so-called journalist that despite over half of Twitters employees being fired, Twitter seems to be thriving pretty good so far. Any comments on that key point "journalist" - LOL.
Robert Cook said...
Me: "The point is that they make NO 'contributions to the employer's profits," but they expect to get paid well and treated with respect they've never earned."
The work of every employee contributes to the employer's profits.
No, it doesn't
The work of the brainless loser who adds more bugs than he fixes does NOT contribute to the employer's profits, it subtracts from them
The work of the HR scumbag pushing DIE and the hiring of incompetent buffoons who happen to have the "correct" skin color does NOT contribute to the company's profits, it destroys them
Who are you referring to who have not earned respect?
The people with Skittle colored hair
The people pushing DIE
Anyone pushing ESG or any other SJW bullshit
I'm talking about employees/employers in a general sense, not referring to a particular situation. This aside, any person deemed worthy of hire is presumed to be worthy of respect
Not in a world where people are hired based on "diversity", rather than on merit
"This aside, any person deemed worthy of hire is presumed to be worthy of respect..."
Not when people are hired because of the color of their skin.
Do you respect people because of their skin color?
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