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☆ Meta's second round of layoffs is coming down next week and expected to be 'bloodbath'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A second round of layoffs at Meta, formerly Facebook, is set to be announced next week. A second round of layoffs at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is expected to hit next week, set to leave several thousand more employees without work. The timing would be the same as Meta's last round of layoffs, which were announced on a Wednesday in November. This round of layoffs has been in the works for many weeks, as Insider first reported. The sweep of the first round of layoffs took many employees by surprise, with 11,000 people, or 13%, of Meta's workforce let go.

☆ Meta's CFO Susan Li says some projects and teams will 'wind down' as part of ongoing efficiency push
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Susan Li said work to streamline Meta's operations and management structure is "ongoing." Projects and teams that don't fit the bill face being shut down, the CFO said. Apps across Meta and its metaverse division will see some internal projects shuttered and teams dissolved as executives at the company abide by Mark Zuckerberg's new efficiency mantra. Mark Zuckerberg last month declared 2023 Meta's "year of efficiency" and said he wanted to flatten layers of management. "This is going to result in us making some tough decisions to wind down projects in some places and shift resources away from some teams," Li added.

☆ Meta has a pay gap problem, with women abroad getting lower pay and smaller bonuses than men
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The company still pays women abroad less than men and gives them much smaller bonuses. Globally, the number of women working for Meta has increased just 1% since 2018. In 2022, women working across Meta in Ireland were paid 15.7% less on average than men at the company. In the reports showing an ongoing pay gap, Meta said its problem of pay inequity comes down to fewer women in technological roles. In Ireland, while the company said its workforce is almost half men and women, men hold more high-level and tech-focused jobs, according to the report.

☆ A Twitter employee says staff have grown 'numb' to outages because they've become 'so frequent'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter staff have grown "numb" to outages because they're "so frequent," an employee told Platformer. In a report published late Monday, Platformer quoted a current Twitter employee as saying: "This type of outage has become so frequent that I think we're all numb to it." A current employee told the news outlet that the engineer made a "bad configuration change" that "basically broke the Twitter API." The mistake took out many of Twitter's internal tools as well as the company's API, leaving owner Elon Musk furious, per the report. A former employee told Insider in November that with so few employees left to share critical work, "Twitter is done."

☆ Twitter's latest outage was reportedly caused by a single engineer's mistake. One employee says the platform is so brittle, 'everything breaks' if engineers change something.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A mistake by a single Twitter engineer prompted Monday's service outage, Platformer reported. Twitter owner Elon Musk has cut thousands from Twitter's headcount since acquiring the company. In a reply to investor Marc Andreessen, Musk said: "A small API change had massive ramifications. Musk has cut thousands from Twitter's headcount since completing his acquisition of the company in October. Twitter insiders previously told Insider's Kali Hays that although a complete failure of Twitter was unlikely, technical issues could pile up to the point that the site could no longer function reliably.

☆ Meta is downranking open roles for managers internally, amid 'the flattening' and ahead of expected layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Meta employees are starting to hear about the "opportunity to convert" to a non-management role. Further layoffs are expected amid Mark Zuckerberg's push for a more efficient organization. Mark Zuckerberg's mandate to "flatten" the organizational structure of Meta is getting underway, leaving employees on tenterhooks about changes to their work and expected layoffs. About a week ago, the company, formerly known as Facebook, began downranking unfilled jobs at the M1 level to the E6 level, according to two employees familiar with the change. The down leveling of the M1 roles is affecting jobs open to internal transfers, as Meta remains in a broad hiring freeze.

☆ Twitter breaks after 'internal change' had 'unintended consequences'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter showed an error code when users attempted to click external links and images. ET, the external links appeared to be working again for some Twitter users. Twitter showed users an error code when they tried to access outside websites on Monday. ET, the external links appeared to be working for some Twitter users. Downdetector showed a spike in people reporting problems with the app and "Twitter API" was trending on Monday afternoon.

☆ Elon Musk's office sleeping habits have existed since the early 1990s, according to a book about his first startup
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Per "The Founders," Musk's company rented a "spartan Palo Alto office space," and he would sleep at the office and shower at the nearby YMCA. Soon after taking over Twitter, Musk similarly said he would be sleeping at the office "until the org is fixed." Back at Zip2, Soni describes a "perpetually sleep-deprived" Musk openly berating other executives and colleagues in 1996. Musk's sleeping habits continued at his second company, too, as the company's cofounder Harris Fricker told Soni. In February, Musk said he has worked an average of more than 120 hours a week after taking over Twitter.

☆ The Twitter leaders Elon Musk put in place keep quitting or getting fired. See who's left and who's recently been hired, including engineers from Google's DeepMind and a Tesla superfan.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

About half of the 20 people who reported to Elon Musk after his takeover have left Twitter. Musk has hired some new people, including engineers who may be working on an AI project. Elon Musk's Twitter is ruled by chaos. None have been directly replaced, the people familiar said, although Musk has also hired some new people from outside his companies. Below is a complete list of who Musk set as his direct reports, including those who have already left the company.

Managers are being told to expect demotions, putting them in "direct competition" with reports. A current employee told Insider that, in recent weeks many managers at Facebook have been told they will have their teams taken away. "Folks with years of management experience are being told they have to train on a position they haven't done in years," the person told Insider. Yet the photo-sharing app remained "less bloated" than Facebook, as one former employee told Insider, with roughly 20,000 employees. Facebook currently operates according to a "matrix model," one person familiar with the structure told Insider.

☆ Facebook is becoming more like Instagram as Mark Zuckerberg whittles down manager ranks and further layoffs loom
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Kali Hays | Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Facebook is expected to see layoffs amid Mark Zuckerberg's new mandate to "flatten" the company. Facebook, founded by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg twenty years ago, is in the process of being further streamlined, two people familiar with the company told Insider. The company's goal is to have Facebook's structure more closely resemble that of Instagram, the people said, as Zuckerberg looks to cut costs and declares 2023 to be the "year of efficiency." "It's not surprising," another person familiar with the company said of plans to change the structure at Facebook. The current organizational structure at Facebook is essentially what's known as "a matrix" model, one of the people familiar said.

☆ The boss of Elon Musk's Boring Company called Twitter managers to ask about employee performance just days before 200 people were laid off, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Boring Company's boss called Twitter managers last week to ask about staff performance, Platformer reports. Twitter then cut at least 200 employees on Saturday night, including four high-ranking managers. Davis is a longstanding ally of Twitter owner Elon Musk, and has helped cut costs since his takeover. Steve Davis, a long-term associate of Musk, has been working with Twitter for the past few months to help cut costs at Musk's request. These managers later learned on Saturday that at least 200 employees were being laid off, including product managers, data scientists, and engineers.

☆ One of Elon Musk's most loyal employees was fired at Twitter. Here's how she went from surviving layoffs to the chopping block in the span of a few months.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Crawford spent over two years at Twitter, according to her LinkedIn, working on projects like Twitter Blue and Spaces. Insider's Kali Hays first reported in January that 50 people on Twitter's product team were set to be let go. Following the first round of layoffs in November, The Verge reported Crawford told employees at Twitter that mass firings were "required" for Twitter to survive, which distanced herself from her colleagues. Unnamed employees at Twitter acknowledged this prominence in the FT report, saying she and Musk began working closely following the takeover. "She has become a bit of an interpreter between Elon and the product team," one senior staffer told FT.

☆ Some Twitter staff reportedly found out they were laid off after they couldn't log in to their laptops or email
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some Twitter staff discovered they'd been laid off when they couldn't access their company laptop or email, The New York Times reported. Elon Musk reportedly laid off about 200 Twitter employees over the weekend. Since the billionaire purchased Twitter in October, he has laid off thousands of employees — more than halving the company. Musk addressed the recent layoffs in an email to Twitter employees on Monday, according to a report from The Verge. Twitter staff are not the only employees to learn they had been laid off when attempting to go about their usual day-to-day activities.

☆ Elon Musk said he had to 'save Twitter from bankruptcy.' Here's what would happen if it filed for Chapter 11.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Elon Musk has floated bankruptcy as a possibility for Twitter, but had said costs are "under control." Twitter reportedly has roughly $13 billion in debt from a group of banks, with $1 billion annual interest payments. Companies can use Chapter 11 to slash debt, but it could give lenders control over its future. He tweeted earlier this month that his goal was "to save Twitter from bankruptcy," as his handling of the social media platform's finances has also come under scrutiny. In a Chapter 11 reorganization, parties like secured lenders and other creditors have leverage to demand leadership changes as a condition of approving a plan to exit bankruptcy.

☆ Elon Musk faces upwards of $130 million in legal costs to fight laid off Twitter workers over severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk last month offered thousands of laid off Twitter workers a limited severance deal. The former workers, laid off in November, say they were promised much better severance than what Musk finally offered them last month. In addition, laid off Twitter employees also filed a handful of class action lawsuits in federal court. It also effectively prohibits them from ever speaking about Musk, Twitter, or their experience at the company. Even those relatively few Twitter workers who signed off on Musk's severance agreement could speak freely about the company going forward.

☆ Elon Musk faces upward of $130 million in legal costs to fight laid-off Twitter workers over severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk last month offered thousands of laid-off Twitter workers a limited severance deal. In addition, laid-off Twitter employees also filed a handful of class-action lawsuits in federal court. Instead, Musk is offering laid-off workers one month of base pay as severance. It also effectively prohibits them from ever speaking about Musk, Twitter, or their experience at the company. Even those relatively few Twitter workers who signed off on Musk's severance agreement could speak freely about the company going forward.

☆ Meta could bring in nearly $2 billion this year from new Instagram and Facebook verification subscriptions, analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meta rolled out a new subscription offering for Instagram and Facebook. Meta is rolling out a new paid version of verification on Instagram and Facebook that could prove valuable to the company in a short amount of time. As the monthly subscription costs $11.99 for web or $14.99 for mobile, that could mean $1.7 billion in additional yearly revenue, the analysts said. "In addition to Meta Verified, we think there are opportunities for content and commerce subscriptions to help Meta diversify its revenue base over time," Bank of America analysts wrote. While Meta's core business is and very likely always will be ads, influencers have been "under monetized" at the company, Shmulik said.

☆ Twitter shut down 2 of its 3 offices in India and asked staff to work from home, report says — even though owner Elon Musk is a huge advocate of in-office working
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter is closing two offices in India located in Delhi and Mumbai, per Bloomberg. Staff in those offices have been told to work from home, despite owner Elon Musk's distaste for home working. Twitter closed its offices in India's capital city Delhi and financial center Mumbai, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. This latest cost-cutting measure came after Musk laid off over 90% of Twitter staff in India in November, leaving behind only about 12 employees. Meanwhile, staff working in marketing, communications, and public policy in India were also fired, per Bloomberg.

☆ Snap is cutting back spending on Google and Amazon for cloud services, a huge expense for tech companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Other companies like Twitter are also moving to cut back on cloud costs. The Snapchat owner uses both Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to operate. When Snap went public in 2017, it disclosed Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services as cloud providers. It said it had agreed to pay Google $2 billion for cloud services over the next five years, purchasing at least $400 million per year in services. Cloud services have for the last several years become a major source of revenue for companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

☆ Meta signals more layoffs could be coming after 'thousands' of workers are reportedly given low performance reviews
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meta gave about 10% of its staff performance reviews indicating they were underperforming, WSJ reported. The performance reviews signal that Meta could be gearing up for another round of layoffs. Meta let go of about 11,000 workers late last year and dubbed 2023 the "Year of Efficiency." A Meta spokesperson told Insider that the performance reviews are intended to incentivize employees, while also giving them actionable feedback. "Nothing about this year's performance review process has changed or is different than what we've already communicated to employees," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

☆ Twitter's team focused on ethics rushed to publish research papers before Elon Musk's takeover fearing he would lay them off, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter's AI ethics team hurriedly published studies in the weeks before Elon Musk's takeover, Wired reported. The team feared "the runway would shut down when the Elon jumbo jet landed," one ex-staffer told Wired. In Musk's first week owning Twitter, he laid-off most of the team, known internally as META. "We were rightfully worried about what this leadership change would entail," Rumman Chowdhury, who was engineering director on the team, told Wired. Employees told Wired that several more papers on misinformation and algorithms were quickly published too around the time of the takeover.

☆ Biden offered Elon Musk a rare bit of praise after Tesla agreed to open up its charging network to rivals by the end of 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

On Wednesday, US President Biden offered up some rare praise for an unlikely candidate. Elon Musk opened up Tesla's charging network to rivals. "That's a big deal, and it'll make a big difference," Biden tweeted. That's unusual, as Biden and Musk appear to have a strained relationship, and even traded barbs publicly. On Wednesday, Musk received rare praise from US President Joe Biden after Tesla agreed to open at least 7,500 of its charging stations to other electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

☆ Elon Musk's mood and intensity at Twitter are 'worse' than during Tesla's existential crisis 5 years ago, staff says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

People who have worked for him at Tesla and now Twitter think recent months have proved worse. There's a new refrain among some Tesla employees who continue to work out of Twitter's San Francisco headquarters: "worse than 2018." Still, there is "zero talk" inside Twitter of a new CEO coming in to replace Musk, this person added. There are some similarities between Musk at Tesla then and him at Twitter now. Musk's overall mood at Twitter seemed to start deteriorating toward the end of last year, two of the people familiar said.

☆ Twitter mistakenly filtered the accounts of Chinese activists following layoffs in Asia, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Over 30 prominent human rights activists in China saw their accounts hidden from search, per the NYT. Twitter's automated filter for spam and misinformation mistakenly restricted the activists, the Times said. Twitter's staff has been cut by around two-thirds since Elon Musk took over last October. Twitter's automated system intended to filter out spam and disinformation campaigns from governments mistakenly restricted the Chinese activists as well, four people with knowledge of the system told the Times. The Times also reports that Twitter's top staffer in the Asia-Pacific region, who had oversight of handling Chinese activist accounts, was laid-off early this year.

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