精品国产_亚洲人成在线高清,国产精品成人久久久久,国语自产偷拍精品视频偷拍

首頁 500強 活動 榜單 商業 科技 領導力 專題 品牌中心
雜志訂閱

獨家揭密:推特是如何變成X的?

Kylie Robison
2023-11-25

在整個過程中,戲劇性事件從未間斷。

文本設置
小號
默認
大號
Plus(0條)

2023年7月,位于美國舊金山的推特總部的部分標志被拆除。圖片來源:DAVID PAUL MORRIS—BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

到目前為止,故事的大體情節已經廣為人知:7,500名員工被裁掉75%;崇尚絕對的言論自由主義,歡迎被禁言用戶重返平臺,而同時仇恨言論和錯誤信息激增;一場廣告危機,在推特(Twitter)的1,000家最大的廣告客戶里,有超過半數暫停投放廣告;還有令人困惑的企業品牌重塑,用字面意義上的X品牌(Brand X)取代了推特和人們熟知的推文。

在整個過程中,戲劇性事件從未間斷。特斯拉(Tesla)和太空探索技術公司(SpaceX)的首席執行官、世界首富埃隆·馬斯克將征服推特定義為首先在異乎尋常的事件上進行創新。自從收購這家社交媒體公司以來,馬斯克奇怪或有爭議的舉動不斷。

時間會證明,馬斯克以440億美元收購推特,是會成為商學院關于如何重振一家公司,并引領其走向光明未來的案例研究,還是會成為放縱與傲慢如何迅速摧毀公司價值的經驗教訓。無論最終決斷如何,親歷者的發言都為塑造故事關鍵時刻的環境、動機和行動提供了重要證詞。他們揭示了馬斯克備受爭議的項目的內幕故事,以及各種矛盾的情緒和觀點。

《財富》雜志采訪了八位在推特馬斯克化的關鍵時刻在場的人士。我們對大多數人的名字進行了匿名處理。為保證清晰和簡潔,必要時,我們對他們的評論進行了編輯,除此之外,我們還在這本口述史里用他們的原話講述了(第一年)馬斯克管理下的推特的相關情況。

第一章

現在是埃隆的公司了

2022年10月27日,在收購完成的幾分鐘內,推特的高管團隊就被馬斯克解雇了。眾所周知,幾個小時前,馬斯克抱著一個水槽走進推特總部大樓(“讓它沉下去!”他在推特上發布的入場視頻中開玩笑說)。對推特的員工而言,接下來的幾周將是迷茫、希望、恐懼和混亂的混雜期——而且對成千上萬的員工來說,在新任首席執行官上任僅僅幾天之后,就將面臨裁員。

最初的日子

“很多事情都是我們在推特上了解到的,對吧?馬斯克出現在辦公室、水槽事件、他在咖啡吧閑逛的那一刻。所有這些事情都進展得非常快,員工們都覺得,嗯,好吧,我想這就是現在發生的事情了。”——約爾·羅思,前信任與安全主管

“我們在Slack上有一個特斯拉頻道,人們開始說一些愚話,例如‘哦,我們現在要買特斯拉了’之類的。但大家的共識是,大多數人并不開心。他們擔心自己的工作。他們為自己的文化和環境擔憂。只有極少數人感到興奮。”——X公司員工1

“公司文化很快變得充滿敵意。你不確定誰是蓋世太保(秘密警察),誰不是,比如誰會因為你說了什么而向埃隆舉報你。人們變得更加謹慎。”——前人力資源部員工

為裁員做好準備

“裁員當晚,沒有人真正知道發生了什么,人們只是開始說‘我無法登錄設備了。’這是即將發生的事情的預兆。”

“我只是在想,明天到底會怎樣?我還有一份工作,還能夠領到薪水,還可以推遲考慮下一步應該怎么做,這讓我感到些許寬慰。但與此同時,這也很讓人很震驚,也許有人因為這次經歷而患上了創傷后應激障礙(PTSD),但肯定的是,人們受到了心靈創傷……這太瘋狂了。從字面意義上講,這就像在廢墟中搜尋,試圖找出誰還在辦公室里,誰還在Slack上。”——前人力資源部員工

“甚至直到最后三天(我認為),我們都不知道到底有多少人;我們不知道他會在哪刻收手。我們不知道有多少人會被解雇。”——前高管

盲目行動

“那幾天就像在收拾殘局,因為我們不知道自己到底在做什么。我們不知道戰略指令是什么。我們不知道應該把精力和預算集中在什么地方……我相信一些領導層對此略有了解,但這些都沒有傳遞下去,因為他們可能也沒有一個非常明確的方向。”——前人力資源部員工

“最后兩周是我職業生涯中最不愉快的經歷之一。我當然希望再也不要經歷這樣的事情。信息流完全停止了。”——前工程師1

第二章

生活在馬斯克宇宙中

對那些在最初的大規模裁員潮中幸存下來的人而言,在推特工作的忙碌程度絲毫沒有減輕。馬斯克以善變著稱,他堅持“硬核”的工作作風和削減成本,還有他可怕的“惡魔模式”,這些都滲透到了公司的方方面面。一些人看到了升職的機會,另一些人則學到了為馬斯克工作的注意事項。

給埃隆留下深刻印象

“你已經能夠看到人們像野蠻人一樣,想方設法往上爬。這看起來就像很多人在拍馬屁,提出一些非常不切實際的改變。這種情況現在還時有發生,但沒有那么頻繁了。最初的幾個月,那簡直太瘋狂了。”——X公司員工1

“(馬斯克)發了一封電子郵件,大意是‘我們需要尋找新項目。’就像在說,如果你有任何想法,就都可以發給我,他會對它們進行評估……有人說,讓Vine(短視頻鼻祖)回歸吧……有人想讓推特音樂(Twitter Music)回歸。這些想法都愚蠢至極。在那段時間里,唯一的特別之處在于,基本上所有的埃隆信徒都想方設法在埃隆面前抬高自己的地位。”——前工程師2

對‘硬核’的崇拜

“我認為他不相信工作與生活的平衡。他自己都無法平衡工作和生活,所以他怎么相信工作與生活的平衡呢?”——前高管

“一切都變了。過去,人們常常在下午五點或四點就回家。現在,你會經常看到人們加班到很晚,尤其是在舊金山;舊金山的員工和他們的經理一樣工作到很晚,或者如果埃隆在那里,他們的會議被推遲了,他們就必須待在那里。比如,在周三或周四,很多人都會工作到晚上九點或十點,甚至更晚。文化本身已經發生了翻天覆地的變化。人們更關心工作,但壓力也更大。每當你做出改變,如果結果不理想,你就會想,哦,有人會因此被炒魷魚。你以前從來沒有過這種感覺。你不必提心吊膽。”

“你只需要努力工作,編碼,擅長編碼,解決問題,速戰速決。我認為這才是讓一個人飛黃騰達的原因,你不需要別人告訴你應該怎么做。如果有人告訴你應該做什么,你可能早就已經完成了。”——X公司員工1

削減成本

“埃隆收購推特的一大好處是,我發現了以前日常工作中沒有發現的事情。有很多事情就像, ‘為什么我們要為這項沒有人使用的技術買單?’顯然有很多合同人們已經忘記了,或者沒有關注,這很有見地。”

“我確實認為,埃隆的到來讓公司解決了很多不可告人的秘密,否則他們可能不會解決這些問題。”——前人力資源部員工

惡魔模式

“永遠不要違背他的旨意。很少有人試圖反駁他。如果他詢問你不知道的事情,不要胡編亂造。就說你不知道,但下次你和他談話或發電子郵件的時候你就會知道了,但永遠不要試圖蒙混過關。”——X公司員工1

“有一次,我坐在電話旁聽他咆哮。讓我感到非常有趣的是,在那一刻,他為自己的憤怒和憤慨辯解的理由是,推特對人類的未來有多么重要……在那一刻,我看到他并沒有把這看作是一個商業問題、政策問題或戰略問題,而是一個道德問題,在他的道德世界里,任何會阻礙推特成功的事情都不是商業問題,而是道德問題,在他看來,這使這種完全無法解釋的不合理行為合理化了。”——約爾·羅思

“他確實不喜歡被別人指手畫腳。他也確實不喜歡別人告訴他,他的想法是錯的,盡管他承認自己錯了。”——X公司員工1

“他自己就是一個惡霸,因為他曾經被霸凌過。他憤怒、痛苦、怨恨,對任何打他的人都會揮拳相向,因為這是他唯一知道的事情,對吧?”——前高管

第三章

新身份

從今年5月開始,馬斯克采取了一些重大舉措。也許是意識到自己能力的局限性,馬斯克聘請了美國全國廣播公司(NBC)的高管琳達·亞卡里諾擔任首席執行官,希望可以重振公司的廣告業務。他正式放棄了推特品牌及其藍鳥標志,將該平臺重新命名為X,并對產品進行了重大調整,例如取消推文標題,提供各種付費版本的服務。

新任首席執行官登場

“我對她抱有很大期望。我以為她會重振我們的廣告業務,為公司營造更正常的環境,更頻繁地更新信息……但她沒有。我相信這兩者都是埃隆造成的。”——X公司員工1

今年5月,馬斯克聘請美國全國廣播公司的高管琳達·亞卡里諾(上圖)擔任推特(現稱為X)的首席執行官,并拿回廣告收入。圖片來源:JEROD HARRIS—GETTY IMAGES FOR VOX MEDIA

“我發現有趣的是,她顯然是她所在領域的專家,而這正是推特能夠利用的領域,比如與廣告商建立良好關系,與媒體建立合作伙伴關系。”

“我真的看不出她和埃隆之間互相信任(這一點非常重要)。最起碼你需要這種關系。如果你和公司領導之間缺乏信任,我不知道這如何行之有效。”——前高管

“[琳達·亞卡里諾]大概發過三封電子郵件。這些電子郵件都很隨機,老實說,她聽起來就像一個機器人……我不知道在埃隆那里,她表現如何,但對工程師來說,她好像不存在一樣。”——X公司員工1

身份轉變:從推特到X

“在與他會面時,我們絕對避免說推特或稱之為推文。但我的意思是,積習難改。人們仍然稱其為推文。也許不是稱之為推特,但人們依舊稱其為推文……很多人只是出于老習慣這么做。歸根結底,在公司內部,所有東西仍舊被稱為推特、推文、轉發。只是外部標志被重新命名了,但要在內部準確地重新命名所有東西是不可能的。”——X公司員工1

推特在今年7月正式更名為X后,在該公司舊金山總部的屋頂上曾經短暫地安裝過一個巨大的發光標志X。圖片來源:NOAH BERGER—AP IMAGES

“在大多數情況下,這只是被當作另一項我們無法掌控的任務。這個決定是在整個公司都不知道的情況下做出的,因此我們依然在更新所有提及推特、推文、轉發等的內容。這是一個龐大的列表,隨著我們發現的內容增加,這個列表還在不斷擴大。”——X公司員工2

“我認為,如果你經常[說‘推文’和‘推特’],而且聽起來像是故意的,[馬斯克]就會有意見了。他稱它們為帖子,他不會犯這種錯誤。”——X公司員工1

馬斯克的產品愿景

“他是一個未來主義者。他對X應該是什么樣子有自己的愿景。但是具體的細節,如何實現這一目標,可能需要大量的實驗和很多人制定計劃。”——前高管

“我們并沒有真正采取任何措施來加速增長。我們有一個完整的團隊在做這件事情。但現在,我們確實沒有采取任何措施來吸引新客戶。我們基本上只是利用現有的資源,并祈禱人們會來注冊。我想這只是因為他在為自己開發應用程序。”

“[馬斯克]經常談到YouTube。他會說,看看YouTube,那就是我們應該擁有的視頻。那是他談論最多的公司。例如,每當我們提出任何與視頻有關的建議時,他就會說,看看YouTube。”——X公司員工1

未來

“我不知道什么是萬能應用程序,但我知道我們現在的產品很出色。我們需要更多的工程師。如果我們有更多的工程師,可以完成的事情就會很驚人,但以現有的員工人數,我們所能夠取得的成就仍然令人印象深刻。我們今年所做的事情原本可能需要老推特公司花費數年時間才可以完成……以前至少需要六個月時間才能夠完成的事情,我們在一兩周內就完成了。”——X公司員工1

“就我目前的經驗來看,幾乎沒有人對埃隆計劃抱有堅定的信念。唯一的例外是那些被提拔/晉升的人,或者那些似乎是內部晉升的既得利益者。”——X公司員工2

“我認為,要么它會成為一家非常成功的埃隆公司,但會出現埃隆公司常見的問題,要么它最終會被出售……它破產的唯一途徑是,如果埃隆能夠以更便宜的價格收購它(這可以讓他受益)。”——X公司員工1(財富中文網)

譯者:中慧言-王芳

2023年7月,位于美國舊金山的推特總部的部分標志被拆除。

到目前為止,故事的大體情節已經廣為人知:7,500名員工被裁掉75%;崇尚絕對的言論自由主義,歡迎被禁言用戶重返平臺,而同時仇恨言論和錯誤信息激增;一場廣告危機,在推特(Twitter)的1,000家最大的廣告客戶里,有超過半數暫停投放廣告;還有令人困惑的企業品牌重塑,用字面意義上的X品牌(Brand X)取代了推特和人們熟知的推文。

在整個過程中,戲劇性事件從未間斷。特斯拉(Tesla)和太空探索技術公司(SpaceX)的首席執行官、世界首富埃隆·馬斯克將征服推特定義為首先在異乎尋常的事件上進行創新。自從收購這家社交媒體公司以來,馬斯克奇怪或有爭議的舉動不斷。

時間會證明,馬斯克以440億美元收購推特,是會成為商學院關于如何重振一家公司,并引領其走向光明未來的案例研究,還是會成為放縱與傲慢如何迅速摧毀公司價值的經驗教訓。無論最終決斷如何,親歷者的發言都為塑造故事關鍵時刻的環境、動機和行動提供了重要證詞。他們揭示了馬斯克備受爭議的項目的內幕故事,以及各種矛盾的情緒和觀點。

《財富》雜志采訪了八位在推特馬斯克化的關鍵時刻在場的人士。我們對大多數人的名字進行了匿名處理。為保證清晰和簡潔,必要時,我們對他們的評論進行了編輯,除此之外,我們還在這本口述史里用他們的原話講述了(第一年)馬斯克管理下的推特的相關情況。

第一章

現在是埃隆的公司了

2022年10月27日,在收購完成的幾分鐘內,推特的高管團隊就被馬斯克解雇了。眾所周知,幾個小時前,馬斯克抱著一個水槽走進推特總部大樓(“讓它沉下去!”他在推特上發布的入場視頻中開玩笑說)。對推特的員工而言,接下來的幾周將是迷茫、希望、恐懼和混亂的混雜期——而且對成千上萬的員工來說,在新任首席執行官上任僅僅幾天之后,就將面臨裁員。

最初的日子

“很多事情都是我們在推特上了解到的,對吧?馬斯克出現在辦公室、水槽事件、他在咖啡吧閑逛的那一刻。所有這些事情都進展得非常快,員工們都覺得,嗯,好吧,我想這就是現在發生的事情了。”——約爾·羅思,前信任與安全主管

“我們在Slack上有一個特斯拉頻道,人們開始說一些愚話,例如‘哦,我們現在要買特斯拉了’之類的。但大家的共識是,大多數人并不開心。他們擔心自己的工作。他們為自己的文化和環境擔憂。只有極少數人感到興奮。”——X公司員工1

“公司文化很快變得充滿敵意。你不確定誰是蓋世太保(秘密警察),誰不是,比如誰會因為你說了什么而向埃隆舉報你。人們變得更加謹慎。”——前人力資源部員工

為裁員做好準備

“裁員當晚,沒有人真正知道發生了什么,人們只是開始說‘我無法登錄設備了。’這是即將發生的事情的預兆。”

“我只是在想,明天到底會怎樣?我還有一份工作,還能夠領到薪水,還可以推遲考慮下一步應該怎么做,這讓我感到些許寬慰。但與此同時,這也很讓人很震驚,也許有人因為這次經歷而患上了創傷后應激障礙(PTSD),但肯定的是,人們受到了心靈創傷……這太瘋狂了。從字面意義上講,這就像在廢墟中搜尋,試圖找出誰還在辦公室里,誰還在Slack上。”——前人力資源部員工

“甚至直到最后三天(我認為),我們都不知道到底有多少人;我們不知道他會在哪刻收手。我們不知道有多少人會被解雇。”——前高管

盲目行動

“那幾天就像在收拾殘局,因為我們不知道自己到底在做什么。我們不知道戰略指令是什么。我們不知道應該把精力和預算集中在什么地方……我相信一些領導層對此略有了解,但這些都沒有傳遞下去,因為他們可能也沒有一個非常明確的方向。”——前人力資源部員工

“最后兩周是我職業生涯中最不愉快的經歷之一。我當然希望再也不要經歷這樣的事情。信息流完全停止了。”——前工程師1

第二章

生活在馬斯克宇宙中

對那些在最初的大規模裁員潮中幸存下來的人而言,在推特工作的忙碌程度絲毫沒有減輕。馬斯克以善變著稱,他堅持“硬核”的工作作風和削減成本,還有他可怕的“惡魔模式”,這些都滲透到了公司的方方面面。一些人看到了升職的機會,另一些人則學到了為馬斯克工作的注意事項。

給埃隆留下深刻印象

“你已經能夠看到人們像野蠻人一樣,想方設法往上爬。這看起來就像很多人在拍馬屁,提出一些非常不切實際的改變。這種情況現在還時有發生,但沒有那么頻繁了。最初的幾個月,那簡直太瘋狂了。”——X公司員工1

“(馬斯克)發了一封電子郵件,大意是‘我們需要尋找新項目。’就像在說,如果你有任何想法,就都可以發給我,他會對它們進行評估……有人說,讓Vine(短視頻鼻祖)回歸吧……有人想讓推特音樂(Twitter Music)回歸。這些想法都愚蠢至極。在那段時間里,唯一的特別之處在于,基本上所有的埃隆信徒都想方設法在埃隆面前抬高自己的地位。”——前工程師2

對‘硬核’的崇拜

“我認為他不相信工作與生活的平衡。他自己都無法平衡工作和生活,所以他怎么相信工作與生活的平衡呢?”——前高管

“一切都變了。過去,人們常常在下午五點或四點就回家。現在,你會經常看到人們加班到很晚,尤其是在舊金山;舊金山的員工和他們的經理一樣工作到很晚,或者如果埃隆在那里,他們的會議被推遲了,他們就必須待在那里。比如,在周三或周四,很多人都會工作到晚上九點或十點,甚至更晚。文化本身已經發生了翻天覆地的變化。人們更關心工作,但壓力也更大。每當你做出改變,如果結果不理想,你就會想,哦,有人會因此被炒魷魚。你以前從來沒有過這種感覺。你不必提心吊膽。”

“你只需要努力工作,編碼,擅長編碼,解決問題,速戰速決。我認為這才是讓一個人飛黃騰達的原因,你不需要別人告訴你應該怎么做。如果有人告訴你應該做什么,你可能早就已經完成了。”——X公司員工1

削減成本

“埃隆收購推特的一大好處是,我發現了以前日常工作中沒有發現的事情。有很多事情就像, ‘為什么我們要為這項沒有人使用的技術買單?’顯然有很多合同人們已經忘記了,或者沒有關注,這很有見地。”

“我確實認為,埃隆的到來讓公司解決了很多不可告人的秘密,否則他們可能不會解決這些問題。”——前人力資源部員工

惡魔模式

“永遠不要違背他的旨意。很少有人試圖反駁他。如果他詢問你不知道的事情,不要胡編亂造。就說你不知道,但下次你和他談話或發電子郵件的時候你就會知道了,但永遠不要試圖蒙混過關。”——X公司員工1

“有一次,我坐在電話旁聽他咆哮。讓我感到非常有趣的是,在那一刻,他為自己的憤怒和憤慨辯解的理由是,推特對人類的未來有多么重要……在那一刻,我看到他并沒有把這看作是一個商業問題、政策問題或戰略問題,而是一個道德問題,在他的道德世界里,任何會阻礙推特成功的事情都不是商業問題,而是道德問題,在他看來,這使這種完全無法解釋的不合理行為合理化了。”——約爾·羅思

“他確實不喜歡被別人指手畫腳。他也確實不喜歡別人告訴他,他的想法是錯的,盡管他承認自己錯了。”——X公司員工1

“他自己就是一個惡霸,因為他曾經被霸凌過。他憤怒、痛苦、怨恨,對任何打他的人都會揮拳相向,因為這是他唯一知道的事情,對吧?”——前高管

第三章

新身份

從今年5月開始,馬斯克采取了一些重大舉措。也許是意識到自己能力的局限性,馬斯克聘請了美國全國廣播公司(NBC)的高管琳達·亞卡里諾擔任首席執行官,希望可以重振公司的廣告業務。他正式放棄了推特品牌及其藍鳥標志,將該平臺重新命名為X,并對產品進行了重大調整,例如取消推文標題,提供各種付費版本的服務。

新任首席執行官登場

“我對她抱有很大期望。我以為她會重振我們的廣告業務,為公司營造更正常的環境,更頻繁地更新信息……但她沒有。我相信這兩者都是埃隆造成的。”——X公司員工1

今年5月,馬斯克聘請美國全國廣播公司的高管琳達·亞卡里諾(上圖)擔任推特(現稱為X)的首席執行官,并拿回廣告收入。

“我發現有趣的是,她顯然是她所在領域的專家,而這正是推特能夠利用的領域,比如與廣告商建立良好關系,與媒體建立合作伙伴關系。”

“我真的看不出她和埃隆之間互相信任(這一點非常重要)。最起碼你需要這種關系。如果你和公司領導之間缺乏信任,我不知道這如何行之有效。”——前高管

“[琳達·亞卡里諾]大概發過三封電子郵件。這些電子郵件都很隨機,老實說,她聽起來就像一個機器人……我不知道在埃隆那里,她表現如何,但對工程師來說,她好像不存在一樣。”——X公司員工1

身份轉變:從推特到X

“在與他會面時,我們絕對避免說推特或稱之為推文。但我的意思是,積習難改。人們仍然稱其為推文。也許不是稱之為推特,但人們依舊稱其為推文……很多人只是出于老習慣這么做。歸根結底,在公司內部,所有東西仍舊被稱為推特、推文、轉發。只是外部標志被重新命名了,但要在內部準確地重新命名所有東西是不可能的。”——X公司員工1

推特在今年7月正式更名為X后,在該公司舊金山總部的屋頂上曾經短暫地安裝過一個巨大的發光標志X。

“在大多數情況下,這只是被當作另一項我們無法掌控的任務。這個決定是在整個公司都不知道的情況下做出的,因此我們依然在更新所有提及推特、推文、轉發等的內容。這是一個龐大的列表,隨著我們發現的內容增加,這個列表還在不斷擴大。”——X公司員工2

“我認為,如果你經常[說‘推文’和‘推特’],而且聽起來像是故意的,[馬斯克]就會有意見了。他稱它們為帖子,他不會犯這種錯誤。”——X公司員工1

馬斯克的產品愿景

“他是一個未來主義者。他對X應該是什么樣子有自己的愿景。但是具體的細節,如何實現這一目標,可能需要大量的實驗和很多人制定計劃。”——前高管

“我們并沒有真正采取任何措施來加速增長。我們有一個完整的團隊在做這件事情。但現在,我們確實沒有采取任何措施來吸引新客戶。我們基本上只是利用現有的資源,并祈禱人們會來注冊。我想這只是因為他在為自己開發應用程序。”

“[馬斯克]經常談到YouTube。他會說,看看YouTube,那就是我們應該擁有的視頻。那是他談論最多的公司。例如,每當我們提出任何與視頻有關的建議時,他就會說,看看YouTube。”——X公司員工1

未來

“我不知道什么是萬能應用程序,但我知道我們現在的產品很出色。我們需要更多的工程師。如果我們有更多的工程師,可以完成的事情就會很驚人,但以現有的員工人數,我們所能夠取得的成就仍然令人印象深刻。我們今年所做的事情原本可能需要老推特公司花費數年時間才可以完成……以前至少需要六個月時間才能夠完成的事情,我們在一兩周內就完成了。”——X公司員工1

“就我目前的經驗來看,幾乎沒有人對埃隆計劃抱有堅定的信念。唯一的例外是那些被提拔/晉升的人,或者那些似乎是內部晉升的既得利益者。”——X公司員工2

“我認為,要么它會成為一家非常成功的埃隆公司,但會出現埃隆公司常見的問題,要么它最終會被出售……它破產的唯一途徑是,如果埃隆能夠以更便宜的價格收購它(這可以讓他受益)。”——X公司員工1(財富中文網)

譯者:中慧言-王芳

By now, the outlines of the story are well-known: a staff of 7,500 slashed by 75%; a free-speech absolutism that welcomed banned users back to the platform, along with a surge of hate speech and misinformation; an advertising crisis in which more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers shut their purses; and a confounding corporate rebrand that replaced Twitter and the familiar tweet with a literal Brand X.

And throughout it all, nonstop drama. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and the world’s richest person, has defined his conquest of Twitter by innovating on spectacle above all. With each curious or controversial move since acquiring the social media company, Musk’s most successful feat has been forcing the world to pay attention.

Time will tell if Musk’s $44 billion takeover will become a business-school case study in how to rejuvenate a company and pivot it toward a brighter future, or a lesson in how rapidly unrestrained hubris can destroy value. Whatever the eventual verdict, the voices of those who experienced the events firsthand offer crucial testimony about the circumstances, motivations, and actions that shaped the story’s critical moments. And they paint a revealing portrait of life inside Musk’s controversial project, with all the conflicting emotions and perspectives.

Fortune interviewed eight people who were present during key moments of Twitter’s Muskification. We’ve anonymized most names but tried to distinguish individual speakers. We’ve edited their comments for clarity or length when necessary, but otherwise present their accounts in their own words in this oral history of the first year at Twitter under the Musk regime.

Chapter 1

It’s Elon’s company now

Within minutes of the acquisition closing on Oct. 27, 2022, Twitter’s senior leadership team is fired by Musk, who famously marched into company headquarters hours earlier carrying a sink (“Let that sink in!” he joked in the video he tweeted of his entrance). For Twitter staffers, the next few weeks will be a blurry jumble of confusion, hope, fear, chaos—and for thousands, after just a few days under the new regime, layoffs.

The first days

“So much of what was going on we learned as it happened on the service, right? Musk showing up at the office, the sink thing, that moment where he was milling around the coffee bar. All of these were things that moved exceptionally quickly, and employees were just sort of like, huh, okay, I guess that’s happening now.” —Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety

“We had a Tesla channel in Slack, and people were starting to say dumb things like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna get Teslas now’ or whatever. But the consensus was that most people weren’t happy. They were worried for their jobs. They were worried for their culture and the environment. And just a very, very low minority were excited.” —X employee 1

“The culture became hostile fast. You weren’t sure who was part of the gestapo and who wasn’t, like who was reporting you to Elon for saying X, Y, and Z. People became a lot more guarded.” —Former HR employee

Brace for layoffs

“The night of the layoffs, no one really had any idea what was going on, and people were just starting to say, like, ‘I’m locked out of my machine.’ It was such a harbinger of things to come. It showed—not just from an attitude perspective and the potential callousness of the new leadership—but it was also just the chaos of it.

“I was just thinking, what the hell is tomorrow going to be? It was a mix of minor relief that I still had a job, I still was going to get a paycheck, I could delay figuring out what the hell to do next. But at the same time, it was also like shock … maybe there is PTSD from this experience, but it’s like, there was trauma for sure … It was just crazy. Literally, it was like searching through the wreckage, trying to see who’s here physically in the office and who is actually still online on Slack.” —Former HR employee

“Even up until the last, I would say, three days, we didn’t actually know exactly how many people; we didn’t know where he was going to cut the line. We didn’t know how many people were going to be let go.” —Former executive

Flying blind

“It was like picking up the pieces for a few days because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. We didn’t know what the strategic directive was. We didn’t know where we were supposed to focus our energy and our budget … I’m sure some of the leadership had a small sense of that, but none of that trickled down because they probably didn’t have a very clear direction either.” —Former HR employee

“The last two weeks were some of the most unpleasant experiences I think I’ve ever had in my career. I certainly hope I never go through anything like that again. The flow of information just simply stopped.” —Former engineer 1

Chapter 2

Life in the Muskverse

For those who survived the initial wave of mass layoffs, working at Twitter did not get any less hectic. Musk’s famously mercurial nature, his insistence on a “hard-core” work ethos and on cost cutting, and his dreaded “demon mode” seeped into every aspect of the organization. Some saw an opportunity to try to rise through the ranks; others learned the dos and don’ts of working for Musk.

Impressing Elon

“You could already see people being savages, trying to climb up the ladders. That looked like a lot of people literally bootlicking, proposing changes that were very, very unrealistic. You still see that every now and then, but not as often. The first few months, it was crazy.” —X employee 1

“[Musk] sent out an email that was like, ‘We need to find new projects.’ Like, if you have any ideas, send them my way and Elon will evaluate them … Somebody was like, let’s bring back Vine … Somebody wanted to bring back Twitter Music. Just stupid shit. And it was a period where the only thing that was special about it was basically all of the Elon believers who were trying to figure out how to pump their status with him. And so it was the easiest things they could find, like, ‘Oh, well, we have all the Vine videos. Let’s bring Vine back.’” —Former engineer 2

The cult of “hard-core”

“I think he doesn’t believe in work-life balance. He himself doesn’t have work-life balance, so why would he?” —Former executive

“Everything has changed. People used to go home at like five or four, whatever. You constantly, constantly see people staying late, especially in S.F.; S.F. people stay as late as their managers, or if Elon’s there and their meeting gets pushed, and they have to stay there. Like, on Wednesdays or Thursdays, a lot of people stay there till nine or 10 or even later. The culture itself has changed drastically. People care more about the work, but they also stress more about it. Whenever you make a change, and it’s not good, you’re like, oh, someone’s gonna get fired over it. You never had that before. You didn’t have to look over your shoulder.

“You just need to work hard and code and be good at coding and solving problems and putting fires out fast. I think that’s what would make someone thrive more … You don’t need people to tell you what to do. If someone tells you what to do, you probably should have already done it.” —X employee 1

Cost cutting

“One of the silver linings to the Elon takeover is I got to see things that I wouldn’t have seen in my day-to-day job previously. And there were a lot of things where it was like, ‘Why are we paying for this technology that no one at the company uses?’ There were clearly a lot of contracts that people had lost track of or weren’t looking at, and that was insightful.

“I do think that Elon arriving caused the company to address a lot of skeletons that were in the closet that I don’t think they would have addressed otherwise.” —Former HR employee

Demon mode

“Never go against his word. People rarely try to contradict him. And if he asks something you don’t know, don’t make shit up. Just say you don’t know, but you will find out next time you talk to him or send it over an email, but never try to bullshit your way out of a question.” —X employee 1

“At a certain point, I just sort of sat on the phone and listened to that rant. And what was really interesting to me was how in that moment, his justification for his anger and his outrage was talking about how Twitter was important for the future of humanity … I saw in that moment that he didn’t view this as a business question or as a policy question or as a strategy question, but as a moral question, and in his moral universe, anything that would undermine Twitter’s success was not a business question but an ethics question, and it rationalized this kind of totally inexplicable unjustifiable behavior, in his mind.” —Yoel Roth

“He really doesn’t like being told what to do. He really doesn’t like to be told that something he thinks is wrong, though he does admit when he’s wrong.” —X employee 1

“He is a bully himself because he was bullied. He is angry and bitter and resentful and goes out swinging at anybody that punches at him because that’s the only thing he knows, right?” —Former executive

Chapter 3

A new identity

Beginning in May, Musk made some of his biggest moves. Perhaps recognizing the limits of his capabilities, Musk hired NBC executive Linda Yaccarino to serve as CEO and hopefully revive the company’s ad business. He officially killed the Twitter brand, along with its bird logo, and rechristened the platform as X, and he made major product changes such as eliminating headlines on tweets and offering various paid versions of the service.

Enter Linda Yaccarino, your new CEO

“I was very hopeful. I thought she would revive the advertising business we had and would bring more of a regular company environment with more frequent updates … She hasn’t. And I believe the reason for both of those is Elon.” —X employee 1

“The thing that I found interesting was she was obviously an expert in her field, and it was a field that Twitter could use, like having good relationships with advertisers and building media partnerships.

“I don’t really see something—that would be very important—which is a trusted relationship there between her and Elon. At a bare minimum you need that. If you don’t have trust between the person you’re working for, the leader of the company, I don’t see how that can work.” —Former executive

“[Linda Yaccarino has] sent, like, three emails. And they’ve all been very random, and she sounds like a bot honestly … I don’t know how she’s doing for the other side, but for engineers, she’s not really there.” —X employee 1

Identity change: From Twitter to X

“We absolutely avoid saying Twitter or calling them tweets in meetings with him. But I mean, old habits die hard. People still call them tweets. Maybe not Twitter, but people still call them tweets for sure … a lot of people just do it out of old habit. Because at the end of the day, internally, everything’s still called Twitter, tweets, retweets. It’s just the outside stuff that’s been renamed, but it would be impossible to rename everything internally correctly.” —X employee 1

“For the most part it’s just been treated as another task that is out of our hands. The decision was made to change without letting the entire company know, so we are still in progress updating any and all references to Twitter, tweet, retweet, etc. It’s a large list and continues to grow as we find more.” —X employee 2

“I assume that if you [say “tweets” and “Twitter”] constantly and it sounds like it’s on purpose, [Musk] is gonna say something. But he for sure calls them posts; he does not make that mistake.” —X employee 1

Musk’s product vision

“He’s a futurist. He has a vision of what this thing needs to look like. But the details, how you’re gonna get there, that could be a lot of experimentation and a lot of people figuring out a plan.” —Former executive

“We haven’t really done anything to accelerate growth. We have a full team for that. But right now, we’re really not doing anything to attract new customers. We’re pretty much just working with what we have and crossing our fingers that people are signing up. I think it’s just because he’s building the app for himself.

“[Musk] talks a lot about YouTube. He basically says look at YouTube, and that’s what we should have for video. That’s his most talked-about company. Like, whenever we propose anything video-related, he’s like, look at YouTube.” —X employee 1

The future

“I don’t know about the everything app. But I do know that the product we have now—it’s good. We could use more engineers. If we had more engineers, it would be amazing the things that we would be able to do, but it’s still very impressive what we’re able to achieve with the number of people that we have. The things that we’ve done this year would have taken old Twitter multiple years … Something that would have taken at least six months before, we just did in a week or two.” —X employee 1

“There is little to no strong belief in the Elon plan from what I have experienced thus far. The exception being those who have been elevated/promoted or seem to have a vested interest in rising within the ranks internally.” —X employee 2

“I think it will either be a very successful Elon company, with usual Elon-company problems, or it’ll eventually be sold off … The only way it would go bankrupt is if it benefited him to buy it cheaper.” —X employee 1

財富中文網所刊載內容之知識產權為財富媒體知識產權有限公司及/或相關權利人專屬所有或持有。未經許可,禁止進行轉載、摘編、復制及建立鏡像等任何使用。
0條Plus
精彩評論
評論

撰寫或查看更多評論

請打開財富Plus APP

前往打開

            主站蜘蛛池模板: 连城县| 文水县| 长宁县| 郓城县| 界首市| 宜宾县| 白城市| 宝鸡市| 巴林右旗| 囊谦县| 思南县| 丹巴县| 色达县| 民县| 上杭县| 包头市| 长海县| 隆安县| 航空| 津市市| 湛江市| 额敏县| 东乌珠穆沁旗| 富平县| 平乐县| 克拉玛依市| 尚义县| 富裕县| 宾阳县| 宿州市| 台南县| 监利县| 泾源县| 仁怀市| 确山县| 郑州市| 兴宁市| 富宁县| 上虞市| 四平市| 申扎县|