Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 memo was sent to remaining employees at Twitter on Wednesday November 16th. In the memo, Elon gave his team a deadline and call to action, which can also be interpreted as a loyalty oath to Elon Musk. The memo resulted in a mass exodus of remaining Twitter employees on Friday.
In the memo I found information on People, Process, and the Product. I will analyze the memo and share what I learned from it. I will also look to offer suggestions to improve it.
Product
Elon Musks’s Twitter 2.0 memo says that the new “breakthrough Twitter 2.0” is a “software and servers company”. He recently observed that according to him the product – software and servers, aren’t functioning as well as it should in all the places Twitter serves.
We also know what Elon believes about why Twitter matters. Elon believes that Twitter “serves as the de facto public town square”. He spent a great portion of his fortune acquiring and remaking the town square according to the free speech principles he believes in.
Given that the why and what of the product are clear with some additional context, the how seems to be evolving live on Twitter. Since this memo, Elon has tweeted (I think) the new system architecture of Twitter, and his idea for content moderation policy. Though this information wasn’t available to Twitter employees on the 16th of November, many could have guessed a rebuild in these areas.
Missing in Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 memo is the clarity on business model. How Elon believes the use case of ‘global town square’ can be monetized? We know he wants “roughly half” of Twitter’s revenue to come from subscriptions. Is Twitter still doing brand advertisements? If I were an employee, I want to see the financial upside possibility of embarking on this adventure with Elon.
People
Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 memo lays out a very thin organization structure. Elon talks explicitly about three teams, Design, Product Management, and Engineering. He implies there will be a Human Resources to evaluate “exceptional performance”. Elon also mentions that the three “very important teams” will all report to him. Finally, he also lays out a pecking order for the teams – “writing code will be the majority of our team and will have the greatest sway”.
There was no mention of other teams such as content moderation, information security, finance, sales, marketing, and ads team. One can gleam from his emphasis on “software and servers” model and that the majority of the team will write code, he intends to design algorithms and software to perform content moderation and identity verification for subscription service, and other such tasks that are currently done manually.
Even if I were a member of an essential team like Payroll, I wouldn’t know what to make out of the memo. In that sense this memo is incomplete.
Process
In this thin memo, the least informative phrases to me were “extremely hardcore”, “long hours at high intensity”, “passing grade”. For now, Twitter is a company with a global workforce. The terms above can be interpreted differently in different countries. Further, “click yes by 5PM” or “receive 3 months of severance” while generous, lays out a template for how the future decisions will be made. In many countries in Europe, this yes/no survey is not legally binding according to local labor laws.
In Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 memo the individual phrases were ambiguous and decision making was frivolous. But there was absolute clarity to the remaining employees that for foreseeable future there will be one decision maker – Elon Musk, and the process of decision making will often have undignified outcomes for the employees.
If I were a Twitter employee reading this memo on November 16, I would still be unclear about the new business model, what my big upside is going to be in exchange for a loyalty oath, even if I believe in the global town square vision of Twitter 2.0. There was no information about a new pay package or the possibility of negotiating one. Remember that the employees are comparing this uncertainty to 3 months of certain pay as severance.
While the outcome of people leaving might not kill Twitter, the business lessons from the Twitter show are just getting started. The lessons will have a long standing impact on all existing and and about to be founded technology companies around the world.