Don't like Musk? Work for us! Tech firms woo ex-Twitter staff
22/11/2022 10:32
By Martin Coulter
LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Put off by Elon Musk's
muscular management style? Move to us! That's the pitch being
used by talent-starved technology firms trying to lure thousands
of former Twitter Inc employees laid off by the social media
company under its new owner.
Twitter has fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts
with little warning following Musk's tumultuous takeover of the
social media platform. About half of the workforce - around
3,700 employees - has been laid off.
Hundreds more are reported to have quit as a result of his
sweeping reforms. On Monday, the head of French operations was
the latest senior manager to leave.
Spying opportunity, some companies are now trying to pick up
experienced engineering talent by appealing to their disdain for
the methods of the world's richest person.
Katie Burke, chief people officer at U.S. software company
Hubspot HUBS.N , blasted Musk over reports he had fired a group
of employees that had criticised him on the company's internal
Slack channels. Reuters was not able to verify the reports.
"As a leader, getting criticized is part of your job," she
wrote in a Linkedin post. "Great leaders recognize debate and
disagreement makes you better and is part of the process. If you
want a place where you can disagree (in a kind, clear manner of
course) with people, HubSpot is hiring."
By late on Monday, Burke's post had earned more than 35,000
positive reactions on Linkedin.
Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Other companies are taking a similar approach to Hubspot.
Amanda Richardson, CEO of recruitment software startup
CoderPad, published an open letter to Twitter leavers.
Citing Musk's initial ban on remote-working, Richardson
described Musk’s takeover as a "s*** show" which had been
"terribly frustrating, depressing and demotivating".
"At CoderPad, we believe your skills say it all. Not where
you sit. Not if you sleep at work. Not working 7 days a week for
18 hours a day."
Other big U.S. tech firms including Meta META.O and Amazon
AMZN.O have also laid off thousands of staff in recent weeks
due to the uncertain economic environment.
But the public criticism of Musk highlights strong demand in
parts of the industry for highly skilled digital workers.
A recent report from market analysis firm Gartner found high
attrition rates and a spate of digitalisation efforts across
business and government had created a "hyper-competitive" market
for technical talent.
Mass job cuts and public resignations at Twitter have
prompted worries the firm is shedding vital staff and fears the
social media "town square" could face technical troubles.
Michael Weening, CEO of U.S. cloud and software company
Calix CALX.N , described recent events at Twitter as
“disturbing”, and promised new recruits they would enjoy a
corporate culture that “starts with our team members” in a
similar Linkedin post.
"From our perspective this is a great opportunity, as people
who would not speak to us before are disillusioned and looking,"
Weening told Reuters. "The toxic culture has people saying, ‘No
more.’"
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FACTBOX-Twitter 2.0: Musk warns of bankruptcy, flip-flops on
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(Reporting by Martin Coulter; Editing by Josephine Mason and
Mark Potter)
((Martin.Coulter@thomsonreuters.com; Follow me on Twitter
@Martinjbcoulter;))