Elon Musk Laid Me Off At Twitter: Simon Balmain

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2022-11-09

YouTube video id: h6Qz6IxRLj0

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Qz6IxRLj0

welcome to Big technology podcast a show
for cool headed nuanced conversation of
the tech world and Beyond and we are
going to do this episode emergency Style
just gonna throw it right up on the feed
no music uh because we have some serious
breaking news
um there's been serious layoffs at
Twitter and I thought you might want to
hear from someone who's been inside the
company and can share a little bit about
their perspective about what it's been
like what it means and where Twitter and
the employees go from here
so joining us today is Simon Balmain
he's a former senior community manager
at Twitter one of the many employees
tweeting about his departure it's been
very interesting to watch it play out in
public and his tweet caught my eye and
he's graciously appeared to come and
talk us through uh what's happened Simon
welcome to the show uh you're welcome
thank you for having me so where are you
based so I'm in England uh I'm in I live
in Birmingham which is uh in the middle
of the country
um just a couple of hours north of of
London
um so kind of between uh working from
home here in Birmingham and um yeah
going into the London office
occasionally yeah and now
um can you share a little bit about how
you you seem to be fairly early uh
because in Thurs in on Thursday uh
Twitter had announced that it was going
to do these layoffs and then um you
tweeted pretty soon afterwards so so how
did you find out
so um
we uh we'd obviously been hearing these
can you is my voice clear does it sound
okay yep loud and clear okay cool cool
um
so we'd obviously been hearing about
these issues uh these potential
um rumors of layoffs since
pretty much since the deal was was
completed uh around a week ago the rumor
mill sort of
churned into overdrive uh with this idea
that big layoffs were were on the
horizon
um we got the email uh everyone in the
company as I understand it got this
email
last last night
um
it was pretty it was pretty early hours
of the morning in the UK it was after
midnight
um I tend to be up quite late because I
primarily have been working with people
in the US and working on products in San
Francisco and on the west coast
um so those are kind of my normal hours
um
and within the email kind of said yeah
there's going to be this huge reduction
in head count uh
you if you're affected you'll get an
email to your personal email and if not
you'll get something to your work email
and it was within an hour of that going
out that uh I noticed my laptop flash
um it had been sort of remotely uh
removed from the system and kind of set
to the Mac security pin setting that you
get when you sort of remotely wipe out
or revoke access to systems
um
and after that I checked and it was the
same with uh my Gmail G Suite access
that was revoked my slack access or
revoked as well wait that's how you
found out just yeah that's how I found
out just everything just removed
straight away yeah was there follow-up
communication from the company after
that
yeah there's there's been follow-up
communication
um very
let's just say very carefully worded uh
obviously
different countries
um even different states in the US
different territories you know the the
labor laws can vary widely right and in
the UK we actually have pretty good
labor laws
um so there is there is certain things
that have to be said and certain steps
that have to be taken and processes that
have to be followed otherwise
um you can find yourself in in serious
legal liability
um so certainly at least here in the UK
and I'm sure you know everywhere
everywhere else relative to to whatever
local laws are applicable uh is paying
very close attention to ensure that this
process is followed
um
and you know whatever if if that happens
then that's fine uh if it doesn't then
we'll see where we go from there
right what's the mood been like inside
the company have you imagined I know
that you're in the UK right smaller
office than in in New York San Francisco
but I imagine you're all connected
digitally yes I mean I've primarily been
working with mostly with folks in in the
US
um pretty much my whole time at the
company
um
I guess the the maybe yeah maybe we
start with like when musk had you know
agreed and then we can go through
um you know the various stages so when
you found out that Elon had had was act
actually gonna close this deal was there
a surprise I mean it happened it's hard
to believe but it happened just a week
ago yeah well
it's the whole process even going back
to you know April when he first made
this offer has been just an absolute
roller coaster of ups and downs and so
talk about that roller coaster yeah
unpredictable
um he may you know he made this offer in
in uh in April
um
I suppose based upon
the relative economic Market at the time
pertaining to tech companies uh shortly
after that you know Global events that
took place like you know what's been
happening in Ukraine and uh you know
various other things
um caused the majority of tech stocks to
you know drop quite dramatically over
that time at which point it seemed like
he felt like he had made a mistake and
perhaps should have waited a bit longer
and then spent the summer trying to get
out of it um
while denigrating the company the
executives the employees in the process
uh what was the movement inside the
company while that happened
it was just
bizarre it was bizarre
um
nobody really knew what to make of it
all but certainly it was
very distracting
um we we
didn't get a huge amount of
communication from the previous
administration uh
but it was more than we got in the last
week from the new management to
certainly
um was sort of like a general sense that
like okay this this deal probably once
you tried to get out of it was there a
general sense like oh he probably won't
be the new owner or was it sort of like
limbo I mean at one point it certainly
seemed like
he might uh
might be willing to pay some kind of
nominal fee to get out of it
um
certainly seemed for a while that he
that he absolutely did not want to to do
it if he had the choice to
and maybe maybe that's still the case
maybe he didn't have a choice not not to
do it at this point given what happened
in in court
um who you know who's to say it's a very
complex acquisition matter uh but
certainly when after the the judge
um had agreed to this delay after he
said that he was going to close it
um
I think at that point you know there was
no way this wasn't going to happen
um and then yeah and so when he said he
was going to close it did that catch you
and the employees by surprise how is
that perceived internally
because he had spent you're right he had
spent the whole summer denigrating the
company yeah I mean honestly it it
didn't take me by surprise or really
anybody that I spoke to not because and
purely because it's
um
it's hard to he's just he's a very
unpredictable character
um that you know logically with most
people you would think that if somebody
spent a large amount of time saying hey
I don't want to do this thing anymore
I'm not going to do it then they
wouldn't do it
um
so but that's you know you can't you
can't predict um what what someone like
that does so I want you know I wasn't
surprised right and how do people react
once you said okay you know this is
going to close inside the company
um
it's hard it's yeah it's it's hard to
say because again
even though he had said that
anything could have happened at that
point like he had you know track record
had proven that
what is true one day may not be true the
next day and what is false one day maybe
true the next day it's it's just
impossible to tell so it was just like
this very prolonged just waiting game
emotional roller coaster of not knowing
what to think
um
when I I think the real mood shift came
um
on the day that you know that the deal
was closed and he you know showed up at
the office and and fired all the
executives
um right you know these
these are incredible people that that
you know most people in the company have
had some kind of interaction with one
way or another depending you know
obviously what what
um Department you're in and to have that
sort of chain of command just like
broken at that level
uh was it was horrible to see and and I
think at that point we knew that
you know these big layoffs were pretty
much inevitable plus plus the fact that
there was no communication internally
about any of this stuff
all right you would expect something
we've got nothing
and so how are people communicating how
are they figuring out what was going on
pretty much on platform following the
news and following yeah following you
know following the resources of of
deep diving investigators like here
Casey Newtons and people like that
um
yeah we're finding out a lot of stuff at
the same time everybody else's right no
there's this rumor that 75 of the staff
was going to get cut people picked up on
that inside
yeah
um
that was that was the number that was
going around for a few weeks
um
he did uh he did say when he went into
the San Francisco office that that
number was not accurate and he didn't
know where it came from uh
I think it is
probably not it's probably not quite
that high but probably not far off
either
yeah so how many of the of the people
that you worked with uh closely are
still at the company
oh
it's really hard to say I mean I've I
haven't heard from from everybody uh
yeah I know that a lot of people
are not it's hard to it's it's a sea of
people saying that they're not and uh
the the odd message from somebody sort
of
sheepishly saying I'm still here and I
don't know how to feel
oh wow interesting
so um can you can you talk a little bit
about the plans that that um Elon said
he wanted to introduce were was there
any excitement to well actually let me
ask you this what is your opinion about
Elon you know or what was it before this
all began
um
so I
I personally try
not to really have too many solid
opinions about people that I haven't met
or don't know that are based on you know
Media or projections or or whatever I
try I try as a rule not to do that so
that while there certainly were people
um that were very anti him and certainly
there are a lot of people that are very
Pro him
I I tend to find that historically I've
just been quite neutral I'm like I will
judge people by their actions uh if I
think it's a good thing that you've done
or if I think it's a bad thing that
you've done
um and and tend not to make you know
personality judgments on people that I
don't know
do you still do you believe in the plans
that that he laid out for Twitter and
and what will the fact that he's cut so
many employees do to his ability to
actually see them through
that's a good question
um given that I don't know the exact
number
um that's impacted but I do believe it
to be quite High uh I think
it's going to be challenging it's going
to be challenging and I think that there
are people
who even if they have you know survived
this uh probably very likely to leave
their own accord in in the not too
distant future
um yeah it's it's difficult as as far as
as far as what their plans might be
I think one thing that's pretty clear
from
the economics of this deal
is that he's on the hook for quite a lot
of money and not a huge amount of time
you know we're talking
a billion plus in interest payments
alone to the financiers every year
you know that's more Revenue than it's
been making uh obviously you know some
of it is collateral against you know
Tesla stock and and whatever else and
um he's not going to want to you know
have to sell other things unless he's
forced to so it's sort of this this
juggling game for him I guess but I
think what that makes clear is is
product wise the focus is extremely
likely to be on everything that drives
new revenue and ignore everything that
doesn't
um that's interesting that's my sort of
crystal ball of it from from you know
what I've what I've seen in the last
week or so
um I think
my my personal feeling about the broad
direction of product travel is there's
likely to be a couple of different
things and one of those is that there
will be a large focus on
um
uh products that directly Drive Revenue
to the company in that the user will
need to pay to do X or Y
um and then the other one will be uh
high priority
attempt at sort of create a program's
influencer programs where users pay
other users and the company takes a cut
for whatever content or access or
features then they might be able to use
and I I think between those two streams
that's likely to be the product priority
for at least the midterm if if not the
next few years
yeah I want to ask you a question that's
sort of been
um with me since this whole thing
started which is that a lot of people
have focused on Elon but you know you
mentioned you didn't hear much from the
previous administration I guess you
started November 21 was Jack Dorsey
still the CEO at that point Jack Dorsey
was still a CEO at that point
um
Jack
stepped down
I think about two weeks after I started
and two weeks is kind of your onboarding
yeah so so tell me about yeah how did
that what was the your reaction when
that happened you know I I I was excited
to potentially work with with Jack
um you know I think there's always this
sort of
um you know Cult of the founder as they
call it
um and that's you know it's it's a real
thing you know when you're the founding
CEO there's there's a certain amount of
sort of Mystique that goes along with
that whether that's uh you know uh you
know warranted or or unwarranted
um certainly with Jack
um
having you know gone through his journey
of being removed from the company and
setting up another successful company
with uh block formerly known as Square
um and then coming back to Twitter you
know there was there was you know that
kind of element around him um
when he the funny thing is when he
stepped down about yeah two weeks is
about the general onboarding at Twitter
so those first two weeks is just a lot
of setting up your systems and reading
this and doing that and
um you're not really doing any actual
work but as I recall it there's um
there was a tradition of Jack jumping
into a um a Google meet
um call with every batch of of new
employees on a pretty rolling basis and
that was actually in our calendars and
it was supposed to happen like two or
three days after the day that he ended
up saying you know I'm stepping down and
so so that that didn't happen so I was
like days away from having that get this
like well you know group time actually
talk to Jack
um
but
from
from what I heard from people that had
been at the company for a you know a
while at that point
um there was a sort of general feeling
that he had been kind of absent for a
year or two kind of mentally checked out
um
probably
since the stuff uh in DC honestly and
after he got called into Congress and
all that stuff really you know yeah I
mean I don't know that that's the case
but the timeline seems to seems to match
up
um
yeah does Jack I mean Jack said Elon
Musk was the perfect person for Twitter
I mean and then parag of course you know
worked you know was his hand-picked
successor and you didn't hear much from
him apparently you know during his time
because the Elon thing came in pretty
soon after
you know just the fact that that they
pushed the company to Elon and now all
these employees are out
um do you have any reaction to that uh
it's a lot there's a lot of people are
talking about like elon's role in this
and of course not great uh in the layoff
I feel like this layoff is is very
ill-advised um you can't possibly know
how to cut half the company and uh you
know in in just a couple days I've
written that like some of the stuff he's
done is is good but he's definitely like
you just a
it seems kind of Reckless But but so he
deserves his share criticism but I
wonder what you think about Jack like
pushing the company to somebody who will
would then go ahead
and cut so many
yeah I mean Jack is is certainly not an
innocent bystander uh in in this ten of
events he's a very active participant in
this turn of events
um even having not been at the company
for you know a year and not been on the
board since I think May is when he
stepped down from the board clearly a
very active participant I think it's
common knowledge that that Jack did not
like the board and the way the company
was set up uh and you know it was
it was the existence of of of that whole
structure from the beginning that
was what allowed them to to push him out
when he got pushed out and you know
eventually he you know made his way back
in Perhaps Perhaps due to there not
being any better options
um at that time
um but certainly
it's pretty clear to me that the
structure of the company and the way it
was set up has been something that he's
been
unhappy about for quite some time
on that on that basis you know it's um
there's no sense of betrayal there
it's hard for me to feel a sense of
betrayal because I've been there for a
couple weeks yeah because he did step
down so quickly what was it like yeah
what was it like with um working under
Prague where he was pushing the sale to
Elon obviously stood to make a lot of
money on the way out and clearly had an
idea of what was going to happen
inside
I don't think
um
personally that communication
um during that time frame from the top
of the company was as good as good as it
could have been
um I feel like there was a lot of
just you know keep people hanging and
tell them as little as possible and you
know that just repeated week after week
month after month
um
what I will say is that
the level of Executives uh underneath
parag were incredible there was
something absolutely incredible people
there huge amount of respect for people
like Leslie Berlin who was the series
yeah former CMO yeah
um you know the product heads I was a I
was a huge fan of of Kavon
um
and then former had a product former
guest on the show oh yeah amazing
fantastic I love Kayvon
um I was very surprised that he was
that he was laid off so uh you know
fired earlier and yeah he's back in
Twitter headquarters now which is
interesting
that's a rumor that I had
um
I have yet to speak to anybody that
personally has been able to verify that
rumor interesting yeah Kayvon fantastic
um so many great people in the company
uh Tony Hale who came through the scroll
acquisition right this absolutely
incredible Rembert Brown who
by the way Tony also laid off today he
just announced it oh really yeah yeah
wow you know more than that I mean I've
been on the phone to press all day so
um wow wow Tony's incredible
that's sad
nobody is safe nobody is safe right what
was the mood in turn inside the company
like over the last 24 hours or so before
the actual notices went up like clearly
like this was something that was
imminent it was reported in the Press
um maybe you can talk a little bit about
yeah the mood over the last day and and
what Twitter culture has has been like
sure yeah I'm sorry I'm just checking my
calendar
um
so there are
um
there are fun
um sort of get together social channels
in the Twitter Slack
um very sort of General hangout talk
Vibes
um and in one of those channels
for you know hours and hours and hours
on on end yesterday uh
basically every single person in the
company was posting the salute Emoji as
a sign of solidarity and that it just
went on for hours and hours and hours
interesting
that was yeah it was it was something it
was something to see
um
yeah General mood has just been
just yeah all
a huge hugely deflating I think for a
lot of people but
I think one of the things that props us
all up is
the culture the sort of historical
culture
um
of of people within the company and
people who had left the company is it's
like a giant support network
um you know even even leading up to you
know what's happened today and last
night you've seen
very very influential people who are no
longer at the company saying
happy to do a referral talk to me
whatever you need like it's been it's
been like that with everyone
um
and it's
I think this is this is a pivotal moment
in in Tech History right because
think about all of the people that came
to the company as through Acquisitions
who were CEOs who had raised Venture
Capital who had had successful startups
it's a lot of people and all the people
that directly worked under those like
I'm one of them like spit my company's
Fair messenger the CEO of that was a guy
called Nick dialogio Nick was the
youngest person to ever get Venture
Capital when he was like 15 sold this
first company to Yahoo when he was 17
and this was you know his next company
you know did the same thing again Nick's
Nick's incredible he's a genius
um
I don't know if Nick has been laid off
but certainly a lot of the sphere
acquisition people including myself have
been
um or believe that to be the case right
now with the sort of lack of
communication that we had
um
and that's that's going to be the case
for a lot of incredible people in the
company and it it's it doesn't seem to
be from as far as we can tell there's no
sort of
um Rhyme or Reason To You Know teams or
roles in particular or anything it seems
to be everybody right so you have
basically a perfect storm of of of
c-suite Executives people who know how
to get you know VC funding programmers
you know designers marketing people
community people like you've got you've
got everything you need right and it's
impossible for me to think that there
won't be
bunch of new Incredible startups that
come out of this yeah how do you respond
to some of the folks who've said I mean
I've been tweeting about this a little
bit and I've been surprised to see like
the lack of empathy from some people
who've been like you know these
employees had it coming or you know lay
off as many of them as you can
yeah it's weird
um
the sort of manga people in my responses
all day
um in between you know a much higher
percentage of of people who actually do
have empathy
um
um the weirdest thing to me is that they
can't even look at my bio and see that
I'm in the UK it's like
what do what do I have to do with your
political climate really like
so yeah it's it's weird um I don't know
what they expect uh
because there's a very there's a very
real scenario and I think you know the
Verge and others have written about this
that
Revenue gen directly Revenue generating
products take a take time to to you know
properly design properly Implement and
to you know pick up support from people
um
and if you are
losing your brand safety with your
advertisers who are 85 of your current
Revenue
that's a weird position to be in like
it's it's I mean it's a dangerous game
to play
um
yeah I'm looking for a tweet right now
because Elon just shared a tweet right
before we went on air
and he said uh Twitter had has had a
massive drop in Revenue to to activist
groups pressuring advertisers even
though nothing has changed with the
content moderation and we did everything
we could to appease the activists
extremely messed up they're trying to
destroy free speech in America
so I mean he is right that the content
moderation policies haven't uh haven't
changed but he is laying off lots of
people in the ad group and yeah and you
know content moderation right is
it's not AI driven right it's not
machine learning it's you know there's
elements of that to it like anything in
Tech but it's a manual job that real
people are doing and if you're laying
off people that do that then stuff's not
going to get checked in in the way that
it should
um and I I suspect that
he it's it's it's potentially quite
likely that concessions will have to be
made by him in order to you know uh um
appease brand advertisers in in certain
ways
um that
some of these people who are very
jubilant and joyful about this uh might
have a very quick turn of heart about
those decisions
um
right so we'll see we'll see let me ask
you two more questions if I can sure uh
first one what do you think what's your
view of what the future of Twitter is
going to look like now
uh
uh heavy focus on
direct Revenue generating products in in
the short to mid term right right
um well we said that but like successful
not do you think that like where does
this end where does this go with Elon
yeah uh I mean no you can't really say
but like what's your hunch I don't have
a crystal ball
um
yeah I I really don't know I I think
I wouldn't be surprised if more
advertisers pull their revenue because
if we're honest
there's other places they're happy to
put it right because there's never been
for most big advertisers yeah this is
our like number one thing that we're
gonna put all of our money into it it
just hasn't been that
um so
if there's if there's risk or there's
turbulence there's instability they'll
they'll they'll shift it around they'll
move it wherever else yeah you know
experimental advertising and metaverse
or whatever Zuckerberg's doing I don't
know like you know there's options right
so I would I would not be surprised if
if that Trend continues of advertising
Revenue dropping
um
um not confident that
a push on Direct Revenue products via
users will pick up at the same Pace that
ad Revenue may drop
it's it's a it's a dangerous game to be
playing right
um finally um how are you feeling and
what's next for you
I'm pretty Zen I'm pretty optimistic
um it's just in my nature so
um
um I did not expect my tweet to to do
that many numbers uh so yeah there's a
lot of Goodwill there there's been
Recruiters in my inbox there's been CEOs
in my inbox there's been all kinds of
things referrals whatever else like I'm
not I'm not short of options
um for what I want to decide to do to do
next
um well I my personal beliefs are very
much in in building trust building
empathy into the internet
um you know Building open Community
products like that as many people can
use and have a great experience with I
think we need to get back to that
um that sort of unrealized potential
that we that we all had in the earlier
days of the internet your late 90s and
your early 2000s when everything seemed
to be a lot more open and protocol based
and people operated with a lot more
empathy
um yes we need to get back to that
that's one of the things I thought as I
was scrolling through Twitter today was
like oh like you might not agree with
people you might you know think elon's
going to do a good job with Twitter and
and I'm still open to the fact maybe he
will wrote about it this week there's
some good things that he's doing
um however like the the lack of empathy
is tough to see
um let's end with um by reading the
tweet that you sent uh right before we
got on the phone or couple hours before
you're hi everyone I have I have coffee
and the sun is shining I appreciate you
all life is good don't forget to smile
put on some Stevie Wonder Prince Joni
Mitchell Naz or whatever your preference
is and have a wonderful day
I just thought that attitude was you
know so refreshing and I mean
that's the one thing that I can tell is
that you know the group of people who
were laid off today
um very talented folks and the tech
world is in need of of solid Talent so
eventually everyone well most people
will land on their feet and um
absolutely no I know today's a tough day
I appreciate you taking some time to
speak with us about it thank you thank
you so much it's been my pleasure great
and if people want to find you or hire
you it's the best way to do it uh so my
Twitter is still up I'm not planning on
deleting it it's s b k c r n uh or my
full name on LinkedIn so I'm in Balmain
that's where I'm at
um always welcome for more recruiters or
head hunting with interesting offers
um and we'll see we'll see what happens
hey Simon last question for you are you
gonna pay your dollars
[Laughter]
well I mean Twitter blue never even
launched in the UK I only had it as a
staff member right I see uh so you know
they'd have to sort that out first and
then we'll see where we're at okay
that's fair okay thank you everybody for
listening um this has been an emergency
show uh so a few bells and whistles but
thank you for being here with us I
thought it was important to get Simon's
voice out on the feed uh one of the
collection that we're we're throwing out
there uh recently so it's great to have
heard from him
um thank you LinkedIn for having me as
part of your podcast network uh thank
you Nick Watney as always for doing the
audio although your finder prints aren't
on this so any problem was was my
problem uh this week with the audio and
then
um stay tuned in a couple of days or
maybe even tomorrow we're gonna have
soccer and Jetty and Marshall koslov
from the realignment promised emergency
podcast about the US midterms so just
dropping content on the feed left and
right
um and uh thanks to you thanks always
for listening really appreciate you guys
being here all right we'll see you next
time on big technology podcast