What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so? Do you think that Elon Musk has some special magic insight that makes him get the same amount of work done with half the resources? I know some people at Twitter and some people at Musk's companies and I don't think they are fundamentally run differently.
>What makes you think that previous management needlessly employed unproductive workers when they could have easily not done so?
They probably don't know who the unproductive ones are anymore because without a fresh look at things they can't think about it objectively. They give tasks to people and they get done at the same speed as they've always been done with. How do you suddenly decide: Hey actually guys, I know we were working like this for 6 years but actually, we should be 40% faster on every single task so... you know.. start working faster please and everyone who doesn't gets fired.
It's just not realistic for existing managers to do this for so many reasons. Unless absolutely forced by financial realities which was apparently never the case for Twitter.
I'm absolutely not saying anything related to Musk, at all?
Your original comment stated: "If there was a way to determine the least performing 50% of employees in a matter of two days, they wouldn't be there in the first place anymore."
Therefore you, not I, implied that there are relatively unproductive workers at Twitter (not unreasonable, of course - there's always going to be a performance spectrum) - and you suggested that the previous management would have removed them if there was an easy way to identify them.
This is what I was disagreeing with - your premise that the previous management would have removed their most unproductive 50% if there was an easy way to identify them.
As you might have noticed, it is quite painful to fire people, and if you have a public profile (as most CEOs of large corps usually do), you get a reputation hit for being ruthless and all that stuff.
Previous management at Twitter didn't own a significant percentage of the company shares. Why be the "bad guy" when the paychecks are still rolling in? But when it's your "own money" at stake, you get much more motivated to cut unnecessary costs. Even if that makes lots of people on the Internet hate you.
My experience is that most companies are pretty averse to firing people in general, even in the US with at-will employment, and even when there are many people who are moderately incompetent (so long as they are not posing obvious risks to the company, e.g. sexual harassment, etc.).
