Resolution criteria: trustworthy news sources claiming >=50% of employees fired, which should be ~3750 (unless the number of employees on Wikipedia turns out to be wrong). Starting date is today
Oct 30, 9:31am: Will Twitter fire >50% of employees before April 2023? → Will Twitter fire >=50% of employees before April 2023?
🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ1,015 | |
| 2 | Ṁ769 | |
| 3 | Ṁ500 | |
| 4 | Ṁ430 | |
| 5 | Ṁ417 |
If anyone's curious, Twitter is now down to 1300 employees, from over 7000!
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/twitter-is-down-to-fewer-than-550-full-time-engineers.html
From the Bloomberg article that it references:
"An internal counter of employees currently reads 2,750, one person said, though some resignations and cuts may still be in the process of being counted. Twitter had more than 7,000 employees before Musk took over in late October."
NYTimes reporting that at least 1200 employees left, putting them well over the 50% mark. This should resolve YES. @Lorenzo
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-workers-quit.html
Does constructive dismissal count as firing?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/twitter-offices-closed-1.6655881
"Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to be leaving the beleaguered social media company following an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk that staffers sign up for "long hours at high intensity," — or leave."
If the deal is that everyone is being asked to work longer and harder for the same salary or quit, and they mostly decide to quit, that's a staff-reducing decision that's analogous to firing, to the point that it's legally considered termination. This is almost certainly why severance is being offered; otherwise they'd get sued a lot, and lose. The question is whether a business practice that's legally equivalent to termination counts for the purposes of this market.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/16/musk-twitter-email-ultimatum-termination/
Washington Post reporting that employees have to agree by end of day Thursday to be part of “new Twitter” and work extreme hours or be fired. I think we can say safely that this will put them over the 50% line, though of course we should wait for confirmation that people were actually fired because of this.
Well, it sounds like a lot are leaving, though maybe Musk will back-down?
@Gabrielle It sounds like they just locked everybody out of the buildings: https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593391604785504257
Reporting that another 20 were fired for allegedly questioning Musk in company slack
It sounds like we've at least had 3738 employees fired in the initial layoff, then another 20 now, which would be more than the 3750 number we had earlier, though also some people were re-hired?
@Gabrielle I think people being fired and rehired are still people who were "fired"; I think we probably shouldn't double count them in the unlikely event that some of the 20 were rehired-fired people, but otherwise, fair game to me.
Reporting that 4,400 contract employees were eliminated yesterday
https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1591848844899540992?s=20&t=t1ar06X5EezHd4CHjtaEOw
@kazoo "After laying off 50 percent of the company’s employees..."
engadget is reporting that the criteria here is already true. Is engadget not a 'trustworthy news source"? Or is it really alone in reporting that this already happened?
@Adam I think it's rounding to a whole number. More precise reporting seems to have this a bit below 50%. But unclear.
@kazoo Not employees in normal definitions.
Also, if we include contractors in the numerator we also have to include them in the denominator, and I don't have numbers for how many contractors indirectly worked on Twitter in 2022.
@MartinRandall hmm, since inconclusive maybe we can resolve it n/a. i however am happy how ever, any lay off is scary for all us! yikes
@kazoo If it was my market I'd resolve 50% or N/A and also curse Elon for laying off precisely enough people to make market resolution absurdly difficult.
We at least shouldn’t resolve before the designated end date - another round of layoffs is plausible and would result in a YES.
Lol wow - https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1589075543420325888
Multiple sources and Twitter Blind chats now saying that the company has begun to reach out to some people it laid off yesterday asking them to come back. Whoops!
@Lorenzo For the purposes of this market, if someone is fired and immediately rehired does it still count as being fired? (I assume yes?) I love how reality always manages to throw fun edge cases at these markets 🙂
@Lorenzo I think the way this normally works is that everyone involved pretends it was a miscommunication so that there isn't as much paperwork.
@BenjaminCosman Agreed -- defining a verifiable outcome completely crisply is surprisingly hard
At least some of the 3738 appear to have resigned.
https://twitter.com/AndrewHaigh/status/1588417701222879233
"roughly 50% of the workforce will be impacted"
@Lorenzo does this count as >= 50%? It doesn't seem like we'll get public information on if this is strictly 50% or more of employees, and since Twitter is now a private company, we might not hear anything before April 2023.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/lovewhereyouworked lots of people getting fixed. Hard to tell if it's already 50%
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/technology/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk.html
Note that the number cited in that doc is 3738, which may be just below 3750. So if that ends up being the number, I assume this won't resolve YES at that time (but might resolve if there are any additional layoffs later?)
@LincolnQuirk Unless the number on Wikipedia is wrong, which is plausible
@VivaLaPanda Could be wrong in either direction. I'd put this market at 50%.
@MartinRandall I think it's unlikely that there would be less than 12 firings before April. Unless we find a better number I will resolve with 3750
plz understand https://www.adweek.com/media/elon-musk-reportedly-plans-to-slash-twitters-workforce-by-50-friday/
If Stripe can lay off 14% with no Musk and a much better profit model, Twitter can lay off 50%
https://manifold.markets/VivaLaPanda/will-stripe-announce-layoffs-by-the#QH7Jh89d63LYHysbE2eI
Even if Musk plans to lay of half of Twitter’s staff, I guess it will be a very slow process.
Twitter has 1,500 moderators so even firing all moderation staff doesn't get to 50%. Engineers are going to find other jobs instead of being fired.
Depending on standard of "fired" used in resolution, seems likely IMO. Maybe will approach 50% with attrition plus firings but very unlikely that half of the workforce would be fired outright
@DavidSocha There were a lot of departures before the takeover was finalized, so 50% attrition from now seems unlikely. Especially given that Musk wants to add a pvp mode.
@MartinRandall
> There were a lot of departures before the takeover
Do you have a source? How much is a lot?
Ah, meant to say "unlikely". Agreed that this amount of turnover seems very improbable especially just from firings
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/technology/twitter-layoffs-musk-jobs.html
Elon Musk planned to begin laying off workers at Twitter as soon as Saturday
The scale of the layoffs could not be determined.
Ross Gerber, the chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said he was told by Jared Birchall, the head of Mr. Musk’s family office, that layoffs were coming at Twitter. “I was told to expect somewhere around 50 percent of people will be laid off,” he said.
Can you add resolution criteria, such as what data source you will use, from what date you will start counting, and what denominator you will use.
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