Twitter & job cuts

[jhs914]

Yes, he seems very intelligent.

But, per @PWMDMD's point, just being a genius doesn't mean you'll end up wealthy. Many people with genius level IQ's have low motivation or other psychological handicaps that prevent them from attaining greatness (or their "full potential" if we are using the words that parents often toss out to their under-performing children). Others just bury themselves in a subject, like Stephen Hawking. Many struggle with anxiety, ADD/ADHD, depression, excessive spontaneity, boredom coupled with compulsive situational alteration...etc. There are myriad conditions that can have a profound impact on somebody who, to their peers, that know that person is brilliant, seems wildly under-performing.

I had a close friend, may he rest in peace, who was a member of Mensa. Dude was indeed smart but he jumped from one low paying job to another and died a pauper. He didn't suffer from any of the emotional or mental conditions you listed other than not being able to stick with any one thing very long and using his skills to improve his situation in life.

 

[PWMDMD]

Yikes, it’s called a joke PWM. Your calling is admirable, your income justifiable. Like my dentist always tells me ‘don’t be so sensitive!’

I did not intend that to seem defensive...I just didn't see the relevance.

 

[PWMDMD]

I had a close friend, may he rest in peace, who was a member of Mensa. Dude was indeed smart but he jumped from one low paying job to another and died a pauper. He didn't suffer from any of the emotional or mental conditions you listed other than not being able to stick with any one thing very long and using his skills to improve his situation in life.

While a minimum intelligence is required in many fields there's significant evidence that EQ/personality/hell even height plays as significant if not more of a role in the average person's success (or lack of). There is ultimately a lot of factors that go into determining someone's level of success including good ol' luck.

 

[Number_35]

Richard Feynman is my personal hero and I've read every book ever written about him. I think there are inherent issues with IQ as a measure of intelligence. I think Richard was much more intelligent than that score implies even with his unimaginable curiosity and ability to hammer a problem for as long as it took to understand it. Most average to slightly above average teens aren't teaching themselves calculus as a teen but his mathematical skills were only part of his genius - he was able to visualize problems (Feynman diagrams being just one example) and really understand problems in a way that extended beyond being really good at maths - he could apply an uncanny "common sense" to very difficult and hard to understand problems. His determination of what caused the Challenger crash is a prime example - people going on and on about telemetry and data and he throws a piece of O-ring in some ice water....mic drop!

"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" was a very enjoyable read.

You're right - he was intelligent in ways that traditional testing failed to capture.

Regarding the Challenger disaster, that was a tragic case of political and managerial pressure overruling good engineering.

 

[Donald]

Our company bonus (when they actually pay it) is paid March 1st of the following year. Even if you worked all 365 days of the previous year, if you leave the company for any reason between 1/1 and 2/28, you get ZERO bonus which is a crock of… dung.

They skirt the issue by basing the bonus on unrealistic EBITDA and OCF targets, and even just missing the target by an eensy bit on either metric results in a numerator of 0. Good times!

But you know the deal. How would you feel if they had a layoff on 2/28? If you quit on 2/28 that up to you.

 

[PWMDMD]

"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" was a very enjoyable read.

You're right - he was intelligent in ways that traditional testing failed to capture.

Regarding the Challenger disaster, that was a tragic case of political and managerial pressure overruling good engineering.

Absolutely, but Feynman cut right through the BS with good ol' common sense and logic. On a side note, I love listening to him speak - the NY accent with his way of explaining, "So you have a thing that acts on another thing. And those things together act differently than those things apart, you see." What? Is it REALLY that simple? No, it's not, but If you didn't know who was speaking you'd think he has no idea what he's talking about...lol. However, I do think Feynman did try and reduce complexity as much as possible when thinking about these problems and that itself was part of his genius.

 

[Donald]

Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs, smart and a visionary.

 

[Donald]

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

 

[PWMDMD]

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

I agree with you but apparently, the mega-genius doesn't care even though it could hurt him in the future. What I've found is intelligence comes in many different forms.

 

[OVERKILL]

I had a close friend, may he rest in peace, who was a member of Mensa. Dude was indeed smart but he jumped from one low paying job to another and died a pauper. He didn't suffer from any of the emotional or mental conditions you listed other than not being able to stick with any one thing very long and using his skills to improve his situation in life.

That sounds like "boredom coupled with compulsive situational alternation". One of my best friends suffers from it (and he could be a Mensa member) and he is simply incapable of sticking to a specific job. He gets a job, masters it and then can't stick with it, he has to change his situation, which often involved a total relocation, but not always. Then it was a new "adventure" all over again. Of course never sticking with anything, he's never amassed any sort of wealth and he's had a very hard time staying happy. He's currently employed in the trucking industry, but in a very varied capacity, his employer allows him to jump around to different jobs/challenges (from driving to graphic design, surveillance...etc) which has kept him at this place longer than I've ever see him stick with one.

He's a brilliant mind and an incredibly gifted artist, but a truly restless soul that will be his burden until he's buried.

 

[wpod]

Or install solar panels

That was brutal !

 

[wpod]

My I.Q. is negative 4.276 but I was blessed to live in a nation where there is opportunity to be able to be all I can be. In retrospect it isn't that hard.

 

[PWMDMD]

That sounds like "boredom coupled with compulsive situational alternation". One of my best friends suffers from it (and he could be a Mensa member) and he is simply incapable of sticking to a specific job. He gets a job, masters it and then can't stick with it, he has to change his situation, which often involved a total relocation, but not always. Then it was a new "adventure" all over again. Of course never sticking with anything, he's never amassed any sort of wealth and he's had a very hard time staying happy. He's currently employed in the trucking industry, but in a very varied capacity, his employer allows him to jump around to different jobs/challenges (from driving to graphic design, surveillance...etc) which has kept him at this place longer than I've ever see him stick with one.

He's a brilliant mind and an incredibly gifted artist, but a truly restless soul that will be his burden until he's buried.

I'm not claiming genius-level intelligence but I can at least say I'm a bright guy. My profession is something I chose to do when I was 20 years old - what the hell did I know at 20? My biggest issue now at 44 is I find it very boring and not at all intellectually stimulating. So I read constantly and tend to obsess on a particular topic until I really understand it just to move on to something completely different. I'm enrolled in an MBA for little more reason than I was bored. Now my profession pays my bills so I'm not going to tank my life by walking away from it but I certainly understand how wearing boredom can be on a person if they can't find intellectual stimulation in their current situation.

I came this close to enrolling in the DMD/PhD program and I probably should've. I think the PhD and being at an academic institution would've kept me more engaged...well you live and learn...

 

[wpod]

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

That is par for the course in many corporations.. Look at how some airlines reorganized and cost really high skilled people their retirement packages. I have little sympathy for the Twitter workers.

 

[dkryan]

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

Actually it’s not so much a “policy” in this case as it is a business decision by the sole owner of the business.

Like it or not, it’s something that has occurred numerous times throughout the history of mergers and acquisitions.

As to the current employees not being “happy?” Clearly their former co-workers showed them which exit to use to resolve their unhappiness. Though I’m inclined to believe those “current” employees are less in a state of concern for those who just exited the building and more in a “state of pucker.”

 

[Hall]

I have never understood why people whine and complain about their first amendment rights on a **private platform**.

I laugh about this all the time.... If the "conversation" involves you or I, another person, a company, a church, a website, a journalist, a newspaper/news channel, etc, etc, please DO NOT even bring up the 1st amendment, specifically freedom of speech.

(not directed at you, uc501c4more)

 

[4WD]

I doubt Musk is bored.
His companies: Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company and now Twitter.

My favorite is Neuralink.

I thought of StarLink after hearing he never helps anyone …

 

[4WD]

That was brutal !

It was good enough for pipeline welders, right ?

 

[Hall]

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

It's crappy, yeah. Could I do it to people ? I want to say absolutely not !

Thing is, I don't tell others how to operate their business (or lives, etc). I don't have to like how they do it but I have no say-so either. Nor does anyone here.

 

[wag123]

Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs, smart and a visionary.

And just like Jobs, Musk is a socially dysfunctional narcissist A-Hole of the first order. Being smart and visionary doesn't make anybody a good person.

The point of this thread was to say it's crappy policy to lay people off a day before a bonus or stock award. The people who continue to work will not be happy their coworkers were screwed out of a bonus or stock award and will remember.

And this proves it. Musk has a history of mistreating his employees.