Proponents of the capitalistic feudalism system we have in the US will be the first to point out that the people at the top deserve the massive wealth they hoard because without them, there wouldn't be a company, or if there is, not a successful one. If you look out to the most valuable companies today they're all well over a decade old, some of which are over a century old. They're so massive that they bend market conditions to their will, stamping out other, and often better, offerings to continue to hold market share. Capitalism has been dead in this country for a long time, and the owner class has turned it into a patriotic symbol to perpetuate the status quo that keeps them fat and happy. If you've ever questioned the real worth of the C suite / board of directors / stockholder class, assessing it is rather easy: Play a though experiment in which those “key” members disappear. If Tim Cook went to Pluto, would Apple cease to exist? Absolutely not. What if the entire Walton were warped to Alpha Centauri? Wal-Mart would continue to be a menace to local businesses everywhere without skipping a beat.
Which brings us to Twitter. This is the first time in my life where I've seen such a drastic example of this thought experiment played out. Here is a “super genius” who allegedly made his fortune from his own wit and grit, who decided that this massive multi-billion dollar company can do without half of its employees on what seems like a whim. Lo and behold, it turns out that some of those engineers, the ones doing the actual work, were needed. What does he do next? He asks the remaining employees to forgo their free time for no additional pay to cover for the employees that were fired. Did he offer raises to top performers there? No. Did he enter a revenue sharing agreement with the workers to incentivize a road profitability? No. Did he just admit that he made a mistake and that he'll start to hire again so no one has to work insane hours? No.
To paraphrase: “I will threaten you with loss of income if you do not sign away all of your free time to bail me out of a mess I created.”
Fuck the owner class.