How Work Culture in Twitter Compares with Meta’s

Twitter former Product Director Esther Crawford just jumped ship. Her explanation came short of showing up the work culture of her former workplace place Twitter at Meta.

Too early to judge anyway.

When Elon Musk took over Twitter a year ago, only about 50 percent of its 7000 plus workers  had the nerves to stay. About 42 percent chose to get the pink slip. Crawford, then, just hopped into Twitter with both feet. Her options didn’t offer much. So she  embraced the hardcore work culture Musk had just transplanted from Tesla. But after two years, she, too, got the push.

“In person Elon is oddly charming and he’s genuinely funny,” Crawford wrote on X in July 2023.  She further wrote about workers dreading speaking up, and all that. No point speaking up, though. Musk had told them those who could not work and sleep where they work could get a three-month pay, and take a walk.

But working yourself ragged is not peculiar to Twitter alone. Crawford may soon realize at Meta. 

Meta Culture

With over 4 billion people on its platforms, Meta appeals to workers as the never-never land anyone might want to work. Its six core values highlight speed, futurism, long-term impact, direct and frank conversation across the food chain, great products, and dedication.

All of that sounds saccharine. On Glassdoor.com, reviews of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta’s work culture are not so different from Musk’s Twitter. You earn a mint there, no doubt; nice co-workers, the nerdiest of all; and a comfy workplace. On the flip side, some reviewers worry about skewed work balance, slave drivers that could ruin you. “Management is poor in comms, and career growth can be a little murky,” a reviewer said. One even accused the leadership of lack of accountability.

Twitter

Musk never pretended about what he wanted: an ‘ extremely hardcore’ work culture. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” he wrote in an email then. With a link indicating “Yes”, those who wanted to tough it out responded to the email. And he told them to buckle up for a minimum of 40 hours a week unless they had a specific exemption.

Crawford liked it there. “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork,” her tweet read in November 2022 . She added a photo showing her sleeping in Twitter’ office. 

Result of Hardcore Work Culture

Results of Hardcore Work Culture

It cuts both ways. After axing about half of its workforce, Twitter started hiccupping. Reports of  outages rose from less than 50 to about 350 reports at some point, according to website Downdetector, Twitter went down for more than 47,000 as of last December.

For Meta, its workforce also shrank from 86,482 in 2022 to 67,317 as of last December. That told pretty badly on the company’s customer care  department for users, influencers, communities, and businesses.

As work cultures take their tolls on the two platforms, the rivalry continues. Meta is well on the way to edge out Twitter with Thread.

“It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will,” Zuckerberg said last year.