New Delhi: A photo is going viral in which an employee of social media giant Twitter can be seen sleeping on the office floor.
According to The New York Times, Twitter laid off at least 200 employees over the weekend, and it has now been revealed that one of the fired employees was a product manager whose picture of sleeping on the floor at the company headquarters went viral earlier.
According to tweets by Alex Heath, editor of tech news site The Verge, and Zo Schiffer, managing editor of tech newsletter Platformer, Esther Crawford and the majority of the remaining product team were let go in what is said to be the eighth round of layoffs since Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022.
Worth noting that Musk has not introduced a new stock comp structure since he took over. Twitter is still trying to hire back engineers from previous cuts. Everyone is working for less money, and now more cuts are hitting on a weekend without warning.
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) February 26, 2023
Esther Crawford, who has been leading Twitter’s product org and posted a photo of herself sleeping on the floor of the office early on in Musk’s takeover, was laid off this weekend. Sounds like basically all of the remaining product org was cut as well.
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) February 26, 2023
The photo, which was first shared by Evan Jones, a product manager for Twitter Spaces, showed Crawford fast asleep on the floor while wearing a sleeping bag and an eye mask. “When you need something from your boss at Elon Twitter,” Jones wrote in the caption. Crawford explained, while retweeting the photo, that sometimes you have to sleep at work and work around the clock to meet deadlines.
When you need something from your boss at elon twitter pic.twitter.com/hfArXl5NiL
— Evan Jones (@evanstnlyjones) November 2, 2022
Crawford, who was the CEO of Twitter Payments and in charge of the paid Blue subscription service, took to Twitter last year to defend her viral photo and Musk’s “hardcore” work culture of long hours and stricter deadlines.
According to The Verge, the Twitter workforce has shrunk by more than 70%, from an estimated 7,500 employees when Musk assumed the helm to less than 2,000 today. The new layoffs are the fourth since Twitter CEO Evan Williams promised in November last year that there would be no more layoffs.
