What's going on?

Elon Musk demanding Twitter employees roll up their sleeves or toddle off hasn�t gone down well, with a spate of resignations reported late on Thursday.

What does this mean?

When Musk told his Twitter employees to go big or go home, he was probably counting on them sucking it up and sticking around. But instead, a bunch of key engineering kingpins have called his bluff and are bidding farewell to the birdhouse. And that spells trouble: engineers are the mechanics who keep Twitter�s engine well-oiled, after all, and their sudden sayonara prompted whispering that the platform could grind to a halt. That forced the world�s richest man to soften his stance on remote working � but he�ll probably need to backpedal even further than that.

Why should I care?

Zooming out: What a difference a year makes.
Musk�s rough-and-ready approach at Twitter has caused chaos, but his wrecking-ball style would probably have left an even bigger trail of destruction a year ago. Tech�s wave of success was at its crest back then, meaning tech workers were a hot commodity. And faced with an ultimatum like Musk�s, staff would have found it a doddle to jump ships to a rival firm. But this year�s been hard on Big Tech, and with jobs rapidly disappearing, maybe those coders shouldn�t be so hasty.

The bigger picture: How to lose a team in 10 days.
The usual employee-retention playbook is pretty straightforward at tech firms: hail and hold employees with hard cash and perks galore. But if dough�s the only thing on offer, companies will come unstuck the minute rivals offer lusher terms. That�s why culture matters: we aren�t just money-making machines, we need a sense of belonging and pride in our work to stay motivated. Right now, Twitter might be showing its rivals exactly how not to crack the culture code.