eBusiness Weekly
Esther Crawford, a Twitter manager who went viral after being photographed appearing to sleep on the office floor at the company’s San Francisco headquarters, has spoken out after reportedly being laid off.
“The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake,” Crawford tweeted Sunday.
“Those who jeer and mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos.”
Multiple outlets reported over the weekend that Crawford was let go in a new round of layoffs believed to affect Twitter’s advertisement, product, and engineering teams.
Crawford, a director of product management, was seen as embodying the Twitter owner Elon Musk’s “hardcore” work culture.
Twitter employee shared a photo in November appearing to show her asleep on the floor of the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
Twitter and Crawford didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, which were made outside regular US working hours.
Crawford joined Twitter in December 2020 after the company bought the screen-sharing startup she cofounded.
The Financial Times reported she introduced herself to Musk in Twitter’s in-house café shortly before his deal closed and arranged a one-on-one meeting with him, for which she got reprimanded by a senior leader.
Crawford defended Musk’s initial mass layoffs, in which thousands of the company’s workers lost their jobs, The Verge reported. The outlet said Crawford voiced some support for the move on Slack, writing:
“I feel heartbroken that this process has required many good people to leave Twitter, but the business was not profitable and drastic cuts were going to be required to survive, no matter who owned the company.”
Some Twitter employees responded to Crawford’s Sunday tweet with messages of support.
“Thank you for working so hard to help lay the foundation for Twitter 2.0 Esther,” one tweeted.
Other Twitter users were less supportive.
“Girl you’re not supposed to swallow the boot,” one said.
“All your hard work is reflected in the quality of the current Twitter user experience,” another said, apparently referencing recent issues with the site. – Business Insider
