a new term for me: "whaling and culling"

This article (which could use a proofreader/editor) offers us an interesting theory as to why Elon Musk is doing what he's doing at Twitter. According to the writer, Elon is engaged in whaling and culling, which is when you subject your employees to a tremendous amount of stress to discover who among them is most productive and able to cope with pressure. Those people, maybe about 10% of the staff, are your "whales." The remaining 90% of underperforming chaff are the ones who need to be culled.

First, the "Whaling":

It's a common refrain that you've probably heard at some point or another[:] "10% of people do 90% of the work." That's what that [tight, 2-week] deadline for Twitter Blue was for; he [i.e., Musk] was perfectly aware that it was an unrealistic time frame. It was a test.

By pushing for such an extremely tight deadline, Elon got to see who is actually doing work[,] and who is resting on [his or her] laurels. Furthermore, it proved who could actually perform under extreme pressure.

You know, the whole "get this done or you're fired" level of pressure.

Hence, Elon was looking for the whales at the company. The heavy hitting, actually producing and hard[-working] people who have been there for a while. When the whales don't have to carry dead weight, they perform like the equivalent of 10 people.

Second is the "Culling." When you've got 90% of the people not performing, they're actually negatively impacting the 10% who ARE performing above and beyond. And that's why the layoffs happened. Paraphrased, 'shit is gonna change around here[;] get on board or get out.'

So[,] by culling unproductive staff, he actually untied the hands of the PRODUCTIVE staff. Fewer obstacles to getting in the way of getting things done. It also revealed to him who was there to make Twitter a better [product versus] who was there to be [an 'activist.']

Read the rest. It's an interesting theory. Because this is speculation and not the reporting of facts, I can't rightly call this journalism, but it still makes for good reading.