Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#71

Post by kmonsen » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:13 AM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #50

laluser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they liable for those promises though? I am legitimately curious to know if they are contractually obligated to grow at a certain rate or be at certain valuation at this point in time.

Companies stop growing all the time: it happens all the time, and no company grows forever. A stock price is not just the value of a company's business today: It has future growth and risk priced in. What the stock market has been saying to Twitter is that the public believes that Twitter's ceiling is far lower than we thought in 2014. In practice, this says that all the bets on hypergrowth were wrong, and the compan…

If they are staying stable, do they really need those top engineers? The probably need a different set of engineers who can find a cheaper way of doing what they are already doing.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#72

Post by aggie » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:13 AM UTC

shas3 wrote: post #52

Overtonwindow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about repetitive tweets? I stopped following so many publications because they would post an article link, then repeatedly change the title or the catch and post the same link. Very frustrating.

The Economist, for one, has a "The Economist, Once" account that only tweets articles once, when they are published!

And yet I rarely ever see anything on my timeline from the 'Once' account, but plenty from the regular account, and not too many repeats. It seems the new curated timeline really hurts the post-once approach.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#73

Post by dingbat » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

dbg31415 wrote: post #7

adrenalinelol wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager a bit more than that to maintain existing services. But they haven't given up on growth yet, disappointing news doesn't = throw in the towel. If these rumors are true, best of luck to those affected.

But 3,750? Does anyone think Twitter needs that many people? Scale back to the bare essentials and regroup. Clearly the people there haven't been good for ambitious growth, time to shake it up, find a buyer (which will be easier with less overhead), or close the doors.

they should focus on being THE platform for key influencers, "thought leaders" and celebrities, mover-and-shaker types, kind of like Yahoo did with Katie Couric!

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#74

Post by chrissnell » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:17 AM UTC

jamesroseman wrote: post #22

artursapek wrote: post #6

I've always sort of had this question that continues to feel naive - but I'm not sure I know the answer: why do so many companies feel like they have to grow perpetually? Why can't Twitter just be happy being Twitter, knowing its limits and making a stable profit? Instead it's more users, more VC money, more staff... constantly burning as quickly as possible. There's a ceiling on every business; it's all bound to com…

I think the answer is that when Twitter IPO'd there were very clear expectations for the company to perform similar to its perceived contemporaries: Facebook and Google. If you look at the perpetually meteoric rise of GOOGL or FB, it's understandable why shareholders are disappointed -- Twitter burns a lot of capital. So, if its growth has petered out and this is as much money as it can produce, it's understandable t…

In 1994, I registered bikeworld.com and helped my dad put his local bicycle store chain online. It was wild from day one. We didn't even have a proper shopping cart for the first few months--you had to fax or email your order and credit card--but the orders just came in. I was fresh out of the early days of Silicon Valley dotcom startups and I begged my dad to let us take some VC money and go big with this thing. I wanted to do a printed catalog (all the big players did one at this time) and hire some marketing people and front end designers.

Dad wouldn't have it. He had run this successful brick and mortar business since 1971 and there was just no way that he was going to trade away ownership for cash to get growth that he didn't want. The stores afforded him amonthly draw that supported him and paid for a nice house and the freedom to pursue his hobbies. He was in his early fifties and all of the tough years taught him to recognize the good thing he had.

It was a great lesson for me and his experience as a businessman is a big part of the reason why I never pursued entrepreneurship myself, opting instead for the stable life of a salaryman.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#75

Post by michaelbuckbee » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #31

Something I've never been able to wrap my head around is how does Twitter make money? I mean real money. Not valuation of eyeballs, not VC cash, but honest to God profit? It has always baffled me and I wish I knew what the unicorns say to the VC's when (hopefully) someone asks this question.

Someone else mentioned targeted display ads already, but Twitter also licenses their full data set to Google (and others) previously for millions.

1 - http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/05/googles-slippery-slope-if-...

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#76

Post by Ar-Curunir » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:21 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #34

pmiller2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the loss of Twitter as a platform for social media self-promotion would be more significant than the direct effects of 2300 people suddenly on the job market?

Conversely, other platforms have already come along that target some of Twitter's use-cases and offered better UX and user engagement. I'm sure they, or a new player, could fill the void (successfully). This is also less of a problem today (as opposed to years ago) when everyone with a meaningful social presence cross-posts or maintains a split presence on multiple platforms.

Is this true? At least within the niche of security and crypto academia, I find Twitter to be a very useful tool.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#77

Post by Ar-Curunir » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:22 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #51

throw2016 wrote: post #28

There is value in twitter. Even the people who joke about twitter probably realise there is value in it. There is still nothing that enables one to broadcast information and enable real time conversations better than twitter for companies, governments orgs or celebrities. That twitter cannot extract value from these cash rich and price insensitive entities is a gigantic mystery.

It's risky -- it's hard to compete with 'free', because it takes no money and very little effort. If Twitter charges even just a little for influencers to post, lots of them will just shift more of their announcements to Facebook status updates -- a somewhat similar feature of the other social app everyone already has installed. Despite no one platform offering exact feature+UX parity with Twitter, there are several…

I'm used to seeing junk on Fb and constantly ignore it; I don't think Twitter suffers from that.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#78

Post by throwthisawayt » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

laluser wrote: post #29

Analemma_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have answered this before, and what it boils down to is: because they took VC money, and then went public. If you bootstrap a business from nothing and grow it on its own, then sustainable growth and stable profit is fine. But Twitter got VC and IPO money with a promise that it would have Facebook-like growth in return. I think the analogy I saw used was that they promised investors a Porsche and instead deliv…

Are they liable for those promises though? I am legitimately curious to know if they are contractually obligated to grow at a certain rate or be at certain valuation at this point in time.

They are liable in the sense that they report to a board chosen by their investors. So if I bought or invested in company XYZ at a valuation that assumed a lot of growth and company XYZ suddenly stopped pursuing that growth I would probably vote out current management. So yes most companies are beholden to investors; don't raise money if you don't want a new boss.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#79

Post by AtheistOfFail » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:25 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #20

artursapek wrote: post #6

I've always sort of had this question that continues to feel naive - but I'm not sure I know the answer: why do so many companies feel like they have to grow perpetually? Why can't Twitter just be happy being Twitter, knowing its limits and making a stable profit? Instead it's more users, more VC money, more staff... constantly burning as quickly as possible. There's a ceiling on every business; it's all bound to com…

People have answered this before, and what it boils down to is: because they took VC money, and then went public. If you bootstrap a business from nothing and grow it on its own, then sustainable growth and stable profit is fine. But Twitter got VC and IPO money with a promise that it would have Facebook-like growth in return. I think the analogy I saw used was that they promised investors a Porsche and instead deliv…

The issue is one simple item: "When you take someone's money, their priorities are now your priorities"

If you can bootstrap your business with 30k and make a 20k profit every month, then why do you need 1 million dollars from investors?

When you take the money, it's just a golden handcuff and ties you to that person for the future. If your business lasts longer than 20 years, that may as well be an additional marriage with kids.

Re: Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

#80

Post by rch » Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 2:30 AM UTC

My sense is that while Twitter has been able to hire some very talented engineers (incl. but not limited to those I know personally), the high-level technical leadership hasn't been particularly successful.

Is there room for an independent 'moonshot' team reporting directly to the board?