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Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week

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

#321

Post by i__believe »

k__ wrote: post #274
josep2 wrote: post #117

Twitter is by far the #1 service I use everyday. It's been the most valuable to me from a networking perspective where I've made friends and professional connections. I also happen to be a shareholder. It's been disappointing to watch Twitter try to become a business and completely falling flat. The acquisition of Vine and Periscope haven't led to much and the user growth from Live video is still t be seen. The produ…

> It manages to be everything and nothing at the same time True. To me it is mostly a pre-filtered news website. I follow people who talk about stuff that I'm currently intersted in. But it seems many people using it diffrently. Some people use it to update their customers. Some to force their political agenda onto the world.

I use it as a news site as well, and to resolve customer support issues. On that topic, it's simply amazing how much more responsive a company is if you contact them about a an issue on twitter than in any other form of communication.

I believe twitter should segment and provide platforms for specific types of users.

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

#322

Post by drakonandor »

nikcub wrote: post #155
trymas wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not, but it could if twitter would stop spending huge piles of money that makes them go nowhere.

That is exactly what many on Wall St have been telling them to do for years. Despite the popular perception of investment bankers, they do value "patio11 style businesses" more highly than the Twitter style of spending and losing billions of dollars and not going anywhere. I actually don't think anybody values the later.

Their revenue almost doubled from 2014 to 2015, and is on track to be a bit higher than 2015. It's silly to pretend they're just burning money for fun.

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

#323

Post by jonknee »

xenadu02 wrote: post #139

I still maintain that screwing over client developers had something to do with it. At the very least it didn't help them "control the twitter experience". Every time I see one of their new ads about how much Twitter loves developers I laugh out loud. There is zero chance I'll ever integrate Twitter into anything I do, period. I'll fight against it anywhere I work and encourage all my peers to do the same. Did everyon…

Facebook parted ways with a lot of its developers as well (remember the Friends data API?), but then went on for more fast growth and happy investors.

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

#324

Post by [deleted] »

ThomPete wrote: post #107
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…

It's bigger than that though. The real issue is that they don't have a choice because as long as they aren't profitable they need to find a way to fund the operation. In many ways VC funding is the worst and shouldn't be applied to most companies.

[deleted]

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

#325

Post by criddell »

user5994461 wrote: post #261

3800 employees, $2700M spent a year. That's 700k per employee. IT'S FREAKING INSANE! There are only 4 tech companies in the world who ever made more than $700k in revenue per head, in any recent years: SoftBank, Microsoft, Google, Apple http://uk.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-per...

I don't understand how Twitter ended up with almost four thousand employees. If I had to guess how many people worked there, I would have guessed at least an order of magnitude less than that.

When Facebook acquired Instagram, didn't they have something like 15 employees?

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

#326

Post by code_sardaukar »

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…

You say that it's very sad for people to lose their jobs, but how sad is it if a business does not grow as fast as it might have, and so doesn't employ those people in the first place?

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

#327

Post by forgetsusername »

napoleond wrote: post #296
Ryan_Shmotkin wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is in your example. Patio's business was barely profitable for a few years until closing down. Growth or death is true for most businesses, just need to decide on the growth acceleration

> barely profitable Patrick wrote "year in review" posts going back to 2006, and they include full numbers, so you can see for yourself. Profit margins in 2014 (the most recent review) were at a whopping 60% across all his businesses. (See here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/12/22/kalzumeus-software-year-... ) > closing down He sold his SaaS businesses, and they are operated by other people. Here's a podcast episode…

>whopping 60% across all his businesses

Software built by 1 person will always have good margins. According to his numbers, BCC was making $60k in good years. 60% of that is $36k, which is a fraction of what a solid Dev can make (and an even smaller fraction of what he patio11 was making consulting). Clever side project income for sure, but not a staggering work of business genius.

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

#328

Post by aikah »

k__ wrote: post #272
teej wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't invent the hashtag either.

Yes, Twitter should become a non-profit. They just were spitballing around, then the users came and made them what they are today. All their good ideas, besides starting a micro-blogging platform, came from outside the company. And how did they thank them? Cutting of 3rd party clients and shadowbanning users?

> Yes, Twitter should become a non-profit.

And what do you tell Twitter's investors ? "Thanks for the money, we are now going non profit!". A public company just can't do that, that's not how it work, investors want return on their investments and they didn't invest in a "non-profit".

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

#329

Post by x5315 »

nameisu wrote: post #13
madengr wrote: post #10

You'd think they would have figured out targeted ads by now. If I follow people who post about RF/Microwave, antennas, SDR, and ham radio, one would think I'd see ads from Keysight and Tektronix, but no, it's garbage like football and pop music. FAIL! I also don't like that I don't see all the tweets from a person. They are pruning the timeline. Good riddance to twitter.

Is there a third party app which would not show promoted tweets? they are so annoying and un related

All third party apps (except a single Enterprise tool) do not receive Promoted Tweets. They're only requested and displayed within the Twitter "Owned and Operated" clients.

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

#330

Post by x5315 »

groby_b wrote: post #21
nameisu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a third party app which would not show promoted tweets? they are so annoying and un related

IIRC, that'd get the apps API access cut off. But if you want to have fun, keep blocking promoted tweets. After a month or two, things get... "interesting" in terms of what you see. Well, at least entertaining.

Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12789001

Only one third party app receives Promoted Tweets, and no third party apps are required to display them.

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