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Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#21

Post by Vespasian »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #8
minimaxir wrote: post #2

How does a 75% workforce cut even work logistically for a company not on its deathbed?

Sometimes a 75% workforce cut is exactly what a company on its deathbed needs. In the case of Twitter they wouldn't even need to fire anyone. Just make employees sign a statement reaffirming their commitment to free speech and the 1st Amendment (ala forced DEI statements at other companies) and 75% of Twitter employees would likely depart on their own.

Unlikely.

Most Twitter employees (like people everywhere) go there to earn a living and as long as employment conditions remain acceptable they'll sign whatever management ask them to.

In particular if it's a meaningless broad statement such as "commitment to free speech and 1st amendment".

Most people there don't have anything to do with policy enactment or enforcement so why would they care (case in point those other companies, you mentioned which also retained their workforces).

If the real consequence is a work culture in which bullying and harassment is sanctioned (or even encouraged) by management THEN people will leave because it's unpleasant to work in such an environment.

The ones remaining won't necessarily be your high performers

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#22

Post by lapcat »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #19
minimaxir wrote: post #2

How does a 75% workforce cut even work logistically for a company not on its deathbed?

1) cut 35% of engineering team, including all L4s and L3s, and people who have scored 2/5 or lower on perf reviews 2) Cut 100% of marketing team, Elon is marketing team now. 3) Cut 100% of policy team. Elon is policy team now 4) Cut 80% of sales team. Elon is sales team now. 5) Cut 95% of Product team. They don't ship anything too much time talking, not enough time shipping 6) Cut support team by 90%, only highest ti…

> Cut 80% of sales team. Elon is sales team now.

That can work for direct-to-consumer sales. It's unlikely to work for advertising sales.

> Cut support team by 90%, only highest tier gets support

Twitter has a support team? Not much, in my experience.

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#23

Post by anigbrowl »

phillipcarter wrote: post #13

A plan to reduce staff by 75% and double revenue in three years doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's almost certainly a good deal of wasted money at Twitter, like at every large tech company. Dumb bets like NFT profile pics come to mind. But not to the tune of 75%. I cannot see how they can meaningfully operate, let alone meaningfully evolve to generate _more_ revenue, one of the largest social networks on eart…

I think they're assuming MAGA types come back in force and that advertisers will be unable to resist the lure of so many eyeballs, but I have my doubts about the demand for dumpster fire branding opportunities.

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#24

Post by lapcat »

avrionov wrote: post #18

Here are Twitter financials for the last year. Revenue $5,078 (in millions) Cost of Revenue $1,798 35.40% Sales and Admin $1,760 34.67% R&D $1,247 24.55% Interest $52 1.02% Unusual Items $441 8.69% Their biggest expense 34.40% is "Cost of Revenue" followed by "Sales and Admin". For a company like twitter "Cost of Revenue" includes operations and Customer Care. I don't think that they can cut 75% at once, just the sev…

> I don't think that they can cut 75% at once, just the severance payment will be huge and they may not have the money for that.

What if the plan is just to scare away as many current employees as possible now, before the deal is completed, thereby minimizing layoffs?

I know a lot of engineers who have already left, but the prospect of a 75% cut may inspire more.

Heading into a possible/probable recession, it may be wise to secure one's next job immediately rather than waiting for the axe to fall.

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#25

Post by shaburn »

sn0w_crash wrote: post #14
phillipcarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a set of massive engineering systems, applications, advertising market, social institution, etc.? Big, complex sociotechnical systems require a lot of human beings to keep moving along.

This is not a company with multiple products. The ad platform is just barely usable, with an only slightly better UI than LinkedIn. Its core product has not changed meaningfully in 10 years. The company down much of its developer-facing offering years ago. There are e-commerce websites with a more complex stack than Twitter. This is a product that can run on 1,000 people and nothing about the user experience will be…

The balance sheet has been a public market charity for tech employees who want paid hiatus since they IPO'd.

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#26

Post by toofy »

anigbrowl wrote: post #23
phillipcarter wrote: post #13

A plan to reduce staff by 75% and double revenue in three years doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's almost certainly a good deal of wasted money at Twitter, like at every large tech company. Dumb bets like NFT profile pics come to mind. But not to the tune of 75%. I cannot see how they can meaningfully operate, let alone meaningfully evolve to generate _more_ revenue, one of the largest social networks on eart…

I think they're assuming MAGA types come back in force and that advertisers will be unable to resist the lure of so many eyeballs, but I have my doubts about the demand for dumpster fire branding opportunities.

are there really that many of them? the numbers we’re seeing from truth social and it’s similars seem to indicate otherwise.

my guess is, we’ll see far more users abandon twitter than we see of maga users swarming.

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#27

Post by toofy »

sn0w_crash wrote: post #14
phillipcarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a set of massive engineering systems, applications, advertising market, social institution, etc.? Big, complex sociotechnical systems require a lot of human beings to keep moving along.

This is not a company with multiple products. The ad platform is just barely usable, with an only slightly better UI than LinkedIn. Its core product has not changed meaningfully in 10 years. The company down much of its developer-facing offering years ago. There are e-commerce websites with a more complex stack than Twitter. This is a product that can run on 1,000 people and nothing about the user experience will be…

all of this is based on what? this seems like an awful lot of speculation regarding one of the largest social networks on the planet.

is there waste? highly likely. but the kind you’re implying? sounds ridiculous. what are you basing this on?

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#28

Post by Balgair »

mentos wrote: post #11
thefreeman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the top performing 25% are going to want to stick around when you fire 3/4 of their coworkers?

What if you double their salaries?

Why would they not just go make another Twitter without Elon?

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#29

Post by Balgair »

programmarchy wrote: post #15

Sounds like this plan was in place before Musk’s offer, but one way to do this would be to “authenticate all humans” as Musk said he wanted to do in order to remove bots. That would drastically reduce the content moderation workload.

I would assume it would also reduce the number of users.

Also, why would it reduce the moderation workload?

Re: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce

#30

Post by Balgair »

phillipcarter wrote: post #13

A plan to reduce staff by 75% and double revenue in three years doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's almost certainly a good deal of wasted money at Twitter, like at every large tech company. Dumb bets like NFT profile pics come to mind. But not to the tune of 75%. I cannot see how they can meaningfully operate, let alone meaningfully evolve to generate _more_ revenue, one of the largest social networks on eart…

> A plan to reduce staff by 75% and double revenue in three years doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Elon's plans may not be all that well thought out, as history has evidenced.

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