Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#341

Post by lupire »

mikkergp wrote: post #269
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

It will be interesting to see how Elon defines success. Twitter in it's current form is a dead end, and there's no way "more free speech" is going increase either revenue or users. So if you think Elon is going to succeed at making Twitter a better Twitter as we know it, then I'm confident this take is wrong. Which is why he's focused on the everything X app or whatever. Now, I wouldn't want to underestimate Elon, he…

If the guy can make a fully self-driving car, he can make a fully self-moderating social network.

He'll either be the GOAT or the goat, but the gamble is clearly on the table, and Musk being Mush will declare victory before the dice even start to roll.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#342

Post by rockostrich »

edderly wrote: post #301
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

I think it'll be fine. You don't need 7000 people to run a micro blogging service. It's really that simple.

I don't disagree that 7000 people is too many for what Twitter has become but Twitter has been at the bleeding edge in terms of building web and data systems that can handle scale (while also open sourcing most of that work).

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#343

Post by [deleted] »

edderly wrote: post #301
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

I think it'll be fine. You don't need 7000 people to run a micro blogging service. It's really that simple.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#344

Post by bichiliad »

When there were layoffs at Etsy back in 2017, one of the unintended consequences were that a lot more people quit voluntarily afterwards. Attrition was a lot higher than expected. I have to believe that the people who remain are not all going to want to stay at the company that Twitter is becoming, whether it be for lack of institutional knowledge, peer support, or just because they liked their coworkers and are sad to see them go. This is a sample size of one, of course, but the layoffs at Etsy were a whole lot smaller than these ones were rumored to be.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#345

Post by VancouverMan »

taurath wrote: post #89

Since apparently nobody else in the thread has any empathy for those who've lost their jobs, future access to healthcare (in the US and less civilized countries), and financial security, I guess I'll be the first: I feel bad for people who are laid off by the machinations of billionaires. I wish we lived in a society where it wasn't optimal to act like raving lunatics will tear down every bit of security you have at…

I think it would be easier to feel sympathy for these Twitter employees had we seen them show sympathy for the various people that were suddenly banned from using Twitter, and/or other platforms and services, often with the flimsiest of "justifications".

In at least some of those cases, it was a matter of livelihood and financial security for the people who were banned, too.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#346

Post by bena »

One thing that's always felt distasteful is the practice of essentially making the company buy itself.

Musk bought Twitter, but Twitter itself is on the hook for $13 billion of that. It reminds me what happened with ToysRUs. It was saddled with the debt of having been taken private by vulture capitalist, eventually couldn't make its interest payments and folded. Despite never really having a down year of sales.

That's right, it was sold, not because it was losing money, but because it wasn't growing at the time. Profits were stagnant. So they were essentially made to buy themselves and the people who engineered this deal and "bought" ToysRUs collected consultancy fees and percentages and made out like bandits.

The difference here is that I don't think there's a clear way for Musk to extract that kind of money from Twitter in the same manner.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#347

Post by duhast »

iorrus wrote: post #286

I’d be more likely to work with Twitter now to be frank. Elon is obviously trying to implement an engineering lead organisation where coding and productivity are valued. A lot of these companies tend to be manager heavy, I’ve worked in places where it seemed over half the people in meetings were managers or other unproductive people. It frequently felt like these people were stifling the work as they all had their ow…

Entrepreneur, salesman, celebrity or populariser? Sure. Definitely not an engineer.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#348

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #328
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

I think where elon will take twitter is a sort of idea -> project -> mass colaberation, society sized incubator, were news and policy discussions are just a byproduct. But may im just projecting. But it would make kind of sense, to have it all in one app, from pitch, to finance, to realization

> is a sort of idea -> project -> mass colaberation, society sized incubator, were news and policy discussions are just a byproduct.

This is VC speak that is gibberish and means nothing.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#349

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

stokesr wrote: post #336

Notified of your being let go via a personal email? So no opportunity to back up your data, save contacts (which might come in handy for finding other employment), any notes or drafts... Brilliant idea, honestly ...

Literally no place I’ve ever worked in my decades in the tech industry were laid off workers allowed any physical or virtual access to company property post layoff. I’m sure it happens sometimes, in rare circumstances, but to pretend that this is especially egregious is disingenuous.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#350

Post by skeeter2020 »

Loughla wrote: post #257
losvedir wrote: post #180

And so the grand experiment begins. I feel bad for the folks losing their job because that always sucks, and I hope there's a decent severance package. Now we'll see what happens to Twitter... I hardly use it, so if it implodes it won't bother me too much. But I am curious to see if all the "how do you need X people to do Y?" commenters are correct in this case. The app is simple but doing simple things at scale is h…

>Anyone want to make predictions about the state of Twitter in a few years? I'll bite on this one. For reference, I personally believe Elon Musk is a degenerate blowhard who has literally zero concept of what life actually is like for billions of people on the planet, nor does he care. I believe he belongs to the class of people known as 'parasites'. Here's my take: 1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead wei…

I'm not sure why the downvotes. Your predictions don't seem any wilder than a higher post that's all sunshine and unicorns, and in 3-5 years yours can be definitively answered.
Post reply on HN