Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

Post by krainboltgreene » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

elictronic wrote: post #139

blitzar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "progress" when tech bros displace traditional workers, but it is "heartbreaking" when a tech bro gets displaced by other tech bros. Whats the 2026 version of "you should learn to code" ?

You should learn to vote for UBI?

Post by speed_spread » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #124

nemomarx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we need patreon equivalents for open source development?

I think we just need better platforms for enterprise procurement. The issue is that currently you either publish as free & open-source and get tons of traction and usage but little funding, or you publish as paid and get no traction. The blocker for paid software isn't actually the money itself (this is solvable by just pricing it reasonably), it's all the red tape that someone has to go through to get their company…

Post by hebrides » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

usernamed7 wrote: post #15

wesselbindt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some more context, which you seem to need: the reason they've laid off 75% of their devs is because their revenue is down 80%, despite tailwind being more popular than ever. This seems to be caused by a drop in visits to their documentation, which is really the only way people find out about their commercial offerings. This drop in visits to the docs is, in turn, most likely caused by the increased use of LLMs…

using tailwind docs is awful. I'd MUCH rather use an LLM than try to grok their documentation. That it was their only way to promote commercial offerings is not my problem, there are many other ways to approach this than encouraging a worse experience for devs.

Post by inchidi » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #106

random_duck wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Also I could not imagine being in his shoes, it must be heartbreaking seeing all his work burn like this.

It is "progress" when tech bros displace traditional workers, but it is "heartbreaking" when a tech bro gets displaced by other tech bros. Whats the 2026 version of "you should learn to code" ?

Post by jstummbillig » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

simlevesque wrote: post #138

zeusly wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I didn't ask how to do a bait and switch to offer a good free product and later ask for more money or else I'm going to make it worse. But I guess nuance is hard to understand. Also it's always funny when someone tries to look up your past instead of giving convincing arguments.