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Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

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Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#191

Post by TaylorOtwell1 »

mpeg wrote: post #65
solarkraft wrote: post #29

It’s crazy to me that it was ever a business to begin with. Cool, in a way! But this feels like just going back to normal.

Apparently they were 8+ people, in 2024 team size was 6 and were hiring 2 more [0] and in 2020 they had $2m+ ARR [1]. Honestly, while I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs the news aren't exactly surprising. Overhiring is a game for VC funded OSS like bun, not usually a good idea for bootstrapped companies. [0]: https://tailwindcss.com/blog/hiring-a-design-engineer-and-st... [1]: https://adamwathan.me/tailwin…

Tailwind had several times more than 2M / ARR at their peak.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#192

Post by tqi »

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" ?

When you talk in meaningless terms like "traditional workers" and "tech bros", all it tells me is that you have divided the world into people you like and people you dislike and mourn / celebrate accordingly.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#194

Post by falcor84 »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #161
elictronic wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should learn to vote for UBI?

Everyone suggests UBI like this sort of thing is a massive hurricane and we just gotta take it on the chin. Nah man, this stuff isn't happening anywhere else. We can simply say "No, you don't get to ruin the economy for your personal profit."

Well, here you said it; is it over now?

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#195

Post by rikschennink »

spzb wrote: post #52
sosodev wrote: post #26

The paid products Adam mentions are the pre-made components and templates, right? It seems like the bigger issue isn't reduced traffic but just that AI largely eliminates the need for such things. While I understand that this has been difficult for him and his company... hasn't it been obvious that this would be a major issue for years? I do worry about what this means for the future of open source software. We've lo…

AI's going to be a whole lot less useful when it doesn't have any open source component libraries to crib from.

I don’t think the scraping party cares about the license, if the JavaScript code is linked online they’ll just take it. Source: see the art industry

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#196

Post by bradly »

mpeg wrote: post #65
solarkraft wrote: post #29

It’s crazy to me that it was ever a business to begin with. Cool, in a way! But this feels like just going back to normal.

Apparently they were 8+ people, in 2024 team size was 6 and were hiring 2 more [0] and in 2020 they had $2m+ ARR [1]. Honestly, while I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs the news aren't exactly surprising. Overhiring is a game for VC funded OSS like bun, not usually a good idea for bootstrapped companies. [0]: https://tailwindcss.com/blog/hiring-a-design-engineer-and-st... [1]: https://adamwathan.me/tailwin…

> 2020 they had $2m+ ARR

You've got an extra "R" in there. In 2020 their only revenue from was non-recurring lifetime software purchases. Like SaaS if you had a 100% churn rate.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#197

Post by moralestapia »

berbec wrote: post #118
moralestapia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks are against the rules here.

and you don't think adamwathan deserves the same respect?

That's not what the rule is about.

Give it some thought, if it were like that half of this site wouldn't be allowed to speak about Trump et. al. the way they do.

This is the guy you're carrying water for, btw: https://x.com/adamwathan/status/2008646797619864060

I'll stop the conversation here as it is off-topic from the thread.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#198

Post by roblabla »

simlevesque wrote: post #156
simonw wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the ethically bad thing Tailwind did here? Not merging that pull request?

I'd feel lied to if someone offers me a free tool and later the person that controls it chooses to make it worse just to make more money. I got bit by that many times and do my best to avoid it but when it happens it's a stab in the back.

At what point did they make it _worse_? Tailwind didn't remove any existing functionality here. What they did was refuse to merge a PR while they're trying to figure out how to navigate a difficult financial problem, all while being fully transparent about what's going on, and saying that they're open to merging the PR if/when they manage to get things together.

This is very different from, say, the minio situation, where they were actively removing feature before finally closing development down entirely. Whether tailwind will end up going down this route, time will tell. But as of right now, I find this reading to be quite uncharitable.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#199

Post by deadbabe »

The truth is, business opportunities are rarely eternal, usually they are just an opportunity to make money within a short window of time, such as a decade or two. Sometimes even shorter than that, perhaps even only a year or two.

For Tailwind, time’s up.

If the engineering team could not be directed to build new products that bring in revenue, then there is no need for them anymore, the opportunity has been exhausted for its maximum yield. Are you going to squeeze blood from a stone?

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#200

Post by akuchling »

katdork wrote: post #158
bilekas wrote: post #100

I can't get over the Author of the CR addi g his responses on TikTok.. What have we come to?

that's why I complained about it in the PR, mmm, I thought it was grossly unprofessional of him (besides the things he said in the discussion. e.g. Tech changes all the time, that isn't an excuse to be a dick. e.g. ok dude, don't expect any future free work from me in the future on any of your projects going forward. Rude AF.) also, I just realised, that PR is an excuse to get the library he made ( https://github.com…

Stray thought: adding a library the PR submitter controls would be a good starting point for an XZ/SSH-style supply chain attack: badger & threaten the maintainers to add the dependency, and then sneak something into a future library update.
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