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Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

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Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#21

I don't get it. From an outside perspective, it feels like they must be raking in the cash - they take a large cut from subscribers and the number of ads is crazy. Viewership growth seems good [1]. The product seems solid and well-built. The demand is clearly there. Serving live video is obviously expensive, but curious if that is really the biggest component (other than personnel). Would be cool if some industry ins…

More profits. Simple as that.

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#22

Any idea why south korea is particularly cost prohibitive? i would assume twitch would be very keen to have a presence there.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/afterword-korea-s-c... tl;dr is that SK has some big fees for data users that have a disproportionate impact on non-Korean companies

Wouldn't the work around then be for Twitch to do a 49-51 split with a South Korean ISP to get favortism?

These entrenchment laws are there to favor the big ISPs in SK, it would stand to reason that they would be happy to make money in such an arrangement, and Twitch gets a secondary downstream benefits that they can reap.

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#23

The remaining employee's workloads are about to increase 50%

> The remaining employee's workloads are about to increase 50% Keep in mind that execs will get bonuses for cutting costs but the real workers have additional work without a raise. The downward spiral seems almost inevitable - attrition, drop in quality, services turn shitty, loss of revenue, repeat.

The American Dialect Society's 2023 Word of the Year is... "enshittification"

https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshitt...

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#24
post #21

I don't get it. From an outside perspective, it feels like they must be raking in the cash - they take a large cut from subscribers and the number of ads is crazy. Viewership growth seems good [1]. The product seems solid and well-built. The demand is clearly there. Serving live video is obviously expensive, but curious if that is really the biggest component (other than personnel). Would be cool if some industry ins…

More profits. Simple as that.

Even in late-stage capitalism, you do a 5-10% staff cut at most to trim the fat so-to-speak.

A 35% cut indicates something with the business is fundamentally wrong.

EDIT: I apologize for the completely unintentional derail.

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#25
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> attrition, drop in quality, services turn shitty, loss of revenue, repeat Execs are lauded for cutting costs, parasitically enrich themselves on the carcass of a once-productive business, jump ship to a new host before it all comes crashing down, repeat.

Sounds like a sweet gig, how do I land one?

Be born in the aristocracy[0] or land one of the very small openings where executives get hired from outside the circle via executive recruiting, which usually means networking your way to VP / SVP at a some kind of notable firm or otherwise getting close to attainment of the executive class.

I hear being an ex-founder is useful in this regard. Apparently, working at McKinsey or Bain or one of the other large "prestigious" consulting firms is also a good move. Going to Harvard, Yale, Stanford or similar univerisities is almost a hard requirement. Almost[1].

Or, in the rarest of events, found a business that is successful and somehow manages to get big enough that you get status by proxy.

In any case, sans the last (and rarest) way, you'll have to walk the walk and talk the talk. It can get unsavory.

[0]: Oligarchy and Plutocracy fit too. Take your pick. To grossly oversimplify: If you're part of the Aristrocratic families (Rockefellers, Dursts etc) thats one way. Another is via being apart of the oligarchy (corporate power is alive and well. from oil companies to big tech) which is often intertwined with aristrocratic insitutions (Harvard, Yale etc). Finally, of course, you have the mesh of percentage at the top that fall into Plutocracy, which are wealthy and powerful themselves but are in service of even wealthier and more powerful oligarchs and artistrocrats in many cases.

[1]: Somehow around the edges you can find your way into it without this, but its challenging to say the least. Usually (but not entirely) its due to the rarest case, being a successful entreprenuer and surviving long enough to be recongized by proxy. Though, sometimes servant becomes the master. See outside executive recruiting

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#26

I don't get it. From an outside perspective, it feels like they must be raking in the cash - they take a large cut from subscribers and the number of ads is crazy. Viewership growth seems good [1]. The product seems solid and well-built. The demand is clearly there. Serving live video is obviously expensive, but curious if that is really the biggest component (other than personnel). Would be cool if some industry ins…

You answered your own question. Twitch is solid and well-built. It doesn't need an army of well-paid engineers to maintain it and isn't seeing a great ROI on new features. Some companies repurpose all, many or some engineers when the spreadsheet says to, others fire them wholesale.

Re: Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

#29
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> attrition, drop in quality, services turn shitty, loss of revenue, repeat Execs are lauded for cutting costs, parasitically enrich themselves on the carcass of a once-productive business, jump ship to a new host before it all comes crashing down, repeat.

Sounds like a sweet gig, how do I land one?

Sell your soul. You have to be capable of looking at people and erasing their humanity/removing your empathy.
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