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Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

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Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#211

Post by hadlock »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #193
hadlock wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter/X hasn't seen notable user growth since ~2015/16 and has been absolutely flat since then, coming up on a decade now. It was 325 million active users in 2015 and it's still about 300 million active users today (spring 2024). A decade of no growth. I don't know if twitter is functioning exactly the same as it was before, but if you have to pay the bills, cutting 80% of the workforce and holding the line seems t…

As a company grows (in size and age), there is definitely more waste and more bureaucracy. No impact in trimming that. But, larger, older companies also spend a lot of effort on defending their business or uncovering future business. Fire the people who do that, and you won't see any immediate impact to revenue or core metrics... But, you've probably reduced the future viability of the product (lower chance of uncove…

I like your optimism, but twitter had already hired the best and brightest for a decade and were completely unable to move the needle, barely maintaining existing user count. You can see the same usercount story for traditional message boards/forums. There's just not that much demand for this kind of social media.

> the company is now on a path to death

Probably, but it's going to be a very long tail. Forums do not cost that much to run.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#212

Post by toss1 »

Fin_Code wrote: post #21

I'm pretty sure a lot of this is connected to the bond market. Companies are running out of operating capitol. When they try and get an operating loan the terms are onerous. Rather than refinance they are electing to perform layoffs to maintain solvency. It does not matter how good you are doing in contrast to previous years. If your loan comes due and you can't afford another one to keep that revolving credit going…

Yup. And this is why smart companies avoid that game.

I know one regional company who sells nationally/internationally which has done that for decades. Decades ago, the owner asked the local bank for a growth loan for some equipment and was turned down. The next week, he found out that one of his employees, who depends 100% on his company for income, went to the same bank for a motorcycle loan and was approved. the business owner was so outraged at the bank's stupid decision-making (if the business isn't good for the money, how will the employee be good for it?) that he decided to never use bank debt for growth again. That was in the 1960s, and the company is doing great, focusing on product and service and not financial games, with very expansive and expanding facilities and workforce. The regional bank was absorbed long ago.

Remember: no matter how much banks advertise being your partner and friend, they are not.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#213

Post by no_wizard »

Jensson wrote: post #194
no_wizard wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think you just have a fundamentally different view of what a layoff means then the executives, board of directors, and general shareholders. Most likely, and I personally believe that is part of the problem, not the problem. I recognize how damaging layoffs are to people. Its unfair to act like they aren't. Its people's livelihood and we as humans often make decisions around these things, and when its yanked out f…

> could focus on making the business more generally efficient, cut down on process, and focus on keeping the business nimble and responsive Every company already tries this as hard as they can, there is no magic button they can press to just make themselves more efficient.

>Every company already tries this as hard as they can, there is no magic button they can press to just make themselves more efficient.

Then why are so many so inefficient? In the Silicon Valley mythology, one of the core tenants is that startups can act more efficiently than big companies simply due to focus & size.

If this were inherently true to any reasonable degree, I actually think we would have a differently shaped workforce. I can point out dozens of inefficiencies I experience even today that slow down development, and that is just if we analyze development. I hear from other wings of the company[0] of other things - simple things like consolidating tools so they don't have to bounce between different apps to do things - that also drive alot of real inefficiency.

This isn't the first place I worked where all these issues exist either, and its not nitpicky stuff, its all low hanging fruit. Consolidating tools is a complaint I have heard at almost every job I've had sans 1. I don't imagine I'm alone, my peers at other companies often have similar complaints when we talk.

I think some things are inherent to simply organizing humans, and I get that, but the obviousness of some improvements that simply aren't undertaken runs counter to the assumptions one makes when they buy into the "efficient business" hypothesis

[0]: we successfully became more cross functional, that's a huge plus, our solutions are much more holistic now, but its only part of the problem.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#215

Post by macintux »

tareqak wrote: post #99

What about when companies are doing layoffs but still continue hire at exactly the same time ? Sometimes, they even hire for the same positions that were just laid off. Are there ever conversations where employees are asked to take a pay cut instead of being laid off?

I have twice been asked to take a pay cut: once long ago at a startup when the funding dried up, and early in the pandemic when my (fairly large) employer got nervous.

Well, the second time it wasn’t really a request.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#216

Post by [deleted] »

stcroixx wrote: post #190
baq wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely isn’t functioning the same. Technically maybe everything works more or less as well as before, after a year. …but the experience is quite bad now: every other thread is full of crypto and/or onlyfans promoting bots. The algorithm displays a lot of obvious attention grabbing posts which have 300 replies, 10 of which are from humans. There’s a constant stream of bots trying to connect with you via follows…

On the other hand, I love it now and hated it before. Guess it depends on what you're looking for. Me - I like little to no moderation and government interference and don't find much offensive and have no problem just ignoring anything I do find objectionable. All worth it to be able to speak honestly.

[deleted]

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#217

Post by watwut »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #159
JohnMakin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They effectively disabled the developer API via absurd pricing. That alone would cancel a ton of projects/teams due to the load that likely placed on their servers. The user experience is also not even close to the same, while they've not really added any new features that likely weren't already in the pipeline. Not even to mention their tanking revenue and valuation. It's not even close to a "working the same as bef…

So what you're saying is everything anyone using Twitter cares about is working just fine.

From my point of view, just not. I went from using Twitter a lot to gaining a lot of free time ... be because overall experience now sux in many small ways.

Whereas there used to be interesting exchanges and threads before, algorithm now promotes similar nonsensical short responses again and again. The stuff on top is just not interesting anymore.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#218

Post by gilbetron »

asow92 wrote: post #49
matusp wrote: post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

This is Price's law in action: https://nielsbohrmann.com/prices-law/

Price's law didn't really fit well even within the context in which he created it. Lotka's Law fits better.

And they aren't laws, just heuristics, that the tech world likes to propagate as if they are laws, when if fact most tech people that believe they are part of the "square root people", but really just lack an appreciation for what is often really going on.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#219

Post by lazyasciiart »

matusp wrote: post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

You could probably cut every employee’s salary by 10% without noticing a visible dip in productivity. Maybe that means that visible measures of productivity are lagging indicators?

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#220

Post by watwut »

salad-tycoon wrote: post #128
Aurornis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies reduce initiatives and headcount at the same time. It's usually approached as a budget reduction exercise: Company is reducing budgets by X%. Select which projects get cancelled. Now work with managers to identify enough employees to lay off to reduce headcount spend by X%. Now reorganize remaining employees across remaining projects, with the understanding that a few extra people will leave due to future l…

Twitter shed 80% and still works, is still the go to outside of fringe empty echo chambers of the left and right divide. Not only that but they added a significant amount of features like Grok, which I know nothing about really, and Substack like payments. 80% is a lot and it works just fine. 7,500 to 1,300 in Jan 2023. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/twitter-is-down-to-fewer-tha...

They got rid of stuff working with paying customers - ad companies. And that part is now failing so much, that Elon Musk went on multiple public tirades.

Twitter is not able to attract ads, because they don't communicate with companies properly and are chaotic.

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