Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#281

Post by giancarlostoro » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

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 dont understand the SpaceX argument since he was an actual original founder if I'm not mistaken, I could see the Tesla argument, but those people never provide any true insight into how he is riding on Teslas former success whenever I run into those (not to mention, if it was so good... why did they need a new CEO). I think it's pretty obvious he is a capable individual, overly ambitious at times, but hey, he somehow makes it work.

I try to be neutral about him, but as a Software Engineer, he is easy to admire, he is able to work on various tech related companies at once and make it work. That is no small feat. We have discussed on HN before that companies like Amazon having employees peeing in bottles usually those sort of issues come down from the top (CEO tier) and trickle down to the bottom, if that's true, and Elon is awful, it would show in all his companies, but he manages to delegate correctly enough to keep a few large companies going.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#282

Post by gwbas1c » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

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?

1: Profitable

2: More signal, less noise

3: Significantly less misinformation

4: (Maybe) A reliable way to get news

Personally, I'm eating popcorn on this one. I think Musk got himself in trouble for letting his big mouth yap, and he fired the execs as revenge. As a software developer who's seen good and bad organizations, I'm very curious about the layoffs.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#283

Post by coffeeblack » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

Awesome. Finally we get more honesty in the public debate again.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#284

Post by iamdbtoo » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

i_like_apis wrote: post #261

crnkofe wrote: post #129

Looking at how Musk handles business and public comms makes me loose more and more respect for this guy with every passing second. It's all fun and games when you have a few hundred mills in the bank. Hopefully the people that left were prepared. Given his public behavior it was kind of expected. I'm not sure if people that stayed are now worse or better off.

Quoted post unavailable.

> They made a ton of cash, will likely get a lot of severance, and work in an industry and area where it is easy to do that with their experience.

Is that all one's life boils down to?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#285

Post by 4dregress » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

How is this affecting no US employees?

For example you cannot just fire people in the UK like you can in the US, it is against the law.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#286

Post by iorrus » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

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 own agendas etc.

Elon is an engineer first and has s big vision. If you’re one of the people left it must feel like the company has taken a new direction.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#287

Post by boringg » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #203

Quoted post unavailable.

Your comment belies how little you understand Twitter. You think it's a simple technical solution on a simplistic product.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#288

Post by jmull » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #4

,,The ML Ethics, Transparency, & Accountability team was one of a kind'' Sure, something nobody has heared of and nobody knows why it should be at a company like Twitter.

> nobody knows why it should be at a company like Twitter

Social networks like Twitter use ML to boost engagement.

It turns out this tends to lead to ML amplifying pretty destructive patterns... racism, conspiracy theories, ideological bubbles, anti-semitism, etc.

A company might wonder how to boost engagement without promoting these things.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#289

Post by pushkine » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #233

seydor wrote: post #203

Quoted post unavailable.

Twitter is hundreds of millions of authenticated messages a day, delivered with an expectation of instantaneousness and simultaneity, to hundreds of millions of clients. There are images and video embeds and URL previews on tweets. There are fraudulent and abusive users who are trying to spam the user base. There are users whose threat model includes ‘will be attacked by the concerted cyber-offensive capabilities of…

Facebook has had a better service since 2014, RSS feeds aren't rocket science.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#290

Post by maxbond » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #281

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 dont understand the SpaceX argument since he was an actual original founder if I'm not mistaken, I could see the Tesla argument, but those people never provide any true insight into how he is riding on Teslas former success whenever I run into those (not to mention, if it was so good... why did they need a new CEO). I think it's pretty obvious he is a capable individual, overly ambitious at times, but hey, he someh…

Keeping factories open during the initial COVID lockdowns because of your personal belief that it's "just the flu", and thus putting the lives of your employees at risk, seems like a direct analog to peeing in bottles to me.