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Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

fastcompany.com

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Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#31

Post by verzali »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #26
ipaddr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't twitter already collapse now valued at single digit billions. The loss of traffic helped with the reduced headcount efforts. You don't need 80% of employees with 80% less dollars earned.

> In 2024, X (formerly Twitter) reported profits of $1.25 billion, which is about double its highest previous profit of $682 million in 2021. People believing what they want to belive. Not to mention that you talk about revenue and users, because it's hard to deny that technically Twitter is still working just fine, and now even has some new features, while in the past they were coasting tweaking their html for years…

$1.25bn is EBITDA not profit. Revenue is down by about 50% since 2021.

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#32

Post by GoToRO »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #23
6510 wrote: post #16

If you remove everyone who says it cant be done from the room you are left with people who all think it is possible. (hahaha)

That's pretty much what the guy in charge of the Titan sub said.

Well, they DID dive...

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#33

Post by cowboylowrez »

mrbombastic wrote: post #15

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would they have to make changes to cobol at all if there stated goal is to reduce spending? Wouldn’t it be more like figure out the outflows and just auditing spending and then turning some off?

they're operating under a department created by Obama to improve software, so while the department musk is "running" has wildly different goals than the original department did, I'm thinking dorking with software is the ONLY leverage they have. Unfortunately for the country, we use lots of software lol insert sad trombone sound here

If it were an honest attempt to reduce spending, wouldn't it happen in congress?

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#34

Post by penjelly »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #26
ipaddr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't twitter already collapse now valued at single digit billions. The loss of traffic helped with the reduced headcount efforts. You don't need 80% of employees with 80% less dollars earned.

> In 2024, X (formerly Twitter) reported profits of $1.25 billion, which is about double its highest previous profit of $682 million in 2021. People believing what they want to belive. Not to mention that you talk about revenue and users, because it's hard to deny that technically Twitter is still working just fine, and now even has some new features, while in the past they were coasting tweaking their html for years…

Twitter revenue is down 48% since musk acquisition, also due to interest and other costs they operated at a net loss in 2024, Not a profit. Who is really choosing what they want to believe?

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#35

Post by ozozozd »

So many Elon threads, some with conservative defenders, no mention of Chesterton’s fence by anyone, when it’s so apt.

More importantly, Chesterton’s fence is a conservative idea. And it’s an important idea. I am not a conservative, but I am not a total idiot so I can appreciate the wisdom of _not tearing down the fence without understanding why it’s put up there._

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#36

Post by ozozozd »

Gee101 wrote: post #17

Musk runs companies where software mistakes can kill people. I would give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to software.

The nice thing about software is you don’t need the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt. It either runs or doesn’t. Your website is either hacked or isn’t.

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#37

Post by jkubicek »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #29
ronbenton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How many years do I need to wait for Twitter to collapse any moment now, because Musk fired all the "irreplaceable" people? To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! >These government systems by necessity are not very complex I don't believe this is correct. CMS has a bunch of their source code on their website. The COBOL parts are quite expansive and there is probably a whole lot more out the…

> To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! The profit, which is what actually matters is up. > I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work. The problem was never technical. Ever tried to get stuff done in a bloated corporation full of incompetent people that just want to keep their jobs and don't want you to expose how relatively incompetent th…

> Dumping some data from legacy system to a modern one is not a problem.

Dumping data from some legacy system to a modern one is a MASSIVE problem. Extremely well paid and experienced software engineers regularly hose their infra migrating from one system to another, and it's a near certainty that these commercial products don't have the complexity of of the whatever critical US Government system these kids from DOGE are mucking about in.

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#38

Post by jkubicek »

kccoder wrote: post #20
Gee101 wrote: post #17

Musk runs companies where software mistakes can kill people. I would give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to software.

Musk long ago lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt on anything. The man lies constantly, has the temperament and self-control of small child, an ego the size of Jupiter, is reportedly a ketamine addict, and has verifiably silly things about software design and development. He's completely self-serving. Everything he says is for his own benefit. If you view his statements through that lens you'll quickl…

> has verifiably silly things about software design and development

Even if you're willing to ignore everything else you said, you'd think a group like Hacker News commenters would recognize how obviously out of touch Musk is with anything software related.

Re: Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

#39

Post by rstuart4133 »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #29
ronbenton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How many years do I need to wait for Twitter to collapse any moment now, because Musk fired all the "irreplaceable" people? To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! >These government systems by necessity are not very complex I don't believe this is correct. CMS has a bunch of their source code on their website. The COBOL parts are quite expansive and there is probably a whole lot more out the…

> To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! The profit, which is what actually matters is up. > I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work. The problem was never technical. Ever tried to get stuff done in a bloated corporation full of incompetent people that just want to keep their jobs and don't want you to expose how relatively incompetent th…

> The profit, which is what actually matters is up.

Citation needed.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/

Given revenue is been steadily dropping since Musk purchased it and is now down to 2014 levels (roughly 1/10th of it's peak year, which is the year before Musk bought it) and it is burdened by huge amounts of debt, it would be impressive indeed if it was making a profit.

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