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Twitter Plans Company Wide Layoffs Next Week

64 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

e15ctr0n 11y ago
> It reported roughly 4,200 employees last quarter Wow - what do all these people do?
- Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 11y ago
  Yeah, I'm surprised by that number as well, but then again, Facebook got tons of news coverage yesterday for adding five emoticons (did they actually add them, or were they just flighting it?). Things are strange these days.
- ennuihenry 11y ago
  And half of its employees are engineers.
  - TheBlueDot 11y ago
    Not really, but close. That number includes PMs and design, I think just engineering is closer to 40%. Still big though.
- superuser2 11y ago
  According to the Twitter Careers page: Software Engineering, Design & UX Research, Sales & Revenue, Product Management, Infrastructure Operations, Media & BizDev, Trust & Safety, User Services, Legal, Finance, Workplace & Admin, Marketing & Communications, HR & Recruiting. As far as engineering, take a look: https://about.twitter.com/careers/teams/software-engineering https://about.twitter.com/careers/teams/software-engineering Many companies are much more complex than you might imagine from the outside. Also, a lot of it is meta-headcount: managers, facilities, food service, payroll, benefits, recruiters, lawyers, HR people, etc. all scale at least partially with headcount. You'll notice many of the jobs are with companies Twitter has acquired or various platform-level projects, like Fabric, Vine, TellApart, Finagle, etc.
  - TheBlueDot 11y ago
    With almost 50 (17 in the last two years) acquisitions most of the growth is from that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Twitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
- raincom 11y ago
  You hire managers, when the direct reports increase. When you are a manger with 5 direct reports, you want to increase the headcount to justify your existence: you go around looking for projects, and direct reports.
JamesMcMinn 11y ago
Not completely unexpected, but still somewhat of a surprise. Twitter have been taking on staff faster than their userbase has been growing since their IPO. I guess the question now is how many they are going to layoff - 4,200 employees is a lot of people for something like Twitter.
- TheBlueDot 11y ago
  It's not about user base, it's about revenue. I think their revenue per employee is still ~$500k which is pretty good.
TheBlueDot 11y ago
What's interesting is they've had a lot of leaks...a leak like this comes from someone high up so that's a problem they need to fix. Moments leaks, Jack as CEO leaked...big old bucket there. If it's actually engineering I'm sure they'll all have jobs in a week but it's still hard to find talent so why wouldn't they just move people around?
- greenyoda 11y ago
  "a leak like this comes from someone high up..." Not necessarily. This information could have come from some low-level employee who happened to overhear a conversation between two managers. The CEO and his inner circle of executives can't just lay off hundreds of employees on their own. They need to involve lots of lower-level managers in this planning, since upper management generally has no idea what each employee is doing and how essential they are to the company. So they ask each of their direct reports to make a list. And once dozens of people know that layoffs are coming, it's difficult to keep it a secret.
RockyMcNuts 11y ago
Couldn't help notice this is currently #85 on my HN front page with 58 points in 5 hours … at #16 is something with 22 points in 6 hours … wondering if it's a bug, or some kind of penalty box for this story. see image, nos. 76 and 81 also seem odd to rank higher - http://imgur.com/gNXJsoy http://imgur.com/gNXJsoy
- DanBC 11y ago
  Ranking on HN isn't purely votes and time, but includes user flags, flame detection, and probably some other stuff.
  - RockyMcNuts 11y ago
    got it, maybe those Re/code guys were spamming or something… interesting because their earlier version of the story has a lot more mentions in my Twitter timeline than the Times story, which was later and has more background.
tiredwired 11y ago
That explains why their recruiter stopped responding to me a few weeks ago.

64 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

e15ctr0n 11y ago

> It reported roughly 4,200 employees last quarter Wow - what do all these people do?

Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 11y ago
Yeah, I'm surprised by that number as well, but then again, Facebook got tons of news coverage yesterday for adding five emoticons (did they actually add them, or were they just flighting it?). Things are strange these days.
ennuihenry 11y ago
And half of its employees are engineers.
- TheBlueDot 11y ago
  Not really, but close. That number includes PMs and design, I think just engineering is closer to 40%. Still big though.
superuser2 11y ago
According to the Twitter Careers page: Software Engineering, Design & UX Research, Sales & Revenue, Product Management, Infrastructure Operations, Media & BizDev, Trust & Safety, User Services, Legal, Finance, Workplace & Admin, Marketing & Communications, HR & Recruiting. As far as engineering, take a look: https://about.twitter.com/careers/teams/software-engineering https://about.twitter.com/careers/teams/software-engineering Many companies are much more complex than you might imagine from the outside. Also, a lot of it is meta-headcount: managers, facilities, food service, payroll, benefits, recruiters, lawyers, HR people, etc. all scale at least partially with headcount. You'll notice many of the jobs are with companies Twitter has acquired or various platform-level projects, like Fabric, Vine, TellApart, Finagle, etc.
- TheBlueDot 11y ago
  With almost 50 (17 in the last two years) acquisitions most of the growth is from that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Twitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
raincom 11y ago
You hire managers, when the direct reports increase. When you are a manger with 5 direct reports, you want to increase the headcount to justify your existence: you go around looking for projects, and direct reports.

JamesMcMinn 11y ago

Not completely unexpected, but still somewhat of a surprise. Twitter have been taking on staff faster than their userbase has been growing since their IPO. I guess the question now is how many they are going to layoff - 4,200 employees is a lot of people for something like Twitter.

TheBlueDot 11y ago
It's not about user base, it's about revenue. I think their revenue per employee is still ~$500k which is pretty good.

TheBlueDot 11y ago

What's interesting is they've had a lot of leaks...a leak like this comes from someone high up so that's a problem they need to fix. Moments leaks, Jack as CEO leaked...big old bucket there. If it's actually engineering I'm sure they'll all have jobs in a week but it's still hard to find talent so why wouldn't they just move people around?

greenyoda 11y ago
"a leak like this comes from someone high up..." Not necessarily. This information could have come from some low-level employee who happened to overhear a conversation between two managers. The CEO and his inner circle of executives can't just lay off hundreds of employees on their own. They need to involve lots of lower-level managers in this planning, since upper management generally has no idea what each employee is doing and how essential they are to the company. So they ask each of their direct reports to make a list. And once dozens of people know that layoffs are coming, it's difficult to keep it a secret.

RockyMcNuts 11y ago

Couldn't help notice this is currently #85 on my HN front page with 58 points in 5 hours … at #16 is something with 22 points in 6 hours … wondering if it's a bug, or some kind of penalty box for this story. see image, nos. 76 and 81 also seem odd to rank higher - http://imgur.com/gNXJsoy http://imgur.com/gNXJsoy

DanBC 11y ago
Ranking on HN isn't purely votes and time, but includes user flags, flame detection, and probably some other stuff.
- RockyMcNuts 11y ago
  got it, maybe those Re/code guys were spamming or something… interesting because their earlier version of the story has a lot more mentions in my Twitter timeline than the Times story, which was later and has more background.

tiredwired 11y ago

That explains why their recruiter stopped responding to me a few weeks ago.