35 ms·

Twitter announces layoffs

582 points by uptown 11y ago

ChrisLTD 11y ago
"The world needs a strong Twitter, and this is another step to get there." Let's not get carried away here. Twitter is great. I use it too much of the day. But the world hardly needs Twitter.
- wesleytodd 11y ago
  In fact, many places in the world did need twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution
  - alphapapa 11y ago
    It seems unsuitable for coordinating mass protests to me, because it's a single point of failure. In many countries, the government controls all Internet access, so blocking Twitter would be relatively easy. Sure, people can use Tor, but will enough people have it when Twitter gets blocked? Seems like what's really "needed" is a distributed Twitter-like platform, using a DHT or something. Keep it small and simple enough, and a client could run on many devices 24/7, updating every a few times an hour, or more if the user's actively using it. User identity might be the hard part, because a long hash isn't very human-friendly. But perhaps that could be solved by a centralized directory authority mapping user ID hashes to Twitter-like usernames. The mappings could be cached by clients in case the directory went down or got blocked. Sort of like how PGP keyservers work, letting clients get keys when they need them and add them to their local keyring.
    - rogeryu 11y ago
      > It seems unsuitable for coordinating mass protests to me, because it's a single point of failure. In many countries, the government controls all Internet access, so blocking Twitter would be relatively easy. Sure, people can use Tor, but will enough people have it when Twitter gets blocked? No, you can set up endless blogs (using Wordpress or Joomla or any other CMS with Twitter plugins), and include a twitter stream in it. You can post to twitter by email or using similar plugins. A government cannot block all those sites. Blocking twitter is not enough to block all content coming from and going to twitter.
      - alphapapa 11y ago
        Sure, you can set up what are effectively Twitter proxies, and sure, the censors won't be able to keep up playing whack-a-mole. But then the users have to do the same thing, preemptively finding such proxies and jumping between them. I'd guess that that would be a good enough result from the government's perspective. And that's just read-only stuff. Post by email? DPI could drop packets containing emails addressed to Twitter, even if they're being sent through a mail server in another country. And, sure, you can proxy stuff, but again, the point here is the masses. If 95% of people are blocked from access, that would probably prevent mass protests from happening; or at least keep them from happening quickly and unexpectedly. But besides all that, when the government cuts off the country's Internet access entirely, creating a nationwide intranet, none of those blog proxies are going to help. The only thing that is going to truly work in such a situation is peer-to-peer stuff.
        pdkl95 11y ago
        > preemptively finding such proxies and jumping between them This is why it is so important to create protocols for communication instead of single-point-of-failure services. While it is still possible for bad actors to interfere with traffic, it is much harder to shutdown an entire network of federated servers. In contrast, a service can be disabled by simply throwing legal papers at the person running the service (or otherwise threaten them, bribe them, etc). > DPI could drop packets containing emails addressed Which is why that email should have been encrypted. Even non-authenticated opportunistic encryption would make that kind of DPI much harder and more expensive. We've had encryption for a long time, and there is absolutely no excuse for to not have encryption in all network software. Unfortunately, a lot of software has been badly negligent in their duty to keep their users safe. > cuts off the country's Internet access entirely ...they should be left with a split network, still able to communicate internally. It is pure hubris to believe that a single service will always be available in any situation; when international links are involved, some amount of loss-of-service should be assumed. This is why email allows multiple MX records - servers fail, so build in backups, some of which can be local. > peer-to-peer stuff Yes, though the model to copy is federated services like email. The power of the internet is that it IS peer-to-peer. No 3rd party has to grant authorization to listen(2) for connections or connect(2) to a remove host. This has been forgotten because of the damage that NAT does to the network (you aren't a full citizen ("peer") on the internet when you have to ask the NAT device to forward your packets.) Now, after about a decade of failing to heed the warnings about NAT, the digital imprimatur[1] is being constructed and running proper peer to peer (no 23rd party) is harder than ever. Hopefully IPv6 can reverse this trend. [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
  - amirmc 11y ago
    Reading that just indicates that the world needs social media, not Twitter per se. Many of the quotes there seem to indicate that Twitter's role was exaggerated.
    - pdkl95 11y ago
      The world needs the internet; the specific software running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. Twitter was used because... it was already used by the people involved. The benefit of any place or tool for social activities is only tangentially related to the benefits provided by that place or tool. The value is the people that are using it, who can (and do) move all the time. Anybody interested in the relationship between a service like twitter and the people that create it's value by using it may be interested in the talk[1] given by an admin o fark.com a few years ago, where they discuss how they almost destroyed their community ("you'll get over it") from a failure to remember why people came to their site. If there is one lesson that Twitter or any other social media business needs to learn, it's the one discussed in talk: involve the people that use your service at least somewhat in the changes you make to the service, and absolutely don't surprise them with sudden change, or they will find some other place to hang out. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVeysllPDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVeysllPDI (language warning, if that matters (it's veyr mild))
      - the__prestige 11y ago
        > The world needs the internet; the specific software running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. Twitter was used because... it was already used by the people involved. Hmm, the world needs networked communication; the specific protocol running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. TCP/IP was used because... it was already used by the people involved. Further, the world needs easy communication; the specific mechanism to communicate isn't particularly important. Networking was used because... it was already used by the people involved.
  - atmosx 11y ago
    > In fact, many places in the world did need twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution LOL, sure as hell. Twitter was blocked in most of these countries (and Turkey too). The outcry was huge, but guess what... They 'survived'. Twitter is just a medium. The preferred medium for some. There are countless alternatives nowadays, no one needs twitter.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  I think the point is that twitter has evolved into a kind of news/whistleblower network and that the world needs that. It could be something else than twitter but right now twitter is filling out an important role.
  - collyw 11y ago
    My theory is that Twitter is way more popular with newspapers than the general public because it is easy to extract trending tweets compared to almost anything else and generate stories based on it.
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      Agree but so is Reuters, still it's their news that a lot of newspapers uses for their papers. Twitter is a news source not a newspaper.
      - fluxquanta 11y ago
        >Twitter is a news source not a newspaper. While I agree, I also hate this. A Twitter trend can inspire good journalism, but it is not in and of itself journalism. Too many media sources slap a tweet on TV or on a website and call it journalism.
        ThomPete 11y ago
        Event's aren't journalism either but without them there is nothing to do journalism about. Twitter simply connects the event's with the journalists :)
  - Touche 11y ago
    That's what Twitter was nearly from the beginning. That's not been their focus in recent years though, their focus has been on being a media platform.
    - ThomPete 11y ago
- zecho 11y ago
  We very much need twitter. What other platform is there for teens to say 'DADDY' to world leaders? What other platform is their for those world leaders to put their feet in their mouth? These are the important things to online bullies and comedians.
- jimbokun 11y ago
  Whatever. It's the equivalent of a parent thinking their baby is the most beautiful baby in the world, when it may not be the case to a more neutral observer. I think he strikes a good tone in both emphasizing the importance of the work they are doing at Twitter, and how they need to do better. I think less than perfect objectivity can be forgiven.
- draw_down 11y ago
  Lots of people getting hung up on this line. Let's try to keep in mind it's an executive talking to the workforce of his company.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
xmpir 11y ago
Why is this email on sec.gov?
- dj-wonk 11y ago
  I'm guessing the fact that this email shows up on the SEC web site may have to do with this: > Per Chapter 4, Part 4, Sections 1400-1408 of the Labor Code, WARN protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring that employers give a 60-day notice to the affected employees and both state and local representatives prior to a plant closing or mass layoff. http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN...
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    No, that would have been put on the Department of Labor site.
    - dj-wonk 11y ago
      Good catch.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  It's expected to impact their earnings, so as a public company, they are required to file a notice of the change: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/853662030x0xS1564590-15-8360/1418091/filing.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/853662030...
- minimax 11y ago
  Twitter filed a Form 8-K with the SEC this morning. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000156459015008360/0001564590-15-008360-index.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000156459015... I'm not a securities lawyer, but I think the basic idea is that news about the layoffs (and the associated costs) was deemed to be material information, so under reg FD it has to be released to all investors simultaneously.
vegancap 11y ago
What's the reason for this e-mail being housed on a .gov TLD?
- hartator 11y ago
  Communication regulations around public stocks.
- dj-wonk 11y ago
  > A WARN notification is required if more than 500 people (or 33% of the "active workforce") are being laid off. Check your state's Department of Labor (or whatever it is called in your state) to see the notices that have been filed by employees in your state. (from http://www.job-hunt.org/layoffs/pending-layoff-signs.shtml http://www.job-hunt.org/layoffs/pending-layoff-signs.shtml) For California: http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN...
  - refurb 11y ago
    It's not a WARN notification, it's an SEC filing. WARN wouldn't even apply here since the cutoff is 500 or 33% of active workforce. Twitter's cuts are below both.
    - dj-wonk 11y ago
      Thanks for correcting me.
- jfb 11y ago
  It is a communication that will have a material impact on the stock price.
- spikels 11y ago
  SEC runs a free TweetLonger service for public companies. They are required to use it if they make important announcements that will impact the stock.
MattBearman 11y ago
"Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight." Three paragraphs later... "So we have made an extremely tough decision: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company." Edit: My bad, I should have been clearer in what I meant. There isn't really any corporate speak, but I wouldn't call 3 paragraphs of fluff 'giving it to you straight'
- coldpie 11y ago
  What about that seems like corporate speak to you?
  - abluecloud 11y ago
    I'm not OP but I'm guessing "...we plan to part ways..." - however, twitter is hardly going to say "...we decide to sack..."
  - viewer5 11y ago
    Probably saying 'part ways with' rather than 'lay off'
  - MaximillianII 11y ago
    not OP, but what was announced 3 paragraphs later could have been written in the same sentence: "Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company."
    - coldpie 11y ago
      For a half-page email, this seems awfully nit-picky :)
- blackaspen 11y ago
  It's not great, but it's certainly better than something like "We've decided to move forward with a new strategic initiative that will involve a synergistic restructuring of our organizations and in that process it's possible that some people may find themselves seeking opportunities"...
whatok 11y ago
Any info on whether this is just to appease shareholders or actual redundancies?
- justaman 11y ago
  I wouldnt think of it as being that black/white. However I do think this is a <strong> move on Jack's part.
  - talmand 11y ago
    Until he runs for office and then it'll be in his negatives column.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  Twitter has what, 4000 employees? Clearly some of them are not strong performers, or at least less strong than others. So you can gain more productivity per employee by cutting the weak - but you of course risk the best employees becoming disenfranchised and looking for work elsewhere.
danso 11y ago
> The roadmap is focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. That Moments is mentioned so high up in the email isn't particularly reassuring...since it means they haven't launched many other initiatives of note recently. Moments as a feature is extremely disappointing given the years of interesting discoveries that Twitter has yielded algorithmically via its, well, "Discover" tab. What's on Moments looks like a half-baked newspaper front page except when you click on an item, you go to tweets about that item instead of a full story. I don't want to pile on the project as it is new...but it should've been given more thought and design time given how much prominence "Moments" has on the interface (it is one of four main icons on the menubar)...Nearly all of the stories are hours old...e.g. "Wave of terror attacks hits Jerusalem" and "Playboy covers up"..."FedEx truck splits in two", granted, is news to me...but not something that makes Twitter unique to me. There's so much more potential in the Trends section...OK, maybe Twitter wants to filter out potentially visually NSFW topics like #NoBraDay...but things like #MH17 and #VMworld and #ILoveYouAboutAsMuchAs...just show me an automated feed of tweets by reputable sources (rather than spambots or random kids) so I can understand why these topics are suddenly trending without having to click through the trends tag and sort through a overwhelming timeline. edit: that said, I like all the other products...besides core Twitter, Vine and Periscope are standouts (at least, as a consumer)...I just think that "Moments" isn't worth putting into the spotlight, unless there is literally nothing else to be proud of publicly.
- Touche 11y ago
  > What's on Moments looks like a half-baked newspaper front page except when you click on an item, you go to tweets about that item instead of a full story. How? When I click on it, it just peaks at the next picture. Moments is a glorified image slider.
  - danso 11y ago
    Hmm...on closer inspection, clicking on a Moments item does not seem to bring up a timeline of "Top" tweets (as it does when you click on or search for a "Trending" topic)...it seems to bring up a human-curated list of tweets. Here is the "moment" for "Wave of terror attacks hits Jerusalem"...there's only about 10 tweets there: https://twitter.com/i/moments/653855067158614017 https://twitter.com/i/moments/653855067158614017 And here's a Twitter search for "terror attacks jerusalem" https://twitter.com/search?q=terror%20attacks%20jerusalem&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=terror%20attacks%20jerusalem&sr... Though Fox News may not be everyone's choice of top news source, scrolling down, you'll see a great variety of tweets...maybe not as efficiently informative as the curated tweets, but I'm sure a hell of a lot more expansive and scalable.
mrweasel 11y ago
I'm a little surprised that they're only firing 336 people. Unless this is just the first round of layoffs and more will follow once products and management has been streamlined/trimmed whatever you want to call it.
- abluecloud 11y ago
  That's nearly 10% of their work force.
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    I'll admit that I have no basis for this number, but I would expect them to layoff 20 - 25%. 10% is a high number, but not for a company that has never made a profit and is currently hemorrhaging money.
    - FilterSweep 11y ago
      This could just be round 1.
      - meatysnapper 11y ago
        There have been a number of little rounds since summer 2014.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- simonswords82 11y ago
  Usually in a situation like this you want to cut hard and deep just the once. Every time you make cuts the entire workforce is on knife edge (excuse the pun), so it's best to do one round and get it out of the way so everyone can refocus on their work. That's a long way of saying I doubt there are more layoffs planned. That's not to say they won't make more layoffs if they don't get their shit together.
jacques_chester 11y ago
I think the engineers will be in a good position. The rest, I'm not as sure.
- vdnkh 11y ago
  >We feel strongly that Engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team What percentage of 336 cuts would produce a team that is smaller and nimbler, I wonder? It sounds like engineers not on the "greatest impact" projects will be cut.
jhwhite 11y ago
Maybe I'm a little self centered but this line: > We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. seems a little pep talky to me for the people left. I feel saying this would have been better: > We will honor them with the utmost respect for each and every person. Twitter will go to great lengths to take care of each individual by providing generous exit packages and help finding a new job.
- slowmotiony 11y ago
  Well, I lost my job and it's been really tough on the wife and kids, but at least Twitter will do its best to serve all the people that use Twitter!
celticninja 11y ago
> The world needs a strong Twitter Really? Does it? I think Twitter needs a strong Twitter, shareholders need a strong Twitter even Twitter employees need it. However the world is, at best, ambivalent about Twitter, if it disappeared tomorrow a replacement would spring up within a few weeks if the world really needed a way to shotgun their messages into the ether.
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  A few automated trading algorithms would become marginally less effective. Some poorly written ones might crash or make a few million dollars worth of bad trades. So, you know, there's that.
  - andyjohnson0 11y ago
    I don't know why the parent post is being downvoted: trading using Twitter sentiment analysis is apparently a thing [1][2]. [1] http://www.deltixlab.com/research/an-automated-trading-strategy-using-twitter-sentiment.html http://www.deltixlab.com/research/an-automated-trading-strat... [2] http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2011/TrusheimChakoumakosYendluri-Automated_Market_Sentiment_analysis_of_Twitter_for_Options_Trading.pdf http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2011/TrusheimChakoumakosYendlu... Edit: typo
    - celticninja 11y ago
      there have even been a few instances shown on HN where these algorithms picked stuff up from the internet and have run with it, i.e. placed real trades. I remember at least 2 instances of this recently, once where the story was fake and once where an earnings forecast(i think) was released on a site but they had not published the URL so the assumption was no one would see it. The bot made a significant sum on the second example.
      - justincormack 11y ago
        Many stories are deliberately faked to push the sentiment bots. Its a murky world.
ComputerGuru 11y ago
Wow, these aren't proofread by anyone? > The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, "to produce streamlined roadmap" Really?
- utefan001 11y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1576/ https://xkcd.com/1576/
  - jjzieve 11y ago
    Or, more simply, "I don't give a shit".
    - metamet 11y ago
      Same difference.
- ljk 11y ago
  I'm not sure what the typo is, care to explain?
  - ComputerGuru 11y ago
    Since "streamlined roadmap" is singular, it must be prefaced with an "a". The correct phrase would be "to produce a streamlined roadmap." (if it were plural, you could instead use "to produce streamlined roadmaps.) I'm normally not a Grammar Nazi, but when you're talking about drafting a short SEC filing that will be read by hundreds of thousands, declaring the fate of 8% of your workforce... I think the least you can do is make it look like you put some effort into it. Of course, my initial post has been downvoted to hell, but such is life. I probably should have actually included this explanation and disclaimer in my OP rather than expecting it to be self-evident.
santialbo 11y ago
Yesterday TWTR went down almost 7%.
ape4 11y ago
I guess the message was a bit too long for a tweet.
- irl_zebra 11y ago
  But, cf, this one: https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003315212300289 https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003315212300289
Wintamute 11y ago
Slightly OT, but honestly I think the world really doesn't need Twitter. If you view the evolution of the internet as a phenomenon fundamentally linked to the emergence of a global cultural consensus, or even consciousness, then to reduce a sizable fraction of its bandwidth to 140 chars, vicious echochambers and a communication mechanism custom designed to bump people's thoughts out-of-context for the purposes of ridicule then Twitter should be viewed as harmful. I hope some of these coming changes directly address the harm current Twitter does to the quality of human communication on the net.
mobileexpert 11y ago
What about Twitter's none-core products? GNIP and Fabric (crashlytics and Answers)
signaler 11y ago
As a hobbyist coding small projects like Twitter in my spare time, I feel their pain and have consistently had to re-adjust the code base, and the amount of project contributors. This is observable on the micro-scale, and I would loathe to think how this plays out on the scale of Twitter, where unbridled and unchecked scale was allowed to take over the company, causing them to lose focus. Twitter is essentially one big DevOps success story / failure after another, and I have faith they can start to focus again. One motif / question I have seen in every pundit's post about Twitter as a company is why the market (up until now perhaps) has not decided Twitter's faith? If it really is the case that Twitter is a big data company, then how come 90% (random estimate) of their users are fembots / fake accounts?
acaloiar 11y ago
> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. Well, since you said it that way, I should assume that what comes next will not sound like a steamy pile of meandering corporate speak, right? > The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, Vine, and Periscope and they are shaping up to be strong. The roadmap is focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. A roadmap focused on high-impact experiences. Got it. I hope your firings go really well, Bob.
- adevine 11y ago
  He said he would give it to you straight, not ELI5. They are focusing on fewer things that they believe are the most valuable, and stopping stuff that isn't core to their purpose. What about this is confusing to you?
  - acaloiar 11y ago
    What you said is as near the definition of "giving it straight" as one might expect to follow his preface. What he actually said is as near the definition of corporate speak as possible. There is no confusion on my part. Perhaps Jack is the one confused about what people mean by "corporate speak".
    - kamakazizuru 11y ago
      how would you have phrased it?
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        "We're laying off up to 336 people, with the biggest impact to Product and Engineering. We'll be providing generous exit packages and helping find new jobs. Sorry. It's our fuckup, not yours."
      - 27182818284 11y ago
        It would have been better to phrase it the same, but leave out the part about giving it to everyone straight.
moron4hire 11y ago
Here's what "giving it straight" really looks like, while also having a chance to save face: Everyone, As part of a restructuring of our workforce, we must layoff 336 people from across the company. This is an extremely difficult decision. We believe this is a necessary step to put our company on a stronger path towards growth. The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, Vine, and Periscope and they are shaping up to be strong. With the utmost respect for each and every person, Twitter will go to great lengths to take care of each individual by providing generous exit packages and help finding a new job. The roadmap is a plan to change how we work, and what we need to do that work. Product and Engineering will make the most significant structural changes to reflect our plan ahead, focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. We feel strongly that Engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team, while remaining the biggest percentage of our workforce. And the rest of the organization will be streamlined in parallel. Let's take this time to express our gratitude to all of those who are leaving us. We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. We do so with a more purpose-built team, which we'll continue to build strength into over time, as we are now enabled to reinvest in our most impactful priorities. As always, please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions. Jack Notice I left out Moments, because I think it's in really poor form to mention efforts made before the layoff, with those 336 people, as being a part of this new roadmap that includes laying off those 336 people. Really, really poor move.
cubano 11y ago
On the bright side, Twitter will only fire 140 people at a time, giving the others time to prepare.
- talmand 11y ago
  If they removed the requirement for usernames in the character limit they could fire a whole lot more at a time.
- ch0wn 11y ago
  Cut the snark, this still affects real people's lives.
  - cubano 11y ago
    I've always found humor helps me get through the rough times in life...
  - PMan74 11y ago
    Some of the most employable people in the current job market. Nobody likes getting fired but it's not like they don't have great prospects.
    - ch0wn 11y ago
      You're thinking of engineers. Those make up ~45% of the workforce. Some of my friends affected by this don't have recruiters queuing for them.
antirez 11y ago
> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. + > We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. SYNTAX ERROR
- itsybitsycoder 11y ago
  I like how he talks about the ex-employees as they are dead. Honouring the memory of the lost by continuing to fight for the cause.
mirap 11y ago
Actually, this is really well written.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
prioritydirect 11y ago
http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/ghanaian-bishop-obinim-has-endorsed.html http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/ghanaian-bishop-obinim-...
foobarbecue 11y ago
fewer
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- quarterto 11y ago
  The purpose of language is communication. Did you understand what melvinmt meant? Yes, of course you did. What's the big deal? What are you gaining by "correcting" a pointless[1] semantic distinction, other than your own smug satisfaction? [1]: Yes, it's pointless. Why is there no such distinction for "more"?
  - BlackJack 11y ago
    He was just giving a tip. Your "smug satisfaction" view is in your mind. I would want to know if I was misusing a word.
    - saintx 11y ago
      "If I were misusing a word." Just trying to help ;-)
      - BlackJack 11y ago
        Can you elaborate? I thought 'was' is for 1st person (I) and 3rd person (he/she), and 'were' is for 2nd person (you,your, etc). Update: So I just googled around and learned that "were" is used for the subjunctive mood i.e. wishes/thoughts. Good to know!
        Domenic_S 11y ago
        Your update is correct. Verbs have moods, which is so cool to me. An article/blog about subjunctive verbs: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/subjunctive-verbs http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/subjuncti...
mahouse 11y ago
>We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. I am terrified about the future of Twitter.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
perlpimp 11y ago
not sure how related it is, but a few days ago twitter demanded to change my password, after I changed it - they locked my account demanding that I would provide a phone number to tie to the account, yet none of the numbers I provided do work. May I supposed they'll be even more focused on collection of various marketing data from their users given how little leverage they have over user's personal lives?
Sidnicious 11y ago
> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. I tried rewriting his email to live up to this promise: - - - Team, We're cutting our workforce to strengthen Twitter as a company. The team has been deciding how to best streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to put their focus on the projects which will have the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. We plan to cut up to 336 people. This was a tough decision, and we'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Product and Engineering are going to make the most changes. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel. This isn't easy. We'll honor those who we're losing with our service to all the people who use Twitter. We'll do it with a more purpose-built team. Thank you all for your trust and understanding here. As always, please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions. Jack
- rokhayakebe 11y ago
  Team, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce to strengthen the company. We are deciding how to streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to focus on projects with the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of discovery. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel. Thank you all for everything. As always, please reach out to me directly with anything.
  - Mahn 11y ago
    Team, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce. Sorry for that. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Jack
    - yuvadam 11y ago
      Team, 336 people will be fired. We hope it brings our stock price back up. Jack
ghshephard 11y ago
The number, 336, is roughly 10% of their employees - which is pretty much exactly the number that Jack Welch recommended turning over each year to improve the work force. I often wonder whether these "layoffs" aren't actually layoffs, but simply performance based assessments. It's not like Twitter is shutting down an entire office, or abandoning some technology, and letting everyone associated with that office/technology go - presumably they are being selective on other factors as to who they let go - and I'm guessing that performance is likely a key factor. If, over the next year, twitter doesn't hire back that 10%, or hires employees in different technologies/positions (I.E. Web developers instead of thick client developers, sales people instead of developers, etc...) - then this is a layoff. But, if headcount returns to the same number, in roughly the same job areas, then this is just a performance based annual rank/yank process.
- matt_s 11y ago
  It should be aligned to whatever functions they are stopping doing. I think the message indicated they were focusing on high impact areas (whatever that might mean). The opposite of that is low impact areas would likely lose staff, right?
  - ghshephard 11y ago
    That's slightly different than layoffs though. If they were focussing on Periscope / Vine / Moments instead of some other initiatives, then presumably you could simply shift developers/sales/marketing from one area to another - particularly in this market when finding developers is very difficult in the bay area. Heck, even leaving a region doesn't prevent a company from giving their employees the opportunity to physically relocate. A good indication will be if any developers/marketing/sales, etc.. working on core Twitter/Vine/Periscope/Moments teams are let go.
    - corin_ 11y ago
      Even if your layoffs were 100% based on refocusing on certain areas, surely you'd (often) still want to keep the best employees you have in areas you no longer care about over the worst employees you have in areas you still care about, if you have to get rid of someone.
prioritydirect 11y ago
Read as Man Bags 885 years for child Pornography http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/man-bags-885-years-in-prison-for-child.html http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/man-bags-885-years-in-p...
prioritydirect 11y ago
Man mistaken for A terrorist...http://bit.ly/1WZGWOP http://bit.ly/1WZGWOP
ducuboy 11y ago
Focused on what exactly? > We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. Wonder what's next, because with Moments it feels like they still have no idea what to do with this platform. It would be such a pity to turn Twitter into TV-like manually curated breaking news channels.
nanoojaboo 11y ago
Dear Mr Jack, please do not cut my job. I have a wife and two kids and a big mortgage. Thank you, NanooJaboo
leothekim 11y ago
"up to 336" -- that's a very specific number, suggesting this was somewhat surgical. Most other leadership types are of the "any manager worth her salt should be able to cut 10% of her staff, so do it". Layoffs are never easy, but it sounds like Jack is doing his best make the right cuts and take care of affected.
- crpatino 11y ago
  > any manager worth her salt should be able to cut 10% of her staff, so do it. And that's how every manager worth their salt learns to keep a bunch of dead weight around, so they will in due time be able to offer a victim to the dragon without a significant impact to her team. That's why these draconian methods end up enticing the very behaviors they are meant to prevent. You treat people like... not even animals, like inanimate objects, and they will start to behave like inanimate objects themselves with all the implications. That 3rd Law of Newton is such a lovely thing.
Kristine1975 11y ago
TL;DR: We're making some changes to the company. We're firing the 336 of you we don't need anymore. Thanks for your work. Everything else is fluff. But I guess they have to sugar-coat it a bit with "utmost respect" and "tough decision".
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  But they'll honor their memory for the benefit of all Twitter users. Whatever the hell that means...
coderjames 11y ago
A more focused Twitter is much needed if the company ever hopes to become profitable, and not just remain a money pit.
piratebroadcast 11y ago
I wonder what this means for the Boston twitter offices (Crashlytics and Bluefin Labs) - No mention of them, whereas Vine and Periscope are.
chipgap98 11y ago
There seems to be a large disconnect in this thread between what is actually corporate speak and avoiding being blunt and insensitive
uptown 11y ago
"we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company. We are doing this with the utmost respect for each and every person." Bart might disagree: https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561
- toyg 11y ago
  Holy &#$^%, that's harsh. I mean, usually you announce the layoffs but leave it for a few days as you talk to people, look for voluntaries etc. Cutting a remote worker out as you send the announcement email is unwarranted and cold, and burns bridges unnecessarily.
- adevine 11y ago
  Did you read his followup email? He said they called but he did not pick up. Whenever you have a large layoff, it is fairly standard to lock accounts immediately.
  - rudolf0 11y ago
    Exactly. For security reasons, you have no other option, even if it's rude.
    - kamaal 11y ago
      That's ok, But the opposite should also be true. Don't scream 'disloyalty' when a employee wants to leave on a short notice.
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        There's likely a severance package, so pay will continue for a period (usually at least two weeks, often several weeks per year of seniority). Not that this blunts the message much. And FWIW, I tend to agree with your comment regarding loyalty -- that ship sailed long ago, 1980s, possibly 1970s.
smonff 11y ago
IT world need a better class consciousness. The class struggle isn't something from the past. Twitter is one of the biggest company of the net economy, and it actually can fire 336 employees because "the world needs a strong Twitter". How a big company like this one can be authorized to fire people this way? Who employee are gonna react? Are they gonna fight? Ok, we are not working at the mine, we are working on servers and data, and concept and communication tools, comfortably sitten in white offices, but these company makes a huge amount of money with our work and then will throw employees like garbage? Noooo, this is not acceptable. Jack, do you think that people will take your generous exit package and feel fine: no, some will experiment some difficulties to find a new job, some will divorce, some will be obliged to sell what they build to survive, some will get depression because of unemployment, some might even commit suicide. The price to pay for this can't be equal to your exit packages. There is a serious problem here. And we are not organized at all to fight this. But workers could unite again. After all organizing a servers strike is not that hard. I wonder why it don't happen. Workers of the world, unite!
curiousjorge 11y ago
Have a feeling that Twitter is one of the uniocorns to go next year. He's approaching this as a simple restructure & pray with engineering teams when in fact the problem is a much more serious problem, there's a loss of confidence in Twitter from investors. I guess cutting when investors feel like it's due is a good way to appear like you are making changes when in fact the problem with Twitter is much more deep rooted and a fundamental flaw. 1) Investors realize twitter is horrible for monetization 2) Investors are out of patience or trust 3) Twitter scrambles to find a sustainable revenue source. 4) Twitter cuts off Hootsuite and launches competing business 5) Twitter's massive botnets disappear revealing only a small number of it's userbase is active sparking SEC involvement.
- sjg007 11y ago
  Yes but Twitter fits in within mainstream media. Facebook could take the #hashtag business, but the pseudonymity of Twitter has general appeal. Doing anything but advertising is a bad deal for either Facebook or Twitter. CPA is really a bad deal for the platform.
petercooper 11y ago
"[..] Engineering will move [..] faster with a smaller [..] team [..] we [will] part ways with [..] 336 people. [..] with the utmost respect [..] the world needs a strong Twitter, and this is another step to get there." Or basically, Twitter is weaker with you in it.
dang 11y ago
This was discussed pre-announcement at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10364197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10364197.
smaili 11y ago
If anyone who's part of the layoff is around SF and is looking for a new opportunity, let me know -- me [at] smaili.org
smonff 11y ago
Ok Jack... Look at what happens to guys like you in France. https://www.rt.com/business/317705-air-france-job-cuts/ https://www.rt.com/business/317705-air-france-job-cuts/
DrNuke 11y ago
Tbh twitter is pretty good professionally, if you follow the right people / organisations in your field and write accordingly. Much better than spammy Linkedin too.
vishalzone2002 11y ago
any idea what is 336 as a percentage of their tech workforce?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- shampine 11y ago
  From what everyone else in the thread has said and what Google states, about 10%.
- sararschreiber 11y ago
  the sec filing says 8%
vishalzone2002 11y ago
any idea what is 336 as a percentage of their tech workforce?
ausjke 11y ago
How many employees does it have? I recall it's about 4000 or so, so this is like a 10% cut? It's better to do a big axe once instead of slicing it gradually, will this be it? Been there done that, and it sucks.
- codezero 11y ago
  It's being reported as 8% so pretty close.
spikels 11y ago
Revenue per employee is an interesting performance metric although not usually applied to growth companies. Twitter's was growing fast relative to other big public tech firms but still much lower than most. http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-charts-are-a-fascinating-way-to-judge-the-health-of-tech-companies-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-charts-a...
deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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josefresco 11y ago
The "moments" feature will be a failure. They're essentially building an editorial model on top of Twitter - something they (as the platform creators) shouldn't be worried with. The decentralized model of Twitter's content creation is an asset. If you group those into a more traditional top down model, you lose the uniqueness and power of the Twitter platform.
- stevesearer 11y ago
  I've been searching for a replacement to Circa News since it shut down and I'd love if Twitter's Moments turned out to be something like that. Surface what is happening around the world via social and then add the context of it with editors and journalists for people not wanting to slog through social media all day long.
jackgavigan 11y ago
Well, the stock's up 4.35% today. That's roughly $2.7m per fired employee!
RyanMcGreal 11y ago
> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. [...] > we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company Nothing says "give it to you straight" like using "part ways" to mean "you no longer have a job".
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  It's better than "rightsizing".
  - sirkneeland 11y ago
    or "streamlining" or "must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope" Or any other of Stephen Elop's greatest hits..
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      The Twitter layoff uses "streamline": "the rest of the organization will be streamlined in parallel."
grandalf 11y ago
When 80% of the promotional mail in my inbox is from Twitter trying to drive engagement, something is going badly.
grandalf 11y ago
This is great for the startup ecosystem because likely many of the engineers are very talented.
ngoel36 11y ago
This truly sucks - I'm sorry to hear that. If you're one of the unlucky engineers that caught up in all this - reach out to the email address in my profile. We're hiring tons of awesome engineers at Uber, and if that's not the right fit for you I can help get you connected to other SF companies as well.
- giarc 11y ago
  Spit balling an idea here for Site X. -Twitter lays off a bunch of engineers. -Twitter employees create job profile, with Twitter permission on Site X. -Site X is accessible to other large tech companies looking for experienced engineers. Site X is a showcase of recently laid off employees filtered by layoff group (#368 employees, Twitter, Fall 2015). ---- Pro's - other tech companies can locate talent without having to weed through thousands of resumes. -engineers can transition from one company to another quickly. -Twitter shows support for "helping transition to another job." --- Con's - is this considered poaching? -Do other companies want those engineers that got laid off? Are they considered low quality, or just were redundant?
  - kelseydh 11y ago
    Even if they were good engineers, the perception will be that they weren't as a result of product progress being delayed.
    - giarc 11y ago
      True, however if you were head of HR for a tech company, would you rather take a risk with a recent Twitter employee, or take a risk with applicants you receive online? It would almost be like a pre-vetting process.
GuiA 11y ago
> Let's take this time to express our gratitude to all of those who are leaving us. Gratitude in the form of not telling employees that they were laid off, and letting them find out when they try to check their email in the morning? [0] Fuck that noise. [0] https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 + exact same thing happened to a good friend of mine who didn't tweet about it + hearing reports of it happening to others
kenko 11y ago
"We are moving forward with a restructuring of our workforce so we can put our company on a stronger path to grow. Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight." Riddled with corporate speak like ... the very first sentence.
swalsh 11y ago
If you're impacted, know ruby, want to make healthcare better, and are open to a position in Boston let me know! email in profile.
- joeblau 11y ago
  Growth hacking at it's finest.
ThomPete 11y ago
Wait why did the subject change? Isn't the correct headline the subject line of the email?
sjg007 11y ago
It would have been better if it was a total of 124 characters.
oldmanjay 11y ago
The sheer vulture-like behavior of recruiters around this event is a sight to behold! Truly recruiting is the occupation for the shameless.
- patio11 11y ago
  Speaking in personal capacity here rather than as CEO of a recruiting company: isn't after you've just been fired or near-fired the best possible time ever for a recruiter to try to give you a job offer? Most people need to work for a living. Getting people without jobs good jobs seems to be the socially most beneficial thing a recruiter could ever do. What's the argument for waiting an hour? "I had a job for you but wanted to give you some time to process how you're unemployed and cast out as valueless?" Eff that. "You're awesome. Fault was with Twitter. Here's one of your numerous options. If you need a few weeks before start date we can totally do that but we're more than happy to fix your pressing issue today." seems objectively better.
jjzieve 11y ago
I feel like this could spark a massive bubble pop. I mean if investors have lost confidence in a company with one of the largest user-bases in the world, what does that say about all the startups that are valued so high and will likely never make a dime, unless they're bought out.
racl101 11y ago
Best of luck to the 336 people laid off. But hey, you worked for Twitter, that's pretty big in and of itself.
fjordames 11y ago
Oh god. My roommate was literally offered a position at their Boulder office last week. I wonder how systemic cuts will be?
lfender6445 11y ago
If anyone who's part of the layoff is looking for the opportunity to work from home (ruby + javascript), let me know -- me [at] gmail.com
cdelsolar 11y ago
Message me if you've been impacted and want to join us at Leftronic!
moron4hire 11y ago
Can someone explain to me how these places figure out that it's engineering's fault for failing to figure out how to monetize passive aggression, 140 characters at a time? I mean, if I were asking myself "why did we fail to achieve our expected growth potential", am I going to blame the people who did what I told them to do, or am I going to blame what I told them to do? Well, clearly, if I'm an MBA, I'll blame the stupid proles.
- sjg007 11y ago
  It's not the engineers fault. It is a statement that they need fewer people going forward.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tony_b 11y ago
Good thing that his email about a roadmap for moving forward with a restructuring for a nimbler team and an organization streamlined in parallel as well as an invitation to reach out wasn't riddled with corporate speak the way those emails usually are.
tony_b 11y ago
Good thing that his email about a roadmap for moving forward with a restructuring for a nimbler team and an organization streamlined in parallel as well as an invitation to reach out wasn't riddled with corporate speak the way those emails usually are.
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
I'm seriously impressed by Twitter's service ... doing fan-out for so many popular celebrities, so seamlessly, for so many readers is an accomplishment. But I'm seriously curious why they have 4,000+ employees. What in the hell are all those people doing? 300~ people being laid off is nothing. I wouldn't have been shocked if they said they were laying off 1,000+ people. I think entire departments probably need to go. There has to be a lot of dead weight at Twitter.
hartator 11y ago
https://about.twitter.com/careers/positions https://about.twitter.com/careers/positions Still doing a lot of hirings.
SneakerXZ 11y ago
I feel sorry for people that were laid off but to be honest does Twitter need 4100 employees? I cannot imagine what all these people do for not such a complicated product.
myth_buster 11y ago
Tech community reaching out with job postings. https://twitter.com/cra/timelines/653925058600046592 https://twitter.com/cra/timelines/653925058600046592
idibidiart 11y ago
"Dorsey is no Jobs" sound very fitting now.
gketuma 11y ago
Does this mean Twitter Bootstrap 4.0 release will be delayed?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tarekkurdy 11y ago
Forgets to remove the corporate speak.

582 points by uptown 11y ago

"The world needs a strong Twitter, and this is another step to get there." Let's not get carried away here. Twitter is great. I use it too much of the day. But the world hardly needs Twitter.

wesleytodd 11y ago
In fact, many places in the world did need twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution
- alphapapa 11y ago
  It seems unsuitable for coordinating mass protests to me, because it's a single point of failure. In many countries, the government controls all Internet access, so blocking Twitter would be relatively easy. Sure, people can use Tor, but will enough people have it when Twitter gets blocked? Seems like what's really "needed" is a distributed Twitter-like platform, using a DHT or something. Keep it small and simple enough, and a client could run on many devices 24/7, updating every a few times an hour, or more if the user's actively using it. User identity might be the hard part, because a long hash isn't very human-friendly. But perhaps that could be solved by a centralized directory authority mapping user ID hashes to Twitter-like usernames. The mappings could be cached by clients in case the directory went down or got blocked. Sort of like how PGP keyservers work, letting clients get keys when they need them and add them to their local keyring.
  - rogeryu 11y ago
    > It seems unsuitable for coordinating mass protests to me, because it's a single point of failure. In many countries, the government controls all Internet access, so blocking Twitter would be relatively easy. Sure, people can use Tor, but will enough people have it when Twitter gets blocked? No, you can set up endless blogs (using Wordpress or Joomla or any other CMS with Twitter plugins), and include a twitter stream in it. You can post to twitter by email or using similar plugins. A government cannot block all those sites. Blocking twitter is not enough to block all content coming from and going to twitter.
    - alphapapa 11y ago
      Sure, you can set up what are effectively Twitter proxies, and sure, the censors won't be able to keep up playing whack-a-mole. But then the users have to do the same thing, preemptively finding such proxies and jumping between them. I'd guess that that would be a good enough result from the government's perspective. And that's just read-only stuff. Post by email? DPI could drop packets containing emails addressed to Twitter, even if they're being sent through a mail server in another country. And, sure, you can proxy stuff, but again, the point here is the masses. If 95% of people are blocked from access, that would probably prevent mass protests from happening; or at least keep them from happening quickly and unexpectedly. But besides all that, when the government cuts off the country's Internet access entirely, creating a nationwide intranet, none of those blog proxies are going to help. The only thing that is going to truly work in such a situation is peer-to-peer stuff.
      - pdkl95 11y ago
        > preemptively finding such proxies and jumping between them This is why it is so important to create protocols for communication instead of single-point-of-failure services. While it is still possible for bad actors to interfere with traffic, it is much harder to shutdown an entire network of federated servers. In contrast, a service can be disabled by simply throwing legal papers at the person running the service (or otherwise threaten them, bribe them, etc). > DPI could drop packets containing emails addressed Which is why that email should have been encrypted. Even non-authenticated opportunistic encryption would make that kind of DPI much harder and more expensive. We've had encryption for a long time, and there is absolutely no excuse for to not have encryption in all network software. Unfortunately, a lot of software has been badly negligent in their duty to keep their users safe. > cuts off the country's Internet access entirely ...they should be left with a split network, still able to communicate internally. It is pure hubris to believe that a single service will always be available in any situation; when international links are involved, some amount of loss-of-service should be assumed. This is why email allows multiple MX records - servers fail, so build in backups, some of which can be local. > peer-to-peer stuff Yes, though the model to copy is federated services like email. The power of the internet is that it IS peer-to-peer. No 3rd party has to grant authorization to listen(2) for connections or connect(2) to a remove host. This has been forgotten because of the damage that NAT does to the network (you aren't a full citizen ("peer") on the internet when you have to ask the NAT device to forward your packets.) Now, after about a decade of failing to heed the warnings about NAT, the digital imprimatur[1] is being constructed and running proper peer to peer (no 23rd party) is harder than ever. Hopefully IPv6 can reverse this trend. [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
- amirmc 11y ago
  Reading that just indicates that the world needs social media, not Twitter per se. Many of the quotes there seem to indicate that Twitter's role was exaggerated.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    The world needs the internet; the specific software running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. Twitter was used because... it was already used by the people involved. The benefit of any place or tool for social activities is only tangentially related to the benefits provided by that place or tool. The value is the people that are using it, who can (and do) move all the time. Anybody interested in the relationship between a service like twitter and the people that create it's value by using it may be interested in the talk[1] given by an admin o fark.com a few years ago, where they discuss how they almost destroyed their community ("you'll get over it") from a failure to remember why people came to their site. If there is one lesson that Twitter or any other social media business needs to learn, it's the one discussed in talk: involve the people that use your service at least somewhat in the changes you make to the service, and absolutely don't surprise them with sudden change, or they will find some other place to hang out. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVeysllPDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVeysllPDI (language warning, if that matters (it's veyr mild))
    - the__prestige 11y ago
      > The world needs the internet; the specific software running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. Twitter was used because... it was already used by the people involved. Hmm, the world needs networked communication; the specific protocol running at the endpoints isn't particularly important. TCP/IP was used because... it was already used by the people involved. Further, the world needs easy communication; the specific mechanism to communicate isn't particularly important. Networking was used because... it was already used by the people involved.
- atmosx 11y ago
  > In fact, many places in the world did need twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution LOL, sure as hell. Twitter was blocked in most of these countries (and Turkey too). The outcry was huge, but guess what... They 'survived'. Twitter is just a medium. The preferred medium for some. There are countless alternatives nowadays, no one needs twitter.
ThomPete 11y ago
I think the point is that twitter has evolved into a kind of news/whistleblower network and that the world needs that. It could be something else than twitter but right now twitter is filling out an important role.
- collyw 11y ago
  My theory is that Twitter is way more popular with newspapers than the general public because it is easy to extract trending tweets compared to almost anything else and generate stories based on it.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Agree but so is Reuters, still it's their news that a lot of newspapers uses for their papers. Twitter is a news source not a newspaper.
    - fluxquanta 11y ago
      >Twitter is a news source not a newspaper. While I agree, I also hate this. A Twitter trend can inspire good journalism, but it is not in and of itself journalism. Too many media sources slap a tweet on TV or on a website and call it journalism.
      - ThomPete 11y ago
        Event's aren't journalism either but without them there is nothing to do journalism about. Twitter simply connects the event's with the journalists :)
- Touche 11y ago
  That's what Twitter was nearly from the beginning. That's not been their focus in recent years though, their focus has been on being a media platform.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
zecho 11y ago
We very much need twitter. What other platform is there for teens to say 'DADDY' to world leaders? What other platform is their for those world leaders to put their feet in their mouth? These are the important things to online bullies and comedians.
jimbokun 11y ago
Whatever. It's the equivalent of a parent thinking their baby is the most beautiful baby in the world, when it may not be the case to a more neutral observer. I think he strikes a good tone in both emphasizing the importance of the work they are doing at Twitter, and how they need to do better. I think less than perfect objectivity can be forgiven.
draw_down 11y ago
Lots of people getting hung up on this line. Let's try to keep in mind it's an executive talking to the workforce of his company.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

xmpir 11y ago

Why is this email on sec.gov?

dj-wonk 11y ago
I'm guessing the fact that this email shows up on the SEC web site may have to do with this: > Per Chapter 4, Part 4, Sections 1400-1408 of the Labor Code, WARN protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring that employers give a 60-day notice to the affected employees and both state and local representatives prior to a plant closing or mass layoff. http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN...
- moron4hire 11y ago
  No, that would have been put on the Department of Labor site.
  - dj-wonk 11y ago
    Good catch.
maxerickson 11y ago
It's expected to impact their earnings, so as a public company, they are required to file a notice of the change: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/853662030x0xS1564590-15-8360/1418091/filing.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/853662030...
minimax 11y ago
Twitter filed a Form 8-K with the SEC this morning. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000156459015008360/0001564590-15-008360-index.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000156459015... I'm not a securities lawyer, but I think the basic idea is that news about the layoffs (and the associated costs) was deemed to be material information, so under reg FD it has to be released to all investors simultaneously.

vegancap 11y ago

What's the reason for this e-mail being housed on a .gov TLD?

hartator 11y ago
Communication regulations around public stocks.
dj-wonk 11y ago
> A WARN notification is required if more than 500 people (or 33% of the "active workforce") are being laid off. Check your state's Department of Labor (or whatever it is called in your state) to see the notices that have been filed by employees in your state. (from http://www.job-hunt.org/layoffs/pending-layoff-signs.shtml http://www.job-hunt.org/layoffs/pending-layoff-signs.shtml) For California: http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN...
- refurb 11y ago
  It's not a WARN notification, it's an SEC filing. WARN wouldn't even apply here since the cutoff is 500 or 33% of active workforce. Twitter's cuts are below both.
  - dj-wonk 11y ago
    Thanks for correcting me.
jfb 11y ago
It is a communication that will have a material impact on the stock price.
spikels 11y ago
SEC runs a free TweetLonger service for public companies. They are required to use it if they make important announcements that will impact the stock.

MattBearman 11y ago

"Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight." Three paragraphs later... "So we have made an extremely tough decision: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company." Edit: My bad, I should have been clearer in what I meant. There isn't really any corporate speak, but I wouldn't call 3 paragraphs of fluff 'giving it to you straight'

coldpie 11y ago
What about that seems like corporate speak to you?
- abluecloud 11y ago
  I'm not OP but I'm guessing "...we plan to part ways..." - however, twitter is hardly going to say "...we decide to sack..."
- viewer5 11y ago
  Probably saying 'part ways with' rather than 'lay off'
- MaximillianII 11y ago
  not OP, but what was announced 3 paragraphs later could have been written in the same sentence: "Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company."
  - coldpie 11y ago
    For a half-page email, this seems awfully nit-picky :)
blackaspen 11y ago
It's not great, but it's certainly better than something like "We've decided to move forward with a new strategic initiative that will involve a synergistic restructuring of our organizations and in that process it's possible that some people may find themselves seeking opportunities"...

whatok 11y ago

Any info on whether this is just to appease shareholders or actual redundancies?

justaman 11y ago
I wouldnt think of it as being that black/white. However I do think this is a <strong> move on Jack's part.
- talmand 11y ago
  Until he runs for office and then it'll be in his negatives column.
brianwawok 11y ago
Twitter has what, 4000 employees? Clearly some of them are not strong performers, or at least less strong than others. So you can gain more productivity per employee by cutting the weak - but you of course risk the best employees becoming disenfranchised and looking for work elsewhere.

danso 11y ago

> The roadmap is focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. That Moments is mentioned so high up in the email isn't particularly reassuring...since it means they haven't launched many other initiatives of note recently. Moments as a feature is extremely disappointing given the years of interesting discoveries that Twitter has yielded algorithmically via its, well, "Discover" tab. What's on Moments looks like a half-baked newspaper front page except when you click on an item, you go to tweets about that item instead of a full story. I don't want to pile on the project as it is new...but it should've been given more thought and design time given how much prominence "Moments" has on the interface (it is one of four main icons on the menubar)...Nearly all of the stories are hours old...e.g. "Wave of terror attacks hits Jerusalem" and "Playboy covers up"..."FedEx truck splits in two", granted, is news to me...but not something that makes Twitter unique to me. There's so much more potential in the Trends section...OK, maybe Twitter wants to filter out potentially visually NSFW topics like #NoBraDay...but things like #MH17 and #VMworld and #ILoveYouAboutAsMuchAs...just show me an automated feed of tweets by reputable sources (rather than spambots or random kids) so I can understand why these topics are suddenly trending without having to click through the trends tag and sort through a overwhelming timeline. edit: that said, I like all the other products...besides core Twitter, Vine and Periscope are standouts (at least, as a consumer)...I just think that "Moments" isn't worth putting into the spotlight, unless there is literally nothing else to be proud of publicly.

Touche 11y ago
> What's on Moments looks like a half-baked newspaper front page except when you click on an item, you go to tweets about that item instead of a full story. How? When I click on it, it just peaks at the next picture. Moments is a glorified image slider.
- danso 11y ago
  Hmm...on closer inspection, clicking on a Moments item does not seem to bring up a timeline of "Top" tweets (as it does when you click on or search for a "Trending" topic)...it seems to bring up a human-curated list of tweets. Here is the "moment" for "Wave of terror attacks hits Jerusalem"...there's only about 10 tweets there: https://twitter.com/i/moments/653855067158614017 https://twitter.com/i/moments/653855067158614017 And here's a Twitter search for "terror attacks jerusalem" https://twitter.com/search?q=terror%20attacks%20jerusalem&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=terror%20attacks%20jerusalem&sr... Though Fox News may not be everyone's choice of top news source, scrolling down, you'll see a great variety of tweets...maybe not as efficiently informative as the curated tweets, but I'm sure a hell of a lot more expansive and scalable.

mrweasel 11y ago

I'm a little surprised that they're only firing 336 people. Unless this is just the first round of layoffs and more will follow once products and management has been streamlined/trimmed whatever you want to call it.

abluecloud 11y ago
That's nearly 10% of their work force.
- mrweasel 11y ago
  I'll admit that I have no basis for this number, but I would expect them to layoff 20 - 25%. 10% is a high number, but not for a company that has never made a profit and is currently hemorrhaging money.
  - FilterSweep 11y ago
    This could just be round 1.
    - meatysnapper 11y ago
      There have been a number of little rounds since summer 2014.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
simonswords82 11y ago
Usually in a situation like this you want to cut hard and deep just the once. Every time you make cuts the entire workforce is on knife edge (excuse the pun), so it's best to do one round and get it out of the way so everyone can refocus on their work. That's a long way of saying I doubt there are more layoffs planned. That's not to say they won't make more layoffs if they don't get their shit together.

jacques_chester 11y ago

I think the engineers will be in a good position. The rest, I'm not as sure.

vdnkh 11y ago
>We feel strongly that Engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team What percentage of 336 cuts would produce a team that is smaller and nimbler, I wonder? It sounds like engineers not on the "greatest impact" projects will be cut.

jhwhite 11y ago

Maybe I'm a little self centered but this line: > We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. seems a little pep talky to me for the people left. I feel saying this would have been better: > We will honor them with the utmost respect for each and every person. Twitter will go to great lengths to take care of each individual by providing generous exit packages and help finding a new job.

slowmotiony 11y ago
Well, I lost my job and it's been really tough on the wife and kids, but at least Twitter will do its best to serve all the people that use Twitter!

celticninja 11y ago

> The world needs a strong Twitter Really? Does it? I think Twitter needs a strong Twitter, shareholders need a strong Twitter even Twitter employees need it. However the world is, at best, ambivalent about Twitter, if it disappeared tomorrow a replacement would spring up within a few weeks if the world really needed a way to shotgun their messages into the ether.

dangerlibrary 11y ago
A few automated trading algorithms would become marginally less effective. Some poorly written ones might crash or make a few million dollars worth of bad trades. So, you know, there's that.
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  I don't know why the parent post is being downvoted: trading using Twitter sentiment analysis is apparently a thing [1][2]. [1] http://www.deltixlab.com/research/an-automated-trading-strategy-using-twitter-sentiment.html http://www.deltixlab.com/research/an-automated-trading-strat... [2] http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2011/TrusheimChakoumakosYendluri-Automated_Market_Sentiment_analysis_of_Twitter_for_Options_Trading.pdf http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2011/TrusheimChakoumakosYendlu... Edit: typo
  - celticninja 11y ago
    there have even been a few instances shown on HN where these algorithms picked stuff up from the internet and have run with it, i.e. placed real trades. I remember at least 2 instances of this recently, once where the story was fake and once where an earnings forecast(i think) was released on a site but they had not published the URL so the assumption was no one would see it. The bot made a significant sum on the second example.
    - justincormack 11y ago
      Many stories are deliberately faked to push the sentiment bots. Its a murky world.

ComputerGuru 11y ago

Wow, these aren't proofread by anyone? > The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, "to produce streamlined roadmap" Really?

utefan001 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/1576/ https://xkcd.com/1576/
- jjzieve 11y ago
  Or, more simply, "I don't give a shit".
  - metamet 11y ago
    Same difference.
ljk 11y ago
I'm not sure what the typo is, care to explain?
- ComputerGuru 11y ago
  Since "streamlined roadmap" is singular, it must be prefaced with an "a". The correct phrase would be "to produce a streamlined roadmap." (if it were plural, you could instead use "to produce streamlined roadmaps.) I'm normally not a Grammar Nazi, but when you're talking about drafting a short SEC filing that will be read by hundreds of thousands, declaring the fate of 8% of your workforce... I think the least you can do is make it look like you put some effort into it. Of course, my initial post has been downvoted to hell, but such is life. I probably should have actually included this explanation and disclaimer in my OP rather than expecting it to be self-evident.

santialbo 11y ago

Yesterday TWTR went down almost 7%.

ape4 11y ago

I guess the message was a bit too long for a tweet.

irl_zebra 11y ago
But, cf, this one: https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003315212300289 https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003315212300289

Wintamute 11y ago

Slightly OT, but honestly I think the world really doesn't need Twitter. If you view the evolution of the internet as a phenomenon fundamentally linked to the emergence of a global cultural consensus, or even consciousness, then to reduce a sizable fraction of its bandwidth to 140 chars, vicious echochambers and a communication mechanism custom designed to bump people's thoughts out-of-context for the purposes of ridicule then Twitter should be viewed as harmful. I hope some of these coming changes directly address the harm current Twitter does to the quality of human communication on the net.

mobileexpert 11y ago

What about Twitter's none-core products? GNIP and Fabric (crashlytics and Answers)

signaler 11y ago

As a hobbyist coding small projects like Twitter in my spare time, I feel their pain and have consistently had to re-adjust the code base, and the amount of project contributors. This is observable on the micro-scale, and I would loathe to think how this plays out on the scale of Twitter, where unbridled and unchecked scale was allowed to take over the company, causing them to lose focus. Twitter is essentially one big DevOps success story / failure after another, and I have faith they can start to focus again. One motif / question I have seen in every pundit's post about Twitter as a company is why the market (up until now perhaps) has not decided Twitter's faith? If it really is the case that Twitter is a big data company, then how come 90% (random estimate) of their users are fembots / fake accounts?

acaloiar 11y ago

> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. Well, since you said it that way, I should assume that what comes next will not sound like a steamy pile of meandering corporate speak, right? > The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, Vine, and Periscope and they are shaping up to be strong. The roadmap is focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. A roadmap focused on high-impact experiences. Got it. I hope your firings go really well, Bob.

adevine 11y ago
He said he would give it to you straight, not ELI5. They are focusing on fewer things that they believe are the most valuable, and stopping stuff that isn't core to their purpose. What about this is confusing to you?
- acaloiar 11y ago
  What you said is as near the definition of "giving it straight" as one might expect to follow his preface. What he actually said is as near the definition of corporate speak as possible. There is no confusion on my part. Perhaps Jack is the one confused about what people mean by "corporate speak".
  - kamakazizuru 11y ago
    how would you have phrased it?
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      "We're laying off up to 336 people, with the biggest impact to Product and Engineering. We'll be providing generous exit packages and helping find new jobs. Sorry. It's our fuckup, not yours."
    - 27182818284 11y ago
      It would have been better to phrase it the same, but leave out the part about giving it to everyone straight.

moron4hire 11y ago

Here's what "giving it straight" really looks like, while also having a chance to save face: Everyone, As part of a restructuring of our workforce, we must layoff 336 people from across the company. This is an extremely difficult decision. We believe this is a necessary step to put our company on a stronger path towards growth. The team has been working around the clock to produce streamlined roadmap for Twitter, Vine, and Periscope and they are shaping up to be strong. With the utmost respect for each and every person, Twitter will go to great lengths to take care of each individual by providing generous exit packages and help finding a new job. The roadmap is a plan to change how we work, and what we need to do that work. Product and Engineering will make the most significant structural changes to reflect our plan ahead, focused on the experiences which will have the greatest impact. We feel strongly that Engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team, while remaining the biggest percentage of our workforce. And the rest of the organization will be streamlined in parallel. Let's take this time to express our gratitude to all of those who are leaving us. We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. We do so with a more purpose-built team, which we'll continue to build strength into over time, as we are now enabled to reinvest in our most impactful priorities. As always, please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions. Jack Notice I left out Moments, because I think it's in really poor form to mention efforts made before the layoff, with those 336 people, as being a part of this new roadmap that includes laying off those 336 people. Really, really poor move.

cubano 11y ago

On the bright side, Twitter will only fire 140 people at a time, giving the others time to prepare.

talmand 11y ago
If they removed the requirement for usernames in the character limit they could fire a whole lot more at a time.
ch0wn 11y ago
Cut the snark, this still affects real people's lives.
- cubano 11y ago
  I've always found humor helps me get through the rough times in life...
- PMan74 11y ago
  Some of the most employable people in the current job market. Nobody likes getting fired but it's not like they don't have great prospects.
  - ch0wn 11y ago
    You're thinking of engineers. Those make up ~45% of the workforce. Some of my friends affected by this don't have recruiters queuing for them.

antirez 11y ago

> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. + > We will honor them by doing our best to serve all the people that use Twitter. SYNTAX ERROR

itsybitsycoder 11y ago
I like how he talks about the ex-employees as they are dead. Honouring the memory of the lost by continuing to fight for the cause.

mirap 11y ago

Actually, this is really well written.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

prioritydirect 11y ago

http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/ghanaian-bishop-obinim-has-endorsed.html http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/ghanaian-bishop-obinim-...

foobarbecue 11y ago

fewer

deleted 11y ago
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quarterto 11y ago
The purpose of language is communication. Did you understand what melvinmt meant? Yes, of course you did. What's the big deal? What are you gaining by "correcting" a pointless[1] semantic distinction, other than your own smug satisfaction? [1]: Yes, it's pointless. Why is there no such distinction for "more"?
- BlackJack 11y ago
  He was just giving a tip. Your "smug satisfaction" view is in your mind. I would want to know if I was misusing a word.
  - saintx 11y ago
    "If I were misusing a word." Just trying to help ;-)
    - BlackJack 11y ago
      Can you elaborate? I thought 'was' is for 1st person (I) and 3rd person (he/she), and 'were' is for 2nd person (you,your, etc). Update: So I just googled around and learned that "were" is used for the subjunctive mood i.e. wishes/thoughts. Good to know!
      - Domenic_S 11y ago
        Your update is correct. Verbs have moods, which is so cool to me. An article/blog about subjunctive verbs: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/subjunctive-verbs http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/subjuncti...

mahouse 11y ago

>We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. I am terrified about the future of Twitter.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

perlpimp 11y ago

not sure how related it is, but a few days ago twitter demanded to change my password, after I changed it - they locked my account demanding that I would provide a phone number to tie to the account, yet none of the numbers I provided do work. May I supposed they'll be even more focused on collection of various marketing data from their users given how little leverage they have over user's personal lives?

Sidnicious 11y ago

> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. I tried rewriting his email to live up to this promise: - - - Team, We're cutting our workforce to strengthen Twitter as a company. The team has been deciding how to best streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to put their focus on the projects which will have the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. We plan to cut up to 336 people. This was a tough decision, and we'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Product and Engineering are going to make the most changes. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel. This isn't easy. We'll honor those who we're losing with our service to all the people who use Twitter. We'll do it with a more purpose-built team. Thank you all for your trust and understanding here. As always, please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions. Jack

rokhayakebe 11y ago
Team, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce to strengthen the company. We are deciding how to streamline Twitter, Vine, and Periscope to focus on projects with the greatest impact. Moments, which we launched last week, is a great beginning. It's a peek into the future of discovery. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Engineering will be smaller but remain the biggest percentage of the organization, and other departments will be cut in parallel. Thank you all for everything. As always, please reach out to me directly with anything.
- Mahn 11y ago
  Team, We're cutting 336 people from our workforce. Sorry for that. We'll offer each person a generous exit package and help finding a new job. Jack
  - yuvadam 11y ago
    Team, 336 people will be fired. We hope it brings our stock price back up. Jack

ghshephard 11y ago

The number, 336, is roughly 10% of their employees - which is pretty much exactly the number that Jack Welch recommended turning over each year to improve the work force. I often wonder whether these "layoffs" aren't actually layoffs, but simply performance based assessments. It's not like Twitter is shutting down an entire office, or abandoning some technology, and letting everyone associated with that office/technology go - presumably they are being selective on other factors as to who they let go - and I'm guessing that performance is likely a key factor. If, over the next year, twitter doesn't hire back that 10%, or hires employees in different technologies/positions (I.E. Web developers instead of thick client developers, sales people instead of developers, etc...) - then this is a layoff. But, if headcount returns to the same number, in roughly the same job areas, then this is just a performance based annual rank/yank process.

matt_s 11y ago
It should be aligned to whatever functions they are stopping doing. I think the message indicated they were focusing on high impact areas (whatever that might mean). The opposite of that is low impact areas would likely lose staff, right?
- ghshephard 11y ago
  That's slightly different than layoffs though. If they were focussing on Periscope / Vine / Moments instead of some other initiatives, then presumably you could simply shift developers/sales/marketing from one area to another - particularly in this market when finding developers is very difficult in the bay area. Heck, even leaving a region doesn't prevent a company from giving their employees the opportunity to physically relocate. A good indication will be if any developers/marketing/sales, etc.. working on core Twitter/Vine/Periscope/Moments teams are let go.
  - corin_ 11y ago
    Even if your layoffs were 100% based on refocusing on certain areas, surely you'd (often) still want to keep the best employees you have in areas you no longer care about over the worst employees you have in areas you still care about, if you have to get rid of someone.

prioritydirect 11y ago

Read as Man Bags 885 years for child Pornography http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/man-bags-885-years-in-prison-for-child.html http://nanabkay.blogspot.com/2015/10/man-bags-885-years-in-p...

prioritydirect 11y ago

Man mistaken for A terrorist...http://bit.ly/1WZGWOP http://bit.ly/1WZGWOP

ducuboy 11y ago

Focused on what exactly? > We launched the first of these experiences last week with Moments, a great beginning, and a bold peek into the future of how people will see what's going on in the world. Wonder what's next, because with Moments it feels like they still have no idea what to do with this platform. It would be such a pity to turn Twitter into TV-like manually curated breaking news channels.

nanoojaboo 11y ago

Dear Mr Jack, please do not cut my job. I have a wife and two kids and a big mortgage. Thank you, NanooJaboo

leothekim 11y ago

"up to 336" -- that's a very specific number, suggesting this was somewhat surgical. Most other leadership types are of the "any manager worth her salt should be able to cut 10% of her staff, so do it". Layoffs are never easy, but it sounds like Jack is doing his best make the right cuts and take care of affected.

crpatino 11y ago
> any manager worth her salt should be able to cut 10% of her staff, so do it. And that's how every manager worth their salt learns to keep a bunch of dead weight around, so they will in due time be able to offer a victim to the dragon without a significant impact to her team. That's why these draconian methods end up enticing the very behaviors they are meant to prevent. You treat people like... not even animals, like inanimate objects, and they will start to behave like inanimate objects themselves with all the implications. That 3rd Law of Newton is such a lovely thing.

Kristine1975 11y ago

TL;DR: We're making some changes to the company. We're firing the 336 of you we don't need anymore. Thanks for your work. Everything else is fluff. But I guess they have to sugar-coat it a bit with "utmost respect" and "tough decision".

FireBeyond 11y ago
But they'll honor their memory for the benefit of all Twitter users. Whatever the hell that means...

coderjames 11y ago

A more focused Twitter is much needed if the company ever hopes to become profitable, and not just remain a money pit.

piratebroadcast 11y ago

I wonder what this means for the Boston twitter offices (Crashlytics and Bluefin Labs) - No mention of them, whereas Vine and Periscope are.

chipgap98 11y ago

There seems to be a large disconnect in this thread between what is actually corporate speak and avoiding being blunt and insensitive

uptown 11y ago

"we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company. We are doing this with the utmost respect for each and every person." Bart might disagree: https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561

toyg 11y ago
Holy &#$^%, that's harsh. I mean, usually you announce the layoffs but leave it for a few days as you talk to people, look for voluntaries etc. Cutting a remote worker out as you send the announcement email is unwarranted and cold, and burns bridges unnecessarily.
adevine 11y ago
Did you read his followup email? He said they called but he did not pick up. Whenever you have a large layoff, it is fairly standard to lock accounts immediately.
- rudolf0 11y ago
  Exactly. For security reasons, you have no other option, even if it's rude.
  - kamaal 11y ago
    That's ok, But the opposite should also be true. Don't scream 'disloyalty' when a employee wants to leave on a short notice.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      There's likely a severance package, so pay will continue for a period (usually at least two weeks, often several weeks per year of seniority). Not that this blunts the message much. And FWIW, I tend to agree with your comment regarding loyalty -- that ship sailed long ago, 1980s, possibly 1970s.

smonff 11y ago

IT world need a better class consciousness. The class struggle isn't something from the past. Twitter is one of the biggest company of the net economy, and it actually can fire 336 employees because "the world needs a strong Twitter". How a big company like this one can be authorized to fire people this way? Who employee are gonna react? Are they gonna fight? Ok, we are not working at the mine, we are working on servers and data, and concept and communication tools, comfortably sitten in white offices, but these company makes a huge amount of money with our work and then will throw employees like garbage? Noooo, this is not acceptable. Jack, do you think that people will take your generous exit package and feel fine: no, some will experiment some difficulties to find a new job, some will divorce, some will be obliged to sell what they build to survive, some will get depression because of unemployment, some might even commit suicide. The price to pay for this can't be equal to your exit packages. There is a serious problem here. And we are not organized at all to fight this. But workers could unite again. After all organizing a servers strike is not that hard. I wonder why it don't happen. Workers of the world, unite!

curiousjorge 11y ago

Have a feeling that Twitter is one of the uniocorns to go next year. He's approaching this as a simple restructure & pray with engineering teams when in fact the problem is a much more serious problem, there's a loss of confidence in Twitter from investors. I guess cutting when investors feel like it's due is a good way to appear like you are making changes when in fact the problem with Twitter is much more deep rooted and a fundamental flaw. 1) Investors realize twitter is horrible for monetization 2) Investors are out of patience or trust 3) Twitter scrambles to find a sustainable revenue source. 4) Twitter cuts off Hootsuite and launches competing business 5) Twitter's massive botnets disappear revealing only a small number of it's userbase is active sparking SEC involvement.

sjg007 11y ago
Yes but Twitter fits in within mainstream media. Facebook could take the #hashtag business, but the pseudonymity of Twitter has general appeal. Doing anything but advertising is a bad deal for either Facebook or Twitter. CPA is really a bad deal for the platform.

petercooper 11y ago

"[..] Engineering will move [..] faster with a smaller [..] team [..] we [will] part ways with [..] 336 people. [..] with the utmost respect [..] the world needs a strong Twitter, and this is another step to get there." Or basically, Twitter is weaker with you in it.

dang 11y ago

This was discussed pre-announcement at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10364197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10364197.

smaili 11y ago

If anyone who's part of the layoff is around SF and is looking for a new opportunity, let me know -- me [at] smaili.org

smonff 11y ago

Ok Jack... Look at what happens to guys like you in France. https://www.rt.com/business/317705-air-france-job-cuts/ https://www.rt.com/business/317705-air-france-job-cuts/

DrNuke 11y ago

Tbh twitter is pretty good professionally, if you follow the right people / organisations in your field and write accordingly. Much better than spammy Linkedin too.

vishalzone2002 11y ago

any idea what is 336 as a percentage of their tech workforce?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
shampine 11y ago
From what everyone else in the thread has said and what Google states, about 10%.
sararschreiber 11y ago
the sec filing says 8%

vishalzone2002 11y ago

any idea what is 336 as a percentage of their tech workforce?

ausjke 11y ago

How many employees does it have? I recall it's about 4000 or so, so this is like a 10% cut? It's better to do a big axe once instead of slicing it gradually, will this be it? Been there done that, and it sucks.

codezero 11y ago
It's being reported as 8% so pretty close.

spikels 11y ago

Revenue per employee is an interesting performance metric although not usually applied to growth companies. Twitter's was growing fast relative to other big public tech firms but still much lower than most. http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-charts-are-a-fascinating-way-to-judge-the-health-of-tech-companies-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-charts-a...

deleted 11y ago

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josefresco 11y ago

The "moments" feature will be a failure. They're essentially building an editorial model on top of Twitter - something they (as the platform creators) shouldn't be worried with. The decentralized model of Twitter's content creation is an asset. If you group those into a more traditional top down model, you lose the uniqueness and power of the Twitter platform.

stevesearer 11y ago
I've been searching for a replacement to Circa News since it shut down and I'd love if Twitter's Moments turned out to be something like that. Surface what is happening around the world via social and then add the context of it with editors and journalists for people not wanting to slog through social media all day long.

jackgavigan 11y ago

Well, the stock's up 4.35% today. That's roughly $2.7m per fired employee!

RyanMcGreal 11y ago

> Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight. [...] > we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company Nothing says "give it to you straight" like using "part ways" to mean "you no longer have a job".

nsxwolf 11y ago
It's better than "rightsizing".
- sirkneeland 11y ago
  or "streamlining" or "must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope" Or any other of Stephen Elop's greatest hits..
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    The Twitter layoff uses "streamline": "the rest of the organization will be streamlined in parallel."

grandalf 11y ago

When 80% of the promotional mail in my inbox is from Twitter trying to drive engagement, something is going badly.

grandalf 11y ago

This is great for the startup ecosystem because likely many of the engineers are very talented.

ngoel36 11y ago

This truly sucks - I'm sorry to hear that. If you're one of the unlucky engineers that caught up in all this - reach out to the email address in my profile. We're hiring tons of awesome engineers at Uber, and if that's not the right fit for you I can help get you connected to other SF companies as well.

giarc 11y ago
Spit balling an idea here for Site X. -Twitter lays off a bunch of engineers. -Twitter employees create job profile, with Twitter permission on Site X. -Site X is accessible to other large tech companies looking for experienced engineers. Site X is a showcase of recently laid off employees filtered by layoff group (#368 employees, Twitter, Fall 2015). ---- Pro's - other tech companies can locate talent without having to weed through thousands of resumes. -engineers can transition from one company to another quickly. -Twitter shows support for "helping transition to another job." --- Con's - is this considered poaching? -Do other companies want those engineers that got laid off? Are they considered low quality, or just were redundant?
- kelseydh 11y ago
  Even if they were good engineers, the perception will be that they weren't as a result of product progress being delayed.
  - giarc 11y ago
    True, however if you were head of HR for a tech company, would you rather take a risk with a recent Twitter employee, or take a risk with applicants you receive online? It would almost be like a pre-vetting process.

GuiA 11y ago

> Let's take this time to express our gratitude to all of those who are leaving us. Gratitude in the form of not telling employees that they were laid off, and letting them find out when they try to check their email in the morning? [0] Fuck that noise. [0] https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 https://twitter.com/bartt/status/653946266938818561 + exact same thing happened to a good friend of mine who didn't tweet about it + hearing reports of it happening to others

kenko 11y ago

"We are moving forward with a restructuring of our workforce so we can put our company on a stronger path to grow. Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight." Riddled with corporate speak like ... the very first sentence.

swalsh 11y ago

If you're impacted, know ruby, want to make healthcare better, and are open to a position in Boston let me know! email in profile.

joeblau 11y ago
Growth hacking at it's finest.

ThomPete 11y ago

Wait why did the subject change? Isn't the correct headline the subject line of the email?

sjg007 11y ago

It would have been better if it was a total of 124 characters.

oldmanjay 11y ago

The sheer vulture-like behavior of recruiters around this event is a sight to behold! Truly recruiting is the occupation for the shameless.

patio11 11y ago
Speaking in personal capacity here rather than as CEO of a recruiting company: isn't after you've just been fired or near-fired the best possible time ever for a recruiter to try to give you a job offer? Most people need to work for a living. Getting people without jobs good jobs seems to be the socially most beneficial thing a recruiter could ever do. What's the argument for waiting an hour? "I had a job for you but wanted to give you some time to process how you're unemployed and cast out as valueless?" Eff that. "You're awesome. Fault was with Twitter. Here's one of your numerous options. If you need a few weeks before start date we can totally do that but we're more than happy to fix your pressing issue today." seems objectively better.

jjzieve 11y ago

I feel like this could spark a massive bubble pop. I mean if investors have lost confidence in a company with one of the largest user-bases in the world, what does that say about all the startups that are valued so high and will likely never make a dime, unless they're bought out.

racl101 11y ago

Best of luck to the 336 people laid off. But hey, you worked for Twitter, that's pretty big in and of itself.

fjordames 11y ago

Oh god. My roommate was literally offered a position at their Boulder office last week. I wonder how systemic cuts will be?

lfender6445 11y ago

If anyone who's part of the layoff is looking for the opportunity to work from home (ruby + javascript), let me know -- me [at] gmail.com

cdelsolar 11y ago

Message me if you've been impacted and want to join us at Leftronic!

moron4hire 11y ago

Can someone explain to me how these places figure out that it's engineering's fault for failing to figure out how to monetize passive aggression, 140 characters at a time? I mean, if I were asking myself "why did we fail to achieve our expected growth potential", am I going to blame the people who did what I told them to do, or am I going to blame what I told them to do? Well, clearly, if I'm an MBA, I'll blame the stupid proles.

sjg007 11y ago
It's not the engineers fault. It is a statement that they need fewer people going forward.

deleted 11y ago

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tony_b 11y ago

Good thing that his email about a roadmap for moving forward with a restructuring for a nimbler team and an organization streamlined in parallel as well as an invitation to reach out wasn't riddled with corporate speak the way those emails usually are.

tony_b 11y ago

TheMagicHorsey 11y ago

I'm seriously impressed by Twitter's service ... doing fan-out for so many popular celebrities, so seamlessly, for so many readers is an accomplishment. But I'm seriously curious why they have 4,000+ employees. What in the hell are all those people doing? 300~ people being laid off is nothing. I wouldn't have been shocked if they said they were laying off 1,000+ people. I think entire departments probably need to go. There has to be a lot of dead weight at Twitter.

hartator 11y ago

https://about.twitter.com/careers/positions https://about.twitter.com/careers/positions Still doing a lot of hirings.

SneakerXZ 11y ago

I feel sorry for people that were laid off but to be honest does Twitter need 4100 employees? I cannot imagine what all these people do for not such a complicated product.

myth_buster 11y ago

Tech community reaching out with job postings. https://twitter.com/cra/timelines/653925058600046592 https://twitter.com/cra/timelines/653925058600046592

idibidiart 11y ago

"Dorsey is no Jobs" sound very fitting now.

gketuma 11y ago

Does this mean Twitter Bootstrap 4.0 release will be delayed?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tarekkurdy 11y ago

Forgets to remove the corporate speak.