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I think Twitter needs to learn to be okay with its current size, or perhaps even smaller. The core idea is very compelling - a curated feed of short, simple con

I think Twitter needs to learn to be okay with its current size, or perhaps even smaller. The core idea is very compelling - a curated feed of short, simple content. The nonsense Twitter has added lately substantially detracts from its core values, and it feels like desperate pleas for unnecessary growth to somehow support the massive payroll they convinced themselves to take on. The Silicon Valley obsession with endless growth is harmful sometimes.

JonFish85 11y ago
While I see this as true, man does it suck to be an employee who was hoping for stock options to be worth anything. Especially for those who became Twitter employees via an acquisition, since I imagine a big part of their compensation from that event was stock.
- acchow 11y ago
  Twitter IPO'd a while ago. Employees with option grants had plenty of time to realize gains...
  - morgante 11y ago
    I'm sure that like most big tech companies Twitter continues to provide a large portion of compensation in company stock.
    - kevinpet 11y ago
      But RSUs do not become worthless like options do when the price declines.
- rhizome 11y ago
  When a company I worked for was acquired by a public company, my options were converted 8:1 to actual shares in the acquiring company.
- ryandetzel 11y ago
  Work for a large well know established company making a great salary and tangible RSUs or work for one of the other 99% of startups that pay under market and whose options will never be worth $0.01. Yeah, sucks to be an employee at Twitter. :-/
  - JonFish85 11y ago
    I guess? I have friends who worked for a company acquired by Twitter pre-IPO and their stock options are apparently not doing well. Granted it's anecdotal, but I'm not saying that nobody makes money off of Twitter.
- prostoalex 11y ago
  For context, TWTR priced its IPO in $17-20 range http://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-prices-ipo-at-26-a-share/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-prices-ipo-at-26-a-share... before the wave of demand pushed its higher. Unless someone was acquired in a largely stock-based transaction during the short period of time TWTR was in sub-$70 range, the trip has been relatively stable.
- ropiku 11y ago
  Twitter was offering RSUs since before the IPO (I worked at Twitter).
morgante 11y ago
I agree, especially since all this additional nonsense is very expensive. Twitter does not need more than 1,000 employees and could probably get by with <500. They have over a billion dollars in revenue and would easily make a solid profit if they cut staff back to what's actually necessary.
- mason55 11y ago
  Quick off the cuff math, if you figure $200k all-in per employee, that's $100mm/year they'd save by going from 1000 to 500. They lost >$500mm in 2014[1] so that would not make a large dent if their goal is to achieve profitability. The problem is that they don't seem to have any path to growth. If they slash headcount in half and you've got most of those people dedicated to keeping the lights on then it's hard to imagine a future where they get much bigger and if investors see no path to growth then their stock price is going to take a beating. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TWTR+Income+Statement&annual https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TWTR+Income+Statement&annua...
  - morgante 11y ago
    > Quick off the cuff math, if you figure $200k all-in per employee, that's $100mm/year they'd save by going from 1000 to 500. Your math is off by an order of magnitude. Twitter spends >$100M per quarter on stock-based compensation alone. [0] Just what do you think Twitter's major expenses are in "Research & Development" (for example)? I guarantee you that employees are by far their number 1 line item (as they are for most tech companies). Twitter's Q3 2015 expenses were ~$500M. Do you really think that the majority of that wasn't salaries? [0] http://seekingalpha.com/article/2253623-twitters-stock-based-compensation-expenses-raise-another-red-flag http://seekingalpha.com/article/2253623-twitters-stock-based...
    - npizzolato 11y ago
      Off by an order of magnitude? Are you suggesting Twitter spends 2 million per employee per year?
notatoad 11y ago
>The Silicon Valley obsession with endless growth is harmful sometimes There's healthy ways to grow, and unhealthy ways. I agree with you that twitter (the company) needs to be happy with the size of twitter (the product), but that doesn't mean the company needs to stop growing. There's plenty of opportunities to leverage the technology stack and the userbase of twitter to get into other markets and allow growth to continue. Their future growth is not in getting more users to sign up for the twitter microblogging service, it's in other products like Vine and Periscope (and potentially a longer-form writing integration like has been rumoured)
- AznHisoka 11y ago
  .. both are which are tightly integrated into Twitter. Hardly anyone browses Vine.. they view Vine videos through Twitter.
  - notatoad 11y ago
    Do you have numbers to support that? I'm not more than a casual user of twitter or vine, but anecdotally it seems like lots of people browse vine.
- theinternetman 11y ago
  > Their future growth is not in getting more users to sign up for the twitter microblogging service, it's in other products like Vine and Periscope Are they not past the "growth" stage and very much into the "time to start actually making money" stage? What on earth use is growing 2 more different sharing networks when your first sharing network is at capacity and isn't pulling it's weight and bringing the money in.
prostoalex 11y ago
Before the core idea became the real-time news, it evolved from being a tool for personal status updates, a way to coordinate small groups, a way to search for public sentiment on certain events like political debates, and a few other mini-incarnations I've missed. Perhaps someone using Twitter to coordinate their small group or family meet-ups denounced CNN, Bloomberg or Reuters as "nonsense" when those organizations appeared on Twitter. And that's the core product problem - there's always a potential that the old core idea is no longer relevant, and perhaps a stream of photo updates (Instagram, Twitpic), a stream of video updates (Vine) or real-time video broadcasting (Periscope) is the next big thing and therefore the new core idea.

JonFish85 11y ago

While I see this as true, man does it suck to be an employee who was hoping for stock options to be worth anything. Especially for those who became Twitter employees via an acquisition, since I imagine a big part of their compensation from that event was stock.

acchow 11y ago
Twitter IPO'd a while ago. Employees with option grants had plenty of time to realize gains...
- morgante 11y ago
  I'm sure that like most big tech companies Twitter continues to provide a large portion of compensation in company stock.
  - kevinpet 11y ago
    But RSUs do not become worthless like options do when the price declines.
rhizome 11y ago
When a company I worked for was acquired by a public company, my options were converted 8:1 to actual shares in the acquiring company.
ryandetzel 11y ago
Work for a large well know established company making a great salary and tangible RSUs or work for one of the other 99% of startups that pay under market and whose options will never be worth $0.01. Yeah, sucks to be an employee at Twitter. :-/
- JonFish85 11y ago
  I guess? I have friends who worked for a company acquired by Twitter pre-IPO and their stock options are apparently not doing well. Granted it's anecdotal, but I'm not saying that nobody makes money off of Twitter.
prostoalex 11y ago
For context, TWTR priced its IPO in $17-20 range http://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-prices-ipo-at-26-a-share/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-prices-ipo-at-26-a-share... before the wave of demand pushed its higher. Unless someone was acquired in a largely stock-based transaction during the short period of time TWTR was in sub-$70 range, the trip has been relatively stable.
ropiku 11y ago
Twitter was offering RSUs since before the IPO (I worked at Twitter).

morgante 11y ago

I agree, especially since all this additional nonsense is very expensive. Twitter does not need more than 1,000 employees and could probably get by with <500. They have over a billion dollars in revenue and would easily make a solid profit if they cut staff back to what's actually necessary.

mason55 11y ago
Quick off the cuff math, if you figure $200k all-in per employee, that's $100mm/year they'd save by going from 1000 to 500. They lost >$500mm in 2014[1] so that would not make a large dent if their goal is to achieve profitability. The problem is that they don't seem to have any path to growth. If they slash headcount in half and you've got most of those people dedicated to keeping the lights on then it's hard to imagine a future where they get much bigger and if investors see no path to growth then their stock price is going to take a beating. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TWTR+Income+Statement&annual https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TWTR+Income+Statement&annua...
- morgante 11y ago
  > Quick off the cuff math, if you figure $200k all-in per employee, that's $100mm/year they'd save by going from 1000 to 500. Your math is off by an order of magnitude. Twitter spends >$100M per quarter on stock-based compensation alone. [0] Just what do you think Twitter's major expenses are in "Research & Development" (for example)? I guarantee you that employees are by far their number 1 line item (as they are for most tech companies). Twitter's Q3 2015 expenses were ~$500M. Do you really think that the majority of that wasn't salaries? [0] http://seekingalpha.com/article/2253623-twitters-stock-based-compensation-expenses-raise-another-red-flag http://seekingalpha.com/article/2253623-twitters-stock-based...
  - npizzolato 11y ago
    Off by an order of magnitude? Are you suggesting Twitter spends 2 million per employee per year?

notatoad 11y ago

>The Silicon Valley obsession with endless growth is harmful sometimes There's healthy ways to grow, and unhealthy ways. I agree with you that twitter (the company) needs to be happy with the size of twitter (the product), but that doesn't mean the company needs to stop growing. There's plenty of opportunities to leverage the technology stack and the userbase of twitter to get into other markets and allow growth to continue. Their future growth is not in getting more users to sign up for the twitter microblogging service, it's in other products like Vine and Periscope (and potentially a longer-form writing integration like has been rumoured)

AznHisoka 11y ago
.. both are which are tightly integrated into Twitter. Hardly anyone browses Vine.. they view Vine videos through Twitter.
- notatoad 11y ago
  Do you have numbers to support that? I'm not more than a casual user of twitter or vine, but anecdotally it seems like lots of people browse vine.
theinternetman 11y ago
> Their future growth is not in getting more users to sign up for the twitter microblogging service, it's in other products like Vine and Periscope Are they not past the "growth" stage and very much into the "time to start actually making money" stage? What on earth use is growing 2 more different sharing networks when your first sharing network is at capacity and isn't pulling it's weight and bringing the money in.

prostoalex 11y ago

Before the core idea became the real-time news, it evolved from being a tool for personal status updates, a way to coordinate small groups, a way to search for public sentiment on certain events like political debates, and a few other mini-incarnations I've missed. Perhaps someone using Twitter to coordinate their small group or family meet-ups denounced CNN, Bloomberg or Reuters as "nonsense" when those organizations appeared on Twitter. And that's the core product problem - there's always a potential that the old core idea is no longer relevant, and perhaps a stream of photo updates (Instagram, Twitpic), a stream of video updates (Vine) or real-time video broadcasting (Periscope) is the next big thing and therefore the new core idea.