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Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company? When I was at Etsy, people always asked why we had "so many employees" for what seemed to them like

by grardb 10y ago

Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company? When I was at Etsy, people always asked why we had "so many employees" for what seemed to them like a simple e-commerce website. These people were always from smaller companies. I don't know a ton about the technology behind WhatsApp, but if I had to guess: 1. WhatsApp does not have an advertising platform. 2. WhatsApp does not provide you with analytics for anything. 3. WhatsApp doesn't need a team (or at least as big of one) dedicated to anything related to big data or machine learning. Think of Twitter's "Trends" and "Who to Follow" features. 4. Searching Twitter is a much more difficult problem to solve than searching through just your own personal chats. 5. I may be wrong about this, but doesn't WhatsApp not store anything/much on its servers, and instead relies on your phone? I'd imagine that reduces a lot of overhead. 6. I'd be willing to bet that Twitter has (and needs) way more admin features for dealing with things like harassment, illegal content being posted, etc. I could probably go on, but this should give you an idea. All of these things require people to make happen. Designers, developers (front-end, back-end, mobile, dev ops, and more), PMs, you name it. Also, given that Twitter is just a bigger site/app in general, it takes more work to handle things like internationalization, for example. It's no sweat getting "Send," "Chats," and "Settings" translated, but think about translating your entire advertising and analytics platforms. It's a lot of work.

coldtea 10y ago
>Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company? The largest tech company I've worked for was around 100 people, but I've also worked for a (no tech) organisation of about 20000, and have done projects for businesses with IT departments in the 1000 people range. That said, not sure what unique insight it would give me. As a programmer I can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter. And I've seen companies that have done equally or much more impressive stuff, technology wise, with 1/10 or 1/50 the resources. Nothing about Twitter, including the scaling, is rocket science. That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing. I've read this (1), (2), (3). Fail to see why you'd need > 500 people total for all of those, plus sales and support.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > As a programmer I can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter. That's just the Twitter you see. There is plenty you don't see: back-office systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which have a material impact on staffing. > That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing. While the core functionality of WhatsApp and Twitter might seem technologically similar, businesswise they aren't (weren't?). Twitter, for better it for worse requires analytics and ads, which WhatsApp did not have. Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as WhatsApp is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >That's just the Twitter you see. There is plenty you don't see: back-office systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which have a material impact on staffing. Well, knowing HN rules on profanity, I better not evaluate their "strategic decisions and product roadmap" thus far. >Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as WhatsApp is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N True. But I'm pretty sure being M:N is not some unique challenge compared to being 1:1 for hundreds of millions -- especially since WhatsApp had 1/60 the people and, from what I know, 1/100 the funding to make that 1:1. It's not that it's the same challenge, but is it that much of a challenge?

by grardb 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago

>Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company? The largest tech company I've worked for was around 100 people, but I've also worked for a (no tech) organisation of about 20000, and have done projects for businesses with IT departments in the 1000 people range. That said, not sure what unique insight it would give me. As a programmer I can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter. And I've seen companies that have done equally or much more impressive stuff, technology wise, with 1/10 or 1/50 the resources. Nothing about Twitter, including the scaling, is rocket science. That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing. I've read this (1), (2), (3). Fail to see why you'd need > 500 people total for all of those, plus sales and support.

sangnoir 10y ago
> As a programmer I can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter. That's just the Twitter you see. There is plenty you don't see: back-office systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which have a material impact on staffing. > That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing. While the core functionality of WhatsApp and Twitter might seem technologically similar, businesswise they aren't (weren't?). Twitter, for better it for worse requires analytics and ads, which WhatsApp did not have. Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as WhatsApp is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N
- coldtea 10y ago
  >That's just the Twitter you see. There is plenty you don't see: back-office systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which have a material impact on staffing. Well, knowing HN rules on profanity, I better not evaluate their "strategic decisions and product roadmap" thus far. >Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as WhatsApp is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N True. But I'm pretty sure being M:N is not some unique challenge compared to being 1:1 for hundreds of millions -- especially since WhatsApp had 1/60 the people and, from what I know, 1/100 the funding to make that 1:1. It's not that it's the same challenge, but is it that much of a challenge?