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Why does he believe that only one in three employees will be keeping a job post-acquisition? Not that the engineers will have to worry. They have a very talent

by sushid 10y ago

Why does he believe that only one in three employees will be keeping a job post-acquisition? Not that the engineers will have to worry. They have a very talented engineering team that will be sought out by every headhunter if that's the case but it all seems baseless.

ryhamz 10y ago
Twitter is going to switch into maintenance rather than growth mode. You don't need as many engineers to do that. If they cut their operating costs down, they might actually make money. Those that leave, by choice or not, will go on to build up other places that don't yet have their product.
- overcast 10y ago
  From my perspective, Twitter has been in maintenance mode for years. What significant changes have been made that requires thousands of engineers? I'm being serious here. The interface is still the same clunky mess, the home page has been rearranged a few times, and now we have even more convoluted rules as to what counts towards your 140 character limit.
  - elmin 10y ago
    Yet they've managed to massively raise their r&d expenses.
intoverflow2 10y ago
>They have a very talented engineering team Do they? What have they been doing all these years? As a user the product just seems to get worse and worse for me and despite the massive dev team they actually outsourced the mac client...
- calinet6 10y ago
  They haven't been building things for you. They've been building things for advertisers.
- talmand 10y ago
  It's possible; a very talented engineering team with horrible management that holds them back is still a very talented engineering team.
clairity 10y ago
this is where an mba comes in handy... he's basically saying that the company is spending too much on prople (among other things) so a private equity firm (the financial buyer, as opposed to a strategic buyer) will see an opportunity to buy the company and fire a bunch of people (including engineers), which will improve the profitability of the company. because valuation is the net present value of projected earnings, and because pojections are typically based on recent performance, the company will have a higher valuation and will sell at a higher price. being armed with debt means that the PE firm can buy all the equity for a fraction of the price and make out like bandits on the sale. so the quality of the engineering team doesn't factor in at all. =/

by sushid 10y ago

ryhamz 10y ago

Twitter is going to switch into maintenance rather than growth mode. You don't need as many engineers to do that. If they cut their operating costs down, they might actually make money. Those that leave, by choice or not, will go on to build up other places that don't yet have their product.

overcast 10y ago
From my perspective, Twitter has been in maintenance mode for years. What significant changes have been made that requires thousands of engineers? I'm being serious here. The interface is still the same clunky mess, the home page has been rearranged a few times, and now we have even more convoluted rules as to what counts towards your 140 character limit.
- elmin 10y ago
  Yet they've managed to massively raise their r&d expenses.

intoverflow2 10y ago

>They have a very talented engineering team Do they? What have they been doing all these years? As a user the product just seems to get worse and worse for me and despite the massive dev team they actually outsourced the mac client...

calinet6 10y ago
They haven't been building things for you. They've been building things for advertisers.
talmand 10y ago
It's possible; a very talented engineering team with horrible management that holds them back is still a very talented engineering team.

clairity 10y ago

this is where an mba comes in handy... he's basically saying that the company is spending too much on prople (among other things) so a private equity firm (the financial buyer, as opposed to a strategic buyer) will see an opportunity to buy the company and fire a bunch of people (including engineers), which will improve the profitability of the company. because valuation is the net present value of projected earnings, and because pojections are typically based on recent performance, the company will have a higher valuation and will sell at a higher price. being armed with debt means that the PE firm can buy all the equity for a fraction of the price and make out like bandits on the sale. so the quality of the engineering team doesn't factor in at all. =/