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You could lay off half of the 7,000 employee Twitter workforce with absolutely no product impact. It's not just about profitability, it's a bloated, ineffectiv

You could lay off half of the 7,000 employee Twitter workforce with absolutely no product impact. It's not just about profitability, it's a bloated, ineffective, behemoth.

gotaquestion 5y ago
So you know what they do? Are you Twitter management? Or just the run of the mill know it all?
- nightski 5y ago
  The Twitter management receiving a $40M payout if terminated for a poor job? Aka, Parag Agrawal.
  - umeshunni 5y ago
    TBH - he did a pretty good job. Stock was at $45 when he became CEO and it is now effectively valued at $54.20, while the NASDAQ is down over 15% in that time period.
    - nightski 5y ago
      It was also at $70 when Dorsey left around last October and down to $30 when Elon started buying shares this March. That is a great job?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  - It took them about two years to replicate Clubhouse, which was built by about 4 engineers in far less time - They killed Vines, and then proceeded to lose on short videos to TikTok a couple years later with no response - Their Substack competitor is a joke that nobody uses, and also took years to produce This is not an organization which ships products! You don't have to be a Harvard MBA to evaluate the output of this organization. The ratio of employees to product development is not in line with any other major engineering organization.
camdat 5y ago
Is this a number with a source? Or just pulled out of perceived superiority?
KarlKemp 5y ago
I'm having trouble imaging an "ineffective behemoth", but you seem like the person that puts the d in dictionary, so I'll defer to your wisdom.
skippyboxedhero 5y ago
A fact I have always found baffling about most tech companies. You read on here: it is just tales of giga, 10x programmers...I only work at companies with sufficient technological prowess, 7 figures, I expect my workplace to be staffed with those of similar intelligence to myself, Ivy League PHds only, send me full resumes of everyone who will be on my team, I only deal with problems that are world-changing...on and on. You read financial statements: inept management, no controls, massive staff expenses, development budget is usually totally out of whack with revenue, growth in staff faster than revenue, struggle to develop new features (despite a relatively simple product), over-engineered, bloated maintenance...on and on. Financial statements don't lie (the consistency between these two stories is: most engineers are massively overpaid, they aren't good at doing useful things, many tech companies have monopoly products, they then hire lots of engineers who do nothing but bloviate about how influential they are). In the case of TWTR, comically mismanaged company. I don't know where the bloat is but Dorsey isn't someone who should be running a listed company (and has crashed and burned several times at Twitter alone). The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. If nothing else, hopefully Musk will put them back on an even keel (I don't Musk is a good exec either, but this job is far simpler than Tesla so hopefully he will bring them back to an even keel).
- ultimoo 5y ago
  > The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. Curious to know why you think so?
  - skippyboxedhero 5y ago
    Because he totally mishandled the bid, his communication skills were terrible, it was an internal tech hire (I do not know the process, but was it competitive?), TWTR's board is notoriously dysfunctional (so I am guessing they just went with what Dorsey said, they were quite happy to let him run the company off a cliff...so why not let him appoint his successor), and he appears to have been on leave for a large part of 2021 (when the shit started to make contact with the fan for TWTR). But he also gave the impression consistently of someone who was in the wrong job. Communication is an important skill for a CEO, the least worrying interpretation is that he was making choices about PR with no reference to his PR people...least worrying...if PR actually was involved, that is worse.
john_moscow 5y ago
The trouble is, people that are actually productive usually suck at convincing the management that they belong to the "good" half.
qgin 5y ago
Managers want to manage people. Beyond a certain size, fiefdoms start growing.
icedchai 5y ago
I laughed when I read this headline. Twitter hasn't made any real product updates in years.
- s__s 5y ago
  They just added live voice chat. (Clubhouse) and have been A/B testing a downvote button. The iOS app just got a UI refresh. I’m sure there’s more.
adam_arthur 5y ago
Company was run more as a hobby/toy than a serious attempt at making money. I was hearing credible stories back in 2014 about them having way too many junior devs with nothing, or very marginal amounts to do. They had the excesses on the spending side covered without the insane growth or profitability to go along with it. Can be a great business if it's hugely downsized in headcount
cjbgkagh 5y ago
The Thanos approach, half by random lottery. Otherwise it's a corporate politics fight to find out who stays and those who win that fight are more likely to be better at corporate politics and probably not as good at the business of Twitter. In addition, those who are let go are not tainted as underperformers, just unlucky. I don't know what 7,000 Twitter employees do but it does seem like a rather high number to me.

You could lay off half of the 7,000 employee Twitter workforce with absolutely no product impact. It's not just about profitability, it's a bloated, ineffective, behemoth.

gotaquestion 5y ago

So you know what they do? Are you Twitter management? Or just the run of the mill know it all?

nightski 5y ago
The Twitter management receiving a $40M payout if terminated for a poor job? Aka, Parag Agrawal.
- umeshunni 5y ago
  TBH - he did a pretty good job. Stock was at $45 when he became CEO and it is now effectively valued at $54.20, while the NASDAQ is down over 15% in that time period.
  - nightski 5y ago
    It was also at $70 when Dorsey left around last October and down to $30 when Elon started buying shares this March. That is a great job?
bpodgursky 5y ago
- It took them about two years to replicate Clubhouse, which was built by about 4 engineers in far less time - They killed Vines, and then proceeded to lose on short videos to TikTok a couple years later with no response - Their Substack competitor is a joke that nobody uses, and also took years to produce This is not an organization which ships products! You don't have to be a Harvard MBA to evaluate the output of this organization. The ratio of employees to product development is not in line with any other major engineering organization.

camdat 5y ago

Is this a number with a source? Or just pulled out of perceived superiority?

KarlKemp 5y ago

I'm having trouble imaging an "ineffective behemoth", but you seem like the person that puts the d in dictionary, so I'll defer to your wisdom.

skippyboxedhero 5y ago

A fact I have always found baffling about most tech companies. You read on here: it is just tales of giga, 10x programmers...I only work at companies with sufficient technological prowess, 7 figures, I expect my workplace to be staffed with those of similar intelligence to myself, Ivy League PHds only, send me full resumes of everyone who will be on my team, I only deal with problems that are world-changing...on and on. You read financial statements: inept management, no controls, massive staff expenses, development budget is usually totally out of whack with revenue, growth in staff faster than revenue, struggle to develop new features (despite a relatively simple product), over-engineered, bloated maintenance...on and on. Financial statements don't lie (the consistency between these two stories is: most engineers are massively overpaid, they aren't good at doing useful things, many tech companies have monopoly products, they then hire lots of engineers who do nothing but bloviate about how influential they are). In the case of TWTR, comically mismanaged company. I don't know where the bloat is but Dorsey isn't someone who should be running a listed company (and has crashed and burned several times at Twitter alone). The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. If nothing else, hopefully Musk will put them back on an even keel (I don't Musk is a good exec either, but this job is far simpler than Tesla so hopefully he will bring them back to an even keel).

ultimoo 5y ago
> The guy who he appointed was an obvious stooge who was clearly not up to it. Curious to know why you think so?
- skippyboxedhero 5y ago
  Because he totally mishandled the bid, his communication skills were terrible, it was an internal tech hire (I do not know the process, but was it competitive?), TWTR's board is notoriously dysfunctional (so I am guessing they just went with what Dorsey said, they were quite happy to let him run the company off a cliff...so why not let him appoint his successor), and he appears to have been on leave for a large part of 2021 (when the shit started to make contact with the fan for TWTR). But he also gave the impression consistently of someone who was in the wrong job. Communication is an important skill for a CEO, the least worrying interpretation is that he was making choices about PR with no reference to his PR people...least worrying...if PR actually was involved, that is worse.

john_moscow 5y ago

The trouble is, people that are actually productive usually suck at convincing the management that they belong to the "good" half.

qgin 5y ago

Managers want to manage people. Beyond a certain size, fiefdoms start growing.

icedchai 5y ago

I laughed when I read this headline. Twitter hasn't made any real product updates in years.

s__s 5y ago
They just added live voice chat. (Clubhouse) and have been A/B testing a downvote button. The iOS app just got a UI refresh. I’m sure there’s more.

adam_arthur 5y ago

Company was run more as a hobby/toy than a serious attempt at making money. I was hearing credible stories back in 2014 about them having way too many junior devs with nothing, or very marginal amounts to do. They had the excesses on the spending side covered without the insane growth or profitability to go along with it. Can be a great business if it's hugely downsized in headcount

cjbgkagh 5y ago

The Thanos approach, half by random lottery. Otherwise it's a corporate politics fight to find out who stays and those who win that fight are more likely to be better at corporate politics and probably not as good at the business of Twitter. In addition, those who are let go are not tainted as underperformers, just unlucky. I don't know what 7,000 Twitter employees do but it does seem like a rather high number to me.