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How does a 75% workforce cut even work logistically for a company not on its deathbed?
by minimaxir 4y ago
How does a 75% workforce cut even work logistically for a company not on its deathbed?
- sn0w_crash 4y agoHow does a company like this need 7,500 people?
- phillipcarter 4y agoBecause it's a set of massive engineering systems, applications, advertising market, social institution, etc.? Big, complex sociotechnical systems require a lot of human beings to keep moving along.
- sn0w_crash 4y agoThis is not a company with multiple products. The ad platform is just barely usable, with an only slightly better UI than LinkedIn. Its core product has not changed meaningfully in 10 years. The company down much of its developer-facing offering years ago. There are e-commerce websites with a more complex stack than Twitter. This is a product that can run on 1,000 people and nothing about the user experience will be different. There is probably so much administrative, HR, and operational bloat that the company probably rivals most universities.
- phillipcarter 4y agoI think you're doing a bunch of speculation. I disagree with most of what you wrote.
- shaburn 4y agoThe balance sheet has been a public market charity for tech employees who want paid hiatus since they IPO'd.
- toofy 4y agoall of this is based on what? this seems like an awful lot of speculation regarding one of the largest social networks on the planet. is there waste? highly likely. but the kind you’re implying? sounds ridiculous. what are you basing this on?
- batmanturkey 4y agoWell, heck, you can shrivel it down to ONE employee and then fire them, if you just wanna tank Twitter. It seems like the sorta crackhead move we have come to expect from mister attention whore extraordinaire. He’s in a competition of some kind with Kanye, apparently. Why is he wasting 40 billion on a trumpet of little worth if it’s worth so little? What a weird mid life crisis sports car to buy, it’s not even red.
- bob1029 4y ago25% of twitter's current employee base is still ~1,900 people... I don't see why this would be infeasible.
- thefreeman 4y agoYou think the top performing 25% are going to want to stick around when you fire 3/4 of their coworkers?
- mikecoles 4y agoWould be worth sticking around since you don't need to keep the dead weight afloat any longer.
- mentos 4y agoWhat if you double their salaries?
- phphphphp 4y agoAt which point you’re taking on a huge risk for less savings, savings that’ll shrink over time and introduce new challenges: after-all, doubling the remaining employee’s salaries gives those employees all the power when it comes to negotiating — suddenly, each and every one knows just how valuable and important they are… and the company has much less room to negotiate to retain them. And that assumes they can even cut the right 75%: what if the measure they use to determine the “valuable” employees turns out to be wrong? How do you even begin to undo / address that when everyone is being paid 2x?
- sieabahlpark 4y agoSounds like a great opportunity to ride while you also look elsewhere. It has Elon behind it so it's not like it will have a lack of funding.
- Balgair 4y agoWhy would they not just go make another Twitter without Elon?
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoSometimes a 75% workforce cut is exactly what a company on its deathbed needs. In the case of Twitter they wouldn't even need to fire anyone. Just make employees sign a statement reaffirming their commitment to free speech and the 1st Amendment (ala forced DEI statements at other companies) and 75% of Twitter employees would likely depart on their own.
- arlcode 4y agoUnlikely. Most Twitter employees (like people everywhere) go there to earn a living and as long as employment conditions remain acceptable they'll sign whatever management ask them to. In particular if it's a meaningless broad statement such as "commitment to free speech and 1st amendment". Most people there don't have anything to do with policy enactment or enforcement so why would they care (case in point those other companies, you mentioned which also retained their workforces). If the real consequence is a work culture in which bullying and harassment is sanctioned (or even encouraged) by management THEN people will leave because it's unpleasant to work in such an environment. The ones remaining won't necessarily be your high performers
- LegitShady 4y agoI don't think people should sign political affidavits from their employer. That's not useful or reasonable.
- alephxyz 4y agoWhy would employees need to reaffirm their commitment to what the US Congress can or can't do?
- ytpete 4y agoThe First Amendment only constrains the government - not any private company. So it's meaningless with regard to Twitter's moderation policies. Nor is it useful as a voluntary limit on content moderation. Any social media site that allows absolutely anything First Amendment protected would quickly be overrun by porn and blood and gore.
- 0xB31B1B 4y ago1) cut 35% of engineering team, including all L4s and L3s, and people who have scored 2/5 or lower on perf reviews 2) Cut 100% of marketing team, Elon is marketing team now. 3) Cut 100% of policy team. Elon is policy team now 4) Cut 80% of sales team. Elon is sales team now. 5) Cut 95% of Product team. They don't ship anything too much time talking, not enough time shipping 6) Cut support team by 90%, only highest tier gets support, 7) hire new leadership ASAP, probably before firing and agreements probably happening now to rebuild teams with people who actually want to work and ship.
- phillipcarter 4y agoThis is a pretty funny take. Suffice to say, you need a lot more than engineering to run a global enterprise, even if it's a tech company.
- lapcat 4y ago> Cut 80% of sales team. Elon is sales team now. That can work for direct-to-consumer sales. It's unlikely to work for advertising sales. > Cut support team by 90%, only highest tier gets support Twitter has a support team? Not much, in my experience.
- x86x87 4y agoLook at me! I'm marketing and sales now! Elon probably.