6 ms·

Twitter to Lay Off 25% of Workforce

58 points by agotterer 4y ago

tschwimmer 4y ago
It's clear that Elon is moving swiftly to cut costs, but I think it's all really academic. For any reasonable revenue scenario (even before the bottom dropped out of tech stocks), Twitter just wasn't worth $44bn. It's clear that he's going to try to cut to the bone and juice revenue by any means necessary, but it seems like the company is going to have an awful rate of return regardless.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  right, but its also just a 10x revenue multiple. it makes $4bn in revenue a year as is. he reduces costs and that gets it in line pretty quick
  - streb-lo 4y ago
    Yea, only a genius like Elon could have figured that out.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      uhhh, ok. it is interesting that he can repurpose engineers from his other companies. he might need to make a parent company like Alphabet, because Google moves employees between orgs seamlessly too.
  - rnk 4y ago
    He's going to drive away advertisers by allowing more hate speech. That's their major revenue source. That won't increase advertising. The $20/registered user per month sounded great until I learned there are only 400k registered blue checkmark users. That's only 96 mil a year, a drop in the bucket for a company that cost 44 billion. I'd suggest he work to get many more users who are engaged, and that would bring advertisers. This isn't helped by silly culture war memes being posted.
    - joshmn 4y ago
      It may have cost him $44 billion now, but he's certainly going to take it public again.
      - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
        Ah, the old buy high, sell low strategy.
    - aaroninsf 4y ago
      That work is being actively aggressively sabotaged by his instantly emerged pattern of promoting unambiguous right-wing agitprop and disinformation, using the classic "I'm just asking question" stance used by prominent fascists like Tucker Carlson. Stoned-Musk may think it's funny; fascist-friendly-Musk may think it's useful to keep the left distracted, angry, and off "his" site... ...where grifter-Musk sees the eventual ROI is less clear. Maybe a dystopia is good for the long-term bottom line in kick-backs by a single-party state who knows and rewards their friends? Promoting disinformation to provide chaff and cover for GOP uneasy with an attempted assassination of the Speaker of the House which as 100% stochastic terrorism resulting from relentless histrionic neofascist dehumanizing grievance hysteria for decades, including explicit rhetoric about killing said Speaker, is more than stoned-Musk meme-trolling. It's actively, corrosively, undermining functioning democracy and empowering a right wing increasingly openly embracing violence. QElon has gone over the edge.
      - yieldcrv 4y ago
        > using the classic "I'm just asking question" stance what is the desired way for people to learn and also criticize aspects of culture that were fine before, but now changing? its easy not to understand what the consensus is and get berated for not knowing that, which just radicalizes people that might have been able to be supportive.
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Understand how "just asking questions" has been co-opted by a group so thoroughly, that its use of a rhetorical or dialogue device associates one's self to that group. It's a well poisoned by bad faith. Realize that people are generally able to tell the difference between authentic curiosity and Socratic-curiosity. The later, as you well know, involves asking leading questions to arrive at a predetermined destination whereas the former does not. There's many more answers to this question, but leaving those there feels like a good enough place to start as any.
- belter 4y ago
  It was either end World Hunger for $6B or buy Twitter for $44B. He could not do both. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/elon-musk-un-world-hunger-famine/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/elon-musk-un-world-hu...
  - throwaway23597 4y ago
    Eh, I mean to be fair, the proposal to "end world hunger" is really more of a proposal to "temporarily alleviate world hunger in 2022 only". And the plan outlined in the article seems rather optimistic, it assumes there's no corruption, grift, etc. I think what Musk was looking for in his original challenge was a way to permanently end world hunger.
    - rdtwo 4y ago
      Would Hunger isn’t a food problem it’s a corruption and distribution problem. It’s nearly impossible to get the food to people that need it
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
The article states at end of 2021 there were 7,000 employees. Assume an average annual cost per employee of $250k (salary+benefits) which might be on the conservative side. This means annual payroll is $1.75B and the cost cutting by laying off 25% (1750) means that would be reduced to $1.31B so about $430mil/year in reduced employee spend. Their 2021 financials indicated a $370mil loss, so this actually makes some sense if the new owner wants to prioritize profit. Setting aside who is involved and what they want to do to the platform (let everyone run amok, don't moderate til sued is my interpretation) this actually makes sense.
- lupire 4y ago
  Makes sense unless those 25% actually contribute to revenue.
thdespou 4y ago
I think Musk will transfer the best engineers to Tesla/Starlink and downgrade Twitter into a highly polarized platform full of crappy tabloid news. Time to vacate Twitter.
- mozman 4y ago
  Twitter is already a echo chamber cesspool, it can only get better.
  - thomascgalvin 4y ago
    If the Internet has taught me anything, it's that it's always possible for the Internet to get worse.
  - fortyseven 4y ago
    And you genuinely believe THIS is going to make it better.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Good engineers aren’t slaves they have options. You don’t just transfer them between groups or companies and locations for that matter.
  - thdespou 4y ago
    Unless you are dealing with a bully that demands 40 hours min in the office. He is already an unleashed dog pissing left right and center. I don't think it's going to end well with Twitter.
timoth3y 4y ago
Maybe this is the right move. That's not what bothers me. Musk's joking about firing 1,700 people bothers me. It might be a necessary, but these people have lives, families, mortgages, and commitments. Getting fired is never easy. But Musk shows up carrying a sink laughing and joking about "Let that sink in", and the Internet yucks it up and talks about what a clever boy Elon is. The unnecessary cruelty and the utter lack of empathy -- or even the need to feign empathy -- is what bothers me.
- fortyseven 4y ago
  That's what made me abandon my 15 year old account. I want nothing to do with that moronic wannabe $2 supervillain.

58 points by agotterer 4y ago

It's clear that Elon is moving swiftly to cut costs, but I think it's all really academic. For any reasonable revenue scenario (even before the bottom dropped out of tech stocks), Twitter just wasn't worth $44bn. It's clear that he's going to try to cut to the bone and juice revenue by any means necessary, but it seems like the company is going to have an awful rate of return regardless.

yieldcrv 4y ago
right, but its also just a 10x revenue multiple. it makes $4bn in revenue a year as is. he reduces costs and that gets it in line pretty quick
- streb-lo 4y ago
  Yea, only a genius like Elon could have figured that out.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    uhhh, ok. it is interesting that he can repurpose engineers from his other companies. he might need to make a parent company like Alphabet, because Google moves employees between orgs seamlessly too.
- rnk 4y ago
  He's going to drive away advertisers by allowing more hate speech. That's their major revenue source. That won't increase advertising. The $20/registered user per month sounded great until I learned there are only 400k registered blue checkmark users. That's only 96 mil a year, a drop in the bucket for a company that cost 44 billion. I'd suggest he work to get many more users who are engaged, and that would bring advertisers. This isn't helped by silly culture war memes being posted.
  - joshmn 4y ago
    It may have cost him $44 billion now, but he's certainly going to take it public again.
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      Ah, the old buy high, sell low strategy.
  - aaroninsf 4y ago
    That work is being actively aggressively sabotaged by his instantly emerged pattern of promoting unambiguous right-wing agitprop and disinformation, using the classic "I'm just asking question" stance used by prominent fascists like Tucker Carlson. Stoned-Musk may think it's funny; fascist-friendly-Musk may think it's useful to keep the left distracted, angry, and off "his" site... ...where grifter-Musk sees the eventual ROI is less clear. Maybe a dystopia is good for the long-term bottom line in kick-backs by a single-party state who knows and rewards their friends? Promoting disinformation to provide chaff and cover for GOP uneasy with an attempted assassination of the Speaker of the House which as 100% stochastic terrorism resulting from relentless histrionic neofascist dehumanizing grievance hysteria for decades, including explicit rhetoric about killing said Speaker, is more than stoned-Musk meme-trolling. It's actively, corrosively, undermining functioning democracy and empowering a right wing increasingly openly embracing violence. QElon has gone over the edge.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      > using the classic "I'm just asking question" stance what is the desired way for people to learn and also criticize aspects of culture that were fine before, but now changing? its easy not to understand what the consensus is and get berated for not knowing that, which just radicalizes people that might have been able to be supportive.
      - kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Understand how "just asking questions" has been co-opted by a group so thoroughly, that its use of a rhetorical or dialogue device associates one's self to that group. It's a well poisoned by bad faith. Realize that people are generally able to tell the difference between authentic curiosity and Socratic-curiosity. The later, as you well know, involves asking leading questions to arrive at a predetermined destination whereas the former does not. There's many more answers to this question, but leaving those there feels like a good enough place to start as any.
belter 4y ago
It was either end World Hunger for $6B or buy Twitter for $44B. He could not do both. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/elon-musk-un-world-hunger-famine/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/elon-musk-un-world-hu...
- throwaway23597 4y ago
  Eh, I mean to be fair, the proposal to "end world hunger" is really more of a proposal to "temporarily alleviate world hunger in 2022 only". And the plan outlined in the article seems rather optimistic, it assumes there's no corruption, grift, etc. I think what Musk was looking for in his original challenge was a way to permanently end world hunger.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    Would Hunger isn’t a food problem it’s a corruption and distribution problem. It’s nearly impossible to get the food to people that need it

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago

The article states at end of 2021 there were 7,000 employees. Assume an average annual cost per employee of $250k (salary+benefits) which might be on the conservative side. This means annual payroll is $1.75B and the cost cutting by laying off 25% (1750) means that would be reduced to $1.31B so about $430mil/year in reduced employee spend. Their 2021 financials indicated a $370mil loss, so this actually makes some sense if the new owner wants to prioritize profit. Setting aside who is involved and what they want to do to the platform (let everyone run amok, don't moderate til sued is my interpretation) this actually makes sense.

lupire 4y ago
Makes sense unless those 25% actually contribute to revenue.

thdespou 4y ago

I think Musk will transfer the best engineers to Tesla/Starlink and downgrade Twitter into a highly polarized platform full of crappy tabloid news. Time to vacate Twitter.

mozman 4y ago
Twitter is already a echo chamber cesspool, it can only get better.
- thomascgalvin 4y ago
  If the Internet has taught me anything, it's that it's always possible for the Internet to get worse.
- fortyseven 4y ago
  And you genuinely believe THIS is going to make it better.
rdtwo 4y ago
Good engineers aren’t slaves they have options. You don’t just transfer them between groups or companies and locations for that matter.
- thdespou 4y ago
  Unless you are dealing with a bully that demands 40 hours min in the office. He is already an unleashed dog pissing left right and center. I don't think it's going to end well with Twitter.

timoth3y 4y ago

Maybe this is the right move. That's not what bothers me. Musk's joking about firing 1,700 people bothers me. It might be a necessary, but these people have lives, families, mortgages, and commitments. Getting fired is never easy. But Musk shows up carrying a sink laughing and joking about "Let that sink in", and the Internet yucks it up and talks about what a clever boy Elon is. The unnecessary cruelty and the utter lack of empathy -- or even the need to feign empathy -- is what bothers me.

fortyseven 4y ago
That's what made me abandon my 15 year old account. I want nothing to do with that moronic wannabe $2 supervillain.