4 ms·

Twitter lays off 1000 California, primarily San Francisco, employees

47 points by crhulls 4y ago

throwaway1777 4y ago
Who were probably all working remotely…
- WWLink 4y ago
  And you were working 84 hour weeks, burning the midnight oil, in the office right?
  - andremedeiros 4y ago
    That’s the problem with throwaway accounts. They’ve got so much conviction they won’t even dare use their real handles. Don’t feed the trolls.
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  I can see why I was downvoted for this but my point was actually these were not really Californian jobs lost if these employees were remote (and twitter allowed remote for everyone as far as I know). How do they calculate 700 San Francisco employees? Is that number based on office or residence?
threeseed 4y ago
The more interesting and less reported question is the influence of David Sacks and Jason Calcanis in some of these decisions. We know that David in particular has form with coming in and cutting headcount early: https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/804922277842272256 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/804922277842272256 We also know both are right-leaning and I wonder how much of that factored in to the firing of the human rights, ethics, accessibility etc teams. The teams they may not appreciate but advertisers absolutely did.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  Twitter's CPM is absolutely pathetic [1]. The advertisers clearly didn't really care, or the impression price would have at least been comparable to Facebook — infamously a "brand safety" disaster, yet somehow far more effective at getting advertisers to pay. [1] https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/
  - threeseed 4y ago
    Twitter has always been a second-tier advertising platform behind Facebook/Google and its percentage of total ad spend reflects that. It's why Musk's actions (or more likely David/Jason) have been so incompetent. Because now those advertisers have nothing but reasons not to come back.
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      I don't intend to argue whether Musk will or will not destroy the platform further. I just don't want people to pretend that pre-Musk Twitter had any idea how to competently sell ads. They didn't.
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    FB knows a lot about their users and they have boat loads of them up for grabs; look-alike audiences can be very effective. Actually, I'd say that they're the only thing that makes FB worth advertising on, without them it's just a pit to throw money in. I don't know if the same can be said about twitter.
    - pevey 4y ago
      That used to be the case, but much less so today. Look alike is at least 10x less effective in my experience since more than 90% of clicks are mobile, and most on iOS.
      - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
raziel2701 4y ago
The amount of media attention to the layoffs seems disproportional to the number of people actually laid off no? 1000 people? There's high schools with more than that. Local to twitter yeah that's a big fraction. But compared to the economy? That's peanuts. What am I missing?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The context makes the news: the world's richest man offered to buy a company that was very obviously unprofitable for much more than it was worth, tried to back out, was compelled to honor his contract, and is now callously cutting every cost he can in an effort to redeem his ridiculous mistake. Besides, this is no longer receiving front-page attention by national newspapers. The first wave of layoffs did for the reason above; this follow-on article is by a city newspaper in a city where Twitter has lots of employees. It's an obvious story.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  The article title is strange but this Is just the number of California employees right, so still 3700 / 50% globally
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
highduc 4y ago
Whatever happened to Bezos with all that Amazon drama? Is he now in the clear? These discussions are so strange for people in third world countries. We're tired of all this fake outrage.
senttoschool 4y ago
How many of them actually lived in San Francisco?

47 points by crhulls 4y ago

throwaway1777 4y ago

Who were probably all working remotely…

WWLink 4y ago
And you were working 84 hour weeks, burning the midnight oil, in the office right?
- andremedeiros 4y ago
  That’s the problem with throwaway accounts. They’ve got so much conviction they won’t even dare use their real handles. Don’t feed the trolls.
throwaway1777 4y ago
I can see why I was downvoted for this but my point was actually these were not really Californian jobs lost if these employees were remote (and twitter allowed remote for everyone as far as I know). How do they calculate 700 San Francisco employees? Is that number based on office or residence?

threeseed 4y ago

The more interesting and less reported question is the influence of David Sacks and Jason Calcanis in some of these decisions. We know that David in particular has form with coming in and cutting headcount early: https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/804922277842272256 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/804922277842272256 We also know both are right-leaning and I wonder how much of that factored in to the firing of the human rights, ethics, accessibility etc teams. The teams they may not appreciate but advertisers absolutely did.

bpodgursky 4y ago
Twitter's CPM is absolutely pathetic [1]. The advertisers clearly didn't really care, or the impression price would have at least been comparable to Facebook — infamously a "brand safety" disaster, yet somehow far more effective at getting advertisers to pay. [1] https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/
- threeseed 4y ago
  Twitter has always been a second-tier advertising platform behind Facebook/Google and its percentage of total ad spend reflects that. It's why Musk's actions (or more likely David/Jason) have been so incompetent. Because now those advertisers have nothing but reasons not to come back.
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    I don't intend to argue whether Musk will or will not destroy the platform further. I just don't want people to pretend that pre-Musk Twitter had any idea how to competently sell ads. They didn't.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  FB knows a lot about their users and they have boat loads of them up for grabs; look-alike audiences can be very effective. Actually, I'd say that they're the only thing that makes FB worth advertising on, without them it's just a pit to throw money in. I don't know if the same can be said about twitter.
  - pevey 4y ago
    That used to be the case, but much less so today. Look alike is at least 10x less effective in my experience since more than 90% of clicks are mobile, and most on iOS.
    - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

raziel2701 4y ago

The amount of media attention to the layoffs seems disproportional to the number of people actually laid off no? 1000 people? There's high schools with more than that. Local to twitter yeah that's a big fraction. But compared to the economy? That's peanuts. What am I missing?

woodruffw 4y ago
The context makes the news: the world's richest man offered to buy a company that was very obviously unprofitable for much more than it was worth, tried to back out, was compelled to honor his contract, and is now callously cutting every cost he can in an effort to redeem his ridiculous mistake. Besides, this is no longer receiving front-page attention by national newspapers. The first wave of layoffs did for the reason above; this follow-on article is by a city newspaper in a city where Twitter has lots of employees. It's an obvious story.
mikkergp 4y ago
The article title is strange but this Is just the number of California employees right, so still 3700 / 50% globally

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

highduc 4y ago

Whatever happened to Bezos with all that Amazon drama? Is he now in the clear? These discussions are so strange for people in third world countries. We're tired of all this fake outrage.

senttoschool 4y ago

How many of them actually lived in San Francisco?