7 ms·

That's likely optimistic. Maybe the user facing site, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of internal/backend/restricted systems to suppo

by kakwa_ 4y ago

That's likely optimistic. Maybe the user facing site, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of internal/backend/restricted systems to support and/or monetize this part. And that's not counting the huge number of support people & moderators needed.

RivieraKid 4y ago
Frontend, Android app and iOS app should be doable by 1 person each. Then one graphic designer and a project manager for all of the 3 frontends.
- benj111 4y ago
  Well graphics design isn't hard. I'm sure one of the Devs could do that. And I'm sure there are tools to convert an iOS app to/from Android, so one dev can do both. And a website is easy. You could do it with 1 person. But Elon is such a machine, he could keep it running by himself.
  - RivieraKid 4y ago
    Well that's what I did, I made both iOS and Android version of an app and some of the design. I mean, a mediocre complexity app doesn't need more than one developer for a "slow improvement mode".
    - benj111 4y ago
      But Twitter needs more than 5 employees. How many bug reports do you think the Twitter site and apps get each day? How many employees do you think it takes just to triage them?
      - RivieraKid 4y ago
        You don't have to read all of the bug reports, just a representative sample to discover issues worth fixing.
        benj111 4y ago
        How do you get a 'representative' sample? You still have to read them to work out that user X saying they can't log in is the same as user Y saying authentication is failing at A stage, issue is present on B and C platforms version D.E Further the issue of 'site using the wrong font' is not equally as important as 'site is exposing private user data'. And you're likely to get many people reporting the former, and maybe only one reporting the latter, so a sample isn't likely to catch the really important stuff.
- egman_ekki 4y ago
  How many people would you say it would need for the backend?
- neongreen 4y ago
  Not sure if you’re joking or not, but that’s exactly how Telegram stems to work. One person per app (ok, for the desktop app it’s three people now).
- matwood 4y ago
  I'm all about lean teams, but this is a joke.
- megax 4y ago
  Who is defining and managing the PRDs and the roadmap in this scenario? What about user testing and customer development? By “graphic design”, do you mean User Interface design? If so, who is responsible for the user experience beyond just UI? The point I’m trying to make is that it takes some effort (beyond just the plumbing) to create an experience that folks actually want to use on an ongoing basis
  - unionpivo 4y ago
    We are not talking future development, just maintaining status quo. Rode map is just: keep it working, or whatever EM twitted about hour ago :) But I agree it's way to optimistic number. You need at least a few for each platform, just because of bus factor, you also need people to keep in touch with Apple/Google reps etc., making sure bills are paid etc. I imagine it will mostly be just minor tweaks and no major features, you can easily do both mobile targets by cca 10 people, not working crazy hours. There are plenty of successful apps with smaller teams, that make it work.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      >There are plenty of successful apps Eh, tossing the direct comparison to Twitter out here because they seem to have gone too far the other way, this is much like saying "I can make 1,000,000 screws a day, so assembling at least 100 cars a day should be easy".
      - unionpivo 4y ago
        The hard part of twitter is on server side. I am not saying that writing twitter like app is easy, but writing it and keeping it running are two different things. If you are not adding new features, you are just mostly keeping up with Android/Apple platforms, which can be annoying, but not that difficult.
    - RivieraKid 4y ago
      I'm maintaining status quo for an Android/iOS app and it takes perhaps 5% of my work hours. > also need people to keep in touch with Apple/Google reps etc. You certainly don't need people specifically for this task.
- donkeyd 4y ago
  You're joking, right?
  - lightbendover 4y ago
    She or he is just naive. It does not take much distinction to post on HN.
  - RivieraKid 4y ago
    I'm serious. Why would you need more than one developer for the Android or iOS app?
caporaltito 4y ago
For the ad platform only, this would require already a hundred of people. Building an SSP is not an easy task. You are right about being optimistic.
- unlikelytomato 4y ago
  as someone who worked at an SSP, that is nowhere near what is needed for an established platform. There were a handful of engineers(10 if we are being generous including data science) keeping the lights on. The rest of the time was spent trying to prevent "senior" engineers from pushing code attempting to execute a sql query per each of the billions and billions of daily api calls.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
WhatsApp, 50 engineers, > 1 billion users daily, sold to Facebook for $19 billions.
- threeseed 4y ago
  WhatsApp didn't have advertising, recommendations, bots or had to provide tooling for governments, regulators, content moderators etc. It is so incomparable in scope I don't know why people bring it up.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    > WhatsApp didn't have advertising, Is there a reason to integrating ads into WhatsApp would require more than another 50 people? Twitter ads are certainly do not appear very complicated. The most complicated thing about Twitter is scale, which is why the comparison is made with WhatsApp. > recommendations, Does Twitter have recommendations? From what I understand, the front page was actively curated - that is, a human chose stories to put there. I guess you could count the god-awful default feed ordering as "recommendations", but there is nothing advanced about it. > bots If WhatsApp doesn't have bots, it's the only social media/chat app I've ever heard of that doesn't. What is needed for this other an an API? > had to provide tooling for governments, regulators, content moderators etc. I'm sure at least some of this exists for WhatsApp. Nevertheless, how many additional employees does this have take? I am not sure why there is so pushback against the idea most companies are overstaffed. For the most part, yes, everyone has "work" to do. But most of the work is fundamentally unproductive. It's this way throughout the economy, but a few tech companies probably do represent extreme cases. I think the best argument for their case is that most of them are very profitable anyway (not Twitter, somehow), and they might as well throw money at thousands of people to do stuff in case one of them accidentally does something that ends up being wildly profitable. I am fairly neutral on the whole thing; I strongly dislike Elon, but I also think Twitter was horrifically mismanaged. While I doubt Twitter will come out better than it is, the idea that firing most of such a large organization would necessarily result in the immediate collapse of a mature product does not say much about the people that were fired. I'm more sympathetic to the idea that it would get even worse over time, but I don't think there's anything necessary about this. You could focus on resolving longstanding issues while pausing most new work and probably come out perfectly fine.

by kakwa_ 4y ago

RivieraKid 4y ago

Frontend, Android app and iOS app should be doable by 1 person each. Then one graphic designer and a project manager for all of the 3 frontends.

benj111 4y ago
Well graphics design isn't hard. I'm sure one of the Devs could do that. And I'm sure there are tools to convert an iOS app to/from Android, so one dev can do both. And a website is easy. You could do it with 1 person. But Elon is such a machine, he could keep it running by himself.
- RivieraKid 4y ago
  Well that's what I did, I made both iOS and Android version of an app and some of the design. I mean, a mediocre complexity app doesn't need more than one developer for a "slow improvement mode".
  - benj111 4y ago
    But Twitter needs more than 5 employees. How many bug reports do you think the Twitter site and apps get each day? How many employees do you think it takes just to triage them?
    - RivieraKid 4y ago
      You don't have to read all of the bug reports, just a representative sample to discover issues worth fixing.
      - benj111 4y ago
        How do you get a 'representative' sample? You still have to read them to work out that user X saying they can't log in is the same as user Y saying authentication is failing at A stage, issue is present on B and C platforms version D.E Further the issue of 'site using the wrong font' is not equally as important as 'site is exposing private user data'. And you're likely to get many people reporting the former, and maybe only one reporting the latter, so a sample isn't likely to catch the really important stuff.
egman_ekki 4y ago
How many people would you say it would need for the backend?
neongreen 4y ago
Not sure if you’re joking or not, but that’s exactly how Telegram stems to work. One person per app (ok, for the desktop app it’s three people now).
matwood 4y ago
I'm all about lean teams, but this is a joke.
megax 4y ago
Who is defining and managing the PRDs and the roadmap in this scenario? What about user testing and customer development? By “graphic design”, do you mean User Interface design? If so, who is responsible for the user experience beyond just UI? The point I’m trying to make is that it takes some effort (beyond just the plumbing) to create an experience that folks actually want to use on an ongoing basis
- unionpivo 4y ago
  We are not talking future development, just maintaining status quo. Rode map is just: keep it working, or whatever EM twitted about hour ago :) But I agree it's way to optimistic number. You need at least a few for each platform, just because of bus factor, you also need people to keep in touch with Apple/Google reps etc., making sure bills are paid etc. I imagine it will mostly be just minor tweaks and no major features, you can easily do both mobile targets by cca 10 people, not working crazy hours. There are plenty of successful apps with smaller teams, that make it work.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    >There are plenty of successful apps Eh, tossing the direct comparison to Twitter out here because they seem to have gone too far the other way, this is much like saying "I can make 1,000,000 screws a day, so assembling at least 100 cars a day should be easy".
    - unionpivo 4y ago
      The hard part of twitter is on server side. I am not saying that writing twitter like app is easy, but writing it and keeping it running are two different things. If you are not adding new features, you are just mostly keeping up with Android/Apple platforms, which can be annoying, but not that difficult.
  - RivieraKid 4y ago
    I'm maintaining status quo for an Android/iOS app and it takes perhaps 5% of my work hours. > also need people to keep in touch with Apple/Google reps etc. You certainly don't need people specifically for this task.
donkeyd 4y ago
You're joking, right?
- lightbendover 4y ago
  She or he is just naive. It does not take much distinction to post on HN.
- RivieraKid 4y ago
  I'm serious. Why would you need more than one developer for the Android or iOS app?

caporaltito 4y ago

For the ad platform only, this would require already a hundred of people. Building an SSP is not an easy task. You are right about being optimistic.

unlikelytomato 4y ago
as someone who worked at an SSP, that is nowhere near what is needed for an established platform. There were a handful of engineers(10 if we are being generous including data science) keeping the lights on. The rest of the time was spent trying to prevent "senior" engineers from pushing code attempting to execute a sql query per each of the billions and billions of daily api calls.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

WhatsApp, 50 engineers, > 1 billion users daily, sold to Facebook for $19 billions.

threeseed 4y ago
WhatsApp didn't have advertising, recommendations, bots or had to provide tooling for governments, regulators, content moderators etc. It is so incomparable in scope I don't know why people bring it up.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  > WhatsApp didn't have advertising, Is there a reason to integrating ads into WhatsApp would require more than another 50 people? Twitter ads are certainly do not appear very complicated. The most complicated thing about Twitter is scale, which is why the comparison is made with WhatsApp. > recommendations, Does Twitter have recommendations? From what I understand, the front page was actively curated - that is, a human chose stories to put there. I guess you could count the god-awful default feed ordering as "recommendations", but there is nothing advanced about it. > bots If WhatsApp doesn't have bots, it's the only social media/chat app I've ever heard of that doesn't. What is needed for this other an an API? > had to provide tooling for governments, regulators, content moderators etc. I'm sure at least some of this exists for WhatsApp. Nevertheless, how many additional employees does this have take? I am not sure why there is so pushback against the idea most companies are overstaffed. For the most part, yes, everyone has "work" to do. But most of the work is fundamentally unproductive. It's this way throughout the economy, but a few tech companies probably do represent extreme cases. I think the best argument for their case is that most of them are very profitable anyway (not Twitter, somehow), and they might as well throw money at thousands of people to do stuff in case one of them accidentally does something that ends up being wildly profitable. I am fairly neutral on the whole thing; I strongly dislike Elon, but I also think Twitter was horrifically mismanaged. While I doubt Twitter will come out better than it is, the idea that firing most of such a large organization would necessarily result in the immediate collapse of a mature product does not say much about the people that were fired. I'm more sympathetic to the idea that it would get even worse over time, but I don't think there's anything necessary about this. You could focus on resolving longstanding issues while pausing most new work and probably come out perfectly fine.