6 ms·

Twitch says it will lay off 400 employees

85 points by lrae 4y ago

jerglingu 4y ago
Twitch is probably at peak "enshittification." Disastrous business decisions, from both the degradation of the product in the name of profits, as well as the questionable way it has engaged with the growing discontent of streamers and its broader user base. At one of the orgs I was with in Amazon, and we had some cross-channel comms and processes with them. It was always funny to us how Twitch employees wore their culture as a badge of honor (they never were really a part of Amazon, culturally speaking), but in practice they embodied the ugliest traits of stereotypical Amazon teams: zero trust or charitability from them, and the adversarial/transactional nature of meetings was cranked up to a thousand. They guarded their data and general information from us with a particular zeal out of a confessed mistrust. So you can imagine how ironic and funny it was on our side when their massive leak occurred.
saddd 4y ago
Twitch is an immeasurably worse place to work at now than it was before the pandemic. The creep of corp Amazon culture accelerated. Twitch was acquired in 2014, but it was still Twitch, and not Amazon, when it came to culture. That's no longer true. It no longer feels like a special environment. These layoffs really seal the magic being gone, though they would have happened even if Amazon hadn't acquired Twitch. Many core employees have left in the past few years. Amazon managers have been transferring in at a steady pace. A beloved early employee committed suicide. Twitch's source code was leaked shortly afterwards.
sposeray 4y ago
[dead]
jstummbillig 4y ago
Wait, how many employees does Twitch have (there are no numbers in the linked articles).
- mishftw 4y ago
  According to the LinkedIn company profile, a little over 13 thousand. I don't know how reliable of a number that is.
  - phphphphp 4y ago
    That’ll be a lot of people who are streamers on twitch with it listed on their LinkedIn profile. I’d ballpark closer to 2,000 actual employees — maybe 1,500 as a conservative estimate.
    - swyx 4y ago
      so laying off 20%-26% of staff. wowzers.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Glassdoor and Owler both say Twitch has between 1,000 and 5,000 employees. Your ballpark is in the ... errr... ballpark.
  - heywhatupboys 4y ago
    Recent history has shown us that behind every 10 thousand strong tech team, stands twenty engineers maintaining the entire stack. edit: downvote all you want, but it is clear that there is so much fluff in a tech company 2023
- ny2ko 4y ago
  About 2100
_jdzr 4y ago
I left Twitch not so long ago (May 2022), not surprised at all by this.
- activitypea 4y ago
  care to elaborate?
  - _jdzr 4y ago
    There's lots to elaborate. Tl;dr is toxic siloed teams, bad management, and even worse management above those managers. Plus, since the Amazon acquisition, Twitch has been bleeding talent.
    - Diederich 4y ago
      I left Twitch in 2017 and all of these things were true then as well. I worked with quite a few smart people and the perks and comp were great, but damn so much toxic crap going on, and seriously poor management.
      - _jdzr 4y ago
        I'm glad you got to spend some time with those smart folks... I really craved that while I was there. They had an all star team for quite a while, I got the tail end of it.
    - izzydata 4y ago
      Is there any obvious reason for toxicity at Twitch? Is it at all related to the type of work being done and its relationship to video game culture? Or does it stem from some business perspective of the management instead?
      - _jdzr 4y ago
        Very hard to say. I have suspicions but don't really feel comfortable sharing. News like this is a chip in their armor, expect to see more soon.
ryder9 4y ago
amazon in total is laying off 9K people https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/20/23648348/amazon-layoffs-job-cuts-aws-twitch https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/20/23648348/amazon-layoffs-j...
avrionov 4y ago
This news comes after the CEO of Twitch announced that he is leaving the company [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35184011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35184011
jdlyga 4y ago
Twitch is part of Amazon, so likely just part of the bigger round of layoffs.
madrox 4y ago
I can't say I'm surprised. Combined with Emmett's departure, Amazon is painting a picture of the belief that Twitch has hit its cap. Video games are a hits-driven business, and that goes for Twitch as well. The popularity of the service is driven by games they show, and all attempts to break that ceiling or diversify revenue simply hasn't worked. Now it's time to cut costs and squeeze existing revenue streams. The good news is that, combined with the implosion of most esports, there may be room to innovate again. Twitch and game publishers didn't leave a lot of room for startups. If they no longer believe there's a ton of money to be made by taking risks, maybe there's an opportunity for new businesses to try again.
- activitypea 4y ago
  The "innovation" is really a retreat to Youtube. Their livestream UX can't hold a candle to Twitch or even Mixer, but you livestream on Youtube, you can slightly (re)structure your livestream and leave it up as a 2-3 hour video. Youtube's algorithm will gobble it up and spit it out on people's homepages and search results. A lot of people will watch a bit of your stream, usually the first 10-20 minutes, but the conversion rate from VOD to future live viewers is better than you'd think. And all of this despite Google's designers working hard to make the worst UI possible. Twitch's focus on live and hostility towards VODs makes it a zero sum game, and their discoverability makes it a "the rich get richer" system. If you look at your revenue as a function of hours streamed per week, YT makes more sense for everyone but the top 1% on Twitch.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    There's also a culture on Twitch of once you make it big to almost never stop streaming. That above all else I think is what informs the rich get richer system. Twitch's hostility to VODs greatly contribute to that. You can't ever take a break and let passive income trickle in.
- anon115 4y ago
  so how does esports make any money?
eigen-vector 4y ago
https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/03/20/an-update-about-our-workforce/ https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/03/20/an-update-about-our-wor... Post directly on the twitch blog.
theGnuMe 4y ago
Why doesn't twitch go after youtube? The market seems large enough. Also if they could produce tiktok like gaming videos that would probably be popular.
- activitypea 4y ago
  a nuanced understanding if I've ever seen one
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    My kids consume roblox and minecraft videos ad infinitum and they are all on Google. I pay for premium to avoid ads so if twitch took this market I would pay twitch. They also make roblox tiktoks as well but the overall workflow/interface is kind of difficult on the ipad. Really roblox should just make that app for themselves. Build it into the ipad app. If you run product at either of these companies, implement these things and you'll make a mint.
nubinetwork 4y ago
Twitch has made some weird design choices lately, like the paid feature to put a "superchat" below the stream video... (Yes below the video, not in the chat box) Except that the streamer can't see them because it doesn't show up on the dashboard.
Redsquare 4y ago
Those terrible mission statements, drop them, please.

85 points by lrae 4y ago

Twitch is probably at peak "enshittification." Disastrous business decisions, from both the degradation of the product in the name of profits, as well as the questionable way it has engaged with the growing discontent of streamers and its broader user base. At one of the orgs I was with in Amazon, and we had some cross-channel comms and processes with them. It was always funny to us how Twitch employees wore their culture as a badge of honor (they never were really a part of Amazon, culturally speaking), but in practice they embodied the ugliest traits of stereotypical Amazon teams: zero trust or charitability from them, and the adversarial/transactional nature of meetings was cranked up to a thousand. They guarded their data and general information from us with a particular zeal out of a confessed mistrust. So you can imagine how ironic and funny it was on our side when their massive leak occurred.

saddd 4y ago

Twitch is an immeasurably worse place to work at now than it was before the pandemic. The creep of corp Amazon culture accelerated. Twitch was acquired in 2014, but it was still Twitch, and not Amazon, when it came to culture. That's no longer true. It no longer feels like a special environment. These layoffs really seal the magic being gone, though they would have happened even if Amazon hadn't acquired Twitch. Many core employees have left in the past few years. Amazon managers have been transferring in at a steady pace. A beloved early employee committed suicide. Twitch's source code was leaked shortly afterwards.

sposeray 4y ago

[dead]

jstummbillig 4y ago

Wait, how many employees does Twitch have (there are no numbers in the linked articles).

mishftw 4y ago
According to the LinkedIn company profile, a little over 13 thousand. I don't know how reliable of a number that is.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  That’ll be a lot of people who are streamers on twitch with it listed on their LinkedIn profile. I’d ballpark closer to 2,000 actual employees — maybe 1,500 as a conservative estimate.
  - swyx 4y ago
    so laying off 20%-26% of staff. wowzers.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Glassdoor and Owler both say Twitch has between 1,000 and 5,000 employees. Your ballpark is in the ... errr... ballpark.
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  Recent history has shown us that behind every 10 thousand strong tech team, stands twenty engineers maintaining the entire stack. edit: downvote all you want, but it is clear that there is so much fluff in a tech company 2023
ny2ko 4y ago
About 2100

_jdzr 4y ago

I left Twitch not so long ago (May 2022), not surprised at all by this.

activitypea 4y ago
care to elaborate?
- _jdzr 4y ago
  There's lots to elaborate. Tl;dr is toxic siloed teams, bad management, and even worse management above those managers. Plus, since the Amazon acquisition, Twitch has been bleeding talent.
  - Diederich 4y ago
    I left Twitch in 2017 and all of these things were true then as well. I worked with quite a few smart people and the perks and comp were great, but damn so much toxic crap going on, and seriously poor management.
    - _jdzr 4y ago
      I'm glad you got to spend some time with those smart folks... I really craved that while I was there. They had an all star team for quite a while, I got the tail end of it.
  - izzydata 4y ago
    Is there any obvious reason for toxicity at Twitch? Is it at all related to the type of work being done and its relationship to video game culture? Or does it stem from some business perspective of the management instead?
    - _jdzr 4y ago
      Very hard to say. I have suspicions but don't really feel comfortable sharing. News like this is a chip in their armor, expect to see more soon.

ryder9 4y ago

amazon in total is laying off 9K people https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/20/23648348/amazon-layoffs-job-cuts-aws-twitch https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/20/23648348/amazon-layoffs-j...

avrionov 4y ago

This news comes after the CEO of Twitch announced that he is leaving the company [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35184011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35184011

jdlyga 4y ago

Twitch is part of Amazon, so likely just part of the bigger round of layoffs.

madrox 4y ago

I can't say I'm surprised. Combined with Emmett's departure, Amazon is painting a picture of the belief that Twitch has hit its cap. Video games are a hits-driven business, and that goes for Twitch as well. The popularity of the service is driven by games they show, and all attempts to break that ceiling or diversify revenue simply hasn't worked. Now it's time to cut costs and squeeze existing revenue streams. The good news is that, combined with the implosion of most esports, there may be room to innovate again. Twitch and game publishers didn't leave a lot of room for startups. If they no longer believe there's a ton of money to be made by taking risks, maybe there's an opportunity for new businesses to try again.

activitypea 4y ago
The "innovation" is really a retreat to Youtube. Their livestream UX can't hold a candle to Twitch or even Mixer, but you livestream on Youtube, you can slightly (re)structure your livestream and leave it up as a 2-3 hour video. Youtube's algorithm will gobble it up and spit it out on people's homepages and search results. A lot of people will watch a bit of your stream, usually the first 10-20 minutes, but the conversion rate from VOD to future live viewers is better than you'd think. And all of this despite Google's designers working hard to make the worst UI possible. Twitch's focus on live and hostility towards VODs makes it a zero sum game, and their discoverability makes it a "the rich get richer" system. If you look at your revenue as a function of hours streamed per week, YT makes more sense for everyone but the top 1% on Twitch.
- corbulo 4y ago
  There's also a culture on Twitch of once you make it big to almost never stop streaming. That above all else I think is what informs the rich get richer system. Twitch's hostility to VODs greatly contribute to that. You can't ever take a break and let passive income trickle in.
anon115 4y ago
so how does esports make any money?

eigen-vector 4y ago

https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/03/20/an-update-about-our-workforce/ https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/03/20/an-update-about-our-wor... Post directly on the twitch blog.

theGnuMe 4y ago

Why doesn't twitch go after youtube? The market seems large enough. Also if they could produce tiktok like gaming videos that would probably be popular.

activitypea 4y ago
a nuanced understanding if I've ever seen one
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  My kids consume roblox and minecraft videos ad infinitum and they are all on Google. I pay for premium to avoid ads so if twitch took this market I would pay twitch. They also make roblox tiktoks as well but the overall workflow/interface is kind of difficult on the ipad. Really roblox should just make that app for themselves. Build it into the ipad app. If you run product at either of these companies, implement these things and you'll make a mint.

nubinetwork 4y ago

Twitch has made some weird design choices lately, like the paid feature to put a "superchat" below the stream video... (Yes below the video, not in the chat box) Except that the streamer can't see them because it doesn't show up on the dashboard.

Redsquare 4y ago

Those terrible mission statements, drop them, please.