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Very generous severance. The writing was on the wall and if I am an investor this is the right call to make. The company needs to pivot, you need a lean focused

Very generous severance. The writing was on the wall and if I am an investor this is the right call to make. The company needs to pivot, you need a lean focused team to have a chance at surviving the pivot. Probably the expensive lesson learned here is don't bet your company on short-term trends (like COVID lock downs) that can be disrupted by a twitter hackathon. One minor nit: don't use phrases like "people who are departing" in letters like this it just feels off. If you want to act like you're owning it then you need to own it. > "we work hard to support the people who are departing" Anyways wish those who are being axed the best of luck (it's a tough market right now) and hope the company is able to realign on a trajectory for success.

volkk 3y ago
> that can be disrupted by a twitter hackathon. hindsight is 20/20. you shouldn't necessarily be deterred by building something that a large company can also build. there have been plenty of examples that contradict this point. BUT there's nuance here. i think in this case, the venn diagram of the userbase at Twitter & the users on clubhouse is basically a circle: the type that love to ingest information, stay on top of bleeding edge trends, be on top of what "thought leaders" have to say, information influencers, brand builders, etc. This demographic of people that would immediately get a lot of use out of a clubhouse clone built directly into Twitter. Clubhouse messed up royally here by not selling
- uptownfunk 3y ago
  Fair but any reasonable business leader will assess the risks and at least have a plan to get around them, and who knows they may be working towards that and hence the layoffs. It seems they tried to go after the golden goose (build a platform) but instead existing platforms basically ate their lunch. That coupled with the changing social dynamics from reopening were too strong headwinds to weather with their current business model. What this means is they are basically back to square one, and need to build a new product and pray they get to PMF. If they are lucky they will have some reusable components. It will be interesting to see what happens to them and what they choose to go after in the next stage of their journey.

volkk 3y ago

> that can be disrupted by a twitter hackathon. hindsight is 20/20. you shouldn't necessarily be deterred by building something that a large company can also build. there have been plenty of examples that contradict this point. BUT there's nuance here. i think in this case, the venn diagram of the userbase at Twitter & the users on clubhouse is basically a circle: the type that love to ingest information, stay on top of bleeding edge trends, be on top of what "thought leaders" have to say, information influencers, brand builders, etc. This demographic of people that would immediately get a lot of use out of a clubhouse clone built directly into Twitter. Clubhouse messed up royally here by not selling

uptownfunk 3y ago
Fair but any reasonable business leader will assess the risks and at least have a plan to get around them, and who knows they may be working towards that and hence the layoffs. It seems they tried to go after the golden goose (build a platform) but instead existing platforms basically ate their lunch. That coupled with the changing social dynamics from reopening were too strong headwinds to weather with their current business model. What this means is they are basically back to square one, and need to build a new product and pray they get to PMF. If they are lucky they will have some reusable components. It will be interesting to see what happens to them and what they choose to go after in the next stage of their journey.