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Relax, I was being hyperbolic. Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Sure it's worth less, but i

Relax, I was being hyperbolic. Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Sure it's worth less, but it works mostly fine. Yes spotify needs more than 10 employees, but did it need 10000? After these rounds of cuts, will it still need 7500 next year? I surmise it can settle much lower than what people expect, and maybe their service/product would have been better without having that many brains adding creep/degrading the product (subject to opinion) in the first place.

addicted 3y ago
> Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? The difference is the person you’re responding to doesn’t claim to know the answer to something it’s almost impossible for either of you to know the answer (unless you have inside knowledge or have done a deep dive on Spotify). > How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money and it’s hemorrhaging users. Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. The point of having employees in a major platform based company isn’t just to “work fine”, but to out compete massive trillion dollar companies while at the same time fending off tiny 2-3 person startups which may come with a completely new idea or approach out of nowhere. Twitter’s reduced workforce only allows it to exist but has made it extremely hard to actually defend from those forces. And to the extent it is succeeding to retain any users it’s almost entirely because of the advantages built by the company when it had a much larger workforce. The only caveat I will add is that a lot of tech companies over hired during the pandemic due to FOMO more than anything else, and we know this because most of their CEOs have said as much.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money Was Twitter in any way profitable before Musk took over, or was it coasting on zero interest investor money on the premise that "one day" it will be profitable? >Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. Competitors rise all the time, the question is which have the sticking power to beat Twitter.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    You can google this, but the short answer is yes, Twitter was profitable before the takeover. https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-incom...
  - mmiyer 3y ago
    Twitter had multiple profitable quarters before Musk tool over
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  >Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money Always has no? > and it’s hemorrhaging users. No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. > Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. Threads is a ghost town, Bluesky has pushed like 1 update this year, mastodon while it's found it's niche it will always be a niche because normal people don't understand or care what federation is. Don't believe everything you read from people aggrieved by a service.
  - metabagel 3y ago
    > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. Really? I’m not sure I believe it. Elon promised to get rid of the bots, but when I briefly stick my toe in that open sewer, I get the impression that there is a lot of astroturfing.
  - zer0tonin 3y ago
    > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. My twitter feed is literally a ghost town
  - twelve40 3y ago
    ...but if you use the word "extremely" enough times maybe everyone will finally see that they just can't exist without 100000 programmers </s>
  - dewey 3y ago
    > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. You can't claim that if there's no official source for it and the only source is Elon (With a track record of lying) posting about it on his service.
    - whywhywhywhy 3y ago
      Let's be honest, no source would ever satisfy your bias.
rospaya 3y ago
> Relax, I was being hyperbolic I see this type of hyperbole twice a week on HN and it's getting really boring.
- code_runner 3y ago
  sounds like you must only log in to HN about twice a week in that case..... a lot of lazy/bad takes on here that equate to "large company bad". Definitely gets a reddit vibe especially if its an announcement like this.
pradn 3y ago
New bots follow me on Twitter every day, spamming my notifications. They're very obviously a bot bc their name and lack of posts. I rarely had that problem before the downsizing. I think my follow count went up 20% in the past year, nearly all bots. Otherwise, the service is generally reliable.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
> Relax, I was being hyperbolic. Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? Record labels are far more awkward to deal with legally than video game publishers, so wouldn't be shocked if they needed X more lawyers at least.
apwell23 3y ago
> How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Hasnt this been done to death on hackernews ( and elsewhere) . why do we keep beating this dead horse
surgical_fire 3y ago
> Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? I don't know. Maybe? Nowhere it says Spotify have 10k employees in IT/Engineering. Perhaps a large portion is in Legal or Compliance. Dealing with regulations around music distribution on a global scale looks pretty complicated to me. Also, Spotify does streaming, which is a fundamentally different - and more complex -business than e-commerce of digital goods (which is Valve's business model). Ultimately, my point still stands. Spotify has competitors. If they are so bloated, nothing should stop a leaner competitor to eat their lunch. > How's twitter working with 80% less employees? I didn't use Twitter before Musk took over, and I don't use now. So it's difficult for me to compare their two incarnations. I'll just mention that on a recent interview Musk said (in very colorful language) that the current advertiser boycott may kill the company. So my guess is that Twitter is not doing very well with only 20% of the workforce.
- ghaff 3y ago
  In Twitter/X's case, I'm not sure how much is related to large cuts in headcount and how much is that Musk's behavior just cause a lot of people and companies to re-evaluate their relationship with Twitter. I know for me so many people either went elsewhere or, probably more commonly, decided they didn't need this sort of service that I cut way back on my use.
dang 3y ago
I realize the GP was being provocative, but please omit swipes (like "Relax") from your comments as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

addicted 3y ago

> Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? The difference is the person you’re responding to doesn’t claim to know the answer to something it’s almost impossible for either of you to know the answer (unless you have inside knowledge or have done a deep dive on Spotify). > How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money and it’s hemorrhaging users. Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. The point of having employees in a major platform based company isn’t just to “work fine”, but to out compete massive trillion dollar companies while at the same time fending off tiny 2-3 person startups which may come with a completely new idea or approach out of nowhere. Twitter’s reduced workforce only allows it to exist but has made it extremely hard to actually defend from those forces. And to the extent it is succeeding to retain any users it’s almost entirely because of the advantages built by the company when it had a much larger workforce. The only caveat I will add is that a lot of tech companies over hired during the pandemic due to FOMO more than anything else, and we know this because most of their CEOs have said as much.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money Was Twitter in any way profitable before Musk took over, or was it coasting on zero interest investor money on the premise that "one day" it will be profitable? >Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. Competitors rise all the time, the question is which have the sticking power to beat Twitter.
- coldpie 3y ago
  You can google this, but the short answer is yes, Twitter was profitable before the takeover. https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-incom...
- mmiyer 3y ago
  Twitter had multiple profitable quarters before Musk tool over
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
>Extremely poorly. It’s hemorrhaging money Always has no? > and it’s hemorrhaging users. No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. > Competitors are arising where almost none existed for about a decade and a half. Threads is a ghost town, Bluesky has pushed like 1 update this year, mastodon while it's found it's niche it will always be a niche because normal people don't understand or care what federation is. Don't believe everything you read from people aggrieved by a service.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. Really? I’m not sure I believe it. Elon promised to get rid of the bots, but when I briefly stick my toe in that open sewer, I get the impression that there is a lot of astroturfing.
- zer0tonin 3y ago
  > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. My twitter feed is literally a ghost town
- twelve40 3y ago
  ...but if you use the word "extremely" enough times maybe everyone will finally see that they just can't exist without 100000 programmers </s>
- dewey 3y ago
  > No it's not, it has hit multiple usage records this year. You can't claim that if there's no official source for it and the only source is Elon (With a track record of lying) posting about it on his service.
  - whywhywhywhy 3y ago
    Let's be honest, no source would ever satisfy your bias.

rospaya 3y ago

> Relax, I was being hyperbolic I see this type of hyperbole twice a week on HN and it's getting really boring.

code_runner 3y ago
sounds like you must only log in to HN about twice a week in that case..... a lot of lazy/bad takes on here that equate to "large company bad". Definitely gets a reddit vibe especially if its an announcement like this.

pradn 3y ago

New bots follow me on Twitter every day, spamming my notifications. They're very obviously a bot bc their name and lack of posts. I rarely had that problem before the downsizing. I think my follow count went up 20% in the past year, nearly all bots. Otherwise, the service is generally reliable.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

> Relax, I was being hyperbolic. Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? Record labels are far more awkward to deal with legally than video game publishers, so wouldn't be shocked if they needed X more lawyers at least.

apwell23 3y ago

> How's twitter working with 80% less employees? Hasnt this been done to death on hackernews ( and elsewhere) . why do we keep beating this dead horse

surgical_fire 3y ago

> Does spotify need 20x more employees than Valve/STEAM? I don't know. Maybe? Nowhere it says Spotify have 10k employees in IT/Engineering. Perhaps a large portion is in Legal or Compliance. Dealing with regulations around music distribution on a global scale looks pretty complicated to me. Also, Spotify does streaming, which is a fundamentally different - and more complex -business than e-commerce of digital goods (which is Valve's business model). Ultimately, my point still stands. Spotify has competitors. If they are so bloated, nothing should stop a leaner competitor to eat their lunch. > How's twitter working with 80% less employees? I didn't use Twitter before Musk took over, and I don't use now. So it's difficult for me to compare their two incarnations. I'll just mention that on a recent interview Musk said (in very colorful language) that the current advertiser boycott may kill the company. So my guess is that Twitter is not doing very well with only 20% of the workforce.

ghaff 3y ago
In Twitter/X's case, I'm not sure how much is related to large cuts in headcount and how much is that Musk's behavior just cause a lot of people and companies to re-evaluate their relationship with Twitter. I know for me so many people either went elsewhere or, probably more commonly, decided they didn't need this sort of service that I cut way back on my use.

dang 3y ago

I realize the GP was being provocative, but please omit swipes (like "Relax") from your comments as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html