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Twitter is facing mounting debt, large quarterly loses, and lost tens of billions of dollars in valuation. I wouldn't use that as a success story. From the WSJ

Twitter is facing mounting debt, large quarterly loses, and lost tens of billions of dollars in valuation. I wouldn't use that as a success story. From the WSJ, so no complaining about liberal bias. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-elon-musks-twitter-faces-mountain-of-debt-falling-revenue-and-surging-costs-11669042132 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-elon-musks-twitter-faces-mo...

linuxftw 3y ago
All of that is true, but it was true before Elon took over, now they just have fewer employees to pay, so if they can turn the advertising back around, they'll be in a better cashflow situation.
- acdha 3y ago
  You’re leaving out the massive amount of debt he added to the company as part of the buyout. That means they need to do something like triple their most profitable quarter just to be where they were before the buyout.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    But that has nothing to do with the layoffs.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Nobody said it did? I was responding to a claim that they could end up in a better financial situation because they have fewer staff, which would be an easier argument if there weren’t so many extra billions in debt on the balance sheet now.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  > ... now they just have fewer employees to pay, so if they can turn the advertising back around, they'll be in a better cashflow situation They cut ~$1B in operating expenses, to go from $4.73B to $3.31B in advertising revenue, and forecasts don't look much better [0] What has Twitter left to offer? They don't have the manpower to add new functionality, and they are bleeding advertising money. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271337/twitters-advertising-revenue-worldwide https://www.statista.com/statistics/271337/twitters-advertis...
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Twitter could have fired nobody and the advertising revenue would have still declined, those two things were mostly unrelated. I've never personally believed in Twitter as a business model, so you're preaching to the choir there. As far as innovation, though, Elon has stated he wants X to be the 'everything app' similar to whatever it is they use in China, in particular payments.
    - lesuorac 3y ago
      > Twitter could have fired nobody and the advertising revenue would have still declined, those two things were mostly unrelated. They're not unrelated. Advertisers like to know that their ads work; you need staff to do that. Look at how much tailored the FaceBook ads were vs Twitter [1]. Advertisers would be sticking with Twitter if they thought the ads were worth it. > Facebook targeting allows advertisers to drill down, ensuring your ad is targeted at those most interested in your ads’ content. > The Facebook ad targeting based on interests looked like this: > Science > Mari Smith > Joel Comm > Social science > HootSuite > Post Planner > Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn > Kim Garst > Sprout Social > Social Media Examiner > Buffer > Twitter’s targeting is not quite as refined, but we targeted these keywords: > instagrammarketing > socialmediamarketing > socialmediaexaminer [1]: https://www.agorapulse.com/social-media-lab/twitter-ads-cpc-facebook-cpc/ https://www.agorapulse.com/social-media-lab/twitter-ads-cpc-...
      - linuxftw 3y ago
        Facebook's features really don't have much to do with advertisers leaving due to twitter firing a bunch of employees.
        lesuorac 3y ago
        FaceBook's features are just an example of how bad Twitter's targeting is; but also it is a zero-sum market. Nike has an advertising budget; if those dollars go to FaceBook they don't go to Twitter. Having worse engineering than your competition is a real problem. However, my point is that the top parent's claim of Twitter's problems aren't engineering is wrong. Their targeting is god awful to the point that Advertisers don't want to bother with it anymore. If they had better ad targeting (aka Engineering) then Advertisers would sweep the problems under the rug. There are also many non-engineering examples of this. - "If Jeffrey Dahmer ran a 4.3, we'd call it an 'eating disorder.'" - Russian Oil / Gas is still buyable by western countries. - Lack of repercussions for Jamal Khasoggi assassination [1] - Massive amounts of advertising on FaceBook post-Cambridge Analytica - USA Companies selling your active location (to journalists pretending to be not-journalists). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi#Economic_and_political_boycotts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago
  It was not. They are losing far more money because they removed the content moderation team and advertisers don't like their brands showing up next to questionable content. The buyout added a ton of debt to Twitter. It's far worse now.
lhnz 3y ago
These issues are caused by (1) the buy-out by Elon Musk involving a large amount of debt, and (2) Elon Musk annoying "woke" advertisers who have subsequently deserted the platform. The actual engineering hasn't been as affected or rather while it has been affected it hasn't been affected to the magnitude that you might expect given the size of the lay-offs.
- ctvo 3y ago
  > The actual engineering hasn't been as affected or rather while it has been affected it hasn't been affected to the magnitude that you might expect given the size of the lay-offs. Are new features being added? Honest question -- I don't use the product. Keeping the lights on for a product with 10% of the workforce isn't shocking or new. We do it in this industry all the time. Can you iterate and ship with 10% of the workforce? That's much more impressive.
  - lhnz 3y ago
    Features are both being added and removed. Actually, the main difference is that more feature are being added than were before, but this is being done in a more haphazard way. Sometimes things appear to break but are then fixed. It's not awful though, is what I'm saying.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    I think the point is that twitter doesnt need new features. Twitter can just be twitter.
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago
  I wouldn't expect too much change right away after a lay off that size. Any decent engineering team will have processes, workflows, CI/CD, etc... in place and if all the engineers went away today, most places would still run just fine for a while, maybe even a long time if the systems are set up correctly. The question becomes what happens next? How quickly will they be able to leverage new advantageous technologies? What happens when that rare thing breaks and you have no institutional knowledge? How do you solve difficult problems like content moderation? I'm curious to see where Twitter will be a couple years from now in terms of how it's engineered. I would expect a slow decline in expectations and results.

linuxftw 3y ago

All of that is true, but it was true before Elon took over, now they just have fewer employees to pay, so if they can turn the advertising back around, they'll be in a better cashflow situation.

acdha 3y ago
You’re leaving out the massive amount of debt he added to the company as part of the buyout. That means they need to do something like triple their most profitable quarter just to be where they were before the buyout.
- Jensson 3y ago
  But that has nothing to do with the layoffs.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Nobody said it did? I was responding to a claim that they could end up in a better financial situation because they have fewer staff, which would be an easier argument if there weren’t so many extra billions in debt on the balance sheet now.
manuelabeledo 3y ago
> ... now they just have fewer employees to pay, so if they can turn the advertising back around, they'll be in a better cashflow situation They cut ~$1B in operating expenses, to go from $4.73B to $3.31B in advertising revenue, and forecasts don't look much better [0] What has Twitter left to offer? They don't have the manpower to add new functionality, and they are bleeding advertising money. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271337/twitters-advertising-revenue-worldwide https://www.statista.com/statistics/271337/twitters-advertis...
- linuxftw 3y ago
  Twitter could have fired nobody and the advertising revenue would have still declined, those two things were mostly unrelated. I've never personally believed in Twitter as a business model, so you're preaching to the choir there. As far as innovation, though, Elon has stated he wants X to be the 'everything app' similar to whatever it is they use in China, in particular payments.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    > Twitter could have fired nobody and the advertising revenue would have still declined, those two things were mostly unrelated. They're not unrelated. Advertisers like to know that their ads work; you need staff to do that. Look at how much tailored the FaceBook ads were vs Twitter [1]. Advertisers would be sticking with Twitter if they thought the ads were worth it. > Facebook targeting allows advertisers to drill down, ensuring your ad is targeted at those most interested in your ads’ content. > The Facebook ad targeting based on interests looked like this: > Science > Mari Smith > Joel Comm > Social science > HootSuite > Post Planner > Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn > Kim Garst > Sprout Social > Social Media Examiner > Buffer > Twitter’s targeting is not quite as refined, but we targeted these keywords: > instagrammarketing > socialmediamarketing > socialmediaexaminer [1]: https://www.agorapulse.com/social-media-lab/twitter-ads-cpc-facebook-cpc/ https://www.agorapulse.com/social-media-lab/twitter-ads-cpc-...
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Facebook's features really don't have much to do with advertisers leaving due to twitter firing a bunch of employees.
      - lesuorac 3y ago
        FaceBook's features are just an example of how bad Twitter's targeting is; but also it is a zero-sum market. Nike has an advertising budget; if those dollars go to FaceBook they don't go to Twitter. Having worse engineering than your competition is a real problem. However, my point is that the top parent's claim of Twitter's problems aren't engineering is wrong. Their targeting is god awful to the point that Advertisers don't want to bother with it anymore. If they had better ad targeting (aka Engineering) then Advertisers would sweep the problems under the rug. There are also many non-engineering examples of this. - "If Jeffrey Dahmer ran a 4.3, we'd call it an 'eating disorder.'" - Russian Oil / Gas is still buyable by western countries. - Lack of repercussions for Jamal Khasoggi assassination [1] - Massive amounts of advertising on FaceBook post-Cambridge Analytica - USA Companies selling your active location (to journalists pretending to be not-journalists). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi#Economic_and_political_boycotts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
thinkingtoilet 3y ago
It was not. They are losing far more money because they removed the content moderation team and advertisers don't like their brands showing up next to questionable content. The buyout added a ton of debt to Twitter. It's far worse now.

lhnz 3y ago

These issues are caused by (1) the buy-out by Elon Musk involving a large amount of debt, and (2) Elon Musk annoying "woke" advertisers who have subsequently deserted the platform. The actual engineering hasn't been as affected or rather while it has been affected it hasn't been affected to the magnitude that you might expect given the size of the lay-offs.

ctvo 3y ago
> The actual engineering hasn't been as affected or rather while it has been affected it hasn't been affected to the magnitude that you might expect given the size of the lay-offs. Are new features being added? Honest question -- I don't use the product. Keeping the lights on for a product with 10% of the workforce isn't shocking or new. We do it in this industry all the time. Can you iterate and ship with 10% of the workforce? That's much more impressive.
- lhnz 3y ago
  Features are both being added and removed. Actually, the main difference is that more feature are being added than were before, but this is being done in a more haphazard way. Sometimes things appear to break but are then fixed. It's not awful though, is what I'm saying.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I think the point is that twitter doesnt need new features. Twitter can just be twitter.
thinkingtoilet 3y ago
I wouldn't expect too much change right away after a lay off that size. Any decent engineering team will have processes, workflows, CI/CD, etc... in place and if all the engineers went away today, most places would still run just fine for a while, maybe even a long time if the systems are set up correctly. The question becomes what happens next? How quickly will they be able to leverage new advantageous technologies? What happens when that rare thing breaks and you have no institutional knowledge? How do you solve difficult problems like content moderation? I'm curious to see where Twitter will be a couple years from now in terms of how it's engineered. I would expect a slow decline in expectations and results.