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I dunno, most reports from the time (and a quick Google AI overview just now) mentioned the cuts largely focused on T&S and moderation teams. Even the ML teams
by keeda 7mo ago
I dunno, most reports from the time (and a quick Google AI overview just now) mentioned the cuts largely focused on T&S and moderation teams. Even the ML teams he cut reprotedly were working more on safety and integrity issues. Many who worked on "woke" issues were also cut, but the line between T&S and "woke" gets blurry quickly.
To be fair, this could be due to the bias in reporting, as media outlets may have had incentives for over-emphasizing the T&S angle.
I do not deny there was bloat. There was bloat in most tech firms at the time. But I don't think it was 80% bloat. My post was to explain how, even if T&S / moderation seems like a small function, it can require an unexpectedly large headcount -- probably even more for a pure-UGC company like Twitter -- and so could realistically account for the bulk of the cuts.
- tptacek 7mo agoCome on. Zillions of developers have complained about getting RIF'd. It's not a mystery. I don't like Musk's Twitter. I don't like Musk. But pretending isn't getting us anywhere.
- keeda 7mo agoI'm not sure I follow. Assuming you mean the zillions of developers that got RIF'd at Twitter, do we know how many were bloat versus working on the T&S and related functions? I tend to believe the latter based on media reports and because that has clearly had an impact on the product.
- tptacek 7mo agoIt's OK if our premises are too far apart to hash this out. No, I don't think shredding T&S is one of the principal components of the giant Twitter RIF. Yes, T&S got killed; yes, that's bad. No, you can't explain how Musk manages to keep Twitter technically functioning as well as it does by pointing to T&S.
- keeda 7mo agoTotally fair. That said, I'll leave a mention of a plausible theory I have for how Elon -- and the rest of the industry have been managing to keep things running with all these layoffs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45192092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45192092 Again, I'll admit Twitter and all other companies had bloat. But based on these industry-wide reports about record levels of burnout, inside knowledge of at least one company that I thought had unjustified layoffs, and a large number of conversations I've been having with connections across the tech industry, I think these layoffs have long gone far beyond the bloat.