[Frank777]

Originally Posted by drewprops I would say that you just scared me off of developing a new social media platform, but knowing what you know NOW, how successful do you think Mr. Dorsey will be with a new platform?

Dorsey's platform is great news. But if you think people are going crazy about Musk taking over Twitter, think of what will happen if Dorsey actually gets to implement his Web5 concept.

The people who crave control over everything will do their best to ensure it never happens.

[kscherer]

I'm gonna hold my critiquing until I see the "final product", whatever that happens to be. I don't use Twitter, but it sounds to me like it's been needing an overhaul, and the existing "for the rich-as-hell shareholders" business model wasn't interested in accomplishing anything useful.

Let someone new have a crack at it. Might be junk, might not. Tesla and SpaceX are very well-run companies whose products are game-changing. Musk might turn Twitter into a dumpster fire, and he might turn it into the coolest thing since sliced bread. Can lightning strike thrice? No idea, but the popcorn will be enjoyed in the interim.

[Ryan]

Based on what I'm hearing I honestly expect the company to implode in a matter of weeks.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by kscherer Can lightning strike thrice? No idea, but the popcorn will be enjoyed in the interim.

Musk just buys things going in the right direction and cashes in, he does nothing. As for Twitter, at best all it can do is get worse than it is now, it is social media after all.

[Ryan]

Layoffs just started rolling out, more than half the company will be gone by 9am PDT tomorrow.

[drewprops]

Can the company even FUNCTION in that state? Did he decide to just torpedo the company out of sheer spite? How will that affect his bottom line?

...

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Ryan Layoffs just started rolling out, more than half the company will be gone by 9am PDT tomorrow.

Let me guess, it's anyone who works from home.

[drewprops]

Oh, interesting guess.

I can envision a great bloodletting of WFH people who live near companies with HQs, but what about people who moved to now-famous Silicon Valley "runaway" locations with fat pipes, like Oklahoma?

Would we anticipate that movement to get cut off at the knees by the actions of one company?


...

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by drewprops Can the company even FUNCTION in that state? Did he decide to just torpedo the company out of sheer spite? How will that affect his bottom line? ...

It won't. He's firing 80% of the engineers responsible for keeping the infrastructure up and running.

Originally Posted by PB PM Let me guess, it's anyone who works from home.

Doesn't appear to be a factor in the layoffs, but the work from home policy has been killed.

[drewprops]

Wow. I don't even understand what the goal is at this point?

Another friend just sent me the letter that employees have been receiving, and since I do NOT work for Twitter I feel like it's okay for me to share it here (and not Ryan) - please take it down if there's a problem.

Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward. Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder. * If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email. * If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. * If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email peoplequestions@twitter.com. To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home. We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere. We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process. Thank you. Twitter

[drewprops]

Also, the friend said that Lisa Bloom is putting together a class action lawsuit... to look her up on... well, you know. LOL


...

[Ryan]

Oh I quit in July. I'm not on the chopping block.

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Ryan Oh I quit in July. I'm not on the chopping block.

I don't know how I missed this, and I'm apologizing ahead of time, but this made me bust out laughing.


...

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Ryan It won't. He's firing 80% of the engineers responsible for keeping the infrastructure up and running.

Most likely plans to outsource to a cheap firm, seems to a typical cost cutting move. Musk is in it for the money, regardless of what he says.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by PB PM Most likely plans to outsource to a cheap firm, seems to a typical cost cutting move. Musk is in it for the money, regardless of what he says.

I mean, good luck I guess? Almost everything at Twitter is custom-built from databases to observability to middleware to deploy tooling. The only thing off the shelf is the actual hardware. Twitter had to invent a lot of that stuff back in the day because there were no COTS solutions to those problems back then.

This isn't like hiring Accenture to run your Oracle installation or something.

He'll also have to do it quickly enough to prevent instability from scaring away users and advertisers. Whenever we hired someone we expected six months before they could even function as on-call, much less make meaningful contributions.

[Brad]

Musk orders Twitter to cut infrastructure costs by $1 billion - sources

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Elon Musk has directed Twitter Inc's teams to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings, according to two sources familiar with the matter and an internal Slack message reviewed by Reuters, raising concerns that Twitter could go down during high-traffic events like the U.S. midterm elections. The company is aiming to find between $1.5 million and $3 million a day in savings from servers and cloud services, said the Slack message, which referred to the project as "Deep Cuts Plan." … "(Musk) is willing to introduce that risk to meet these goals," the person said.

Oh, my sides. I'm sorry for all the engineers losing their jobs, but as someone with zero love of Twitter, I love watching this unfold.

Can't wait to see Twitter actually become Truth Social.

edit: For anyone who doesn't have experience in the tech industry, and if it isn't obvious, cutting IT infrastructure like this for a company whose very existence is predicated on that infrastructure is usually extremely short-sighted and often ends disastrously. It's one of the dumbest ways to "cut losses" to meet short-term goals.

[709]

🤔 Hmm. Coincidentally that about covers the annual interest payment* on the new debt Elon has saddled Twitter with (*up 20x from ~$50M last year). Business!

[turtle]

Yeah, this is fun to watch unfold for sure.

Will Twitter be nothing but a shell in a few years? Maybe, or Musk and his ability to build businesses might actually pull through with profit in the end.

[drewprops]

While I have personally found nothing to make me love Twitter, I have great sympathy for the people who have built real communities on the platform. The (seemingly) inevitable death of a platform is an irreplaceable cultural loss, for good or bad.

Since I perceive Twitter as a place to go hate on other people, I will not miss that (should it disappear).

But again, it's a shame for those who will lose so much.


...

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by turtle Yeah, this is fun to watch unfold for sure. Will Twitter be nothing but a shell in a few years? Maybe, or Musk and his ability to build businesses might actually pull through with profit in the end.

Paypal got worse the longer he owned it, Tesla is getting worse, SpaceX no clue never paid any attention to it, now it's Twitters turn. Will he find a way to make it turn a profit, yes, he does do that. So to answer the question, "Will Twitter be nothing but a shell in a few years?" I'll say, it won't even take that long, he's already half way there in a week.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by 709 🤔 Hmm. Coincidentally that about covers the annual interest payment* on the new debt Elon has saddled Twitter with (*up 20x from ~$50M last year). Business!

He’s already bleeding advertisers and just fired 90% of my org, which was making $400m/year and is now going to collapse because you can’t run that API platform with eight people. He’s gonna lose all that revenue.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by PB PM Most likely plans to outsource to a cheap firm, seems to a typical cost cutting move. Musk is in it for the money, regardless of what he says.

Then he’s… very optimistic. How is he going to get those $44B back any time soon?

For example, there were 400,000 verified users last year. If every single one of those got the new $8/mo plan (good luck with that), that’s… $38M in annual revenue. It’s basically nothing.

[Matsu]

I think most of his moves will be about appealing to the bro-investors who idolize him. I wouldn’t necessarily underestimate human stupidity: maybe he convinces enough of them that he will “save” free speech that they run up the stock enough for him to recoup his investment. But $44B is a lot of scratch, even Trump’s considerable fundraising cons haven’t cashed in that much.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by chucker Then he’s… very optimistic. How is he going to get those $44B back any time soon? For example, there were 400,000 verified users last year. If every single one of those got the new $8/mo plan (good luck with that), that’s… $38M in annual revenue. It’s basically nothing.

Advertising, like every other social media platform. Sure some advertisers dumped Twitter because Musk took over, but one snake is as good as the next, they just have to find new ones. At least I figure that is his theory anyway.

Personally I never got why anyone would invest in these clearly sinking ships (Twitter, Meta/Facebook etc). I hold to my assertion that Musk is an idiot who got lucky.

[Matsu]

Judging by how much time phones suck out of everyone’s day, I have to imagine that a properly deployed advertising algorithm can be very profitable. No matter where I am, some sizeable percentage of the people are staring at their phones, that’s got to add up for someone.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by PB PM Advertising, like every other social media platform. Sure some advertisers dumped Twitter because Musk took over, but one snake is as good as the next, they just have to find new ones. At least I figure that is his theory anyway. Personally I never got why anyone would invest in these clearly sinking ships (Twitter, Meta/Facebook etc). I hold to my assertion that Musk is an idiot who got lucky.

Originally Posted by Matsu Judging by how much time phones suck out of everyone’s day, I have to imagine that a properly deployed advertising algorithm can be very profitable. No matter where I am, some sizeable percentage of the people are staring at their phones, that’s got to add up for someone.

The problem for him is that the big money in advertising comes from a relatively short list of players, and they're already bailing. There are only so many Unilever, General Mills and Coca-Cola sized brands and conglomerates in the world.

One snake is not as good as the rest here. The long tail of advertising is primarily direct response: ads that are trying to lead to immediate conversions. Twitter excels in brand advertising, which just tries to raise general awareness. The long tail of DR ads can indeed be very profitable and it's the reason Facebook is worth so much money, but Twitter doesn't play in that particular sandbox, for a few reasons.

First, Twitter collects an order of magnitude less personal data than Meta or Google. So targeting is just a hell of a lot harder. Second, the audience is an order of magnitude smaller than those platforms. Third, Twitter has just never offered the sort of ad formats DR advertisers need. Are those solvable? Sure. In the near term? No.

The big money in brand advertising is all committed at annual newfronts. Usually Twitter would book hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spend commitments from the big players. This year, very little because Elon scared them away. This is the double-edged sword of brand advertising: the big brands buy it in huge chunks so you can make a ton of money off a small number of customers, but that sale is based almost entirely on trust because it's so hard to measure the effectiveness of brand ads compared to DR ads. If you break that trust it's hard to get it back and Elon just fired all the people at Twitter who were trusted by those brands.

As long as you keep booking sales at newfronts the party continues. Now it's stopped and it's not clear Elon can start it again.

[Ryan]

Can confirm.

Morons.

[drewprops]

I had this conversation with someone whose wife was part of a large fire/retire-off at Coca-Cola. In less than a year they were turning to the former employees, forced to offer significant raises.

...

[chucker]

Originally Posted by PB PM Advertising, like every other social media platform. Sure some advertisers dumped Twitter because Musk took over, but one snake is as good as the next, they just have to find new ones. At least I figure that is his theory anyway.

Yeah, but he has to increase ad revenue/lower cost, because the company now has a loan to pay off.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by chucker Yeah, but he has to increase ad revenue/lower cost, because the company now has a loan to pay off.

Which is why he fired so many people, still likely clueless as to what most of them did, but it could be a plan to try and rehire some as contractors for lower pay. Another common cost cutting scheme.

Let’s not forget to add all the severance pay, and likely wrongful dismissal cases they’ll get hit with.

We’ll see how it pans out, but Musk didn’t buy twitter out of the goodness of his heart, so he must have some plan to make money.