This is so true. Twitter built TikTok three years before TikTok itself launched. (Vine)
replyIf you aren't growing and building, then obviously you don't need the same amount of people only to maintain what you have. It doesn't take that many people to fix bugs, renew SSL certificates and plug security holes.
Game studios knew this since forever. Once you finish building, if you aren't building something new, then you're laying off. It's not a new thing Twitter/Musk has just discovered. Odd that whenever this is discussed, it's framed as if Twitter-then is the same thing as Twitter-now, minus most of its employees and doing just fine.
Exactly. As an SRE I can wrap up my job and leave within the quarter if changes and growth stop.
replyLaying off all those people didn't tank the site, it tanked the business!
twitter had an enormous trust&safety moderation org and a lot of the headcount reduction was simply automating trust&safety processes and removing humans as much as possible
replyIt’s true they had a decent sized trust and safety org that was basically all fired, but I don’t think it was anywhere close to most of the layoffs. They laid off ~75% of their headcount, do you really think the company was 3/4 (or even 1/4) trust and safety moderators?
replythey were moderating the whole world, think about that for a moment
replyI’m thinking about it, but I’m pretty sure the trust and safety org was far less than 75% of their employees. The low level human moderator work was almost all outside contractors, not employees included in their headcount and layoff numbers.
replySadly that didn't seem to work out very well for women and children.
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