Comment by jscheel
7 hours ago
Jack Dorsey has a habit of explosively increasing headcount. Twitter was so overweight that 80% were eliminated when Musk took over. Block's headcount grew from 3,900 to 12,500 in three years during Covid. Block's stock price has also tumbled from ~$275 to ~$54 since 2022. I think that the severance package is incredibly generous, and the willingness to communicate with those affected is admirable. But I also think that Dorsey is spinning a story to cover up for ZIRP-era mismanagement. AI provides the justification, with the hope that dumping 2x the work on the survivors won't crush them because AI tools will help. The bet may pay off, I'm just skeptical of the justification.
To be fair X has significantly declined as an experience since Elon laid of 80%. I assume many of those he laid off were soft skill people that helped curate the experience.
As you know, this is a subjective take. (I enjoy my experience there more now, for example, with less social politics in my feed.)
And their head of product claimed that X only has around 30 FT employees apparently working on it, so it's much more than 80% since then.
https://www.ndtv.com/feature/x-head-of-product-claims-compan...
Experience is usually a subjective thing. But it seems pretty clear to me. I’m was huge advocate of free speech and a political moderate but X made me question my priors on content moderation. There was genuinely heinous shit on my feed and i had no good way to filter it.
Just because you agree with the social politics the algorithm is throwing out now vs. before doesn't mean it's not political
I don't use that site much nowadays, but every time I do, I am shocked at just how many fucking bugs there are. This idea that they laid off whatever percentage of their workforce with no impact to the quality of the software is not based in reality whatsoever.
And don't get me started on the UX. Fucking dumpster fire of an experience. But network effects gonna network effect.
It has 30 FT people working on the core product. That isn't counting infra/ai/ads/legal/ etc.
yeah super great now that you can have gork put kids in bikinis
And twitter hasn't launched one single meaningful anything since.
If your definition of success is 'let's keep the codebase running and make sure servers don't go bust' then yes twitter is doing great with fewer people