So how is X still working after so many people fired year ago?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38822927

5 8 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I don't understand this part, I thought site will be not stable after so many people fired. But still works well %99 of the time? So what were those people actually working on while it was a public company?

SuperNinKenDo• 3 years ago

There's a couple possibilities. The main possibilities are that those people were totally unnecessary and firing them was completely justified; otherwise, they were doing useful work, and the company is either able to run on the fumes of their work for a few years before things really start to fall apart, or else what they were working on was essentially projects that were completed but don't require so much ongoing maintenance.

It's probably all three and will depend on the person in question which of these 2.5 categories they fit into.

There's also of course the part where people were doing work considered useful based on the goals of the prior company leadership, but who's services aren't missed by the new leadership in meeting their goals.

codingdave• 3 years ago

I have zero internal knowledge, so this is all just speculation, but a few things are possible:

1) They really were over-staffed.

2) The people who remain have simplified it to match the new staffing.

3) The system was stable enough to not need constant interventions and updates, so it keeps on running... but the people still hope nothing breaks because they have no idea how to handle a true emergency, and it is just a matter of time until they are truly hosed.

gtirloni2• 3 years ago

I think all 3 points are true and valid. #3 is the final consequence (which is already happening, Twitter is much less stable than before).

akg_67• 3 years ago

Running a stable service/ maintaining a product doesn’t require lot of people. But to improve, experiment, R&D, introducing new features, functionality, new products and services, new customer/user targets, growth requires lot more people. X might be stable but is it growing? If a business is not growing … … …

hnthrowaway0328• 3 years ago

Actually, a second though, I'd probably prefer X to NOT improve, experiment and introduce new products. Most of those is just going to reduce UX and probably collect more data anyway.

The only thing I'm worried about is security, but my data is probably already been sold multiple times so whatever...

notahacker• 3 years ago

A lot of the laid off people weren't there to run the web service either, they were there to keep advertisers happy...

gtirloni2• 3 years ago

That's the point the Elon Musk critics made, in reverse. I see what you did there :)

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

Maybe some enterprise cruft and empires. Maybe some people doing stuff that will prevent Twitter getting sued in the future.

More people can get less done due to communication inefficiency.

So how is X still working after so many people fired year ago?

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