from Hacker News

Musk Urges More Companies to Shrink Like Twitter

by neilfrndes on 5/25/23, 9:06 AM with 3 comments

• by senttoschool on 5/25/23, 9:27 AM

  >“When the acquisition closed, I would say it was analogous to being teleported to a plane that was plunging to the ground with its engines on fire [and] the controls don’t work,” he said. “We had to do some pretty heavy-handed cost-cutting.”

  Correct me if I'm wrong but Twitter, prior to Musk, was operationally cash flow positive (ignoring cash used for acquisitions). They weren't plunging nor were they anywhere close to bankruptcy. They just weren't FB/Google in advertisement dominant but their finances were healthy.

  The reason Twitter had to make drastic cuts was because Musk's loans, used to acquire Twitter, were unloaded onto Twitter's balance sheets.

  As to Musk's main point of the article, he's not wrong in general but it needs context. He's right that the larger the company, the less productive employees are. Many companies over hired during Covid and most of them have already cut back. But try cutting staff by 85% and then asking the rest to pick up the work at a company where people aren't being paid FAANG salaries and has no feel-good mission - which is the majority of tech companies.

  In addition, aren't most remaining Twitter employees tied to visas so they can't risk leaving? If the visa-tied Twitter employees leave, then the only ones who want to work at Twitter are those desperate for a job, crypto fanatics, alt right folks?

• by thesuperbigfrog on 5/25/23, 1:55 PM

  With reduced staff and heavy-handed, know-nothing leadership Twitter has become less relevant and more prone to technical failures as was recently showcased:

  https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdow...

• by gryfft on 5/25/23, 10:55 AM

  "Musk Urges More Companies To Apply Further Downward Pressure On Tech Salaries"