It seems to me yet another confirmation that there is no man (or woman) for all seasons and all situations.

Musk looks like the disorganized mess he's making at Twitter, the kind of "visionary" we've all had to work with and who has sucked the will to live out of us: unreasonable expectations, constant changes of trajectory, the feeling that one well-spent night or one too many drinks for them would make our lives heaven or hell.

Zuck is spending billions on a bet that, frankly, seems like nothing more than a nerd's dream. I am cautious in my observation, and I think it is a caution shared by many, for who could have predicted the adoption of the automobile, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, social media? And so much leeway is given to this case as well, forgetting that other supposed "manifest destinies" of technology, such as flying cars and robotic sex dolls, have gone by the wayside partly because of technical limitations and partly because, in the end, no one cares about them, either for now or forever.

But we have seen the same ups and downs in many historical figures, the Churchills, the Napoleons, the Einsteins, who, after proving themselves to be brilliant as well as favored by the stars, failed to repeat later what gave them notoriety, success and admiration. Perhaps they ran out of luck, perhaps no one had the courage to tell them that it was time for retirement.

> It added more than 27,000 employees in 2020 and 2021, and added an additional 15,344 in the first nine months of this year—about a fourth of that in the most recent quarter.

So it basically doubled employee count in the last three years. Insanity.

I still, after all these years, hold the belief that facebook failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization. Having worked with those types of engineers, they can absolutely build exactly what is needed. But abstract and engaging product vision does not come easily with them. Outsourcing that capability to an attractive and charismatic product manager can never close that gap.

Housing in SF/SV is in trouble. Last week alone we had Twitter (3700), Stripe (1000), Lyft (700), Opendoor (550), and now FB (probably 5000). Obviously not every employee resides in that region but it's a good ~40% of the workforce [edit: of these companies].

This is a good thing, overall, in the same way that the dotcom crash was a good thing to clear the field of all the frauds.

I have the feeling that a few of those large companies are in need of a wake-up call.

https://archive.ph/BuNHQ

Is this a Tech/Social Media bust in the making with Twitter's latest woes as well? Or is the more a sign of many companies taking an opportunity to pull back on ad/marketing spending? Collectively that would impact social media and search platforms the most since that is their only real revenue source.

How do large companies typically decide who gets laid off? Do they set a target, then pass it down proportionately throughout the org tree? Do they often chop specific areas entirely and leave others unaffected? A mix of both? Something else?

As we say in Spanish "as I have limited time left in the Convent, I will shit inside". I am very surprised to see all these polite colleagues behaving like angels while being treated like office clips. Good luck to all of us.

Maybe if all these large tech companies get rid of the fat, we will get less cosmetic "updates"... these engineers don't even know what to do with their time.

Their share price is 73% down since the start of the year, certainly at some point their CEO and the person taking the actual decisions should take responsibility for it all, no?

If there's a severance payment, I wouldn't mind that, as I was planning on leaving the week after next.

So I guess it really has begun...

Earnings were terrible and all techs are getting punished.

Reminder that earlier this year the Fed implored corporate leaders to initiate hiring freezes and layoffs in order to lower inflation that they blamed on "high wages", and big tech companies were some of the first to line up to gleefully fall on that sword.

Man, if this is the end of social media, then it can’t come too soon.

These things tend to correlate. If A is laying off, I can do so as well without taking a too much PR flack and/or singling our firm out as one navigating firm-specific uncertain market conditions.

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Why would Elon Musk do this?

But seriously, almost every company reliant on ads has announced layoffs this year. Neither Twitter or Facebook layoffs should be a surprise.

I wonder if this is directly or indirectly related to what Elon Musk did at Twitter.

Article is paywalled - is there an estimate of how many will be laid off?

I have it from a trusted friend that a big Google layoff is coming soon as well. Stay safe out there

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Imagine that. Literally to be announced the day after Election Day. Some coincidence.

Overtly or not a lot of their staff were employed to "don't let Twitter overtake us", that dose start to look a bit redundant.

I wonder if we'll see the outpouring of barely disguised schadenfreude that accompanied the Twitter layoffs. Then again Zuckerberg seems like a boring drone of a person, whereas Musk has the sub-Trumpian "I alone can fix this" aura that seems to attract so many.