[jamesroseman]

I think the answer is that when Twitter IPO'd there were very clear expectations for the company to perform similar to its perceived contemporaries: Facebook and Google. If you look at the perpetually meteoric rise of GOOGL or FB, it's understandable why shareholders are disappointed -- Twitter burns a lot of capital.

So, if its growth has petered out and this is as much money as it can produce, it's understandable to me the line of thinking would then be to cut costs as much as possible so the profit margin can grow. 4k people makes sense when your company is adding value every day, but to these shareholders those aren't translating into results.

My $0.02 -- thoughts?

> Personally I dream of making a living establishing a patio11-type software business. Something where I can do a high quality job and own all of the decision-making.

I have that dream too, but when I have it I always wonder if given that situation I'd be able to stop myself from wanting my baby to keep growing, even if it meant giving up those decision-making abilities and taking on investors.

[chrissnell]

In 1994, I registered bikeworld.com and helped my dad put his local bicycle store chain online. It was wild from day one. We didn't even have a proper shopping cart for the first few months--you had to fax or email your order and credit card--but the orders just came in. I was fresh out of the early days of Silicon Valley dotcom startups and I begged my dad to let us take some VC money and go big with this thing. I wanted to do a printed catalog (all the big players did one at this time) and hire some marketing people and front end designers.

Dad wouldn't have it. He had run this successful brick and mortar business since 1971 and there was just no way that he was going to trade away ownership for cash to get growth that he didn't want. The stores afforded him amonthly draw that supported him and paid for a nice house and the freedom to pursue his hobbies. He was in his early fifties and all of the tough years taught him to recognize the good thing he had.

It was a great lesson for me and his experience as a businessman is a big part of the reason why I never pursued entrepreneurship myself, opting instead for the stable life of a salaryman.