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by manjose2018 1312 days ago

Whatsapp had 1B users with far fewer eng, why is Twitter so big?

Here is my back of the envelope math of how big I think the company should be for their main offering. Over the past years Twitter has acquired a ton of companies, but I'm going to leave them out of this equation.

Eng (250)

===========

Backend/Storage: 100 eng

Subscriptions: 50

Front-End: 50 eng

iOS App: 20 eng

Android App: 20 eng

UX: 10

Abuse/Moderation (200) ========================= Abuse: 100 Moderation: 100

Marketing/Sales (210)

=======================

PR/Marketing: 30

Ad Sales: 180

Mgmt/overhead (40)

=====================

Legal/GDPR/compliance: 20

HR/Recruiting : 10

CEO/CFO/etc.: 10

What do you think? How far off am I? If more people turn to subscriptions perhaps the abuse/moderation team will shrink in the future.

8 comments

ssnistfajen 1312 days ago

Twitter isn't the same product(s) as Whatsapp. That difference is noticeable within 1 minute of opening both applications.

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mrweasel 1312 days ago

Yes, WhatsApp seem more complex.

In all seriousness, I think many of us are falling into the trap that the PayPal guy fell into. Twitter isn't just the app and the website. So it's much harder to run and maintain than it seems like from the outside. If it was just the Tweets, why would they ever need more than 10 iOS developers for instance?

If we cut Twitter into what it is on the surface, and perhaps lose some data retention, then sliming down the engineering organization significantly should be possible with the right people. Not to 50, that's really low for a platform the size of Twitter. That being said: 7500 employees is also way to many for what they do, or at least for how little money they make.

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ssnistfajen 1312 days ago

>Yes, WhatsApp seem more complex.

Nobody asked Musk to acquire the company. The only reason it went through is thanks to a long line of court rulings starting with Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. that prioritized shareholder interest over every other stakeholders. You can't expect to practically traumatize a company's culture like this and expect all the "right people" to still stay here and give their 100%.

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mrweasel 1312 days ago

>Yes, WhatsApp seem more complex.

So that was meant as a joke, probably should have left that out.

>Nobody asked Musk to acquire the company

Technically I believe he was forced to buy in the end, but no. You're right, no one asked him to do anything. The shareholders saw an out. They had a failed company on their hands and now the PayPal guy shows up and stupidly promises to buy the whole thing for way more than it's actually worth. Of cause they are going to dump the stock on the idiot, by (legal)forced if they had to. Now it's Musks problem. He has zero ideals when it comes to Twitter culture. He doesn't care. All he currently see is 7500 people who needs a paycheck, paid by him. He stupidly thought he could run Twitter successfully, like most of us HN backseat drivers. When he realized that he can't it was to late and now he stuck and have to either save the company or at least not lose to much more money.

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TylerE 1312 days ago

You really think a total of 200 moderators could come even close?

Thats 1.7M tweets a day per moderator. A bit over 3500 per minute.

And thats assuming they work 7 days a week, never get sick, never take vacation.

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davidguetta 1312 days ago

Most of moderation is typically outsourced so it doesnt countin this list

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DrBenCarson 1312 days ago

On WhatsApp, your "post" can be seen by everyone you've exchanged phone numbers with. On Twitter, your "post" can be seen by the entire world.

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