[jacquesm]

I think the way Twitter is faring is actually proof to the contrary, you can't lay off half your staff and expect the machine to just keep chugging along. You either design it from day #1 to be run with a very tight crew or it becomes a much larger machine with a different kind of profile.

Compare Instagram with Twitter.

[jerlam]

Counterpoint: Netflix, which did a lot of layoffs in the 2000s and as the story goes, redesigned their entire HR process around 'lean'.

[abdabab]

I’m sure Netflix in 2000 had a lot simpler tech stack than Twitter in 2020. However your point is taken.

[fragmede]

I'm not sure. 2000 is pre-AWS which means a lot of easy things were more complicated than they are now. Though Twitter is famously on-prem as well, so maybe they're equivalent?

[abdabab]

My impression is Twitter handles traffic and complexity in a different magnitude than Netflix in the 2000. Internet usage was significantly smaller back then.

On-prem is a good point though. I don’t know a lot about their core infra.