Why is Twitter laying off 1 in 12 employees?

Brand-new Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that he will cut up to 336 positions.

|
Richard Drew/AP/File
A Twitter app appears on an iPhone screen, October 2013.

Subject line: "A more focused Twitter."

In an all-staff email, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – who became the company’s chief executive just 8 days ago – announced plans to cut "up to 336" jobs, or about 1 out of every 12 Twitter employees worldwide.

His "more focused" company, Mr. Dorsey wrote in the email, will zero in "on the experiences which will have the greatest impact" because "the world needs a strong Twitter." 

That last sentiment may be more than self-aggrandizing corporate-speak. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg addressed the United Nations just two weeks ago about their plans to bring Internet access to the world by 2020. 

"When people have access to the tools and knowledge of the internet, they have access to opportunities that make life better for all of us," said a UN declaration signed by Mr. Zuckerberg and Bill and Melinda Gates.

Twitter, often cited as the catalyst for the Arab Spring, stands to take a major role in the globalization of the world wide web.

But first, Dorsey has to make Twitter profitable, noted Sharon Gaudin in Computer World, citing hiring practices that have outpaced growth. Cutting its workforce and shoring up costs – including halting expansions of Twitter's San Francisco office – may finally make the social platform profitable.

On its site, Twitter brags that 50 percent of its employees are engineers, but Dorsey’s email suggested shifting priorities. He said the layoffs will target engineering and product development, resulting in a "smaller and nimbler team," though he emphasized that engineering will remain the largest department.

Since launching in 2006, Twitter has seen a steady rise in users, with the largest uptick between 2010 and 2012, though its numbers are inflated by people who set up a Twitter handle but never tweet.

Dorsey appears to be trying to make Twitter's reams of content more accessible, a major potential improvement for a text-heavy app that some users find off-putting, Bloomberg reports.

Twitter needs a new "roadmap" to streamline its different channels, said Dorsey, including Vine, an app for creating and sharing short videos that Twitter acquired in 2012, and Periscope, a live-streaming app that came under the Twitter umbrella in 2015.

"This isn’t easy. But it is right," Dorsey wrote.  "This is another step to get there."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why is Twitter laying off 1 in 12 employees?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/1013/Why-is-Twitter-laying-off-1-in-12-employees
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe