

If I were running Twitter. - orangethirty
http://orangethirty.blogspot.com/2012/08/if-i-were-running-twitter.html

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benatkin
Good for a laugh. The terrible advice starts early, though. If you start
hiring developers without a good screening process a large percent of them
will be developers who can't find a job anywhere else, often for good reasons.
Classic Joel Spolsky.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html>

~~~
orangethirty
Let's do a quick fill in the blank quizz here.

If you start hiring _______ without a good screening process a large number of
them will be _______ who can't find a job anywhere else, often for good
reasons.

    
    
        a. developers
        b. managers
        c. plumbers
        d. mechanics
    

I didn't say I would keep them all, did I? :)

~~~
mcpie
Firing people is fucking expensive.

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rheide
It amuses me that only the very last item on the list is about _making_ money,
rather than spending it. Yes, if I had a billion billion dollars and a fantasy
pony castle then I would also have a team of super hackers that would make my
every twitter wish come true.

Other than that: yes, that would be an awesome way to run a company. But it
seems that the bigger the companies get, the more they shy away from that
structure (obvious exception: Valve).

~~~
orangethirty
It is satire with a twist (tweet?) of truth behind it. My point is that I
would focus on exploiting the user base in order to find ways to be
profitable. That takes lots of hackers, and less middle managers. It would be
an awesome way to run a company, and I wish someone would give me the chance
to even work in one like that.

You rlast sentence is true. Bigger companies seem to mostly focus on
themselves. Guess its a side-effect of bureucracy, dilber-style management,
and MBAs.

~~~
ghx
Throwing more developers at a problem doesn't always help things. Sometimes,
it can actually makes things much worse. One very talented middle-manager can
often lead to more productivity than adding 20 inexperienced developers to the
mix.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month>

~~~
orangethirty
Oh, I agree. I don't have an idea of how to properly run such enterprise, but
had fun playing pretend. Though I'm serious when I say that I'd love to work
with or for a company that would focus on software/hardware R&D. More so if
someone would be kind enough to give me some funding to try and make such
thing work. I don't aim to be rich, I just want to build stuff. :)

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justin_vanw
So the author would turn it into a nerd wet dream?

Twitter doesn't make money because the idea isn't amenable to making money.
It's that simple. There is this weird theory that if you get a bajillion
people to use some website, it's worth a lot of money. No, it's really not.

It's like trying to monetize a park. Sure, you _can_ do that, but when you
look around you'll realize you have built a carnival. That is the future of
Facebook, of Twitter. They are going to turn into carnivals. Not because of
bad management, but because they are corporations, and either they will decide
to make money, or they will go away.

~~~
orangethirty
I would, indeed, turn it into a nerds wet dream. What is wrong with that?
Their current strategy seems to be focused on alienating the very people who
helped the grow. Twitter doesn't make any money because it is focusing on
finding a way to make money with messages that are no longer than 140
messages. A big userbase does equal value, though I agree it does not mean it
is worth a bajillion. Maybe two billion like instagram.

Monetize a park? Well, you can rent out some designated areas for birthday
parties during the day. Then put a big movie projector during the night and
sell over priced pop corn. You can do paintball matches during the weekends.
Maybe build a small lagoon where people can row some wodden boats while
reading poetry. You might even go as far as putting some small vending
machines that sell bird food, so the kids can feed the pretty birds. No need
to build a carnival when you focus on finding alternate business models.
Though to build the lagoon, paintball course, outdoor movie theater, you need
engineers... :)

