It's crazy the number of people on HN somehow claiming that Twitter is this well run and well functioning tech company now that bad rocket man took the reigns and decided to lay off everyone... Isn't it a consensus among tech people that Twitter is the absolute worst tech company?
Twitter was a bit shit. But its up and running more or less in real time for millions of users. Thats pretty impressive. Its business is shit, yes.
Musk looks like hes done the classic: "the office is clean why do I need cleaners" dance. I am surprised he can fire that many people that quickly and still expect momentum.
It doesn't help that he appears to be shitting out product ideas that he's just "dreamt" up. Rather than talking to people to see why twitter didn't do it in the first place. He clearly has a low opinion of the entire company.
I think a lot of people viewed Twitter as poorly-monetized and -managed as product and business, but generally competitive as a technical organization.
Over the years in various hiring threads it's been common to describe Twitter as the giant tech comapny you go to when you can't get hired anywhere else. Twitter has definitely had a reputation for a long time for being bloated and filled with less-than-competent employees. It's only earlier this year that I've seen the discussion shift towards this idea of Twitter being a competent group.