When Elon took over Twitter it was clear his goal was to institute a culture change. Most people have been quick to point out how he is failing. He fired 50% of staff. Now he presented an ultimatum for the rest to either commit to his culture requirements or leave. Estimates are that less than 25% of the remaining stuff took up the offer. A mass exodus of voluntary layoffs after the initial forced layoffs.
Most on Twitter are in panic thinking Twitter is about to fall over. How will the site stay up with only 12.5% of it’s original workforce? I am sure any software engineer would know that they don’t actively participate in the running of the applications they write. So I wouldn’t expect this sort of panic from this group of people. What’s shocking is some of the most prominent voices are the ones spreading this panic.
Do I think Twitter is going to stop working? The short answer is no. I believe the engineers at Twitter were good at their jobs and would’ve built a system that is resilient and can operate without them. That doesn’t mean I think everything will go well with a skeletal team. There are some things that are going to be extremely difficult, most notably adding new features or making any other alterations. Without the institutional knowledge at arms reach, it will take a lot of time to make these updates.
Software runs itself for the most part. Sure there is need for people monitoring and doing work to ensure the software continues running within the infrastructure. This does not need the presence of all the engineers who built the software to be present.
Twitter is not burning to the ground because a majority of the builders are gone. The culture is also walking out of the building with them. Elon’s biggest goal was establishing a new culture. He is on his way to success in that regard.