30% cut considering the layoffs in September. The tech over hiring craze during the pandemic is really starting to show.

I.... Ok, so I read the article, and their Wikipedia page, and I'm not only not entirely sure what they do (some kind of telco middleware or something?) but what I can tell I have no idea how they were even employing 1500 people total to do it. What were they all doing?

(edit) - also, their stock price went up after the layoff... so....

STOP! You're giving CEO's ideas!

Twilio is quite big. And does require a ton of engineering. They operate APIs that allow you to intercede with telco systems.

This enables software to be written to obtain phone numbers make calls etc. you can the. Use that to build products and services. They work almost entirely in software. Meaning lots of engineers.

I am a dev who uses twilio. I wrote a system for a food delivery service.

It lets us send our users SMS messages and receive their responses.

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It allows you to programmatically send SMS text messages as well as set up numbers for automated responses... do things like surveys and campaigns.

They were the top player in the field but have a number of more capable competitors as well as SMS engagement not being as useful these days.

Is that like SD Wan? Sorry, I'm new to network engineering

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Some companies are doing it because they just want to do it. E.g Google, Meta, and Amazon. These companies have literal piles of cash but they would hide behind "stock is falling" to let people go.

I know credit unions that use them for phone banking

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I know their marketing material is a bit high minded and confusing, I was in the same boat about 10 years ago before using it. It's basically "an api for text messages and phone calls"

Twilio is a massive company. They were the first to offer an easy to use interface for sending SMS through code, and are still probably the biggest player in that space.

Just because they have cash reserves doesnt mean they should hold on to employees. Employee headcount should match the size of the needs of the business.

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Because its easier to throw more people at projects, than sort out lower performers.

When theres a want to reduce head count, then they can go look at lower performers and drop them.

They also run Authy, the 2fa app.

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It's not inhumane. It is business.

They hired them in the first place because they poorly projected their revenues post-pandemic. Now they're correcting. If they hold on to these employees they risk putting the entire business at risk, which would be a far bigger disaster. That would un-employ everyone, not just a fraction of their workforce.

Oh hey, I work at Twilio and a few of my coworkers have been laid off. AMA I guess

No. More like middleware for software development. Here is an infographic of other companies in the sector:

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*SPzu7pOsC3nucFN3bXgZdA.png

Ah thanks 👍

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Twilio is used by a ton of places to integrate with SMS. Almost any company that sends automated text messages uses them.

Also not sure what they need 10,000 people for though.

Yep. Many times I saw a ‘Throw bodies at the problem’ band-aid instead of a proper ‘Let’s figure out why this problem is happening and come to a solution’ resolution with deficiencies.

Supports survey metrics tanked due to poor training and documentation or just flat out lazy teammates? Let’s put more bodies on the front line to offset it.

Did that fix it? No. You have more bad surveys because you now have MORE poorly trained people.

Tech debt/bug riddled code? Let’s throw more people at it. Surely more cooks in the kitchen will solve it. Not reviewing the problem and identifying where fixes need to be made.

Customers aren’t buying our software? More salespeople. Nothing to do with throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the initial package or their account teams now blowing them off since they got their commission. Now clients use 10% of the things you sold them and have no need for the other products…but your looking for the next thing to have them cut a check for?

It may be different at other companies but that’s what I saw at the one I was at before moving on.

>Also not sure what they need 10,000 people for though.

Neither are they, apparently.

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Which depts were impacted and what does the split to 2 BUs mean for the folks remaining?

Okay, what does Twilio even do?:

> Twilio makes sending and receiving SMS easy.

I haven’t had hardship with this yet. But if I do encounter difficulties with sending and receiving and SMS/MMS, I’ll maybe evaluate Twilio against other solutions in this space. Like perhaps Sendo, or Noteify, or MessagePanda, or Zipner, or Chaticus, or SeaMuS, or EZ-Burst, or Tapzin, or Pokeify, or HeyYou, or AllYall, or Beepzor, or PickleTickle, or Beepidon, or Pagematix, or WhizSend, or SendWiz, or Globetweeter, or GoatNote, or whomever else will make it easy in sending unsolicited mass messages about their car’s extended warranty expiring.

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I was contacted by a recruiter from meta asking if I was interested In a position they thought I would be a good fit...

Fk now you just literally announced layoffs.. WTF

Is their employee count now below 2020 levels?

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What kind of bonuses did Twilio's leadership get this year?

> It's not inhumane. It is business.

It can be both.

This is definitely not an overhiring, overcorrecting situation. This is a social contagion of companies laying people off to satisfy stakeholders who want blood for their profits.

Frankly, if they could just push employees into a wood chipper and harvest their platelets for sale, they would.

Any unsolicited texts get blocked here. I'm totally cool with a restaurant that I placed an order with texting me an update, but everyone sending unsolicited texts should fall into a camp fire. Not enough to kill, just ruin their camping trip.

If a large company sends customers text messages, there is a good chance it goes through twillio.

They also own sendgrid which similarly is a email platform for blasting messages. Many companies have O365 or GSuite for corporate emails, but system emails may go through a platform like sendgrid for numerous reasons.

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I feel like we were co-workers

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Also, keeping talent to themselves so competitors can’t hire them might also be a reason.

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This is really it. It is more of a correction in work force sizes once the crazy growth and cheap loans of the pandemic stopped. Most of them are still well above their pre-pandemic staffing levels even if they are now laying off.

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Did teams feel bloated to you? From the outside the conferences seem like exorbitant spend, is that a fair assessment?

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The fuck is a Twilio?

I wish I knew.. but in general Twilio does not give out bonuses.

Twilio owns a bunch of APIs for calls, texts, emails, etc. Basically when you call your Uber driver back, it's probably a Twilio number. When your doctor messages you about an upcoming appointment, also probably a Twilio number.

Most departments were hit at least somewhat. The two business units don't mean much for the majority of people working here.

In my org, we were already understaffed before and more understaffed now. Especially with other teams that we rely on losing many people as well.

Ah shit, I knew my doctor didn't write that API himself.

Hey it is this weeks sus squad and usual suspects layoff announcement. Just trying to create a downturn and lower worker power/wages things... who will it be next week?

Twilio probably lost revenue from the robocall scamming.

FCC Issues Cease-and-Desist Letter to Twilio for Apparently Transmitting Illegal Robocall Traffic

Though they probably need more devs with stuff like this going on...

There was a big Authy hack not too long ago.

Twilio and Authy also hacked recently. This also affected Okta/Auth0 and companies that rely on those dependencies like DoorDash.

Anyone still using Authy over Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator is not doing good opsec. Twilio has always been sketch. This breach is damaging.

> U.S. messaging giant Twilio has confirmed hackers also compromised the accounts of some Authy users as part of a wider breach of Twilio’s systems. Authy is Twilio’s two-factor authentication (2FA) app it acquired in 2015.

> Twilio’s breach earlier this month, which saw malicious actors accessing the data of more than 100 Twilio customers after successfully phishing multiple employees, keeps growing in scale. Researchers this week linked the attack on Twilio and others to a wider phishing campaign by a hacking group dubbed “0ktapus,” which has stolen close to 10,000 employee credentials from at least 130 organizations since March.

> Now, Twilio has confirmed that Authy users were also impacted by the breach.

> In an update to its incident report on August 24, Twilio said that the hackers gained access to the accounts of 93 individual Authy users and registered additional devices, effectively allowing the attackers to generate login codes for any connected 2FA-enabled account.

> The company said it has “since identified and removed unauthorized devices from these Authy accounts” and is advising affected Authy users, which it has contacted, to review linked accounts for suspicious activity. It’s also recommending that users review all devices tied to their Authy accounts and disable “allow Multi-device” in the Authy application to prevent new device additions.

Okta breached as a result of the Twilio/Authy breach

> Identity giant Okta on Thursday also confirmed it was compromised as a result of the Twilio breach. The company said in a blog post that the hackers — which it refers to as “Scatter Swine” — spoofed Okta login pages to target organizations that rely on the company’s single sign-on service. Okta said that when the hackers gained access to Twilio’s internal console, they obtained a “small number” of Okta customer phone numbers and SMS messages that contained one-time passwords. This marks the second time Okta has reported a security incident this year.

> In its analysis of the phishing campaign, Okta said that Scatter Swine hackers likely harvested mobile phone numbers from data aggregation services that link phone numbers to employees at specific organizations. At least one of the hackers called targeted employees impersonating IT support, noting that the hacker’s accent “appears to be North American.” This may align with this week’s Group-IB investigation, which suggested one of the hackers involved in the campaign may reside in North Carolina.

DoorDash also caught up in it

> DoorDash also confirmed this week that it was compromised by the same hacking group. The food delivery giant told TechCrunch that malicious hackers stole credentials from employees of a third-party vendor that were then used to gain access to some of DoorDash’s internal tools. The company declined to name the third-party, but confirmed the vendor was not Twilio.

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What cloud providers do you guys use?

Depends for what you mean. We are the cloud provider for a lot of people. Also, most services go over standard phone and messaging routes, where no additional cloud provider is needed. Some of our hosted services sit on AWS afaik.

Just pray Twilio is in network. Otherwise you’ll find that text message cost you $2000.

Live in the Bay, can confirm. The work culture here is toxic and evey time you turn around, companies are squeezing more work into less positions for the same pay.

So what you're saying is that they're the bastards who make spoofing for phone scammers a breeze?

Did you meet your 2022 revenue targets?

This is correct.

The hand-waving is "tech overhiring"; it's an inaccurate meme.

The reality is copycat effect, just like the late 21, early w2 "price increases" across all economic sectors, which fueled the inflation fire. Companies with material and logistics components experienced greater costs during and following the pandemic. That chewed up their margins, so many raised prices to maintain those margins.

Many/most who didn't even experience cost increases of any kind copied the herd raising prices as a way to inflate revenues. And most got away with it because "everyone else is doing it." Especially when the bulk of the market is making the same move, the ones that didn't "need" to raise prices exploited the opportunity anyway. As such, 9% inflation.

And now that the Fed has applied a vise grip Federal Interest Rate, many companies are now facing unfavorable borrowing costs; so they close ranks and ride out the cooldown, while also preparing for a Recession, should it manifest fully.

And since the consumer market is dealing with higher costs but suppressed, stagnant wages, spending is cooling off.

Finally, the last link in the chain reaction is companies looking for additional cost cutting avenues. Since growth is largely on hold due to revenues shrinking and borrowing costs becoming unprofitable, they turn inward and cut labor. Fringe or luxury products or projects are suspended (or shelved) and the staff is shuffled to keep the most vital members (and/or favoritism). And even firms that don't need to adjust labor costs are cutting labor preemptively to maintain margins since revenues are down across the board.

Everyone is at risk as long as the Fed maintains the high rates, which has been a necessity of evil to reign in the decades of low rate borrowing and growth all while wages failed to keep pace.

When inflation reaches 7-9% while wages **rarely surpass 1-4% annually, if that that's a disparity and it has been out of control for 20+ years.

Yes and no.

Yes. They're trimming labor to adapt to a cooling economy and possible recession.

No; the rest of your speculation is financial illiterate.

The firms (large and small) trimming labor are doing so because so many others are as well, whether they need to or or not.

But "having cash reserves on hand" has no bearing on that. Publicly traded companies are not operated like your bank account.

I'm not sure. I believe the earnings call is in a couple days.

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Have you looked at the stats? Tech companies hired way way more during covid than they've laid off so far.

Also they are beholden to the shareholder and have to pay big dividends or people will switch to bonds.

The government and fed create a lot of these situations. The corporations just do what is needed to win at the little game we've created.

Depends on the company. Some people in tech have been living super easy for years since covid started. Source - also in bay area in tech

Because the economy was going up And tech was killing it because of all the demand from people doing work and school from home.

I work in tech and as frustrating as layoffs are they're part of the deal.

The average tech worker is finding a new job in 3 months. Many are also getting large severance packages. You don't really need to feel bad for us.

I make almost 200k and I wfh 3x days a week. Feel bad for people getting shitty wages and commuting not us

what about apple then huh?

What about [company]?

Sorry, man. Before I retired I used your services a lot. They were great. Hope you land safe and soon.

Yeah, but it used to be if you were rolling those profits, you'd rely more on attrition to bring your staffing back in line and hold onto those employees you had already invested in. Hiring and releasing isn't cheap. You have good people, you work hard to hold onto them.

Meanwhile, Marc Benioff took a 10 day digital detox in French Polynesia! https://twitter.com/BusinessInsider/status/1625320326149115904

I know about 8,000 people taking unplanned digital detoxes! Welcome to the #Nohana Twilio friends

What if all of these laid off experts for all these different platforms came together into a massive consulting company that is deeply skilled in understanding each platforms TRUE strengths and selling style. It’s like the Power Rangers!

What languages does the company use? Is there any node or Java?

I doubt it.

Well the pay is insane so there is that...

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Social shrinkflation, you say?

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Check out DevCycle.com if you're a dev

Mainly we offer REST APIs but got helper libraries in tons of languages, including node.js and Java. https://www.twilio.com/docs/libraries

Thank you! Luckily I personally have not been laid off (yet)

That looks pretty neat, never heard of DevCycle before!

Ha! Didn't expect a response to my shameless plug.

Yeah, competing with launchdarkly. I bring it up because as a ton of teams are absolutely slashing budgets and team members, we're growing and have purpose built the tool to be affordable for teams that might be going through that. So we stopped charging by seat and don't gate features.

Thought I'd throw it your way, your team might find it useful + cheap!

How bad is the scamming/fraud via twilio? There is a spa in my town that uses Twilio to spam all random local numbers with texts, without an option for opt out. I didn't immediately see a simple "report abuse" feature within Twilio.

How are you guys internally viewing one BU being headed by your old CFO (trad focused on “efficiency”) and the other by a Rev leader (trad focused on growth)?

Thanks for the AMA. I hope you and your colleagues take the time needed to recover from this shitty situation that prob had little to do with the great work you do day to day.

Depending on the type of messaging used, there will be a lot more spam filtering coming to them. They need a proper business registration for a A2P 10DLC registration on a normal US number or toll-free verification on a toll-free number. If you are receiving fraud/scam/spam messages, the best thing you can do is to report it to your phone carrier. There are multiple routing providers involved in each message and each one has filtering rules.

Oh yeah I definitely did all that, the carrier and ftc. I was just surprised unlike other VOIP type services there wasn't an immediate report form. I was always sus of twilio after this... 🧐🧐

Thanks for responding!

As far as we can tell, the data and communications units are being split and they still share many departments. Twilio for a while now has kept pushing towards "becoming profitable", so this is kind of expected. Sadly, I am not high enough on the ladder to know too much about the details.

All of our messages are forced to have opt-out. Responding with "STOP" should disable any messages coming from that number.

However, Twilio does have a fraud investigation team and you can reach out to them here: https://www.twilio.com/help/abuse

They're a pretty minimalist system for sending a lot of SMS messages really quickly. Like, I tested them briefly at my last company to build an emergency notification system for our business continuity plan. For my purposes, they were too minimalist and I ended up going with a service that was a little more user-friendly since I needed managers and executives to use the system for their respective branches.

I just heard that the CEO brought his own salary down to minimum wage as a cost saver. He said he does not need the extra money himself and rather have it to build the company.

Cool, but what's the CEO's total comp?

This is going to make things so much worse for customers.

What's been going on with your partner SSO these days? I'd say at least 50% of the time when I try to get in to add an IP to an API key or verify a sender coming through from Azure, it just fails to work or if it does let me in, occasionally will tell me I don't have access to a particular setting. Miraculously, two days later it just starts working again. Funnily enough, the billing never seems to fail!

I wouldn't know.

Definitely create support tickets with every issue you are running into. If support cannot fix things, they get moved to engineering and if enough people mention something not working, it will become a big deal internally. Sadly, from what I can tell, most of the steps here have lost some of their workers.

Do you think that one reason could be AI advancement? Or is it too early to do that?

Twilio is huge in the telco world, surprised they didn’t employ more people tbh

The restaurant may very well be using something like twilio to send you that message

Hey me too! Howdy fellow survivor.

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