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Comment by Taek | Hacker News Reader

That is part of the startup world. Companies stall, and companies fail. If stability is required, it should be worked into the employee agreement.

I don't know what is meant by "generous exit package", but it may be enough to tide the employees over to their next job.

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Startup world? This is a public company with thousands of employees who can get rid of 336 of them. It's pretty far from the startup world. This is the corporate world, and it happens to companies with long histories when their environment changes.

To counter, Twitter is a growth stage company and while public, it's value is priced exclusively on future value. It is only a 9 year old company working out product market fit and has only had a few profitable quarters, I only noted feb 2014 but there are likely a few more.

So is it a startup? Idk wtf a startup is but Twitter isn't a blue chip.

To counter, Facebook has been around the same amount of time, and would you call them a startup? Are you saying if a company is successful, they are not a startup, and if they aren't, we'll just keep calling them a startup until they die off like most other startups?

Twitter is still a "startup"?

Startup is just a code word for "tech company" anymore.

"Anymore" is just a word used to mean "now" anymore. (I kid, but seriously, I've searched for analysis on the use of the word 'anymore' in the positive (eg, as something other than part of a 'not...anymore' clause) and haven't been able to find anything. Any links would be appreciated, I am legitimately curious as to when and how this became a thing).

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore

Ranks right up there with 'infer' for 'imply' in usage changes which I will go to my grave hearing foremost as a brazen signal of incomplete education.

Kids: do not use either if you care about the judgment of your elders.

Bonus protip: until you vest, you should care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_kooRTnAbk#t=0m36s

"usage changes" which have been around since long before you were born. Are there other long-established regionalisms/dialects you have a bug up your butt about?

It might be pragmatic to care about the judgment of one's ignorant elders, when the ignorant have power over you, but in no other sense should one care about such opinions.

The first person to write "should of" and "could of" instead of "should've" and "could've" was certainly incorrect, because they misheard someone's speech and wrote it out phonetically in a way that no one had ever done before. At what point does the incorrect usage become so popular that we ignorant fools start teaching "should of" and "could of" as correct English to our kids?

I have family in the southeastern US who use "anymore" like the person you're responding to did (and they have for decades). I don't think it simply means "now". There's a slightly different connotation that seems somewhat negative. Kind of like: "It used to be like this, but now it's like this... and I'm not sure I approve".

That's an astute observation. It always strikes me as jarring when the speaker leaves off the "not" in the clause.... but on the rare occasions it happens, it's always about a chance in society/convention which is clearly not considered a positive.

Reminds me of "indie" rock with big name bands being signed to big labels.

Correction, startup is a code word for "tech company that doesn't make enough money to justify its valuation"

Or if you're a VC, it's "tech company whose current valuation is based on future value"

Any company that has yet to operate on a consistent business model is still a start up :-). But in twitter's case that is stretching it. Both ad funded and public I'd say they are a 'small cap company' rather than a startup.

That said, it's clear they are struggling to stay alive and that is a trait of many start ups.

So at what point does a company stop being a "startup" nowadays?

> So at what point does a company stop being a "startup" nowadays?

Wikipedia defines startup as a new business in the form of a company, a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.[1]

Not sure where an exact "point" is (if one even exists) but would seem that Twitter (a nearly ten year old company with revenues of $1.4B) no longer fits that definition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company

I heard that Twitter has no revenue only loses.. is that changed recently?

Maybe everyone else just calls their customers "investors" for some reason?

They may not have turned a profit, but they certainly have revenue.

You're confusing revenue (money coming in) with profit/income (money left over after expenses). In 2014 they had revenue of $1.4B[1].

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TWTR+Income+Statement&annua...

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