About a week after Reddit went dark amid?a blackout protest?against the introduction of charges on third-party developers, the company's CEO has come up with lots of praise for the otherwise under-criticism Twitter.
It seems that Twitter's former CEO?Elon Musk may have had an influence on Reddit¡¯s CEO ahead of changes to the website that have resulted in a user-led rebellion on the platform.?
In an interview recently, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman praised Musk¡¯s aggressive cost-cutting and layoffs at Twitter and said he had chatted ¡°a handful of times¡± with Musk on the subject of running an internet platform.?
Huffman said he saw Musk¡¯s handling of Twitter, which he purchased last year, as an example for Reddit to follow.?
¡°Long story short, my takeaway from Twitter and Elon at Twitter is reaffirming that we can build a really good business in this space at our scale,¡± Huffman said, as per a?CNBC report.?¡°Now, they¡¯ve taken the dramatic road,¡± he added, ¡°and I guess I can¡¯t sit here and say that we¡¯re not either, but I think there¡¯s a lot of opportunity here.¡±?
Huffman is trying to turn Reddit profitable after decades as a money-losing website punching above its weight in internet culture.?
The Reddit CEO said there¡¯s one concrete area where Elon Musk¡¯s example has been clear: job cuts. He said he had often wondered why Twitter under its previous management had struggled to be profitable on a consistent basis despite revenue in 2021 of $5.1 billion.?
¡°As a company smaller than theirs, sub-$1 billion in revenue, I used to look at Twitter and say, ¡®Well, why can¡¯t they break even at 4 or 5 billion in revenue? What about their business do we not understand?¡¯ Because I think we should be able to do that quite handsomely,¡± he said.?
¡°And then I think one of the nonobvious things that Elon showed is what I was hoping would be true, which is: You can run a company with that many users in the ads business and break even with a lot fewer people,¡± Huffman said.?
Elon Musk ended up hiring some employees back, but corporate headcount has remained well below where it was before the acquisition. Musk has also imposed other severe cost-cutting measures, such as not paying some of Twitter¡¯s bills including rent, leading to an eviction order in Colorado.?
¡°They had to do some pretty violent changes and violent surgery to get there,¡± Huffman said.?
Also Read:?Reddit?To Likely Launch IPO In Second Half Of 2023
It is not clear if Twitter is profitable because some advertisers have left, cutting into revenue, but Huffman said the lesson was on the other side of the ledger.?
¡°People are talking about a lot of things on Twitter, but I think that¡¯s the part that¡¯s the most interesting from my point of view as a business person, is that they actually are good businesses at this scale,¡± he said.?
Reddit¡¯s recent layoffs have been far more modest than Twitter¡¯s. The company said earlier this month that it was laying off about 5% of its workforce, or 90 employees. Meanwhile, Twitter has laid off about 70% of its nearly 7,500-strong workforce.
Also Read:?Elon?Musk?Calls Meta 'Copycat' For Planning To Launch?Twitter?Rival
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