Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast where we explore the latest news and updates on the companies associated with one of the most Visionary minds of our time, Elon Musk. And in this episode, we'll be discussing the recent Twitter, outage the left users unable to access links or images on the platform and the implications of the incident for the company and its stakeholders, the outage was caused by a technical glitch that brought down much of Twitter's internal tools, as
well as its public facing apis. It has raised concerns about the technical infrastructure and vulnerabilities on the platform which have been compounded by recent layoffs and the shutdown of free access to the Twitter API. Now as we dive deeper into this, incident will be exploring the challenges and opportunities facing Twitter.
And we'll also discuss the potential Solutions and Innovation that could help the company regain its footing and re-establish itself as a reliable platform for real-time communication. And social engagement Twitter's website is breaking in novel, new ways. And The company managed to recover from its latest outage within a couple of hours, the story behind how it broke
suggest. There are likely to be similar problems in the near future on Monday morning, Twitter, users logged on to find a Thicket of connected issues. Clicking on links with no longer open them. Instead users would see a mysterious error message. Reporting that your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint images, stop loading as well. Other users reported that they could not access tweetdeck. Check the Twitter own client for professional users.
Now, everything went crazy KS took over the timeline is users tweeted about the outage and often Illustrated their points with images and memes that no one can see because they wouldn't even load. Now, the Twitter API has been shut down for outside sources for certain things and in a tweet, the company offered the vaguest of explanations of what was happening. During this time, they said some parts of Twitter May not be working as expected right now.
We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. Now, the changing question was part of a project to shut down free access to the Twitter API on February 1st. The company announced it will no longer support free access to its API which effectively ended the existence of third-party clients and dramatically limit. The ability of outside research has to study the network. In a sign of just how deep Elon musk's cuts to the company of
been, only one site. Reliability Engineers, been staffed on the project and on Monday, then engineer meeting bad configuration change. The basically broke the Twitter API now the change had cascading consequences inside the company bringing down much of Twitter's internal tools along with the public facing apis on slack. Engineer's responded with variations of crap and Twitter is down the entire thing as they
scrambled to fix the problem. And we think Elon Musk was mad about this, a small Epi change had massive, ramifications musk tweeted later in the day after Twitter investor, Mark Anderson posted a screenshot showing the company's API. Failures were trending on the site. The code stack is extremely brittle For No Good Reason. Ilan said, will ultimately need a complete rewrite.
Now, they've had non-stop layoffs for the company with only 100 or 500 50. Full-time Engineers now now, Current employees are sympathetic to that view, which places, at least part of the blame for Twitter's problems on technical failures. That predate musk's ownership of the company. And the fail whale became an icon of the old Twitter for a reason. There's so much Tech debt for Twitter 1.0 if you make a change right now, everything breaks, that's what a current employee
said. Still, when musk took over the company, you promise to dramatically improve the speed and stability of the site and is associate screen, the existing staff for their Technical prowess, ultimately cutting thousands of people working who were deemed not technical enough to succeed under musk's leadership but non-stop layoffs, have left the company with under five hundred and fifty full-time, engineer's, and just as former employees had
predicted from the start, these losses have made Twitter increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic. Outages Monday's, configuration chains was at least the six high-profile service outage at Twitter. The Year in January, Twitter, suffered an outage that lasted for more than two hours and affected the site's mobile app, as well as its web and API services. In February Twitter, experience issues with posting tweets and messages as well as notifications and likes.
And in March, a system irregularity, cause issues with Twitter's ad platform in April, Twitter experience, a widespread outage that affected users, worldwide for over an hour. And in July Twitter experience, an outage that caused it, Issues with notifications and finally the most out of recent outage on Monday and this type of outage has become so frequent that I think we're all numb to. It said, one of the current employees at Twitter and those are only the service outages.
There's other issues that are going on to such as the one that led musk's tweets to be made more visible on the timeline than any other user which have also Royal the user base. People got upset about that and in many ways, Monday's outage represented, the culmination of musk's leadership at the Japanese. So far the single-minded effort to cut costs on his forty. Four billion dollar purchase.
He's been slashing the staff in a reducing Twitter's free offerings and this paved a way for a single engineer to be staffed on a huge project. One that is linked to several critical interconnected systems that both users and employees depend on and with few knowledgeable workers on hand to restore service, it took Twitter all morning to fix the problem.
They were losing money during that time and this is what happens when you fire 90. Percent of the company, one of the current employees set as well. Now, Twitter has technical debt to it's not just the recent layoffs, the have left Twitter, vulnerable to these outages, the company's technical debt or the cost of maintaining outdated or inefficient code. And hardware systems has been a long-standing issue as one employee notes.
There is so much Tech debt from Twitter 1.0 that if you make a change right now, everything breaks Twitter a struggle struggle to keep up with its growth. And the demand for its users resulting in a system that is coupled together with Legacy and spaghetti code, and outdated technology, the company's internal systems and tools are often unstable and unreliable as well. And there is a constant fear of things breaking down to make
matters, worse. Twitter has been slow to invest in upgrading infrastructure and modernizing its code base. The company has been criticized for prioritizing new features and products over stability and reliability. And, as a result Twitter's been Plagued by outages and technical issues for years in 2019. The company experienced a massive outage less it for several hours, and affected users around the world. The outage was caused by a
server. Configuration change that went wrong according to the company and last year, Twitter suffered, several outages that cause issues with tweets, direct messages and notifications. The company blamed the issues on an inadvertent change. We made to our internal systems. And now with the recent layoffs in the shutdown, The free access to the API. The company is facing serious.
Technical challenges again. Now Twitter said Ilan, said that the code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason and will require a full rewrite. And we're not sure what language, they're going to use for this new rewrite, but it will be a modern rewrite not using the Legacy code will probably rewrite it from scratch. So, where does Twitter go from here? Have a companies clearly facing seven.
Dictated to get challenges both in terms of his technical infrastructure and its business model, must cost, cutting measures have helped the company's bottom line, make more money, but they have also left Twitter, vulnerable to outages and technical issues throughout the time.
He's been there. Now, at the same time, Twitter's facing intense competition, from other social media platforms, Tick-Tock Facebook. And the company's user base has been stagnant for years in a struggle, to attract new users. And An existing ones except Woody Allen. Took the helm more users started joining up to see what the whole parade was about, and what the drama was about over on Twitter.
Now address these challenges Twitter's will need to make significant investments in technical infrastructure and modernize its code base. The company will also need to develop new features and products that will attract users and keep them at gauge for future times. Now. And perhaps, more importantly, Twitter will need to re-evaluate its business model in Find new
ways to generate money. The company is reliance and advertising has proven to be a double-edged sword as it has both fueled the company's growth and left it vulnerable to fluctuations in the advertising Market. One possible solution is for Twitter to develop new revenue streams such as paid subscriptions or premium features for users. And the company is already begun experimenting with paid features.
The new check marks of course, exclusive content from different creators with a pay wall another Possibility for Twitter is to embrace its role as a platform for real-time communication to develop new products and features that cater to that role. For example, the company can develop new tools for live streaming or real-time collaboration, or could focus on building a stronger Community around certain topics or interests.
Ultimately the future of Twitter will depend on its ability to adapt to changing needs of its users in the broader social media landscape and the company will need to strike a balance between Innovation and Ability between growth and reliability.
And perhaps more importantly, Twitter will need to re-establish itself as a platform that people trust and rely on and is stable the company's recent outages and technical issues have eroded user confidence in this platform and it will take a lot of time and effort to regain some of those users trust as one current employee notes. There's so much potential here, Twitter could be an amazing platform, but it needs to invest in a sense.
Structure and its people if it's going to realize its potential. So in the end, the fate of Twitter will be decided by the company's ability to overcome its technical debt. Adapt to changing needs of its users and regain the trust of its Community. It's a tall order, but a Twitter can rise to the challenge. It has the potential to be a powerful force for real-time communication and social engagement in the years to come. Thank you for tuning in to the
Elon Musk podcast brought to you by stage. 0 Productions, and hosted by me will Walden. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode and gained some valuable insights. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode and for exclusive ad free content. Check out our patreon at patreon.com slash stage Zero. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.