Run a database and a UI to put and show things from it: 0 engineers to run after installation. A full stack hacker can build it.
Run the same thing but for number of people larger than a single server can handle: A an engineer or two for bug catching and resource allocations and a few engineers to build it using software tools for caching and load balancing.
The same thing but tens of millions around the globe: A few engineers to run the thing, A few to keep an eye on the network around the globe and access quality, a few to mitigate hostile behaviour. To build the thing you need a few people with knowledge on distributed systems and specialised people on 3rd party products for CDN and its management. Of course you need the people to build the thing and its UI too.
Oh, so you want to make money from it? You need people to build tools which will interface with your thing to deliver things like ads and special functions. Now you need to replicate all of the previous stuff but this time for your money making software.
Europe says data collection should be like X, UK says should be like Y and the USA should be like Z. Now the people who built the thing can't go home and leave it to the maintainers because they need to modify how things work all the time.
Israel wants to know some info about someone, Turkey wants the some specific data collected and some tweets must not be visible in Turkey, Saudis say they don't want some type of tweets to exist etc. Now you need people to build these things when still don't mess up with the EU, UK, USA practices. Once again you replicate a lot of people but with special duties for special requirements.
Oh crap, some pedos are posting very illegal stuff and others are running massive spam or political opinion manufacturing operations and everyone blames you. You need to create tools to interface with your product to tackle these things. Once again a lot of engineers are needed because you don't simply run an SQL query from your local database, so you need people who understand how to make the thing work on your scale.
Something can no longer scale and you need an alternative solution, you build that alternative solution with a team of engineers but the old stuff can't just go away because some other systems depend on it and it will take years to change their thing so maybe you simply keep the old stuff around together with their engineers?
Before you know it, hundreds or even thousands of people are working on it. Elon firing content safety team is probably about untangling the mess and not about love for sexual predators or fascist or something.
I don't know about the reality of Twitter but having seen how sausage is made in some large companies, I will speculate that it's a build up over time as the nature of the business evolved. Knowing how things work today it's probably possible to simplify it with a complete re-write but how many re-writes go well?
Run the same thing but for number of people larger than a single server can handle: A an engineer or two for bug catching and resource allocations and a few engineers to build it using software tools for caching and load balancing.
The same thing but tens of millions around the globe: A few engineers to run the thing, A few to keep an eye on the network around the globe and access quality, a few to mitigate hostile behaviour. To build the thing you need a few people with knowledge on distributed systems and specialised people on 3rd party products for CDN and its management. Of course you need the people to build the thing and its UI too.
Oh, so you want to make money from it? You need people to build tools which will interface with your thing to deliver things like ads and special functions. Now you need to replicate all of the previous stuff but this time for your money making software.
Europe says data collection should be like X, UK says should be like Y and the USA should be like Z. Now the people who built the thing can't go home and leave it to the maintainers because they need to modify how things work all the time.
Israel wants to know some info about someone, Turkey wants the some specific data collected and some tweets must not be visible in Turkey, Saudis say they don't want some type of tweets to exist etc. Now you need people to build these things when still don't mess up with the EU, UK, USA practices. Once again you replicate a lot of people but with special duties for special requirements.
Oh crap, some pedos are posting very illegal stuff and others are running massive spam or political opinion manufacturing operations and everyone blames you. You need to create tools to interface with your product to tackle these things. Once again a lot of engineers are needed because you don't simply run an SQL query from your local database, so you need people who understand how to make the thing work on your scale.
Something can no longer scale and you need an alternative solution, you build that alternative solution with a team of engineers but the old stuff can't just go away because some other systems depend on it and it will take years to change their thing so maybe you simply keep the old stuff around together with their engineers?
Before you know it, hundreds or even thousands of people are working on it. Elon firing content safety team is probably about untangling the mess and not about love for sexual predators or fascist or something.
I don't know about the reality of Twitter but having seen how sausage is made in some large companies, I will speculate that it's a build up over time as the nature of the business evolved. Knowing how things work today it's probably possible to simplify it with a complete re-write but how many re-writes go well?