Despite lofty messages about changing the world, every startup is ultimately destined for the wood chipper of finance. Twitter actually did pretty good. It wasn't a fire sale, they managed to find a buyer who would significantly overpay, and they actually did so right before a market downturn. From a shareholder perspective, this was a wild success.
As far as the damage to the people working at the company, welcome to living under a paperclip-maximizing economy. It was abrupt to have the buyer do the analog of the rich guy cliche of buying a sports car just to crash it on the way home. But in some sense it's better than watching the pot slowly boil with cost cutting, dark patterns, and more surveillance ("ad") tech.
You also underestimate just how much companies pay for shit in general. Couches/chairs from Ikea can work for a tiny company, but that's about the limit. Above that, things just need to be built better so they can function as an abstraction and be forgotten about. Plus, the mood that couch helped set was instrumental in increasing the sale value of the company - see goal #1.
As far as the damage to the people working at the company, welcome to living under a paperclip-maximizing economy. It was abrupt to have the buyer do the analog of the rich guy cliche of buying a sports car just to crash it on the way home. But in some sense it's better than watching the pot slowly boil with cost cutting, dark patterns, and more surveillance ("ad") tech.
You also underestimate just how much companies pay for shit in general. Couches/chairs from Ikea can work for a tiny company, but that's about the limit. Above that, things just need to be built better so they can function as an abstraction and be forgotten about. Plus, the mood that couch helped set was instrumental in increasing the sale value of the company - see goal #1.