Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/24/twitter-has-officially-changed-its-logo-to-x/
1,901 comments
> so Elon can use a domain he's sat on since '99 seems exceedingly foolish.
As far as I can tell, it's the domain of the company he co-founded (X.com), that merged with the company that became PayPal (Confinity), that led to him briefly being CEO before Thiel took over and pivoted to focus on the PayPal service.
2000 - 2017, X.com was property of PayPal.
Musk then buys it back in 2017... and then here we are.
Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal
As far as I can tell, it's the domain of the company he co-founded (X.com), that merged with the company that became PayPal (Confinity), that led to him briefly being CEO before Thiel took over and pivoted to focus on the PayPal service.
2000 - 2017, X.com was property of PayPal.
Musk then buys it back in 2017... and then here we are.
Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal
> 2000 - 2017, X.com was property of PayPal. Musk then buys it back in 2017... and then here we are.
I was just wondering how in the world did Elon manage not to sell "x.com" to a porn company for shits and giggles. It being in the custody of PayPal explains that.
I was just wondering how in the world did Elon manage not to sell "x.com" to a porn company for shits and giggles. It being in the custody of PayPal explains that.
Likely he just has a fetish for the letter x
Everyone did circa 2000. You've got Generation X in the news, FFX came out, Xbox, X Games, ActiveX.
XxXElonXxX
I almost forgot. In 2001, Six Flags Magic Mountain opened a rollercoaster named X.
Mac OS X
Xerox did it first.
And don’t forget google’s X department.
And don’t forget google’s X department.
Xfiles Fans doing horrors to branding..
I was good marketing indeed, but microsoft is not rebranding to Xsoft or xSoft
eXtreme Doritos and other extreme snacks also came from this era.
x men and xena
Timex, AMEX
x files
Remember that his daughter with Grimes is literally named "X" because he thinks the letter is cool.
> his daughter with Grimes is literally named "X”
That’s the son - the daughter is “Y”
https://news.yahoo.com/grimes-says-she-changed-her-095553857...
That’s the son - the daughter is “Y”
https://news.yahoo.com/grimes-says-she-changed-her-095553857...
Feels like he got that one backwards
Maybe that's the joke?
it's not funny. those children are sentient beings
Plenty of children are given less interesting names.
Or, in the US, phonetically-mispelled names.
Or, in the US, phonetically-mispelled names.
phonetically misspelled names, while kinda weird, aren't really on the same level as this tbh.
I guess my point is naming someone isn't really the place for wacky creativity.
I guess my point is naming someone isn't really the place for wacky creativity.
idk, dude is pretty anti-trans and his current trans child hates him (at this point, who knows which direction that causality goes). the joke is one that might hit too close to home for that bigot.
Please sign, right here, next to the x.
That is my signature.
That is my signature.
I'm surprised he doesn't rename himself X X X.
In the Netherlands this would be illegal but in libertarian America children are the extension of their parents.
Serious question, how are names ever supposed to evolve or change if they are limited by the state? Or are there exceptions for "good" newly created names? Having a weird first name isn't even a hindrance given how frequently people go by nicknames or middle names and ironically they often do that to avoid being called by a more traditional name like Hubert or Mirabel. You can also just change your name if you don't like it.
Probably depends a bit what example you're looking at.
Iceland has a very traditional name system which is enforced. I think the idea is basically that names won't evolve so they can preserve tradition.
Sweden on the other hand has a pretty vague "name can't be likely to cause child psychological harm" law, that doesn't really come into play unless you try to name your child something really outside the mainstream (there was a case a while back where a couple wanted to call their daughter "Metallica". I can't remember how that ended up going).
I don't see how the Swedish-style system would stop names evolving. There are still plenty of trends and new names that come and go just like in the US. I doubt extreme name choices like Elon's "x-ash-12" would inspire a whole bunch of children to be called that.
Iceland has a very traditional name system which is enforced. I think the idea is basically that names won't evolve so they can preserve tradition.
Sweden on the other hand has a pretty vague "name can't be likely to cause child psychological harm" law, that doesn't really come into play unless you try to name your child something really outside the mainstream (there was a case a while back where a couple wanted to call their daughter "Metallica". I can't remember how that ended up going).
I don't see how the Swedish-style system would stop names evolving. There are still plenty of trends and new names that come and go just like in the US. I doubt extreme name choices like Elon's "x-ash-12" would inspire a whole bunch of children to be called that.
Starting from the assumption that some names are bad[0] then it is an act of balancing.
[0] I would claim that calling someone "Mat the fucking dumbshit" or "Poopface" is child abuse
[0] I would claim that calling someone "Mat the fucking dumbshit" or "Poopface" is child abuse
> Well, I grew up quick, and I grew up mean. And my fists got hard, and my wits got keen...
> He stood there looking at me, and I saw him smile, and he said, "Son, this world is rough, and if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough, and I know I wouldn't be there to help you along. So I give you that name, and I said goodbye. And I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's that name that helped make you strong..."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4
> He stood there looking at me, and I saw him smile, and he said, "Son, this world is rough, and if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough, and I know I wouldn't be there to help you along. So I give you that name, and I said goodbye. And I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's that name that helped make you strong..."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4
For everyone that grows stronger and wiser under adversity there is someone tha become weak and broken.
The approach of "you need to be prepared for the cruelty of the world so I will be cruel to you" feels like a parody of proper upbringing.
The approach of "you need to be prepared for the cruelty of the world so I will be cruel to you" feels like a parody of proper upbringing.
Also cruelty doesn't translate to fitness anymore. It's just negative emotional investment. But it's signaling "if worst comes to worst my people come first" which is the loudest tribalism signal in a breaking down peace period society reentering the loop.
Sociopaths going to path
I asked my father
I said, "Father, change my name
The one I'm using now it's covered up
With fear and filth, and cowardice and shame"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FYkJuAb0mMk
;)
I said, "Father, change my name
The one I'm using now it's covered up
With fear and filth, and cowardice and shame"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FYkJuAb0mMk
;)
>You can also just change your name if you don't like it.
After you're 18 and after you've experienced some of the most intense social moments of your life.
It's like literally everything else with kids. Parents have a ton of autonomy but there has to be a line where they aren't allowed to hurt their kid further
After you're 18 and after you've experienced some of the most intense social moments of your life.
It's like literally everything else with kids. Parents have a ton of autonomy but there has to be a line where they aren't allowed to hurt their kid further
If you've got a list of perfect names that no one will ever be teased about then go ahead and share them.
There is no need for names to evolve.
Based on what you said, let the kid have a proper name and then they themselves can change to weird as they wish later. Stupid parents have no right to give a stupid joke name to others.
Based on what you said, let the kid have a proper name and then they themselves can change to weird as they wish later. Stupid parents have no right to give a stupid joke name to others.
I propose a compromise:
- Parents may only choose names for their children from a list of the top 1000 or so names in whatever country parents choose
- It is permissible to change your own name to anything you like
- Parents may only choose names for their children from a list of the top 1000 or so names in whatever country parents choose
- It is permissible to change your own name to anything you like
Is there any state in the world that doesn't limit names?
Depends what you mean by limit but I'm choosing to interpret it as "exert undue influence over the choice of the parent". The UK's restrictions on names containing obscenities, numerals, misleading titles, or are impossible to pronounce seems reasonable although you could make arguments against all of those e.g. some words or names in other languages are obscenities in English and vice versa, numerals are traditionally used as a suffix to distinguish generations with the same name so why not be able to be Nathan3421, misleading titles is a bit stuffy and incongruous with existent names like Major, Judge, Prince, etc., impossible to pronounce already describes many names if you are not familiar with the native language. After all of that, I honestly don't think there is a good reason to restrict a name. Maybe the only limit I could think of would be to prove that it is given in good faith and not for some malevolent purpose.
Parents should not have undue influence on other's (the kid) life as they wish by giving a stupid name. Instead parents should change their own name to xxx if they like it so much.
I think most US states only require the name to fit in their database. They may also require Latin based alphabets or be even just English alphabet with no extra marks and may ban some punctuation or numerical characters. But probably no other restrictions
You probably can't pick obscenity in the US but otherwise anything goes. (Semantically/phonetically at least - orthography is a bit more limited.)
That most European countries have a whitelist of names was one of the more shocking parts of moving here.
That most European countries have a whitelist of names was one of the more shocking parts of moving here.
> That most European countries have a whitelist of names was one of the more shocking parts of moving here.
I believe this is very much wrong.
I believe this is very much wrong.
I think nerd culture in-jokes seem to be his thing, so in this case XCOM the video game series.
[deleted]
Everything Musk does looks a lot like some of my high-level, successful, Mary-Sue-like RPG characters I had. Including desogn rooted in what influenced my childhood, in Musks SpaceX case it seems to be th 50s SciFi. Well, I never had the money to try that in real life, and anyway I outgrew it before I got my drivers liscense. Looking at it from that perspective, it is borderline pathetic and just sad.
Anybody who's read their Heinlein and is aware of Musk and his father's fandom of Heinlein books can see the obvious inspiration here. It's not just the private technological innovation, it's also the libertarianism, the obsession with interplanetary colonization and a relatedly natalist form of free-love.
edit: and in the case of Errol Musk, a very genetics-driven opinion on the morality of incest, see Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love".
edit: and in the case of Errol Musk, a very genetics-driven opinion on the morality of incest, see Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love".
I haven't read any Heinlein but your comment piqued my interest and, after reading the plot summary of the book you linked and summaries of a few others, you seem to be bang on the money.
If you're looking to try a Heinlein book, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is a fun novel about libertarian rebels overthrowing a penal colony on the moon. It tells a great and imaginative story and doesn't shy away from Heinlein's beliefs without letting them completely take over the narrative with ranting. I don't love Heinlein's politics but I can still appreciate his books, but then as a teen-aged white nerd I was kind of the target audience when I first read them.
Cheers for the suggestion, I might give that one a go.
Something that I was wondering while I was reading about Heinlein and his books was why I hadn't read him. My school library was surprisingly well stocked in classic science fiction, which I explored and read a lot of. So I assume it must have also had Heinlein, unless he'd been 'censored' because of some of his more radical content but the library did have the Illuminatus trilogy, so I don't think so. Did I just never find his books, or did I find them and reject them? It's odd, because I pretty much read any science fiction I could find back then.
I'm much less tolerant of science fiction now, to the point of being somewhat intolerant. I often label people as suffering from 'science fiction brain' and I certainly apply that label to Musk for his beliefs in things like that 'Artificial Intelligence' is actually possible (I consider it only an idea to play with in books and not ever feasible in reality). That's why I found your comment interesting; as an insight to the roots of such a 'science fiction brain'.
Something that I was wondering while I was reading about Heinlein and his books was why I hadn't read him. My school library was surprisingly well stocked in classic science fiction, which I explored and read a lot of. So I assume it must have also had Heinlein, unless he'd been 'censored' because of some of his more radical content but the library did have the Illuminatus trilogy, so I don't think so. Did I just never find his books, or did I find them and reject them? It's odd, because I pretty much read any science fiction I could find back then.
I'm much less tolerant of science fiction now, to the point of being somewhat intolerant. I often label people as suffering from 'science fiction brain' and I certainly apply that label to Musk for his beliefs in things like that 'Artificial Intelligence' is actually possible (I consider it only an idea to play with in books and not ever feasible in reality). That's why I found your comment interesting; as an insight to the roots of such a 'science fiction brain'.
Elon Musk is what happens when an 8-year-old boy is the richest man in the world. He builds cars and trains and tunnels and flamethrows and rockets.
A gentle reminder: Musk doesn't build any of that, he's just a source of cash, like a bank crossed with a toddler.
Thousands of employees build it. In the case of SpaceX and Tesla, they frequently build it in spite of Musk, dedicating time and effort to preventing him from screwing things up when he breezes in.
Thousands of employees build it. In the case of SpaceX and Tesla, they frequently build it in spite of Musk, dedicating time and effort to preventing him from screwing things up when he breezes in.
A gentle reminder that this easily digestible lie isn't true. A cursory look at Elon with a technically critical hat on proves this wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=378
This lie seems mostly accepted only by non-technical people in technical fields from what I've found out. Leads me to believe Elon actually is one of those great people that will be more appreciated after his passing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=378
This lie seems mostly accepted only by non-technical people in technical fields from what I've found out. Leads me to believe Elon actually is one of those great people that will be more appreciated after his passing.
> He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time.
I’m not sure if they mean he can do them in his head or not because the other part of that statement seems to imply so. Regardless, this definitely shows that he isn’t just the “money man”.
> Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/14/musk_twitter_rpc_spat...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/14/musk_twitter_rpc_spat...
It's incredible to me that this lie keeps getting repeated. It gets proven wrong every time, and yet people just keep saying it.
It's like they have a personal investment in Elon not having done the things that Elon has very clearly actually done.
It's like they have a personal investment in Elon not having done the things that Elon has very clearly actually done.
adventured(1)
vGPU(4)
martin8412(1)
[deleted]
I mean this really doesn't sound that bad to non-stuck-up people. Elon is currently the greatest single person in tech fighting climate change and working towards providing a solution to a planet-level apocalypse while also being the 8-year boy creating the inspiration of a lifetime for many.
So I have hard time accepting ad hominem arguments as anything but jealous, uninformed, or just plain conformist. Or maybe some people like to just speak untruths with the mindset that the billionaire can take it, but find that anti-intellectual and unnecessarily polarizing.
(This is a comment in general, not an attack on the parent comment but critiquing the generally hateful air I'd expect the HN crowd to be above of)
So I have hard time accepting ad hominem arguments as anything but jealous, uninformed, or just plain conformist. Or maybe some people like to just speak untruths with the mindset that the billionaire can take it, but find that anti-intellectual and unnecessarily polarizing.
(This is a comment in general, not an attack on the parent comment but critiquing the generally hateful air I'd expect the HN crowd to be above of)
> Elon is currently the greatest single person in tech fighting climate change
If you're going to defend him for this, you have to admit his distractions have be a hindrance to the cause. Rather than running Tesla and making sure its the market leader across market segments, he's been off on side quests. And now his side quest is making people not want Teslas.
If you're going to defend him for this, you have to admit his distractions have be a hindrance to the cause. Rather than running Tesla and making sure its the market leader across market segments, he's been off on side quests. And now his side quest is making people not want Teslas.
I don't think Elon has ever aimed to specifically be a "climate activist". His positive effects on the environment seem more of a side product from making the "crappy but sustainable, will be cool in 10-20 years at current pace" option "cool+useful and sustainable, now". Which makes sense, he would probably have gotten less done environmentally and generally if he didn't have success of the businesses as clear priority.
I think he stated that his underlying big plan was to act in fields that he thinks will have the most impact in the future, being good business while not just profit-driven, after he got the PayPal money (Can't find a source right now though) in which he has succeeded, profiting from making the world better, instead, for example, lobbying against ICE's and then providing "just-good-enough" Environmental(r) ShittyCars(tm)
He also has shifted his focus accordingly when Tesla, and at part, SpaceX, were at dire straits. For his kind of personality, I'm not sure just working more would even transfer as simply to linear benefit on that thing.
I think he stated that his underlying big plan was to act in fields that he thinks will have the most impact in the future, being good business while not just profit-driven, after he got the PayPal money (Can't find a source right now though) in which he has succeeded, profiting from making the world better, instead, for example, lobbying against ICE's and then providing "just-good-enough" Environmental(r) ShittyCars(tm)
He also has shifted his focus accordingly when Tesla, and at part, SpaceX, were at dire straits. For his kind of personality, I'm not sure just working more would even transfer as simply to linear benefit on that thing.
gambiting(2)
Thing is, he managed to seriously kick the arses of the establishment. There's many bad things to say about Musk, but at least he gave a solid whooping towards Boeing/ULA and just about every car manufacturer in the world who all thought they didn't need to improve.
yeah you can't knock him for making stuff, and that its having an impact. tesla QA on the cars is still not great but getting there, and spacex actually launches stuff.
someone else posted a howard hughes comparison and i think that is quite apt, including the dating of movie or music stars, and the inevitable mental health issues
someone else posted a howard hughes comparison and i think that is quite apt, including the dating of movie or music stars, and the inevitable mental health issues
I drove two model Y’s recently.
One, I was pretty impressed by.
The second? I’ve had less wind noise riding my motorcycle.
Still very hit and miss.
Doesn’t mean I’m not looking to buy one after they refresh them next year, but you definitely don’t get Lexus quality for your Lexus money.
One, I was pretty impressed by.
The second? I’ve had less wind noise riding my motorcycle.
Still very hit and miss.
Doesn’t mean I’m not looking to buy one after they refresh them next year, but you definitely don’t get Lexus quality for your Lexus money.
I don't give him credit for much, but he did show the world lithium ion EVs are viable.
[deleted]
The last time might have been Louis XIV, who would have been 8 and 3 years into his reign in 1646.
He staged mock naval battles in the lake/canal behind Versailles.
Which, admittedly, sounds pretty awesome.
He staged mock naval battles in the lake/canal behind Versailles.
Which, admittedly, sounds pretty awesome.
In his defence, Louis XIV turned into one of the most successful kings, one doesn't earn the moniker Roi de Soleil, the sun king, for nothing.
No de. It's Roi Soleil.
Not the first to think of it,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naumachia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naumachia
Im sure there are other good comparisons to Elon Must, but I think avreally good one is Howard Hughes... Started an aircraft company because he liked flying, same with movie production, etc...
Howard Hughes also had some mental health issues, similar to Elon Musk.
Howard Hughes also had some mental health issues, similar to Elon Musk.
Considering being in a comfortable position on the spectrum can be an absolute win for many engineers like for yours truly and for Musk, I don't think its fair to compare that to Hughes's decline
This is a great take. Also, is it really so bad? It's fun.
All the adults are clucking their tongues at him but presumably they'd be fine with him being a quiet entry in the Panama Papers and the Epstein flight logs with the other billionaires.
All the adults are clucking their tongues at him but presumably they'd be fine with him being a quiet entry in the Panama Papers and the Epstein flight logs with the other billionaires.
is it really so bad? It's fun.
It would be "fun" if it only affected him. But there are real people who get caught in the blast radius of his "fun."
It would be "fun" if it only affected him. But there are real people who get caught in the blast radius of his "fun."
"Blast radius"? Bit dramatic. Where's the trauma normally associated with blast zones? I don't see it.
Who are these "real people" you talk of? I find it interesting in this age of diversity and acceptance of differences, that a "Musk character" can't exist without a constant deluge of backlash, ridicule and grumpiness!
Who are these "real people" you talk of? I find it interesting in this age of diversity and acceptance of differences, that a "Musk character" can't exist without a constant deluge of backlash, ridicule and grumpiness!
Who are these "real people" you talk of?
Seriously?
OK, I'll give you an easy one: Google "Twitter layoffs."
Seriously?
OK, I'll give you an easy one: Google "Twitter layoffs."
The vast majority of twitter staff should have been laid off years ago, and would have been getting laid off now as the US continues to experience credit tightening. Musk just did it faster.
Twitter would have fallen had it maintained such a financial burden in salaries, which were also seemingly waste in many places given the enormous 80% percentage after which the company didn't fall.
Would you have preferred every employee, including the most loyal and hard-working, to lose their jobs too?
Would you have preferred every employee, including the most loyal and hard-working, to lose their jobs too?
HN consensus for years was that Twitter spent an insane amount on salary for the product they had.
HN consensus for years was that Twitter spent an insane amount on salary for the product they had.
That doesn't mean that people's lives weren't upended. You're arguing a completely different point.
That doesn't mean that people's lives weren't upended. You're arguing a completely different point.
If someone gets fired from an unnecessary job, that's corporate efficiency not malice.
No one has a right to have a particular job, if it's no longer deemed necessary.
One might be lucky enough to have such a job.
But if it goes *poof* overnight then the appropriate take should probably be "It was nice while it lasted."
PS: And we can lament the gutting of their moderation team, but that comprised a small proportion of the total headcount cut.
No one has a right to have a particular job, if it's no longer deemed necessary.
One might be lucky enough to have such a job.
But if it goes *poof* overnight then the appropriate take should probably be "It was nice while it lasted."
PS: And we can lament the gutting of their moderation team, but that comprised a small proportion of the total headcount cut.
> lives weren't upended
Musk paid billions too much for Twitter. So at least a few of those real people you're worried about, are now very rich.
Companies have layoffs. Are you saying the thousands of layoffs at Meta, or any other tech businesses in recent times, are "good layoffs", but Twitter layoffs were "bad layoffs"? I don't understand your position here. You seem to have an emotional response about the welfare of tech sector people you don't know.
If you have Twitter on your resume, I'd expect it would open a few doors when job hunting. Your concern for their welfare is odd to say the least.
Musk paid billions too much for Twitter. So at least a few of those real people you're worried about, are now very rich.
Companies have layoffs. Are you saying the thousands of layoffs at Meta, or any other tech businesses in recent times, are "good layoffs", but Twitter layoffs were "bad layoffs"? I don't understand your position here. You seem to have an emotional response about the welfare of tech sector people you don't know.
If you have Twitter on your resume, I'd expect it would open a few doors when job hunting. Your concern for their welfare is odd to say the least.
90% of the noise about Musk and Twitter has zero compassion for software engineers. We're "techbros".
If Musk were doing all of the same things, and much worse, without the culture war stuff attached we would never hear his name.
"I take full responsibility for this difficult decision..."
If Musk were doing all of the same things, and much worse, without the culture war stuff attached we would never hear his name.
"I take full responsibility for this difficult decision..."
That's a strawman. Nobody's upset about the rockets(1), flamethrowers, electric cars, fake robots in pantyhose. The Twitter thing, though, isn't fun: it's tipping the scales for Erdogan, it's kowtowing to the Chinese government preemptively, elevating literal neo-nazis to prominence, personally promoting anti-semitism. And that's just some of the damage.
And the people in my world who are upset about Twitter do not give anyone a pass on the Epstein flight logs and Panama Papers.
[1] mostly. there is the matter of the habitat destruction because SpaceX failed to listen to experts.
edit: formatting
And the people in my world who are upset about Twitter do not give anyone a pass on the Epstein flight logs and Panama Papers.
[1] mostly. there is the matter of the habitat destruction because SpaceX failed to listen to experts.
edit: formatting
I am certain I can find at least one angry blogger for every single post you’ve listed. I can remember at least a dozen angry articles over the flamethrower alone.
Regarding your complaints about twitter:
> In response to a 2017 request from the Pentagon, Twitter kept online a network of accounts that the U.S. military used to advance its interests in the Middle East
It’s not so much fun when it’s directed against you, is it?
Regarding your complaints about twitter:
> In response to a 2017 request from the Pentagon, Twitter kept online a network of accounts that the U.S. military used to advance its interests in the Middle East
It’s not so much fun when it’s directed against you, is it?
> The Twitter thing, though, isn't fun: it's tipping the scales for Erdogan, it's kowtowing to the Chinese government preemptively, elevating literal neo-nazis to prominence, personally promoting anti-semitism. And that's just some of the damage.
the fact that one single app has that much influence means it ought to be destroyed. I was hoping Musk would walk into Twitter, pull the plug, and go home. Now I hope, maybe, he'll just grind it to dust.
the fact that one single app has that much influence means it ought to be destroyed. I was hoping Musk would walk into Twitter, pull the plug, and go home. Now I hope, maybe, he'll just grind it to dust.
woooooo(1)
> Epstein flight logs with the other billionaires.
Musk has multiple Epstein connections including having gone to his house, he’s exactly like the other billionaires.
Musk has multiple Epstein connections including having gone to his house, he’s exactly like the other billionaires.
Thanks. Somehow I never heard about that once, everyone's more concerned about the blue checks or whatever.
tacitusarc(1)
Elon Musk is what happens when an 8-year-old boy is the richest man in the world. He builds cars and trains and tunnels and flamethrows and rockets.
Elon Musk is what happens when a 17-year-old stoner is the richest man in the world. He builds cars and trains and tunnels and flamethrows and rockets.
Everyone tries to blame his money or his childishness, when the obvious answer is right there lighting up in public and blowing smoke on podcasts.
Elon Musk is what happens when a 17-year-old stoner is the richest man in the world. He builds cars and trains and tunnels and flamethrows and rockets.
Everyone tries to blame his money or his childishness, when the obvious answer is right there lighting up in public and blowing smoke on podcasts.
Are you serious?
As a seasoned stoner it doesn't look like Musk has much experience smoking weed if the Rogan video is anything to go by.
As a seasoned stoner it doesn't look like Musk has much experience smoking weed if the Rogan video is anything to go by.
Making nostalgia based design decisions is pathetic and sad? Have you seen... any human culture ever?
You don't have to love Musk, plenty of reasons not to but jeez tone it down a bit. It's like if he was seen eating a taco suddenly tacos would be embarrassing and sad according to you.
You don't have to love Musk, plenty of reasons not to but jeez tone it down a bit. It's like if he was seen eating a taco suddenly tacos would be embarrassing and sad according to you.
> in Musks SpaceX case it seems to be th 50s SciFi.
It literally is give a listen to the podcast "The Evening Rocket" it's where I heard of that connection.
spacex is the one I'm actually kinda fine with, it's a fine and actually sorta clever name (as in space[ e]x[ploration]). the other ones just get kinda absurd though.
At least he's doing something "out there", anything, wrong or right, stellar or failure.
Everyone else is on some random "responsible" profit driven train to increase quarterly profits by meager single digit % so they don't rock the boat. The west is on a downward slide of "responsible" and average behavior of do the least amount of anything whilst the world moves forward with actual ambition, childish or otherwise.
Everyone else is on some random "responsible" profit driven train to increase quarterly profits by meager single digit % so they don't rock the boat. The west is on a downward slide of "responsible" and average behavior of do the least amount of anything whilst the world moves forward with actual ambition, childish or otherwise.
Your doom and gloom dog whistle about the "west" losing it's edge is not supported by actual economic data.
X.com now redirects to Twitter. As recently as June 4, the website just displayed a plain text 'x'.
I swear to the Gawd, this morning it was redirecting to GoDaddy and I had a good belly-laugh
It still does for me. I guess the DNS changes haven't propagated fully yet...
I saw it too. There were ads for sectional couches on the page.
That happened yesterday. I checked and as of then it was still parked.
Redirects to a GoDaddy landing page for me.
That section was a rollercoaster ride.
Founded in 1999, ousted as CEO within a year, within a year after the merger with Confinity becomes CEO again. Insists on using Windows instead of Unix based systems, which causes tensions and Thiel (founder of Confinity) nopes the fuck out of there. Technical issues ensue and so, again, within a year of becoming CEO, gets kicked out only for Thiel to replace him as CEO.
All in all, sounds about like what I expected from Musk. I’m sure he’s got a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder about Thiel.
Founded in 1999, ousted as CEO within a year, within a year after the merger with Confinity becomes CEO again. Insists on using Windows instead of Unix based systems, which causes tensions and Thiel (founder of Confinity) nopes the fuck out of there. Technical issues ensue and so, again, within a year of becoming CEO, gets kicked out only for Thiel to replace him as CEO.
All in all, sounds about like what I expected from Musk. I’m sure he’s got a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder about Thiel.
Malcolm X, X-Ray, AMEX, Timex, Xerox, X-Men, X Files, X-Factor, X Games, X Prize, Direct-X, ActiveX, Mac OS X, Xbox, SpaceX, Google X, S3XY, X.com
Eh, I imagine people will just keep using the old nomenclature.
Still, while the social network was presuambly the most valuable part of Twitter, gotta figure the brand was a non-trivial part of the 44 billion Musk paid to buy the company. Seems crazy to toss it after a few months.
Also, the new brand is bad. if someone told me to check out "x.com", I would assume they were directing me to a porn site. And the logo looks too much like the button you click to close your browser.
Still, while the social network was presuambly the most valuable part of Twitter, gotta figure the brand was a non-trivial part of the 44 billion Musk paid to buy the company. Seems crazy to toss it after a few months.
Also, the new brand is bad. if someone told me to check out "x.com", I would assume they were directing me to a porn site. And the logo looks too much like the button you click to close your browser.
Reminds me of the OS X logo honestly. Maybe apple has a leg to stand on in terms of trademark? Though I find that highly doubtful due to it being a letter of the alphabet.
Think the x.org foundation has the better claim, since they pronounce the name the same way (think OS X is "OS ten", from what I recall), and their logo is closer.
Understandably and I concur. However, I haven't met anyone outside of the apple company that would pronounce it OS 10. That being said, they don't even use the nomenclature anymore.
I came over to Snow Leopard from Windows and always thought OS X til I heard it at a WWDC. Later, I met professors that had used OS 9, System 7, etc. and they always said OS 10 consistently.
OS X was never an X it was a roman numeral 10 and when used on its own it was mostly serif.
Pretty sure apples own presentations used “OS Ten” not “OS Ecks”
Pretty sure apples own presentations used “OS Ten” not “OS Ecks”
But users definitely said “OS Ecks” and “iPhone Ecks”. Using X to represent 10 is a branding disaster. Doesn’t matter if you get it straight in your keynote that only nerds watch.
Nah, I'll be saying eXcrete over tweet from now on. It's on brand.
> the logo looks too much like the button you click to close your browser
… which is exactly what many us do now whenever we hit the paywall.
… which is exactly what many us do now whenever we hit the paywall.
Musk has claimed for awhile that he wanted to start a new social network, but that starting from Twitter would be faster than starting from nothing.
So I don’t think he is trying to take actions that will improve Twitter, he is trying to morph it into something else entirely while maintaining at least some significant portion of the user base along the way.
I do think it will probably fail, but I’m not sure that it doesn’t have better odds than starting from scratch.
So I don’t think he is trying to take actions that will improve Twitter, he is trying to morph it into something else entirely while maintaining at least some significant portion of the user base along the way.
I do think it will probably fail, but I’m not sure that it doesn’t have better odds than starting from scratch.
It looks like he wants to turn twitter in to twitter with kijiji. Not really sure what part of this is a social network. He wants a marketplace that he can get some money back.
I think it is very bold of him to claim starting from zero would be slower. He has accrued so much hate that if he were to start one I can't see how it would turn out any different than truthsocial or if Biden started his own social media platform.
Although I do think it's doable if he somehow kept the fact that he is at the helm a trade secret as he gradually grew the userbase until reaching a certain critical mass and finally revealing that he's the owner.
Although I do think it's doable if he somehow kept the fact that he is at the helm a trade secret as he gradually grew the userbase until reaching a certain critical mass and finally revealing that he's the owner.
I think the hate is mostly from media turning against him, which IIRC started to happen before the Twitter debacle. What has he done that normal people would care about enough to start hating him?
I would still expect some hate from the sort of people who (rightly) complain about Google Reader being turned down. But normal people don’t care about that sort of thing.
I would still expect some hate from the sort of people who (rightly) complain about Google Reader being turned down. But normal people don’t care about that sort of thing.
>Throwing all of that away so Elon can use a domain he's sat on since '99 seems exceedingly foolish.
Elon is driven by emotions not rationality but I wouldn't be surprised if he goes back to the Twitter logo and brand after he realizes that nobody cares about his new logo and brand.
Like Gil Amelio said[0] about Apple, I would now say about Twitter: Twitter is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water and Elon's job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv1pvRDFFqs
Elon is driven by emotions not rationality but I wouldn't be surprised if he goes back to the Twitter logo and brand after he realizes that nobody cares about his new logo and brand.
Like Gil Amelio said[0] about Apple, I would now say about Twitter: Twitter is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water and Elon's job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv1pvRDFFqs
> Like Gil Amelio said[0] about Apple, I would now say about Twitter: Twitter is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water and Elon's job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.
The solution to getting Apple pointed in the right direction was (eventually) to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back. So, the solution here would seem to be - buy Bluesky and bring back Dorsey?
The solution to getting Apple pointed in the right direction was (eventually) to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back. So, the solution here would seem to be - buy Bluesky and bring back Dorsey?
Over the last decade the best oracle has consistently been "what would happen in the stupidest of all possible worlds?" and this is most likely the answer in this case.
What, the last decade only?
I'm not sure which is worse: a mercurial drug-addled owner, or a neglectful absentee CEO. Probably the absentee CEO. But neither is great.
And a reminder that the new CEO is only the CEO in name only. Musk is quite clearly the one running the company.
Her role seems to be glorified social media manager.
It seems to demonstrate that there is NO ONE in his inner circle that will challenge him or disagree with him. Does he have an inner circle? Or just sycophants who will tell him whatever he wants to hear?
Reminds me of movies like "Top Secret" and "Airplane", where they spend a big chunk of time setting up elements of the story and characters lines, all to deliver a slapstick joke.
Just imagining trying to search for anything related to x.com is ruining my day
Because my twitter ads aren’t already 50/50 “male enhancement chewables” and crypto scammers.
Apparently searching for hair loss treatments gets you put on the dick pill list.
Apparently searching for hair loss treatments gets you put on the dick pill list.
I tried "x com" in google and it worked fine. The first result was actually quite interesting
>X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California
So he's returning to his roots more than arbitrarily changing to something random
>X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California
So he's returning to his roots more than arbitrarily changing to something random
Elon is really, really good at a couple of things:
- Identifying inefficiencies in an existing technical solution
- Making people do what he wants
The things that Elon is really good at don't necessarily translate to great success in a long-term strategic vision. In a pure engineering discipline, like automotive production or aerospace engineering, they're very useful, but neither one of those things necessarily lends itself toward making a thing that is better or more appealing for the populace at large.
As an example: The Boring Company. The pure engineering problem of "how do I remove mass from the ground and create a tunnel as cheaply as possible" is a great application of Elon's strengths, and a useful problem to work on, because humanity will always need to build tunnels.
Hyperloop, though, is completely f'ing stupid, because regardless of whether an evacuated tube and car system can transport people efficiently or not, almost nobody wants to travel like this, and the entirety of the system is completely inefficient - trains are better in every case and with every metric.
In both TBC and Hyperloop, Elon wanted a thing, and convinced people to do it. It's just that there was no consideration as to whether the thing Elon wanted was useful or not.
This is Twitter. Elon looked at Twitter as a strictly engineering problem. And yes, Twitter was horribly inefficient, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of employees were let go and the service mostly continues to function, but my suspicion is that it is riding virtually entirely on H1B employees who are bound to the job else they are forced to leave the country. People will grind themselves to the bone for advancing human spaceflight and (to a lesser extent, maybe) improving alternative energy, but I don't know of any rational person who would do the same for Twitter, even if Elon bills it as the defacto public square.
Not to defend Elon, because I can't, but to be fair, any person reading this, if they had experienced the successes that Elon has in SpaceX and Tesla, fighting and succeeding against all of the naysayers, would have a non-trivial ego. When you combine that with the echo chamber of Elon's fans who treat him like the second coming, and who seem to honestly think that Elon (personally) can fix any problem, is it any wonder that he starts believing some of the bullshit? When he built the sub that led to him calling the rescue diver a pedoguy, and did it because people asked him to, and so many people constantly lauded him with egostroking compliments that he believed he could. And even though he didn't do anything that ended up saving those kids, he was found not guilty of defamation, so he still walked away with a win.
Fast forward 7 years and when he's forced to buy Twitter, he still feels like whatever he does is the right thing, and will do it regardless, and he will convince people under his influence to do what he wants so that he walks away with a win.
So that's a lot of text to say, yes, you're right, it is foolish. He doesn't care, he wants to win, and he'll do anything he can to walk away with a win, regardless of how it impacts anyone else, because ultimately it's not about the people who use the service, it's about Elon feeling good about himself.
- Identifying inefficiencies in an existing technical solution
- Making people do what he wants
The things that Elon is really good at don't necessarily translate to great success in a long-term strategic vision. In a pure engineering discipline, like automotive production or aerospace engineering, they're very useful, but neither one of those things necessarily lends itself toward making a thing that is better or more appealing for the populace at large.
As an example: The Boring Company. The pure engineering problem of "how do I remove mass from the ground and create a tunnel as cheaply as possible" is a great application of Elon's strengths, and a useful problem to work on, because humanity will always need to build tunnels.
Hyperloop, though, is completely f'ing stupid, because regardless of whether an evacuated tube and car system can transport people efficiently or not, almost nobody wants to travel like this, and the entirety of the system is completely inefficient - trains are better in every case and with every metric.
In both TBC and Hyperloop, Elon wanted a thing, and convinced people to do it. It's just that there was no consideration as to whether the thing Elon wanted was useful or not.
This is Twitter. Elon looked at Twitter as a strictly engineering problem. And yes, Twitter was horribly inefficient, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of employees were let go and the service mostly continues to function, but my suspicion is that it is riding virtually entirely on H1B employees who are bound to the job else they are forced to leave the country. People will grind themselves to the bone for advancing human spaceflight and (to a lesser extent, maybe) improving alternative energy, but I don't know of any rational person who would do the same for Twitter, even if Elon bills it as the defacto public square.
Not to defend Elon, because I can't, but to be fair, any person reading this, if they had experienced the successes that Elon has in SpaceX and Tesla, fighting and succeeding against all of the naysayers, would have a non-trivial ego. When you combine that with the echo chamber of Elon's fans who treat him like the second coming, and who seem to honestly think that Elon (personally) can fix any problem, is it any wonder that he starts believing some of the bullshit? When he built the sub that led to him calling the rescue diver a pedoguy, and did it because people asked him to, and so many people constantly lauded him with egostroking compliments that he believed he could. And even though he didn't do anything that ended up saving those kids, he was found not guilty of defamation, so he still walked away with a win.
Fast forward 7 years and when he's forced to buy Twitter, he still feels like whatever he does is the right thing, and will do it regardless, and he will convince people under his influence to do what he wants so that he walks away with a win.
So that's a lot of text to say, yes, you're right, it is foolish. He doesn't care, he wants to win, and he'll do anything he can to walk away with a win, regardless of how it impacts anyone else, because ultimately it's not about the people who use the service, it's about Elon feeling good about himself.
> As an example: The Boring Company.
Are they doing a better job that anyone else? Also, anything they make appears to have to be paired with Telsa's, which for mass transportation, is literally the stupidest idea ever conceived.
The Boring Company an Hyperloop are just Gadgetbahns to try to convince State and local governments to not make public transportation.
Now, if The Boring Company could make tunnels for cheap and then install real trains, then it might be a game changer but until then, it is not.
Are they doing a better job that anyone else? Also, anything they make appears to have to be paired with Telsa's, which for mass transportation, is literally the stupidest idea ever conceived.
The Boring Company an Hyperloop are just Gadgetbahns to try to convince State and local governments to not make public transportation.
Now, if The Boring Company could make tunnels for cheap and then install real trains, then it might be a game changer but until then, it is not.
> As an example: The Boring Company.
Have they pushed the boundaries though? As I understand it TBMs have been a thing for a while and plenty of pretty impressive and enormous tunnels have been built in the alps or under seas like the Channel Tunnel or the tunnel section of the Oresund bridge.
This isn't my area of expertise but all I've heard so far were a few test tunnels and the Las Vegas Loop, which isn't lighting the world on fire. I mean if they make it easier + cheaper to build tunnels then I'm all for it. I've just not yet seen anything that suggests TBC is particularly interesting.
Have they pushed the boundaries though? As I understand it TBMs have been a thing for a while and plenty of pretty impressive and enormous tunnels have been built in the alps or under seas like the Channel Tunnel or the tunnel section of the Oresund bridge.
This isn't my area of expertise but all I've heard so far were a few test tunnels and the Las Vegas Loop, which isn't lighting the world on fire. I mean if they make it easier + cheaper to build tunnels then I'm all for it. I've just not yet seen anything that suggests TBC is particularly interesting.
As I understand it, they bought a very small TBM and dug some small tunnels cheaply, and then claimed that the cost is somehow comparable to the cost of big tunnels that have to be dug with big TBMs (which is obviously orders of magnitude more expensive).
The idea behind TBC is fine, which is to figure out how to tunnel as quickly as possible, with the assumption that the current methods are less than fully efficient.
The original TBC at the tunnel across the street from SpaceX was a proof of concept that used essentially off-the-shelf tunneling tech so that the team could learn how the current state of the practice was accomplished, and that they could improve on it.
I don't know if you're familiar with tunnel boring (and if you are, sorry I'm explaining something that you probably know better than I do), but essentially the phases of digging, mucking, and reinforcing are not done concurrently, and I think that was the first things they were trying to do, and then move on from there. But yes, smaller tunnels were part of it.
The original TBC at the tunnel across the street from SpaceX was a proof of concept that used essentially off-the-shelf tunneling tech so that the team could learn how the current state of the practice was accomplished, and that they could improve on it.
I don't know if you're familiar with tunnel boring (and if you are, sorry I'm explaining something that you probably know better than I do), but essentially the phases of digging, mucking, and reinforcing are not done concurrently, and I think that was the first things they were trying to do, and then move on from there. But yes, smaller tunnels were part of it.
No, the idea behind TBC was to build a tunnel between Elon Musk's house (at the time) and the SpaceX factory for his private use, to shorten his commute from going around a mountain to going through it. That's why the "proof of concept" is where it is.
Also, they did not do any real innovation, as you seem to be claiming. Combining those steps is 50-year-old technology, at least, and has been done at scale (ie not on tiny tunnels) many times.
Also, they did not do any real innovation, as you seem to be claiming. Combining those steps is 50-year-old technology, at least, and has been done at scale (ie not on tiny tunnels) many times.
Is that TBM small enough to fit on a SpaceX Starship and send it to Mars?
I always thought Boring was a project intended for digging a base on Mars, fitting a whole Tesla in the tunnel would be even more than what's needed to connect some underground habitats.
I always thought Boring was a project intended for digging a base on Mars, fitting a whole Tesla in the tunnel would be even more than what's needed to connect some underground habitats.
their "innovation" is making tunnels only big enough for a tesla instead of a train. So you save on boring cost by trading off throughput/operations cost...
If you are making a tunnel through a mountain to transport individuals, the cost of the vehicles is immaterial relative to the cost of the tunnel. A tunnel that can carry 700 people an hour is mostly worthless, even if it was cheaper than a tunnel that can carry many trains per hour.
>Identifying inefficiencies in an existing technical solution
I'm not sure that's true considering why he was (or the public story of why he was) pushed out of PayPal.
IIRC: He forced a port/rewrite of their platform to Windows (from Unix) that eventually led to a code freeze of the existing platform to allow the port to "catch up" to the existing platform. At the same time, they were hemorrhaging money due to fraud and they couldn't do anything about it due to the code freeze.
I'm not sure that's true considering why he was (or the public story of why he was) pushed out of PayPal.
IIRC: He forced a port/rewrite of their platform to Windows (from Unix) that eventually led to a code freeze of the existing platform to allow the port to "catch up" to the existing platform. At the same time, they were hemorrhaging money due to fraud and they couldn't do anything about it due to the code freeze.
Elon's skills are
1) having money to throw around
2) having big manic swings that make the money seem attractive
Everything else is a hagiography.
1) having money to throw around
2) having big manic swings that make the money seem attractive
Everything else is a hagiography.
TBF having a quick response time to real-world fraud (as in, not because there is a bug in the code, but because users are lying to each other) is not an issue a developer would normally have to worry about. Seems like he simply got scapegoated on that one.
If I remember correctly, it was an issue with the code and not being able to detect/prevent fraudulent transactions.
I’ll have to go through the book(s) and check out the explanation again.
I’ll have to go through the book(s) and check out the explanation again.
That’s an awful lot of speculative text about a person you seem to know next to nothing about.
You're not looking at this with the right perspective. Hyperloop, EV's, solar panels, batteries, huge tunnels, reusable rockets. What's the common thread here?
This is obviously all the technology that Elon thinks is necessary to colonize Mars, and in each case he's doing the best he can to develop it on Earth. However its usefulness on Earth is a secondary concern.
This is obviously all the technology that Elon thinks is necessary to colonize Mars, and in each case he's doing the best he can to develop it on Earth. However its usefulness on Earth is a secondary concern.
Where does Twitter fit into being useful technology with which to colonize Mars?
Think the fact that the engineering problems Musk demonstrated some aptitude for finding solutions to were also vaguely related to his stated aspiration to colonise other planets actually perfectly fits the armchair speculation that Twitter is just an addictive distraction from hard science which he's pursuing out of sheer hubris, not because of any grand vision but because he said he could do better than the people in charge and people liked his posts
Think the fact that the engineering problems Musk demonstrated some aptitude for finding solutions to were also vaguely related to his stated aspiration to colonise other planets actually perfectly fits the armchair speculation that Twitter is just an addictive distraction from hard science which he's pursuing out of sheer hubris, not because of any grand vision but because he said he could do better than the people in charge and people liked his posts
Simply put, Twitter is a tool of immense political influence, and Musk has realized he needs to regime change the US and kill the "Woke mind virus" to ensure his Mars plans happen.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest his Mars plans would be better served by a few well-placed lobbyists for public-private partnerships with NASA than by spending $44bn on making the platform he previously got to vice-signal on for free less popular...
It was a tool of political influence before he killed it and the journalists who would cover and amplify political figures left because it is no longer interesting.
But, then again, "woke mind virus"--the cope, it's real.
But, then again, "woke mind virus"--the cope, it's real.
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Earth-Mars async communication system is needed because it takes some minutes even in light speed. Twitter may work for it? I don't know.
I have personally asked Elon if this was his intent with Hyperloop and he said no. I don't know what to say other than that.
Yeah, he's pretty much the most trustworthy person on the planet and has never lied to serve his own ends. I mean, I guess there's still you that's the weak link in that chain of trust, but otherwise certainly if he said it it must be true.
The Boring Company is a complete laughing stock.
> trains are better in every case and with every metric
Except what people in America actually want to do, which is not ride a train outside of novelty.
Except what people in America actually want to do, which is not ride a train outside of novelty.
Build it and they will come.
The trains in the Boston - NYC - DC corridor seem fairly decent and useful, although I’ve only ridden them as a tourist (from Europe).
The trains in the Boston - NYC - DC corridor seem fairly decent and useful, although I’ve only ridden them as a tourist (from Europe).
I've taken the Vermonter down through NYC and Philadelphia all the way to Baltimore. It's straight up awesome. Most affordable method of luxury travel. Even coach is more or less OK. The train from Boston to the DC area is even better.
Why would I choose to be on someone else's schedule when I can be on my own?
Because it can get you to a location substantially faster than by car, in a way that doesn't require you to waste all your time and attention driving? The US has bent over backwards to accommodate cars and we're still seeing astronomical traffic during peak hours in all major metro areas. When they're built well, a train (or any public transit) ride can you to and from your place of work in an equal or shorter amount of time, while allowing you the freedom to do whatever you want during the ride itself. For the small hassle of adjusting your schedule by 15 minutes you can regain 1+ hours of your life
It absolutely cannot get you to your location substantially faster, unless you live in a city and are going to a destination inside of the city or to another city that is serviced by the train. I wanted to believe, because I don't inherently love driving and love to configure my computer/laptop/environment such that I can work from any device (thin client-esque) and LOVE the idea of someone else worrying about transportation and me hacking away instead. I'll tell you a story about my personal experience delving into making this work.
In order from me to get from north of the golden gate bridge in the SF Bay Area (in Marin) to say, Cupertino, which I did regularly when I worked for Rancher Labs and MariaDB, I'd have had to take 3 separate modes of public transportation which I would need to weave together in a weird way, and was surprisingly expensive. It would also take 4 hours with appropriate adjustments in variation in route timing. Each way. So 8 hours in commute time alone. I didn't even try. The route would have been Home -> Ferry -> Walk from Ferry Building to King St -> Caltrain -> Cupertino'ish, then bus or walk.
OKOK, maybe I should have to live closer to take advantage of the marvels of modern public transportation...
When I worked at Docker, the Golden Gate transit bus stop was right outside of my house (less than a block.) It was $15 each way. The bus ride took an hour+ and dropped me off 2-6 blocks away, depending on the location of the office at the time. So 1.5 hours each way or 3 hours a day + $30 in fares.
Taking the bus was very limiting. Not only did I have to get to the bus at a specific time in the morning, but I had to leave before a certain time at night. What ended up happening was I would take the 5:45am bus, arriving in office around 7:30am and often take the 4pm or 5pm bus back, on average. This was the time I'd get to the office earlier than everyone, work away for a few hours without anyone there, but also leave earlier than most (but arrive home around the same time)
If there was an event in the evening, a spontaneous outing with co-workers, anything, which would happen after work, the busses were no longer running so I had to take the ferry which would take my across the bridge and ask my lovely wife to come pick me up (in a car) from the ferry terminal.
The ferry was shorter in terms of travel time (30 mins across the bay) but you have to get there 15 mins early to park and get in line to board and there's a variation in the schedule. Factor in potential traffic getting to the ferry terminal, and you're leaving to the Ferry 45 minutes prior to departure (for a 30 minutes ride.) So all told it's not much better, all in, but I am already in a car, driving. So no car savings in this scenario.
Even later (past 10pm, oh no!) I'd then I've to call an Uber, and it was incredibly expensive ($120+) in addition to being inconvenient for the Uber driver to have to drive so far away from their normal operating place.
I've tried to like Public transit. It was not time efficient or cost efficient in any way for me personally to do any of this. It was far too constraining, despite the benefits.
I don't think my situation is all too different from most people living outside of a major city or the suburbs of a major city in the united states. Trains and public transportation is definitely not the answer for me. Getting more transportation infrastructure in my area to make it more efficient is not appealing to me in the slightest.
HOWEVER, because of all of this, I am such a huge proponent of remote work. Remote work eliminates all of this shit, and, if you don't want to have a car or commute or have your car on the road, you don't have to.
I've put substantially less miles on all of my vehicles since 2020 as a result of the pandemic and the shift from remote work and I could not be happier. I started my truck and drove it for the first time this year today. That's amazing.
In order from me to get from north of the golden gate bridge in the SF Bay Area (in Marin) to say, Cupertino, which I did regularly when I worked for Rancher Labs and MariaDB, I'd have had to take 3 separate modes of public transportation which I would need to weave together in a weird way, and was surprisingly expensive. It would also take 4 hours with appropriate adjustments in variation in route timing. Each way. So 8 hours in commute time alone. I didn't even try. The route would have been Home -> Ferry -> Walk from Ferry Building to King St -> Caltrain -> Cupertino'ish, then bus or walk.
OKOK, maybe I should have to live closer to take advantage of the marvels of modern public transportation...
When I worked at Docker, the Golden Gate transit bus stop was right outside of my house (less than a block.) It was $15 each way. The bus ride took an hour+ and dropped me off 2-6 blocks away, depending on the location of the office at the time. So 1.5 hours each way or 3 hours a day + $30 in fares.
Taking the bus was very limiting. Not only did I have to get to the bus at a specific time in the morning, but I had to leave before a certain time at night. What ended up happening was I would take the 5:45am bus, arriving in office around 7:30am and often take the 4pm or 5pm bus back, on average. This was the time I'd get to the office earlier than everyone, work away for a few hours without anyone there, but also leave earlier than most (but arrive home around the same time)
If there was an event in the evening, a spontaneous outing with co-workers, anything, which would happen after work, the busses were no longer running so I had to take the ferry which would take my across the bridge and ask my lovely wife to come pick me up (in a car) from the ferry terminal.
The ferry was shorter in terms of travel time (30 mins across the bay) but you have to get there 15 mins early to park and get in line to board and there's a variation in the schedule. Factor in potential traffic getting to the ferry terminal, and you're leaving to the Ferry 45 minutes prior to departure (for a 30 minutes ride.) So all told it's not much better, all in, but I am already in a car, driving. So no car savings in this scenario.
Even later (past 10pm, oh no!) I'd then I've to call an Uber, and it was incredibly expensive ($120+) in addition to being inconvenient for the Uber driver to have to drive so far away from their normal operating place.
I've tried to like Public transit. It was not time efficient or cost efficient in any way for me personally to do any of this. It was far too constraining, despite the benefits.
I don't think my situation is all too different from most people living outside of a major city or the suburbs of a major city in the united states. Trains and public transportation is definitely not the answer for me. Getting more transportation infrastructure in my area to make it more efficient is not appealing to me in the slightest.
HOWEVER, because of all of this, I am such a huge proponent of remote work. Remote work eliminates all of this shit, and, if you don't want to have a car or commute or have your car on the road, you don't have to.
I've put substantially less miles on all of my vehicles since 2020 as a result of the pandemic and the shift from remote work and I could not be happier. I started my truck and drove it for the first time this year today. That's amazing.
That is a big block of text which reports a rather obvious fact: public transit in the US sucks. I fully agree with this fact. I think that this is a fact because of our car fetishism. I think we need to have less car fetishism and more public transit. I think our current car-centric infra is costing us way too much money, and isn't going to scale in the way we want. I agree with the Strong Towns position that most (or at least many) suburbs are going to become insolvent because of their car-enabled low density. I have no opinions in either direction about remote work generally, but personally I enjoy having an office to work in that isn't my home. I hope the rising cost of gasoline isn't negatively impacting your truck-driving experience too adversely.
I didnt read all of that, but trains are indoubtedly faster than cars. The reason while thats not necessarily true in US is that train network in the US sucks because the whole infrastructure (and ideology) is leaning heavily towards cars and now you have serious people who claim "why whould I adjust my schedule when I am FREE with my car and its faster" as a counter argument to "we should improve public transport network". Living in Europe with functioning train networks, I can confirm train is much more comfortable than car. Adjusting to a fixed schedule is worth the cost of being much faster and having the time to do something else on the train and be it just relaxation to arrive without exhaustion at the destination.
A lot of these discussions devolve because of a lack of shared context. I live out in farm country. No trains are coming out here for a plethora of reasons.
Using public transportation - for me - and a lot of America where population density is LOW in such a case is a waste of time for all of the reasons I listed.
Using public transportation - for me - and a lot of America where population density is LOW in such a case is a waste of time for all of the reasons I listed.
Right but the ability of you and many Americans to live in such low-density areas is fully supported by the massive amount of resources directed towards car-centric infrastructure. The problem you refer to- that public transit cannot service low density- is one which creates itself. Moreover, low-density means low tax revenue and infra is EXPENSIVE; more expensive in many cases than the low-density tax base can support. The net result is that revenue to build infra is generated in high-density areas and then spent on low-density ones, which weakens the public transit offerings in high-density areas and encourages more driving, which encourages more low-density living, and the cycle continues. This is not sustainable, and something will give eventually.
You point out one of the key things about making public transport work well as an alternative: frequency and reliability . And I don't mean reliability in the sense that it doesn't break down, I mean in the sense that you can rely that the service will be offered, no matter when.
Now the funny part is that it's probably a lot easier to make a self driving train, airplane or bus on a controlled, dedicated lane than a self driving car to increase frequency and extend running hours.
I wouldn't call being stuck in forever traffic, and spending a quarter[1] of my income on transportation to be 'living on my own schedule'[2]...
[1] TCO of an average car is ~$6,000-10,000/year of after-tax money, median US after-tax income is sub-$40,000/year.
[1] TCO of an average car is ~$6,000-10,000/year of after-tax money, median US after-tax income is sub-$40,000/year.
If you are spending $10,000 on your car per year you are making an extraordinarily bad financial decision.
Parking, toll roads, tabs, gasoline, insurance, interest payments, maintenance, depreciation will all happily run up to that amount for a new car, and to $6,000 for an old car.
The IRS mileage deductible rate is 65 cents/mile, and it's pretty close to operational cost of a vehicle. Parking and tolls and 10,000 miles a year will easily get you to these numbers.
Some call this freedom, but I call this a financial millstone around your neck.
-----
(Not to mention the mountains of public[1] and private money that get spent on automobile infrastructure, parking offsets, etc, etc.)
[1] Most of which comes from the general tax fund...
The IRS mileage deductible rate is 65 cents/mile, and it's pretty close to operational cost of a vehicle. Parking and tolls and 10,000 miles a year will easily get you to these numbers.
Some call this freedom, but I call this a financial millstone around your neck.
-----
(Not to mention the mountains of public[1] and private money that get spent on automobile infrastructure, parking offsets, etc, etc.)
[1] Most of which comes from the general tax fund...
My car payment alone is almost that much. Then my insurance is also almost that much.
Oh, and about $5,000/yr in gas.
Oh, and about $5,000/yr in gas.
> My car payment alone is almost that much. Then my insurance is also almost that much.
Are you in Europe or the US?
My insurance at age 20 with an accident under my belt was under $3,000 a year. My 50k mile Corolla cost less than your annual car payments.
> Oh, and about $5,000/yr in gas.
That's $100 or two sedan sized tanks every week at US prices. At 30 MPG that's over 30,000 miles a year.
Are you in Europe or the US?
My insurance at age 20 with an accident under my belt was under $3,000 a year. My 50k mile Corolla cost less than your annual car payments.
> Oh, and about $5,000/yr in gas.
That's $100 or two sedan sized tanks every week at US prices. At 30 MPG that's over 30,000 miles a year.
Anecdotally - I bought my car for $7,000 cash, about four years ago. I guess that's about $1,500 a year plus gas and maintenance.
When the true cost of being "on your own schedule" costs tens of thousands more per year.
What is your time worth to you? If your time is worthless then of course waste it and use public transportation, but for me every hour I spend on unnecessary transportation is $120 in straight income and immeasurable from losing out on time with my family.
Of course this is very situation dependant but under my exact scenario you can probably imagine why I’d spend tens of thousands per year on a car. Of course I don’t, and the number is actually closer to $4k, but even then the time saving makes up for that in like a month.
Of course this is very situation dependant but under my exact scenario you can probably imagine why I’d spend tens of thousands per year on a car. Of course I don’t, and the number is actually closer to $4k, but even then the time saving makes up for that in like a month.
I've always thought the "Set an arbitrary dollar amount to my time to do whatever I want" argument is kind of dumb. No value to glean from it. Regardless with good urban design, public transportation is faster than a car anyway.
And I say tens of thousands because car amortization/maintenance, road maintenance, oil subsidies, environmental cost (gigantic) probably clears 4 figures per year easily.
And I say tens of thousands because car amortization/maintenance, road maintenance, oil subsidies, environmental cost (gigantic) probably clears 4 figures per year easily.
good public transport networks are faster than cars in most cases, plus its much more environmental friendly. The problem is US is catered to the most inefficient modern transport (cars) and falls now for sunk cost fallacy.
“Most cases” is a wildly subjective statement to use here. For my current job, I’d use an hour more for my commute if not for my car. For my previous one, it would be an hour and a half.
I live in the second largest city in the country.
I live in the second largest city in the country.
You mean why would you ever fly on a commercial airline, for example?
Exactly
Long-distance travel by train is a luxury compared to the car. Traveling by train, you can work, eat, read, watch a movie, and socialize.
> Except what people in America actually want to do, which is not ride a train outside of novelty.
It's not like there's a convenient alternative to be chosen, it's a country where for a lot of people the choice is either to have a car or to starve (by proxy, not being able to get to your job). Doesn't sound much like a choice about what Americans want to do.
It's not like there's a convenient alternative to be chosen, it's a country where for a lot of people the choice is either to have a car or to starve (by proxy, not being able to get to your job). Doesn't sound much like a choice about what Americans want to do.
This is the best explanation of Elon's mindset that I have seen.
he's only good at bs'ing, and too much people keep falling for it
I don't necessarily think his plan to turn Twitter into WeChat for the west is /doomed/ to fail, although it seems highly unlikely to gain traction, but it's certainly a bold plan to turn the flailing social network around into something that could be significant and I respect the ambition.
Throwing away powerful branding is just a hilariously bad call.
Throwing away powerful branding is just a hilariously bad call.
To me, this is appropriately symbolic his efforts to kill Twitter.
He’s said X is an app to do everything similar to WeChat in China. I suspect this will blow over and twitter will remain a sub product within a larger app. No way people are going to change the language they use.
Twitter is already gone on desktop. Mobile will shortly follow one they get through app review (funny that they didn't do this beforehand).
Does it?
Social media doesn't age well. Look at myspace. This will be controversial, but Google didn't get where it wanted/needed to be with Google+ and they ripped the cord out of the wall; it seemed like it was just google being google but it may have been genius.
I was also critical of FB/Meta buying Insta, I figured it was all going to somehow be Facebookgram but they kept it separate. FB is now for old people and Insta is probably at its peak. I will not be shocked when Meta launches a new video oriented application similar to TikTok or YouTube but somehow different.
Twitter has been toxic from day one, in fact I think the very idea of reducing discourse to something the size of a tweet is bad for the world. Lately it has been a cesspool, I get targeted political content that I absolutely never sought out, very obviously biased. That aside, do you somehow "rehabilitate" twitter? Or do you scuttle it and have a newness? Rebranding seems like the most realistic Hail Mary option, it can possibly be new without rebuilding everything. I don't think it will work and I don't really want it to, personally, but it's a bold play that is way better than continuing to watch it erode. I've heard 2 or 3 different media sources talking about twitter in the last week, partially about the "X" but also very openly about how it isn't the same thing and they don't like it. It might be too late when NYTimes podcasts are openly talking about how the reporters dislike using it anymore.
I'm not a super active participant in or consumer of "social media" but I can't remember one having a second act, once it was no longer "cool" it seemed like the party was over, did I miss one that reinvented itself? Twitter is not cool anymore.
Social media doesn't age well. Look at myspace. This will be controversial, but Google didn't get where it wanted/needed to be with Google+ and they ripped the cord out of the wall; it seemed like it was just google being google but it may have been genius.
I was also critical of FB/Meta buying Insta, I figured it was all going to somehow be Facebookgram but they kept it separate. FB is now for old people and Insta is probably at its peak. I will not be shocked when Meta launches a new video oriented application similar to TikTok or YouTube but somehow different.
Twitter has been toxic from day one, in fact I think the very idea of reducing discourse to something the size of a tweet is bad for the world. Lately it has been a cesspool, I get targeted political content that I absolutely never sought out, very obviously biased. That aside, do you somehow "rehabilitate" twitter? Or do you scuttle it and have a newness? Rebranding seems like the most realistic Hail Mary option, it can possibly be new without rebuilding everything. I don't think it will work and I don't really want it to, personally, but it's a bold play that is way better than continuing to watch it erode. I've heard 2 or 3 different media sources talking about twitter in the last week, partially about the "X" but also very openly about how it isn't the same thing and they don't like it. It might be too late when NYTimes podcasts are openly talking about how the reporters dislike using it anymore.
I'm not a super active participant in or consumer of "social media" but I can't remember one having a second act, once it was no longer "cool" it seemed like the party was over, did I miss one that reinvented itself? Twitter is not cool anymore.
As a Twitter-skeptic for nearly fifteen years now, the single useful feature of Twitter was as a "global PA system", not a means of discourse. It was a way for people to announce events that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, or engage in public PR battles with monopolies and oligarchies. Which is a threat to the kinds of people Musk wants to be.
Sure, sometimes those public announcements of events were "I hate minorities" or "yo look at my dick", but the platform was a global notice board that served a positive purpose in that narrow definition.
Sure, sometimes those public announcements of events were "I hate minorities" or "yo look at my dick", but the platform was a global notice board that served a positive purpose in that narrow definition.
Agreed, if I were to make a "good" Twitter (as in, one that isn't a hellish place) I'd make it so you couldn't comment on any tweets. People could post a tweet, people following that account could view that tweet in their feeds.
Would it have significantly less engagement and be "less successful" than Twitter? Absolutely no question. But it wouldn't be as much of a ridiculous hell of shitflinging and people arguing about stuff with a small character limit and less than ideal amounts of context
Would it have significantly less engagement and be "less successful" than Twitter? Absolutely no question. But it wouldn't be as much of a ridiculous hell of shitflinging and people arguing about stuff with a small character limit and less than ideal amounts of context
Twitter has not been some revolutionary (in the political sense) device since long before Musk bought it, if it ever was. Actually the opposite, it was shown to act as an arm of the states that support the status quo.
not sure it was revolutionary, but it sure was helpful for example for getting alerts to breaking news stories and such
> not sure it was revolutionary,
I'm sure it was not.
> but it sure was helpful for example for getting alerts to breaking news stories and such
Yes, presumably the breaking news that the government-corporate propaganda machine wanted us to see.
Seeing earthquakes and mass shootings and the like a few minutes before legacy media was an interesting novelty but not much actual practical value and not something that will bring down capitalism/billionaires/fascists/etc.
I'm sure it was not.
> but it sure was helpful for example for getting alerts to breaking news stories and such
Yes, presumably the breaking news that the government-corporate propaganda machine wanted us to see.
Seeing earthquakes and mass shootings and the like a few minutes before legacy media was an interesting novelty but not much actual practical value and not something that will bring down capitalism/billionaires/fascists/etc.
> I figured it was all going to somehow be Facebookgram but they kept it separate
I'm still salty that they pulled out the Foursquare location backend and replaced it with Facebook's... whatever it is they replaced it with. Eleven years later and it's still less often correct than it was when Foursquare was providing the data.
I'm still salty that they pulled out the Foursquare location backend and replaced it with Facebook's... whatever it is they replaced it with. Eleven years later and it's still less often correct than it was when Foursquare was providing the data.
I've been on a Twitter break the past two weeks and it's been pretty glorious all things considered. The only thing I really do miss - and will miss if the platform dies - is that ability to be connected to the thoughts of people I want.
The question of what happens to the blogosphere types if/when Twitter explodes matters a lot to me. Idk if Substack is the right answer.
The question of what happens to the blogosphere types if/when Twitter explodes matters a lot to me. Idk if Substack is the right answer.
Genius would have been not creating Google+. Which makes Microsoft a genius for not going down that path. I'm a genius for not launch a site either. You probably are too.
> It might be too late when NYTimes podcasts are openly talking about how the reporters dislike using it anymore.
Nytimes is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They pretend to be better than something like Fox News but they’re the same thing. Their css and layout plus their history would have fools believe they are a good source of unbiased news. But they’re just as fake as the other news and cater to the left instead, which is anti-Musk for reasons.
Also with twitter and AI threatening to displace journalists I can’t imagine they’d like it much.
Not necessarily disagreeing with any predictions about what becomes of twitter/X though..
Nytimes is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They pretend to be better than something like Fox News but they’re the same thing. Their css and layout plus their history would have fools believe they are a good source of unbiased news. But they’re just as fake as the other news and cater to the left instead, which is anti-Musk for reasons.
Also with twitter and AI threatening to displace journalists I can’t imagine they’d like it much.
Not necessarily disagreeing with any predictions about what becomes of twitter/X though..
That is one hell of a false equivalence after we just saw what came out of the Dominion lawsuit / settlement.
No it is absolutely not. The dominion lawsuit does not have anything to do with how utterly biased the NY Times is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
^ I think you need to read that
^ I think you need to read that
I didn't see anyone mention the rationale. Here it is:
"Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing.
The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video.
In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird."
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1683656350046232578
"Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing.
The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video.
In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird."
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1683656350046232578
> so Elon can use a domain he's sat on since '99
Maybe he sold it to the holding company of the company formerly known as Twitter?
Maybe he sold it to the holding company of the company formerly known as Twitter?
This rebrand isn’t for you
It’s for Wall Street so he can take this dumpster fire public again, but with a whole bunch of buzzwords.
It’s for Wall Street so he can take this dumpster fire public again, but with a whole bunch of buzzwords.
> exceedingly foolish.
Perhaps it's not foolish. People have been leaving Twitter in a huff, slamming the door on their way out. "Twitter" was ruined according to numerous articles and memes. Rebranding might be going with the flow rather than fighting against the grain of "old Twitter".
Perhaps it's not foolish. People have been leaving Twitter in a huff, slamming the door on their way out. "Twitter" was ruined according to numerous articles and memes. Rebranding might be going with the flow rather than fighting against the grain of "old Twitter".
It's interesting to me that the ones who really have a problem with this change are those who already left Twitter. But, having removed themselves from being the target demographic and already indicated that they won't return; I'm very much in agreement with you here that these changes are now much more with the flow.
Since Twitter is a neologism they are in a strong place: if somebody wants to sell “Twitter” sausages at the supermarket Twitter is in a position to do that…. Whereas “McDonalds” really can’t extend its brand beyond hamburger restaurants.
The next question is: “Is he really serious about the super app?”. The horror is that he probably is, but what business wants to deal with a mercurial leader who might stop payments, pay people extra, or impound money in your account for no good reason. What business is going to want to put an “X” logo up by their cash register when it means they are going to have arguments with customers. (I bet it will be a hit for “go anti-woke and go broke” businesses though.)
The next question is: “Is he really serious about the super app?”. The horror is that he probably is, but what business wants to deal with a mercurial leader who might stop payments, pay people extra, or impound money in your account for no good reason. What business is going to want to put an “X” logo up by their cash register when it means they are going to have arguments with customers. (I bet it will be a hit for “go anti-woke and go broke” businesses though.)
Twitter is not a neologism, but a word in the english dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twitter ("to utter successive chirping noises"). As is tweet: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tweet ("a chirping note").
My knowledge of trademark law is limited, but I guess if someone would like to sell "Twitter"-sausages, they would have to apply for that trademark in the respective category and it could be anyone, as the-company-formerly-known-as-twitter propably doesn't have the trademark for food?
As I understand it, some brands are strong enough and globally-applicable enough that you can't use them regardless of what you're trading in. If you were to sell "Nike sausages," I'm pretty sure you would get sued and lose in court. Other times, the brand is more limited and you can get away with re-using it.
As a slight counterpoint, Bells Labs was selling Nike Missiles before the shoe company ever existed. I imagine that they’d be in a good place legally to continue that brand name.
It's both.
Trademark law requires registering for a series of categories where a product seeks protection, with each category being relatively specific.
At the same time, suing someone for Trademark infringement requires a judge to decide whether it could "potentially induce confusion in the user".
Could an app be confused for a sausage? Could it be confused for a sneaker?... I'd say not, but I'm no judge!
Trademark law requires registering for a series of categories where a product seeks protection, with each category being relatively specific.
At the same time, suing someone for Trademark infringement requires a judge to decide whether it could "potentially induce confusion in the user".
Could an app be confused for a sausage? Could it be confused for a sneaker?... I'd say not, but I'm no judge!
I'd be really mad if I owned Twitter stock.
Twitter owners voted for the change unanimously.
You mean they voted unanimously to _sell_ it for the (high) price Elon offered (and tried to back out of), right?
The 'vote' was for money, not for any sort of trust in Elon's leadership
I didn't follow this too closely so I really have no idea if internally the Twitter directors thought this was going to be good or if it was a 'dump it on the billionaire' thing
What I mean with my original post above is that Twitter is such a recognizable brand it must be worth multiple millions of dollars - to throw it away for the most bland and un-googleable thing "X" is... hard to understand
The 'vote' was for money, not for any sort of trust in Elon's leadership
I didn't follow this too closely so I really have no idea if internally the Twitter directors thought this was going to be good or if it was a 'dump it on the billionaire' thing
What I mean with my original post above is that Twitter is such a recognizable brand it must be worth multiple millions of dollars - to throw it away for the most bland and un-googleable thing "X" is... hard to understand
To be fair, if you google "X" right now you will find an explosion of news surrounding this change. So not exactly un-googleable.
Users will have to remember to use 'x.com' plus the search term or they will get too much craft from every page that uses the letter X as a placeholder/variable though, right?
How does "x dot com" work to prop up the brand in daily communication and will people actually do it?
Because if they don't do both, then none of the content on x dot com matters, right?
Twitter needs nothing extra, no 'dot com' in any fashion, the brand lends itself exceedingly well to verbal and digital uses while consistently establishing and reinforcing the brand.
Really, he tanked most of the brand value if not all of it, it just doesn't "work".
How does "x dot com" work to prop up the brand in daily communication and will people actually do it?
Because if they don't do both, then none of the content on x dot com matters, right?
Twitter needs nothing extra, no 'dot com' in any fashion, the brand lends itself exceedingly well to verbal and digital uses while consistently establishing and reinforcing the brand.
Really, he tanked most of the brand value if not all of it, it just doesn't "work".
The joke is there's only one owner.
Didn’t they already get paid for the stock?
The public stockholders, yes, but there are currently private investors.
if you're throwing away arguably billions in brand equity, you can be sure the app's about to change radically
The reason I keep saying 'ketamine is a hell of a drug' is, foolish doesn't adequately describe what's happening.
The wealthiest huckster in the whole entire world has done so many horse tranquilizers as psychedelics that something broke and he is flipping out and wielding his power in unaccountable ways, like any billionaire, but in obvious madness.
He broke. But nobody can do a thing to help, because billionaires are so powerful that the man is completely unaccountable to anyone or anything. It's worse than Ye. Elon broke, after too many horse tranquilizer trips. He's not there anymore. You're seeing the drugs acting in his stead.
There are reasons why societies don't set individuals up with this kind of power.
The wealthiest huckster in the whole entire world has done so many horse tranquilizers as psychedelics that something broke and he is flipping out and wielding his power in unaccountable ways, like any billionaire, but in obvious madness.
He broke. But nobody can do a thing to help, because billionaires are so powerful that the man is completely unaccountable to anyone or anything. It's worse than Ye. Elon broke, after too many horse tranquilizer trips. He's not there anymore. You're seeing the drugs acting in his stead.
There are reasons why societies don't set individuals up with this kind of power.
While I do think changing twitter to X is foolish, this post is garbage.
> huckster
> has done so many horse tranquilizers as psychedelics that something broke and he is flipping out
> after too many horse tranquilizer trips. He's not there anymore. You're seeing the drugs acting in his stead.
Do you have a credible source for this besides “trust me bro”?
> huckster
> has done so many horse tranquilizers as psychedelics that something broke and he is flipping out
> after too many horse tranquilizer trips. He's not there anymore. You're seeing the drugs acting in his stead.
Do you have a credible source for this besides “trust me bro”?
Elon is doing ketamine? I think I'm missing context.
Absolutely. He has publically endorsed doing ketamine as a method of managing depression. Elon is doing ketamine, and I think he's doing lots, from all appearances.
> Elon is doing ketamine
How do you know what he’s doing? Even if he’s said something positive about it and/or used it in the past doesn’t mean anything. I have positive things to say about psilocybin but haven’t done it in 20 years.
How do you know what he’s doing? Even if he’s said something positive about it and/or used it in the past doesn’t mean anything. I have positive things to say about psilocybin but haven’t done it in 20 years.
I'm not privy to the news on this particular fact, but the fact is that Ketamine IS used medically as an anti-depressant now, just at far below the dosage range to get "high".
So if he's just endorsing its usage in a clinical context, that is way different than railing lines.
So if he's just endorsing its usage in a clinical context, that is way different than railing lines.
(edited: cannot be verified)
havent heard this one? hes publicly stated that adderall "makes people assholes" before so would seem out of character
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/06/27/elon-musk-...
> Musk takes ketamine in small doses to treat depression and uses higher doses of the drug at social events
> Musk takes ketamine in small doses to treat depression and uses higher doses of the drug at social events
According to a WSJ report. Which may be true. But where’s the evidence? Why not stick to provable facts instead of this type of tabloid content? This is Reddit-level discourse.
yes, hes mentioned it before as a depression aid and recreationally at parties. Also previously mentioned Ambien and a little wine being "magic" and magic mushrooms supposedly. Everyone got their demons, take from it what you will.
He bought a company. He experiments with it. The company might do well, or it might fold. Like any other private company. Big deal.
[deleted]
All that bc he rebranded twitter?
> Throwing all of that away so Elon can use a domain he's sat on since '99 seems exceedingly foolish.
That would be foolish if that was the point, but that's just a strawman.
That would be foolish if that was the point, but that's just a strawman.
Does anyone have an approximation of the brand value of Twitter, the bird icon, and "tweets" "retweet"? Those things have 90+% name recognition.
I would be surprised if this wasn't in the billions of dollars.
And all discarded...
I would be surprised if this wasn't in the billions of dollars.
And all discarded...
It's a pure vanity thing and thus very elonistic.
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Twitter? Whats that? You mean 𝕏? I honestly don't get all the hate for it, if you don't like it you dont have to xeet, nobody is forcing you rexeet Elon Musk, dont want to use 𝕏 don't use it!
> This, though. This one makes me angry and disappointed.
But why are you angry about the rebrand?
But why are you angry about the rebrand?
Because branding is one of my passions in life. I love good branding. Twitter is fantastic branding.
X... is not.
Watching Elon destroy the Twitter brand is like watching someone throw orange paint on the Mona Lisa.
X... is not.
Watching Elon destroy the Twitter brand is like watching someone throw orange paint on the Mona Lisa.
In October 2022 Musk said "Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app".
If someone says "I'm going to throw orange paint on the Mona Lisa", I don't actually get upset until the Mona Lisa is orange.
Oh, lovely. Just like the Chinese “everything app”? With the social scores?
coding123(1)
moralestapia(1)
There is no way you are serious, it’s just a website. You can’t compare it to one of the most famous works of art.
There is no way you are serious, it's just a piece of paper. You can't compare it to one of the most famous websites.
It can pretty easily go both ways. The Mona Lisa have been a cultural icon for a long time, but Twitter has had a massive influence on culture since it's inception.
It can pretty easily go both ways. The Mona Lisa have been a cultural icon for a long time, but Twitter has had a massive influence on culture since it's inception.
There are other similarities with Elon’s Twitter too. It’s hard to tell where the Mona Lisa is looking or what’s going on with her. There is a strange fog in the background and some scorched earth.
You are misinformed, canvas is not paper.
The Mona Lisa was painted on a wood panel, not paper or canvas.
So much for me being smarty-pants...
I don't think it matters for the point I was making.
Seeing as Art is riddled with subjectivity, you absolutely could. And calling twitter “just a website” is disingenuous as it facilitates real-time global communication and a scale not previously reached by humans. I personally never used twitter, but I still respect what they built.
AmericanOP(5)
joebiden2(2)
If it's deemed foolish, then either Elon is foolish and making a fool of himself, or there's a misinterpretation of the action. The success someone like Musk repeatedly attains in business cannot be achieved without a significant capacity for making wise, informed decisions, or strategic moves. If his track record is any indication, he'll probably have a successful venture, and I, for one, am fascinated to see the emotional attachment and arrogance the peanut gallery continues to spout. It's a curiosity to me why those who have little to no actual stake or insight seem to have the highest confidence and volume. Perhaps it's a selection bias.
PayPal. SpaceX. SolarCity. Tesla. Boring. Elon Musk has a signature characteristic of building 10x-ethos companies from first principles at great personal & financial risk.
It's the Muskian Cycle: Innovate, try to garner investment, be laughed out of the room, make it work anyways, laugh all the way to the top of tens of thousands of millions of dollars of net worth. Then stuff all the capital into the next Big Thing.
Steve Jobs said something like "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." As far as I can tell, each of Musk's successful ventures has inculcated iterative or multiplicative innovation into the fabric of technology, society, and interaction.
PayPal spearheaded and won the race for payment processing. It wasn't perfect, but it was in no small part due to Musk why the company succeeded and earned its eBay buyout.
SpaceX, with its obvious contributions to the fields of not only rocketry but every second-order industry around it, including testing/software, etc., has been a game-changer. Again, second-order, competition arises, humanity wins.
Ditto Tesla; not only the AI/ML/CV wizardry in the stack but plenty of other non-primary-field innovation and progress comes alongside (manufacturing, battery tech, etc.). I personally am not convinced EVs are some solution to the "climate problem," given the net-impact of mfg and power consumption, but it is a pre-requisite to self-sustainability that we move toward renewables, and with that optimism I move on.
I don't know a whole lot about the Solar operations at Tesla, but SpaceX + Starlink has made one of those incremental improvements in the internet access game. I've got my biggest gripe with this venture - based on Kessler Syndrome, I'm afraid of trashing our space-way by means of junk, though admittedly this fear comes from Stephenson's "Seveneves" and not facts or reality. Orbital tracking remains a significant challenge to the exploding private space industries.
Bringing us to the Boring Co. Literally nobody is complaining about that, but it's such a banal and useful and imperative tech to develop for the overall goal of Martian exploration, and it's not abstract - it exists and is doing what it needs to do.
Certainly 𝕏 (neé Twitter) and Xai are integral to Musk's overarching vision. For years, I've posited that someone should, or perhaps already has, been meticulously analyzing the entirety of Twitter's data. This data, rich in semantic analysis, interaction templating, linguistics, and more, could be instrumental in training and researching emergent systems. The rapid, mostly unfiltered, and bite-sized nature of the medium provides a unique lens into the human thought process, offering a potential approximation of how "thoughts" might interact.
It's possible we (humans) are destined to reclaim our collective consciousness through technology. It is also possible Elon is the anti-Christ, and we should be looking inward, meditating, and removing blockages to our lineage that has shrouded the collective consciousness, muted our heart and soul, and reduced us to a low level of being, what the Buddhists might consider Naraka.
There are a lot of FUD-spreaders about Neuralink, too, but listening to the technical discussions and grokking the science has me convinced they are approaching another sea change. There are hard engineering problems and there are impossible problems. Elon's companies take the hard ones and just work really hard, then get the solution. I see no reason why this approach to software platforms and dynamic interactivity interfaces would be any different.
People don't like change, and they love to complain about something. So I obviously understand why these > angry and disappointed types are out of the woodwork.
But the thing is, we should celebrate and adore the scientific progress, commitment to science & innovation over pure profit, and - in my opinion as a USA chap - dedication to as much free speech as possible.
Cringe, hate, love, whatever - the guy is objectively successful and objectively delivered on some cool shit. I wouldn't argue he is the most precise or accurate predictor, but he's quite the visionary. When the Starship gets to orbit, there'll be some more creative press and commentary, but I will be watching and as excited as when the Roadster Spaceman went to Mars. Or when I saw the first booster landings.
Everyone fails, we are defined by how hard we try.
PayPal. SpaceX. SolarCity. Tesla. Boring. Elon Musk has a signature characteristic of building 10x-ethos companies from first principles at great personal & financial risk.
It's the Muskian Cycle: Innovate, try to garner investment, be laughed out of the room, make it work anyways, laugh all the way to the top of tens of thousands of millions of dollars of net worth. Then stuff all the capital into the next Big Thing.
Steve Jobs said something like "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." As far as I can tell, each of Musk's successful ventures has inculcated iterative or multiplicative innovation into the fabric of technology, society, and interaction.
PayPal spearheaded and won the race for payment processing. It wasn't perfect, but it was in no small part due to Musk why the company succeeded and earned its eBay buyout.
SpaceX, with its obvious contributions to the fields of not only rocketry but every second-order industry around it, including testing/software, etc., has been a game-changer. Again, second-order, competition arises, humanity wins.
Ditto Tesla; not only the AI/ML/CV wizardry in the stack but plenty of other non-primary-field innovation and progress comes alongside (manufacturing, battery tech, etc.). I personally am not convinced EVs are some solution to the "climate problem," given the net-impact of mfg and power consumption, but it is a pre-requisite to self-sustainability that we move toward renewables, and with that optimism I move on.
I don't know a whole lot about the Solar operations at Tesla, but SpaceX + Starlink has made one of those incremental improvements in the internet access game. I've got my biggest gripe with this venture - based on Kessler Syndrome, I'm afraid of trashing our space-way by means of junk, though admittedly this fear comes from Stephenson's "Seveneves" and not facts or reality. Orbital tracking remains a significant challenge to the exploding private space industries.
Bringing us to the Boring Co. Literally nobody is complaining about that, but it's such a banal and useful and imperative tech to develop for the overall goal of Martian exploration, and it's not abstract - it exists and is doing what it needs to do.
Certainly 𝕏 (neé Twitter) and Xai are integral to Musk's overarching vision. For years, I've posited that someone should, or perhaps already has, been meticulously analyzing the entirety of Twitter's data. This data, rich in semantic analysis, interaction templating, linguistics, and more, could be instrumental in training and researching emergent systems. The rapid, mostly unfiltered, and bite-sized nature of the medium provides a unique lens into the human thought process, offering a potential approximation of how "thoughts" might interact.
It's possible we (humans) are destined to reclaim our collective consciousness through technology. It is also possible Elon is the anti-Christ, and we should be looking inward, meditating, and removing blockages to our lineage that has shrouded the collective consciousness, muted our heart and soul, and reduced us to a low level of being, what the Buddhists might consider Naraka.
There are a lot of FUD-spreaders about Neuralink, too, but listening to the technical discussions and grokking the science has me convinced they are approaching another sea change. There are hard engineering problems and there are impossible problems. Elon's companies take the hard ones and just work really hard, then get the solution. I see no reason why this approach to software platforms and dynamic interactivity interfaces would be any different.
People don't like change, and they love to complain about something. So I obviously understand why these > angry and disappointed types are out of the woodwork.
But the thing is, we should celebrate and adore the scientific progress, commitment to science & innovation over pure profit, and - in my opinion as a USA chap - dedication to as much free speech as possible.
Cringe, hate, love, whatever - the guy is objectively successful and objectively delivered on some cool shit. I wouldn't argue he is the most precise or accurate predictor, but he's quite the visionary. When the Starship gets to orbit, there'll be some more creative press and commentary, but I will be watching and as excited as when the Roadster Spaceman went to Mars. Or when I saw the first booster landings.
Everyone fails, we are defined by how hard we try.
> PayPal spearheaded and won the race for payment processing. It wasn't perfect, but it was in no small part due to Musk why the company succeeded and earned its eBay buyout.
Musk was removed as CEO within four months of his company merging with Confinity, who had already developed and written an MVP for PayPal.
This is a bit of a stretch. After that point, Musk's "contribution" to PayPal appears to largely have been cashing dividend checks.
Musk was removed as CEO within four months of his company merging with Confinity, who had already developed and written an MVP for PayPal.
This is a bit of a stretch. After that point, Musk's "contribution" to PayPal appears to largely have been cashing dividend checks.
PayPal was not founded by Elon. SolarCity was run by his brother / cousin (?) and was about to go bankrupt before being questionably acquired by Tesla. Boring is not a thing. Even Tesla wasn't founded by him. So his track record is really creating SpaceX (and jury is still out on long term success) and executing on Tesla (where technology, concept was founded by someone else).
You could say all that, yes. Or you could just look at the immediate facts of the case and determine that Musk is being foolish and making a fool of himself.
Not that he does in all cases. Not even that the X looks bad. But the Twitter bird was both iconic and cheerful, and there was nothing wrong with it. Kicking it to the curb is the action of a foolish fool.
Not that he does in all cases. Not even that the X looks bad. But the Twitter bird was both iconic and cheerful, and there was nothing wrong with it. Kicking it to the curb is the action of a foolish fool.
Your opinion is noted and moves no needle.
The Brand Toolkit page needs updating - https://about.twitter.com/en/who-we-are/brand-toolkit
Not only does it still have the bird it says "Our logo is our most recognizable asset. That’s why we’re so protective of it. Take a moment to think about how you apply it and take a read of our Brand Guidelines for examples of how we like you to use it."
That's hilarious. I honestly wonder if Elon decided to do this change on Friday and had people rushing all weekend to push it out the door.
Do you really have to wonder? I think it's one of his episodes, just like the purchase of Twitter itself, where the too quickly decides on something and pushes it through.
If I was a billionaire I would probably act like a spoiled 8th grader as well.
Why? I'd be hanging out with my loved ones in mountain cabins and beach houses. I truly cannot comprehend what makes these people want to spend their time and money on internet nonsense.
If your character is about chilling and hanging out it's unlikely to be one a billionaire.
Most people getting into that group donthat by focussing their time on making money. This usually requires quite some dedication, which is a character trait you can't simply replace for going to the beach.
There are exceptions, but it's rare. And then there are the ones who got spoiled as a kid and were lucky with some decisions, like making some good real estate deals in Manhatten or finding the right partners to build some online payment service, who never learned about responsibility.
Most people getting into that group donthat by focussing their time on making money. This usually requires quite some dedication, which is a character trait you can't simply replace for going to the beach.
There are exceptions, but it's rare. And then there are the ones who got spoiled as a kid and were lucky with some decisions, like making some good real estate deals in Manhatten or finding the right partners to build some online payment service, who never learned about responsibility.
Do you see other billionaires wasting time on “internet nonsense”? This guy bought a social media network and was on it 24/7 before that.
Even Zuckerberg who made his fortune with social media seem to post less than him. I have never even heard of Bezos posting while Gates probably only post as PR for his foundation.
Even Zuckerberg who made his fortune with social media seem to post less than him. I have never even heard of Bezos posting while Gates probably only post as PR for his foundation.
Yes, but the prompt was that I'm a billionaire. And I'm the way I am, and described the way I believe I would be as a billionaire. But there was no part of the prompt about the path I took to become a billionaire, just that I am one.
they are freaks poisoned by money and we should take it from them for the common good
That's simply nonsensical selection bias. You just simply don't hear about the quiet,family oriented billionaires because they're quiet!
You're wrong. Look at Zuckerberg. He spends months of quality time with his family in Hawaii.
One can also be very dedicated to the beach.
Right? I would be enjoying life to the fullest, privately. This guy has already reached end game, instead of enjoying it, he's squandering his name/reputation for internet points.
Honestly, he's squandering his name/reputation and his internet points.
That's true: most people want to hoard wealth for personal consumption. That's the normal way for wealthy people to behave. Very few want to change the world. Some of those who want to change the world will change it for the better and some for the worse, but the hoard-and-consume lifestyle is most definitely the common lifestyle.
Personally, I think the "spend time with loved ones and donate money" approach is the far preferable wealthy lifestyle over the "narcissistic egomaniac constantly talking about how theyre 'changing the world for the better' while mostly just being an asshole" approach.
From what I can tell, Most billionaires want to change the world.
Most are just far more considered and cautious in how they go about it, because getting it wrong _hurts_everyone_, including themselves.
Most are just far more considered and cautious in how they go about it, because getting it wrong _hurts_everyone_, including themselves.
Are you equating engaging with internet nonsense to changing the world?
Helping vaccinate the 3rd world and fund the WHO, I can see a changing the world. Ranting on the internet 24/7, not so much.
Helping vaccinate the 3rd world and fund the WHO, I can see a changing the world. Ranting on the internet 24/7, not so much.
I'd like to think if I was a billionaire I would act the way that I think an ideal billionaire would, being shrewd with my money and making myself richer in an upright and respectable manner while also ensuring that the people who work with me get wealthy as well.
Proving to others that you can act like an 8th grader while pissing away $44 Billion (actually, closer to $33 Billion, maybe $24 Billion if we ignore the outside $9 Billion investors) on an asinine project and still living the life of private jets, and party yachts is the point.
Flaunting your wealth attracts supporters in this day and age. People *like* rich assholes. Its fashionable, or at least it was in the 2010s. The pendulum of society is finally swinging back and demonizing this outrageous display of wealth but we're still in an age where people literally worship wealth. Not the "figuratively literally", I mean literally literally worship as per the prosperity gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology).
Its not just Elon Musk, but also Arkk's Cathie Wood and Bill Hwang.
----------------
The outrageous displays of wealth is proof that you've achieved God's good graces. Its basically Mandate of Heaven (Chinese concept) except the American version of it.
Flaunting your wealth attracts supporters in this day and age. People *like* rich assholes. Its fashionable, or at least it was in the 2010s. The pendulum of society is finally swinging back and demonizing this outrageous display of wealth but we're still in an age where people literally worship wealth. Not the "figuratively literally", I mean literally literally worship as per the prosperity gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology).
Its not just Elon Musk, but also Arkk's Cathie Wood and Bill Hwang.
----------------
The outrageous displays of wealth is proof that you've achieved God's good graces. Its basically Mandate of Heaven (Chinese concept) except the American version of it.
I read a comment somewhere a while back:
Once you make $999,999,999.99 dollars, congratulations you have won at life!
All future income you make beyond $1B goes to helping society.
You should probably get a say into where the money goes (so it aligns with your values, whatever those may be) but that's it. You are done enriching yourself personally.
I kind of like that (although I'm sure plenty of people hate it).
Once you make $999,999,999.99 dollars, congratulations you have won at life!
All future income you make beyond $1B goes to helping society.
You should probably get a say into where the money goes (so it aligns with your values, whatever those may be) but that's it. You are done enriching yourself personally.
I kind of like that (although I'm sure plenty of people hate it).
Norway doesn’t have that, but it does have a wealth tax, which I like. If your net wealth sums to over 2mnok (approx $200k), you pay some percentage of tax on that wealth, every year. There are plenty of exemptions, your primary residence is only worth a quarter of assessed value, and of course this is net wealth, so mortgages and things subtract from this. But it does mean that if you’re just sitting on a horde of gold, you’ll anyways pay taxes, which makes sense to me. Just because you became wealthy enough to stop earning any income doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for your share of keeping society running.
I've done some math on this. It's INSANE how tiny of a percentage you can usefully tax away and get enormous societal benefits. You really, really don't need to go all 'Beatles Taxman' on it and confiscate everything over X amount. You can take just 1% of the pool of wealth and come out with enormous funding by the standards of what we use social benefits for.
The play money is so many orders of magnitude beyond what's used to keep society creaking along, that it's positively silly. The tiniest of wealth tax percentages can amount to whole social services budgets. These social services stop people with pitchforks from going after the billionaires and each other.
The play money is so many orders of magnitude beyond what's used to keep society creaking along, that it's positively silly. The tiniest of wealth tax percentages can amount to whole social services budgets. These social services stop people with pitchforks from going after the billionaires and each other.
> It's INSANE how tiny of a percentage you can usefully tax away and get enormous societal benefits
The problem in Norway's case is that the a lot of the richest people just moved to Switzerland or wherever...
The problem in Norway's case is that the a lot of the richest people just moved to Switzerland or wherever...
A though occurred to me the other day. Taxes have become the offset for the inefficiencies capitalism. Each entity is independent, and therefore has to reproduce common things that could have been shared if society was organized differently.
Rabid liberalism is expensive.
Rabid liberalism is expensive.
Why would you do that when you can just hire PR to run a campaign about how great you are?
“Best response goes live today.”
Musk sending the new branding to all his 14 devs on Sunday
https://i.redd.it/g4i702g8xe751.png
https://i.redd.it/g4i702g8xe751.png
> That's hilarious.
You don't have to make change atomically. Eventual consistency is sufficient and very practical.
You don't have to make change atomically. Eventual consistency is sufficient and very practical.
Combined with "Our [bird] logo is our most recognizable asset. That’s why we’re so protective of it" I think it is indeed a bit funny
[deleted]
[deleted]
No it has probably been a plan since the beginning. He wants to build an everything app like wechat.
It’s a Unicode symbol that can’t be copyrighted that was suggested in a comment reply and the CEO had to spin the rebrand after Musk tweeted for 12 hours through the night with no sleep.
He has no plan. How is that not painfully obvious at this point
He has no plan. How is that not painfully obvious at this point
Musk has owned x.com for many years. It goes back to paypal days.
First of all by saying “the PayPal days” shows you have very little idea what you’re talking about and I’m not going to elaborate.
Second of all, so what? What does that have to do with him just picking a Unicode character at 4am on a Saturday?
Your argument was this logo change was planned.
Okay, so he’s planning on turning it into a finance platform, and you’re saying it was “part of his master plan” to pick a logo at 4am that can’t be trademarked (because it’s just a Unicode character), such that any one can setup a login page for using the logo, to harvest X.com credentials, and they can’t do anything because they don’t own the trademark?
Brilliant plan.
Second of all, so what? What does that have to do with him just picking a Unicode character at 4am on a Saturday?
Your argument was this logo change was planned.
Okay, so he’s planning on turning it into a finance platform, and you’re saying it was “part of his master plan” to pick a logo at 4am that can’t be trademarked (because it’s just a Unicode character), such that any one can setup a login page for using the logo, to harvest X.com credentials, and they can’t do anything because they don’t own the trademark?
Brilliant plan.
I don't understand the vitriol. Why do you care? It's like half the internet has Musk derangement syndrome.
Because you’re defending a grifter, claiming “this was all part of a plan” when it’s clearly either a manic episode or him on drugs.
> him on drugs.
Hey isn't he still majority owner of SpaceX (Jesus, there's the X again, somehow that hadn't dawned on me yet)?
Doesn't a huge proportion of their income come from government contracts?
Aren't there... you know, some laws about that exact thing?
Oh who'm I kidding, only the peons have to sweat about their lives being ruined by getting high on the weekends. Rich people are too good for that, of course.
Besides, he's probably got bullshit prescriptions for most of it.
Hey isn't he still majority owner of SpaceX (Jesus, there's the X again, somehow that hadn't dawned on me yet)?
Doesn't a huge proportion of their income come from government contracts?
Aren't there... you know, some laws about that exact thing?
Oh who'm I kidding, only the peons have to sweat about their lives being ruined by getting high on the weekends. Rich people are too good for that, of course.
Besides, he's probably got bullshit prescriptions for most of it.
I believe the WSJ reported that his security clearance is being reviewed over his ketamine usage
Absolutely. He's been open, even evangelistic about that, and anyone familiar with drugs can quickly recognize that it's a WHOLE other thing beyond your basic Joe Rogan bakemind routine. Elon has gone full Syd Barrett. It's not going to get better.
I remember back in 2018/ 2019 in SF, when "microdosing" ketamine and/ or LSD started becoming big with tech folks. It was (and still is) always painfully and embarrassingly obvious when someone is "microdosing".
You’re acting as if Musk’s actions don’t affect anyone. Ask the two decapitated individuals who died at the hands of Tesla auto pilot how they feel about Musk’s poor decision making. People had communities they liked on Twitter and Musk destroyed them ruining careers and upending lives in the process.
And he did it all so capriciously. There still doesn’t seem to be any reason for it.
Seriously, fuck that guy.
And he did it all so capriciously. There still doesn’t seem to be any reason for it.
Seriously, fuck that guy.
(As a fly on the wall, I’m sorry you had to experience this side of HN. There are better threads. Keep remembering that.)
If it was the plan from the beginning then why announce it via rambling tweets late at night, before it's even announced to the employees? LOLOLOL. UNICODE X "ICON" LOLOLOL
Most likely, both are true.
The app is also "Twitter", the <title> tag is etc. Everyone is going to keep calling them tweets. It's just the logo and redirecting the x.com domain really. Which makes sense IMO (regardless of whether it was a good idea which I'm skeptical), I don't think they should go hard with the rebranding immediately. You need to slow roll it so people don't get confused. The logo is a good start making people notice and get curious without making a big disruption in Google results and mobile app discovery.
"Tweets" shall now be called "Xcrements"
googling for photos or videos on twitter just got a whole lot better!
They suspended the XVIDEOS account (the porn site), apparently in prep to claim the name...
So searching for "xvideos" on google or DDG is going to be interesting going forward.
So searching for "xvideos" on google or DDG is going to be interesting going forward.
@xvideos seems to have been banned since at least 2018: https://archive.li/wH3B3
xvideos.com's account is @xvideoscom and is dated 2010.
xvideos.com's account is @xvideoscom and is dated 2010.
To be fair, I find myself calling the things I post (and read) on threads tweets.
Doubt anyone who worked on that still is employed there. And even if, they surely weren't asked their opinion, nor informed about the decision.
definitely not:
2: (gone)https://kokoholt.com/
3: (gone)https://jp.linkedin.com/in/koko-watanabe-holt
4: (privated)https://www.instagram.com/kokoholt/
> Anyone looking for a little horror story?
>
> I'm one of the only two in-house designer in the whole Twitter corporate, and I wasn't told anything about this rebranding...
2: (gone)https://kokoholt.com/
3: (gone)https://jp.linkedin.com/in/koko-watanabe-holt
4: (privated)https://www.instagram.com/kokoholt/
Absolutely crazy, even by X Corp. standards
Can't even view a thread without logging in now, got to hand it to Musk for reducing my Twitter usage from passive to non-existent.
I honestly didn't even know that I could still view individual tweets. I used to go read new tweets from my favorite posters from time to time, but I haven't been back since they forced that behind a login.
As soon as I deleted the app from my phone and established a "can only view Twitter on my laptop" rule, I basically stopped using it.
Same. I don't intend to either.
https://archive.li/b4Ylw
https://archive.li/b4Ylw
you can still view it through https://nitter.net, which I guess makes the open source Javascript-less front-end to Twitter more accessible for SEO? maybe Google should start indexing that lol
https://nitter.net/martingrasser/status/1683266038602010624 courtesy link for those without an $8 X Blue membership.
See also: https://twitter.com/anothercohen/status/1683282922617315329
for some relevant humor.
for some relevant humor.
Perhaps you should email [email protected] to let them know.
The site favicon hasn't been updated either. I imagine that last employee working at Twitter who hasn't been fired has had a difficult weekend updating the logo.
Holy shit I did a literal spit take when I read that. Way too funny.
Wait is this just because they aren’t rebranding Twitter? Just the company that operates it? I don’t have Facebook but I was under the impression that it was still Facebook even though the company rebranded to Meta.
[deleted]
Twitter has managed to get so many words to be common. Like it's a "tweet", not "a post on facebook". It's a "retweet" or "quote tweet", not "something I shared on facebook". Why throw all this deep brand recognition away?
It's like people say "google it", and google suddenly changing the name of their search.
It's like people say "google it", and google suddenly changing the name of their search.
I feel like "to google something" has by now become a generic term that means just to search on the web, not necessarily using Google. In particular, in Russian, I've heard people say "загуглить в яндексе", literally "to google in Yandex".
By the same token, the users of XXX dot com will probably still refer to their posts as tweets. Though as OP points out, "tweet" isn't genericized like kleenex or google, so it is less likely to survive the sudden brand shift.
Why did yandex change to dzen BTW?
No one quite understands that. But if you want just the search, there's ya.ru.
However, in Russia, Yandex is not just a search engine. It does everything and then some — search, cloud storage, email, maps & navigation, music streaming, a voice assistant with Amazon-Echo-like speakers, news, online advertising, event tickets, a marketplace, taxi, food delivery a-la Uber Eats, car sharing, online grocery store, e-scooter rentals in major cities, and this list goes on and on. And that Dzen ad-filled cringy blogging thing no one seems to like. But Yandex is literally inescapable, it's everywhere and you'd be somewhat excluding yourself from the society if you refuse to use any of their services.
However, in Russia, Yandex is not just a search engine. It does everything and then some — search, cloud storage, email, maps & navigation, music streaming, a voice assistant with Amazon-Echo-like speakers, news, online advertising, event tickets, a marketplace, taxi, food delivery a-la Uber Eats, car sharing, online grocery store, e-scooter rentals in major cities, and this list goes on and on. And that Dzen ad-filled cringy blogging thing no one seems to like. But Yandex is literally inescapable, it's everywhere and you'd be somewhat excluding yourself from the society if you refuse to use any of their services.
"I xed it." the new verb sounds like using a dodgy porn site.
Oh surely no one would mistake watching an X video with some other service[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XVideos
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XVideos
:O
Ironically it sounds like the alternate pronouns he hates so much.
His new pronouns are he/him/x
"Can you give me a re-x on my x please?"
Sounds like a drug addict looking for another dose
It sounds the same with "tweet". "Tweet" is a dumb name too, it's just normalized.
> It sounds the same with "tweet".
May be in certain cultures. I have never made that connect. I am from India.
May be in certain cultures. I have never made that connect. I am from India.
Isn't that drinking a pint all at once? Now there will be a copyright charge for drinking your favourite bewerage all at once.
Or what the annihilist embodiment-of-evil antagonists in a Madeline l'Engle novel do.
(See _A Wind in The Door_ or _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_)
(See _A Wind in The Door_ or _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_)
Musk xed [axed] Twitter.
Sounds plausible to me.
Sounds plausible to me.
There are probably hundreds of thousands (millions?) of websites out there that have the twitter bird logo at the bottom either to direct link people to share the article or maybe a link to the profile of the author or whatever.
They are never going to change to the X logo.
They are never going to change to the X logo.
Aren’t those little share buttons served via a CDN or third party anyway? All you need to do is swap out the image that the URL points to and any site that uses that URL suddenly starts serving the new image.
In a perfect world, yes. But I'm pretty sure the majority of websites uses something that isn't quite "off the shelf".
How they're implemented depends from site to site. But for many sites, they would need to be changed manually if Twitter changes its name and/or logo.
No
They will. It wasn't their bird logo. They'll get a new image and url.
Elob has a fixiation on the letter. As I understand it, he wants to create a 'meta' platform for everything. I think in China such platforms exist (?). It's not to far away to say, that you need a 'meta' name for a platform like that. Probably wants to leave the 'private company' image and try to create an 'institution'. I hope it fails.
WeChat is extremely popular in China and on the surface it's a messaging app but below that is a whole swath of stuff, the most interesting IMO is the decentralized marketplace. My GF's mom is Chinese and she buys tons of stuff like vegetables and housewares from random people through the app.
People pay for rent and various bills, you can call their version of Uber, order food etc.
If Twitter is going to pull this off they should invest heavily in the DMing UX as messaging is the real interface for this stuff. Almost like a terminal with some extra UIs layered on top.
People pay for rent and various bills, you can call their version of Uber, order food etc.
If Twitter is going to pull this off they should invest heavily in the DMing UX as messaging is the real interface for this stuff. Almost like a terminal with some extra UIs layered on top.
WeChat's success lies in chinese culture that people value convenience over privacy bc the gov can already monitor everything its citizen do. It is a "Super App", a mini OS with conglomerate of apps that has everything users need. Without ever leaving the app, it drastically lowers learning curve for people. Instead of learning how to use multiple apps, they need to only learn just one.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-app
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-app
Thanks for the explanation of the 'direct message' aspect. I didn't know that, but it's interesting
I mean, you can also buy stuff on WhatsApp... But honestly, Twitter V2, or, well, X, looks more to me Facebook. Twitter was twitter for its simplicity.
Remember when everyone got pissed off because they doubled the characters? How many is on Twitter now, 5000? Markdown support too. And now they are planning banking, latex, some linkedin copy cat stuff...
In reality twitter is trying to become Facebook. Facebook only didn't had banking because FED/EU didn't liked the Libra idea.
Remember when everyone got pissed off because they doubled the characters? How many is on Twitter now, 5000? Markdown support too. And now they are planning banking, latex, some linkedin copy cat stuff...
In reality twitter is trying to become Facebook. Facebook only didn't had banking because FED/EU didn't liked the Libra idea.
Eh, it's simpler than that - X.com was his first company, that became Paypal, that he was ousted from.
This is just basic old man 101: trying to regain the glory days of your youth.
This is just basic old man 101: trying to regain the glory days of your youth.
I like Elon, I think he is smart.
I also think he has too much power and influence.
And along with that comes corruption, non sense and slew of other negative attributes.
I think I'm going to call the site X/Twitter now. Pronounced: ex-twitter.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Twitter, is in fact, X/Twitter, or as I've recently taken to calling it, X plus Twitter. Twitter is not a social media unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning X system made useful by the X corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full as defined by X.
Owners are kinda crazy. Go to relentless.com. It's the preferred name for amazon. Bezos got talked down from the ledge by his partners at he time.
the best meme I have seen so far, is musk has out Gavin Belson'ed, Gavin Belson.
the best meme I have seen so far, is musk has out Gavin Belson'ed, Gavin Belson.
That was his idea for the name at the start though, rather than a rebrand.
I think "Relentless" isn't terrible, but "Amazon" is vastly better for international branding.
I think "Relentless" isn't terrible, but "Amazon" is vastly better for international branding.
Xcrete and reXcrete
X is full of Xcrement
X is full of Xcrement
They can still say "tweet." I don't "goog" on google, I search on google. Also, the site isn't called "tweeter."
[deleted]
exactly my thought. the stupidity of it, renaming something that had become part of the every day slang.
This is a very good point!
x it
when a word becomes too common it risks losing its trademark though
It's pretty simple to avoid that. And no one really talks about Tweeting outside the context of Twitter, which made Twitter's job way easier than say Google's, where something like "I googled you on Bing" has become an acceptable and common turn of phrase.
Surely "I googled you on Bing" is only ever said with lashings of irony?
I've never heard anyone use that phrase in any serious way.
Certainly not together like that, but I've definitely mentioned googling something when I actually used the brave default search engine.
Thats's only when applied to things outide twitter, which I don't think it's the case. I have never heard anyone talk about retweeting on facebook or whatever. The fact they don't do this would make their brand even more valuable
Good luck trade marking X
Or the logo, which is a unicode character: 𝕏 https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D54F
You would be surprised how accommodating US trademarks are, like how you can't make pink insulation because it's "owned" by Owens Corning.
Ohio State University trademarked the "THE" in certain contexts: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-state-university-o...
Being common has nothing to do with it. “FedEx” and “Coke” are common.
The issue is when it becomes generic which is a difference concept.
The issue is when it becomes generic which is a difference concept.
Coke is arguably generic across large portions of the USA: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/soda-vs-pop_n_2103764
One of the most common exchanges I heard growing up in north Central Texas:
"What kind of coke do you want?" "Dr. Pepper"
"What kind of coke do you want?" "Dr. Pepper"
I grew up in Houston and this was a common question (and answer) to the point where all the midwesterners in college arguing about “soda” vs “pop” just thought us Texans were crazy.
Ahh yes, like the incredibly un-common letters of the alphabet.
Ahh yes, like the incredibly un-common Letter X.
It's not pining, it's passed on! This bird is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late bird! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!
This is an x-bird!
This is an x-bird!
Coincidentally, the end of that sketch is how I feel about the platform now:
"I'm not prepared to pursue my line of inquiry any further as I think this is getting too silly."
Personally, I think getting hit in the face with a fish sketch is how Musk is treating Twitter users...
Can we please have a Musk vs Zuck fish slap-down
No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the X, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
duno,
pretty much everyone I know on twitter is like "I don't feel like using it anymore." and only stays around due to the remainder of the network effect and the fundamental issue of transferring followers to another platform being hard.
and that it's a pretty bad branding doesn't help either, I don't want to eX my friends, imagine saying to your spouse you want to eX them etc.
and I mean people often act stupid but it has limits and if you first go around claiming you will buy twitter to protect free speech and then aX anything which tried to protect free speech in twitter from the inside and have way higher censorship numbers people might wonder if buying X products will aX them and their values and their health at some point. That he aXt anyone believing him to be a serious reliable person due to his public appearances probably won't help either.
pretty much everyone I know on twitter is like "I don't feel like using it anymore." and only stays around due to the remainder of the network effect and the fundamental issue of transferring followers to another platform being hard.
and that it's a pretty bad branding doesn't help either, I don't want to eX my friends, imagine saying to your spouse you want to eX them etc.
and I mean people often act stupid but it has limits and if you first go around claiming you will buy twitter to protect free speech and then aX anything which tried to protect free speech in twitter from the inside and have way higher censorship numbers people might wonder if buying X products will aX them and their values and their health at some point. That he aXt anyone believing him to be a serious reliable person due to his public appearances probably won't help either.
Just to clarify, I was simply playing along with the reference to Monty Python's Parrot Sketch. I'm in no way defending X or Musk.
Oh man, nostalgia for the early days of the internet when Monty Python quotes were the currency of influence. This one is just impeccably timed.
It's funny because I was just explaining to my kids how we owe the internet definition of "spam" to Monty Python.
It's funny because I was just explaining to my kids how we owe the internet definition of "spam" to Monty Python.
Your train of thoughts run with great speed!
normally averse to jokes on this platform, but I love this.
Like a bird in a coal mine?
Watch the phoenix raise from the ashes.
Rebranding rue.
I hope that this will push government officials and structures to set up mastodon instances. Like one for the government where each agency has an account.
Europe did this [0] and I find that it's a very good idea to have control over communication (plus since it's open anyone can do what they want with the data)
[0] https://social.network.europa.eu/
Europe did this [0] and I find that it's a very good idea to have control over communication (plus since it's open anyone can do what they want with the data)
[0] https://social.network.europa.eu/
I’m surprised that the pro sports leagues haven’t tried this given all of their complaining about abuse on Twitter and IG.
NBA teams are about to start paying middle-of-the-road players $60M per year, hiring a full-time mod team to support an official mastodon instance should be a drop in the bucket for them.
NBA teams are about to start paying middle-of-the-road players $60M per year, hiring a full-time mod team to support an official mastodon instance should be a drop in the bucket for them.
+ is great when you want to censor something that one of the players said but they refuse to delete it. Could also just straight up make everything players say go through a review queue and only approve things manually, skipping anything that could cause drama.
Not saying that this would be better/worse for the public/players, but I certainly could see why the owners/companies would want to silo the players voice into platforms they themselves own.
Not saying that this would be better/worse for the public/players, but I certainly could see why the owners/companies would want to silo the players voice into platforms they themselves own.
Pragmatic, but a marketing move like that has far-reaching consequences -- both in their relationships with social media companies and the normies that look up mastodon and associate it with "hackers."
The NBA and NBAPA just signed a CBA through 2030, if this does happen it won't be any time soon (and I doubt it would, banning players from using a social media site is pretty far reaching).
This is perfect for a company like ESPN. They have enough sports writers working for them that they could instantly create the place sports talk happens.
It's legally hairy in the United States for the government to moderate Internet platforms. As I recall, some public officials were taken to court over blocking people on the site formerly known as Twitter. There's a court case pending against the government right now regarding its communications with platforms during the COVID crisis.
Oh but registration would be closed for the public.
In the Europe case it serves as a central official communication hub. Since many public officials around the world are using twitter kinda like this I think it would make sense.
It could be using anything else as a platform but Mastodon is kind of an all in one package that would be easier to work with and interoperate.
In the Europe case it serves as a central official communication hub. Since many public officials around the world are using twitter kinda like this I think it would make sense.
It could be using anything else as a platform but Mastodon is kind of an all in one package that would be easier to work with and interoperate.
[deleted]
legally woolly in Mastodon's case
Why would a government spend the time and effort to create accounts on a social media network which only reaches .1% of their population?
I don't think it would only reach .1% of their population.
It's talking about replacing all of the Twitter accounts of government agencies with accounts on a central mastodon instance for the government, that would serve the same "information broadcasting" purpose. I'm not talking about people having to create mastodon account or choose an instance or even use mastodon.
I think far more than .1% of people can read a public mastodon feed for information from their government
It's talking about replacing all of the Twitter accounts of government agencies with accounts on a central mastodon instance for the government, that would serve the same "information broadcasting" purpose. I'm not talking about people having to create mastodon account or choose an instance or even use mastodon.
I think far more than .1% of people can read a public mastodon feed for information from their government
The very fact you need to create an account on twitter to view tweets should be a blocker for any gov't communication. That twitter rate-limited views is another strike against them. Government information should be open access. I don't know if activitypub is the answer, but they need to get off twitter.
Yes, self-hosted Mastodon are the best way to share official short messages like that. Proprietary consumer services like Twitter should be avoided because it is hard to even register an account there (my attempt was banned instantly) and this egoist idi*t made tweets unavailable to be read without an account.
also Germany: https://social.bund.de/ and the Dutch: https://social.overheid.nl/@minbzk
I’d love for this to happen, if I had the expertise I’d sell hosted mastodon/activitypub servers.
Make it as easy to spin up as slack or discord for an org and you’re golden.
Make it as easy to spin up as slack or discord for an org and you’re golden.
“Mastodon’t”. I’ve never thought about or seen it before, but that’s a great name that all the detractors could use.
Lol, I always make this mistake because in french the word for mastodon is "Mastodonte".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mastodonte
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mastodonte
Mastodon: Extinct elephant-like mammal
> man what would be a great name for a new and fledgling platform?
> IDK, Mastodon sounds good.
Same people criticizing X for being a bad name. (it probably is, coz i dont know how they'll replace tweeting and retweets and all that, but still)
> man what would be a great name for a new and fledgling platform?
> IDK, Mastodon sounds good.
Same people criticizing X for being a bad name. (it probably is, coz i dont know how they'll replace tweeting and retweets and all that, but still)
Yes, nothing cooler than joining a social network run by your government.
I'm not talking about joining, registration would only be allowed for government officials and institutions.
The usefulness would be a feed of official information, like what is being posted on Twitter by these same agencies right now.
But if they use something like Mastodon, everyone is free to read this information publicly or comment on it or do anything really.
The usefulness would be a feed of official information, like what is being posted on Twitter by these same agencies right now.
But if they use something like Mastodon, everyone is free to read this information publicly or comment on it or do anything really.
> TRENDING NOW
> #EU
> 5 people in the past 2 days
I see it's going viral.
> #EU
> 5 people in the past 2 days
I see it's going viral.
I'm not sure what you mean, this address serves as a perfect way to see the latest short form information about EU institutions (even more so now, because of the ongoing twitter situation) regardless of the amount of posters.
I just think it's hilarious that something posted by less than 3 people a day can be considered trending.
Mastodon == good
Government regulation and call for facist authoritarianism == evil
Europeans do not have free speech and it is making it populace much poorer. Don't hold it up as a standard to aspire to.
Government regulation and call for facist authoritarianism == evil
Europeans do not have free speech and it is making it populace much poorer. Don't hold it up as a standard to aspire to.
What? Can you give some examples on how a different free speech definition make Europeans poorer?
Do visit https://xcorp.com for a hearty laugh (or slightly frightened chuckle, on how life mirrors art).
X Corp - Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) - UAP Technology X Corp is one of the largest multinational conglomerates in the world. It is headquartered in the Western Hemisphere and was founded after the consolidated mega-corporate merger between ApostleCorp, The Allied Spacecraft Corporation (ASC), and Tyrell Corporation. It is currently the global leader in the retrieval and reverse-engineering of non-human intelligence technology (NHI).
Compare to our real-life version of X Corp's CEO, Linda Yaccarino:
Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.
(yesterday in what we used to call a Tweet, https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213895463215104)
X Corp - Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) - UAP Technology X Corp is one of the largest multinational conglomerates in the world. It is headquartered in the Western Hemisphere and was founded after the consolidated mega-corporate merger between ApostleCorp, The Allied Spacecraft Corporation (ASC), and Tyrell Corporation. It is currently the global leader in the retrieval and reverse-engineering of non-human intelligence technology (NHI).
Compare to our real-life version of X Corp's CEO, Linda Yaccarino:
Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.
(yesterday in what we used to call a Tweet, https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213895463215104)
Cool play on E-Corp from Mr.Robot! Wonderfully written show where every day that goes by makes it seem more and more like a documentary. Great watch even if you are only vaguely into tech.
If that site is intended to create a bizarre sense of discomfort, it's a work of pure creative genius. If not, it's the work of a madman!
What a bizarre brand launch...
* Primary logo in top left of web changed to X
* Favicon still old Twitter logo
* Search bar says "Search Twitter"
* Meta title still says Twitter
* Tweet terminology still in use
* Footer updated to © 2023 X Corp.
* Dialog for upgrading to Twitter Blue now has a blue X logo but copy refers to Twitter Blue
* Communities still called Twitter Communities
What's the plan here and why so inconsistent?
* Primary logo in top left of web changed to X
* Favicon still old Twitter logo
* Search bar says "Search Twitter"
* Meta title still says Twitter
* Tweet terminology still in use
* Footer updated to © 2023 X Corp.
* Dialog for upgrading to Twitter Blue now has a blue X logo but copy refers to Twitter Blue
* Communities still called Twitter Communities
What's the plan here and why so inconsistent?
There is no plan. You're seeing management by whim.
It's a calming thought, that once you have too much power, there is no one left to question you and stuff like that is the result. Fortunately there are no actual lifes of people involved here, opposing to some similar political situation of the past.
[deleted]
I get the impression this 'rebrand' was announced with short notice and they probably have a skeleton marking/design staff after firing everyone else.
The x.com domain just redirects to twitter.com, not the other way around.
The x.com domain just redirects to twitter.com, not the other way around.
The codebase in few minutes:
def print_localized_string(str):
str = str.replace('Twitter', 'X')
print(str)Bizarre yet totally on-brand for Musk. I’ll bet the people responsible for the rebranding work had next to no notice this was happening. It must be an absolutely miserable existence to need to follow your boss on Twitter to get a jump on his unhinged ideas.
If I worked there I can only imagine stopping caring and just enjoying the ride and having fun.
I can't imagine continuing to care about the designs, consistency, feature quality, etc. since it would be a futile and impossible fight.
I can't imagine continuing to care about the designs, consistency, feature quality, etc. since it would be a futile and impossible fight.
* There are millions upon millions of Twitter-branded social media icons on the web. Almost every notable website has one.
That kind of brand exposure is literally priceless. Throwing is away is absolutely bonkers... it's just next-level idiocy.
We might be witnessing one of the greatest branding mistakes of all time.
That kind of brand exposure is literally priceless. Throwing is away is absolutely bonkers... it's just next-level idiocy.
We might be witnessing one of the greatest branding mistakes of all time.
Remember when Facebook was a product of Facebook and not a product of Meta? I don’t know what road this is going in, but maybe the plan is for the product to be called Twitter, and keep the company distinct from it.
> * Footer updated to © 2023 X Corp.
The footer is this way for month already. And secondary resources like developer.twitter.com will likely stay inconsistent for a long time (probably forever).
I'm still kinda surprised they actually changed the well known bird logo. I would be even more surprised if they actually try to fully replace the name Twitter.
The footer is this way for month already. And secondary resources like developer.twitter.com will likely stay inconsistent for a long time (probably forever).
I'm still kinda surprised they actually changed the well known bird logo. I would be even more surprised if they actually try to fully replace the name Twitter.
I agree, its messy. But in a week, it'll all be X, and we won't care.
However, I do strongly feel this is a big mistake and will act as a jarring moment for a lot of people who will not want a 'new' thing. This may be the move that spikes the platform as the relevance of X becomes less and less because now it's history is disjoint from twitter and it's relevance to current events over the last 20 years.
[deleted]
And the domain is still Twitter.com.
He owns X.com, which was supposed to be his “everything app”. Has that plan been scrapped or is this a phased launch?
He owns X.com, which was supposed to be his “everything app”. Has that plan been scrapped or is this a phased launch?
From what’s been rumoured about the Twitter code base those changes will need to be made across a dozen repos.
* go to web address the only text on the screen is "log in to twitter"
The team have no idea as the folks who knew how to affect the change was fired.
Chaos monkey working on every weekend
Y'all are trying to make fun of this, but it's really a brilliant tactical move. Think about it; Musk desperately needs to flip Twitter, and this branding change both makes the site much more attractive for a potential buyout from a porn company, and also lowers the valuation of Twitter even further to the point where it's probably within range for a decently sized porn company to buy.
I don't think this is the end game.
If you haven't read The Founders by Jimmy Soni, I'd recommend it. Musk has had a fascination with "X" for a long long long time.
This is just his latest attempt to make a platform that does everything. It's what he wanted PayPal to be.
He's not going to sell Twitter as "X.com" because X is his grand plan.
If you haven't read The Founders by Jimmy Soni, I'd recommend it. Musk has had a fascination with "X" for a long long long time.
This is just his latest attempt to make a platform that does everything. It's what he wanted PayPal to be.
He's not going to sell Twitter as "X.com" because X is his grand plan.
For HN in particular I feel I need to clarify this more often[0] -- but this comment is a joke.
It's riffing on the idea that Elon thinks "X" sounds cool but it actually just sounds like a porn site, that the valuation of Twitter would need to drop substantially for a porn site to be able to buy it (and that this rebrand is likely to further devalue Twitter), and that it would still be a terrible waste of money for Elon even if the fictional "plan" succeeded because he'd be selling at a substantial loss -- but in the context of the joke, it's implied that Elon wouldn't see it that way, he'd see it as a success.
It's meant to satirize Elon's plans for Twitter (and common defenses of Elon's mistakes that show up on HN) by implying that the downsides of "X" are so obvious that Elon would need to be aware of them and would need to be incorporating them into his "plan"; but even so he'd still be the type of person who would make a plan with obvious downsides (ie, selling his company off at a substantially lower price than he bought it for) and just not realize that those downsides exist. The joke frames itself as if it's going to be a defense of the rebrand, but then just goes on to describe an outcome that would be terrible for Elon anyway.
---
The actual non-joke reality is likely pretty much exactly what you say -- Elon has owned "x.com" for ages and has always wanted to name something "x.com" and he has a grand vision of an everything "brand" that probably mostly just seems cool to him and that he's convinced would seem cool to everyone else as well. But he's unable to see that to everyone else it just looks like he's rebranding into a porn site.
He's convinced himself that this is a master plan that could lead to his Everything App dominating the Internet. But to everyone else outside of his bubble, the downsides are obvious and the plan just looks silly.
And thanks for the book recommendation, I'll add it to my list :)
----
[0]: This is not a criticism of HN, I am myself much more prone to missing jokes than the average person and I regularly rely on context clues to figure out if someone online is joking -- and those context clues are usually missing from HN. So very much no shame to anyone for not catching a joke, I get the confusion and I also regularly miss the exact same jokes.
It's riffing on the idea that Elon thinks "X" sounds cool but it actually just sounds like a porn site, that the valuation of Twitter would need to drop substantially for a porn site to be able to buy it (and that this rebrand is likely to further devalue Twitter), and that it would still be a terrible waste of money for Elon even if the fictional "plan" succeeded because he'd be selling at a substantial loss -- but in the context of the joke, it's implied that Elon wouldn't see it that way, he'd see it as a success.
It's meant to satirize Elon's plans for Twitter (and common defenses of Elon's mistakes that show up on HN) by implying that the downsides of "X" are so obvious that Elon would need to be aware of them and would need to be incorporating them into his "plan"; but even so he'd still be the type of person who would make a plan with obvious downsides (ie, selling his company off at a substantially lower price than he bought it for) and just not realize that those downsides exist. The joke frames itself as if it's going to be a defense of the rebrand, but then just goes on to describe an outcome that would be terrible for Elon anyway.
---
The actual non-joke reality is likely pretty much exactly what you say -- Elon has owned "x.com" for ages and has always wanted to name something "x.com" and he has a grand vision of an everything "brand" that probably mostly just seems cool to him and that he's convinced would seem cool to everyone else as well. But he's unable to see that to everyone else it just looks like he's rebranding into a porn site.
He's convinced himself that this is a master plan that could lead to his Everything App dominating the Internet. But to everyone else outside of his bubble, the downsides are obvious and the plan just looks silly.
And thanks for the book recommendation, I'll add it to my list :)
----
[0]: This is not a criticism of HN, I am myself much more prone to missing jokes than the average person and I regularly rely on context clues to figure out if someone online is joking -- and those context clues are usually missing from HN. So very much no shame to anyone for not catching a joke, I get the confusion and I also regularly miss the exact same jokes.
Gotcha. I guess I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.
As an aside, I tend to only like the joke that Elon Musk is Phony Stark, the rest of the jokes just don't land with me for some reason. I've never really liked the guy and I'm happy it's a lot less difficult for me to articulate why now.
But yes, he wants X to be WeChat.
As an aside, I tend to only like the joke that Elon Musk is Phony Stark, the rest of the jokes just don't land with me for some reason. I've never really liked the guy and I'm happy it's a lot less difficult for me to articulate why now.
But yes, he wants X to be WeChat.
Why would a porn company buy a social network which will immediately lose most of its users (think journalists, politicians, NASA and the like)?
He could have sold x.com for a huge amount or built his own OnlyFans.
He could have sold x.com for a huge amount or built his own OnlyFans.
Mass migration is definitely a concern for potential buyers, but it's fixable. A porn company might be able to slow current Twitter migrations down by implementing smart policies like not rate-limiting their own app.
Also keep in mind the opportunities to regain advertiser trust by pivoting the content focus; many advertisers may prefer having their products shown next to pornography instead of nazis.
Also keep in mind the opportunities to regain advertiser trust by pivoting the content focus; many advertisers may prefer having their products shown next to pornography instead of nazis.
I'm pretty sure that was a joke.
In case anyone was wondering what news story Musk was trying to bury with his latest stupid PR stunt: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/07/tesla-misses-deadline-t...
Meanwhile, the x.com domain seems to be somewhat shambolic.
As I write this, it hits a Godaddy parking page. According to this[0] tweet[1], it's been a Godaddy site, a dead link, a redirect, and now a godaddy site again.
Shambles.
[0] https://twitter.com/rothschildmd/status/1683289016723202050
[1] No, I'm not calling them X's. That name is saved for those who broke my heart, made me cry, and left me binge watching Notting Hill.
As I write this, it hits a Godaddy parking page. According to this[0] tweet[1], it's been a Godaddy site, a dead link, a redirect, and now a godaddy site again.
Shambles.
[0] https://twitter.com/rothschildmd/status/1683289016723202050
[1] No, I'm not calling them X's. That name is saved for those who broke my heart, made me cry, and left me binge watching Notting Hill.
The rollout has been embarrassing. Well maybe not, if you work at Twitter these days you probably are past being embarrassed by technical failures.
When they manage to serve a redirect instead of a free GoDaddy domain parking page, the redirect was to ".twitter.com". Complete with broken leading dot.
When they manage to serve a redirect instead of a free GoDaddy domain parking page, the redirect was to ".twitter.com". Complete with broken leading dot.
I honestly believe that Musk is doing this stuff himself.
It's going to the Wikipedia page about x.com for me. EDIT: oh wait my browser did that. X.com now goes to Twitter. So now a sizeable portion of people who try to go to x.com is going to go to the Wikipedia page for x.com I guess.
Also the Twitter sign-in page says "X - Sign into Twitter".
Also the Twitter sign-in page says "X - Sign into Twitter".
X.org seems to have taken some damage just by proximity.
The Social Media Site Formerly Known As Twitter probably just started announcing things before the DNS propagation for X.com went through.
> As I write this, it hits a Godaddy parking page.
Some people have assumed this is just him trolling, but I have no idea anymore...
Some people have assumed this is just him trolling, but I have no idea anymore...
x.com just redirects to twitter.com.
You know, for all the talk about how twitter is going downhill and making stupid decisions, this is the only one so far that really, really, does seems stupid.
Verification was bad and now it’s a joke, api rate limits have some possible argument etc - but why in the hell buy a household name just to change it? Why not build X from scratch?
Verification was bad and now it’s a joke, api rate limits have some possible argument etc - but why in the hell buy a household name just to change it? Why not build X from scratch?
I don't know, putting 13 billion debt on Twitter and cutting ad revenue down to half seems pretty stupid too.
I hate to say this, but is there a good way to remove Musk’s ownership of the platform?
Sure. Avoid the platform, continue to mock it and companies that use it to drive down its valuation to the point where he gives up and sells it for a massive loss.
In the event of bankruptcy, wouldn't ownership pass to his creditors, i.e. the Saudis and others?
The only route is to wait for it to fail further and be reposessed by its creditors.
Well, you could buy it from him.
> api rate limits have some possible argument
API rate limits for external API clients sure. API rate limits for their own application is insane (caveat, super high rate limits to prevent against truly exceptional use would be fine, but anything that impacts even the 98% user is nuts).
There’s no argument for it. Every goal of these sites is to increase time on site. A rate limit that kicked normal users of the site off in 10 minutes is… well, a truly and unambiguously bad choice.
API rate limits for external API clients sure. API rate limits for their own application is insane (caveat, super high rate limits to prevent against truly exceptional use would be fine, but anything that impacts even the 98% user is nuts).
There’s no argument for it. Every goal of these sites is to increase time on site. A rate limit that kicked normal users of the site off in 10 minutes is… well, a truly and unambiguously bad choice.
> Verification was bad and now it’s a joke
Verification was serviceable, now it is harmful. There is a big difference there. Even if formerly was not perfect.
Verification was serviceable, now it is harmful. There is a big difference there. Even if formerly was not perfect.
[deleted]
It was a political game for journalists and now it’s officially instead of unofficially meaningless, but it was never serviceable and certainly not “harmful”. Hyperbole is a plague.
It is absolutely harmful for the user experience because it's tied to a boost in the visibility of your tweets. It's essentially made replies a useless avenue for interesting content.
Instead of the top replies to popular posts being tweets that have been boosted by a signal that arguably indicates quality (views, likes, retweets, replies of their own) tweets are boosted by a signal of the opposite - the poster's willingness to pay for visibility of content that couldn't rise to the top on its own merits or that of its poster.
Replies to popular content are now a wasteland for interesting content or discussion unless you've mass-blocked Twitter Blue subscribers - definitely harmful.
Instead of the top replies to popular posts being tweets that have been boosted by a signal that arguably indicates quality (views, likes, retweets, replies of their own) tweets are boosted by a signal of the opposite - the poster's willingness to pay for visibility of content that couldn't rise to the top on its own merits or that of its poster.
Replies to popular content are now a wasteland for interesting content or discussion unless you've mass-blocked Twitter Blue subscribers - definitely harmful.
This is why I stopped using Twitter. The quality went way down and there's porn/onlyfans spam everywhere.
It still has a boatload of users and is still the cultural town square of the tech world. To build X from scratch you'd have to convince people like Marc Andreessen, Paul Graham, a bunch of other VCs etc to move.
Changing behaviour is very hard. You'd have to get people to install new apps, get use to new workflows etc and humans are creatures of habit so this is very hard.
Changing behaviour is very hard. You'd have to get people to install new apps, get use to new workflows etc and humans are creatures of habit so this is very hard.
> Changing behaviour is very hard. You'd have to get people to install new apps, get use to new workflows etc and humans are creatures of habit so this is very hard.
I think this is pretty optimistic thinking. "Oh no, I can't pick my way through a bunch of bigoted garbage to which the owner responds 'Concerning' or read Marc Andreesen being deeply weird or see 30,000 reply guys to Paul Graham hawking shitcoins, whatever will I do?" is, I think, probably okay at this point.
Having the thinkfluencey types before the spam and impersonation taps were turned on to full was probably valuable; now Twitter is getting the stink on it and that's hard to wash off.
Personally speaking, Bluesky picked up pretty much everybody I care to talk to and remaining on Twitter in a material capacity is a flag that I probably don't want to hear from you.
I think this is pretty optimistic thinking. "Oh no, I can't pick my way through a bunch of bigoted garbage to which the owner responds 'Concerning' or read Marc Andreesen being deeply weird or see 30,000 reply guys to Paul Graham hawking shitcoins, whatever will I do?" is, I think, probably okay at this point.
Having the thinkfluencey types before the spam and impersonation taps were turned on to full was probably valuable; now Twitter is getting the stink on it and that's hard to wash off.
Personally speaking, Bluesky picked up pretty much everybody I care to talk to and remaining on Twitter in a material capacity is a flag that I probably don't want to hear from you.
You're looking at it from Musk taking over twitter, which I agree with, chasing away users is easy.
The conversation was about X being built from the ground up and attracting new users which is much harder.
BlueSky only started gaining traction after Musk started pissing people off, doubt prag would have done the same.
The conversation was about X being built from the ground up and attracting new users which is much harder.
BlueSky only started gaining traction after Musk started pissing people off, doubt prag would have done the same.
Sure but like, Twitter's userbase is now a toxic asset. Starting there seems worse than starting fresh because you can't get rid of the baggage but advertisers also don't want to spend money on them.
My entire tech bubble moved to mastodon and it's been great. No ads, no algorithms. Maybe the VC bubble is just stuck with it because of what it used to be?
I'm curious about the composition of your tech bubble - is it programmers / technical folk mostly? cause yeah lots have moved.
The non-technical tech sphere hasn't really moved though, but maybe my circles are quite different to yours.
The non-technical tech sphere hasn't really moved though, but maybe my circles are quite different to yours.
Infosec/cybersec. If you just want CVEs, automatic updates, and LinkedIn-style influencers, Twitter is still fine. If you want the stories, the how, the why, and reading humans live updates, you go to mastodon/Activitypub (bonus if you're a student: make your own activityPub reader!)
can you recommend an instance with this type of content?
Definitely a lot of electronics/EE stuff has also moved to mastodon (at least people that i was following). I follow a bigger group there than I have ever on twitter. Mastodon is still a bit quirky sometimes, but my mastodon feed is now definitely more interesting than my twitter feed.
How do I, as an investor, make money with mastodon?
You don’t - oh well. I’m sure there is an endless number of other ways you can try to make money investing if that’s your main concern.
You... probably don't? I continue to believe that there may be some small value in a single-person-instance-as-a-service product for celebs etc (particularly if Threads goes ahead with its embrace of ActivityPub; lots of value for celebrities in having the audience but having some independence from Facebook), but it's very niche.
Not everything has to be about making money, you realise.
Not everything has to be about making money, you realise.
It seems like a hassle to re-negotiate federation each time for each celebrity. What about a general PR themed instance (strictly moderated so that everyone will peer with it).
Thats actually a really cool idea. The big PR agencies who rep for actors, authors, musicians etc, could run an instance and that's where the person's identity would be.
> re-negotiate federation
That's not really how it works. Federation happens ~by default in general; restriction is reactive, not proactive.
That's not really how it works. Federation happens ~by default in general; restriction is reactive, not proactive.
You don't, which is why it doesn't suck
There could be a market for one central Mastodon host with better UX that makes it easier to onboard non-tech people, but I'm not sure why making money is a pre-req here. Mastodon was never meant to be a for-profit enterprise as far as I'm aware.
Find a real job
How do you, as an investor, make money with oxygen?
But you still breathe, right?
But you still breathe, right?
Does anyone make money from your Mastodon use? I understand how moving to your own place could be good, hell, if you're just talking to each other you could even consider retroshare, but I don't understand the business loss when a bunch of IT professionals move their conversations to a private server.
> but I don't understand the business loss when a bunch of IT professionals move their conversations to a private server.
Why pay (as much) to advertise to an empt(ier) room?
Why pay (as much) to advertise to an empt(ier) room?
what instance did you join?
Who's paying for servers, moderation, etc?
A lot of the medium to large instances use crowdfunding subscription services like Patreon, Ko-Fi etc. to cover costs.
Wait, aren't we against paying to use a social media site?
No, I'm a big fan of paying for what I use, and I actually do give money to a small social media site that I use. However, I'm also strongly opposed to giving money to transphobes and Republicans, so Twitter is out.
Not in principle, we're just against paying to use Twitter.
(The dynamic is very different when it's voluntary and feels like supporting a community, though, and in practice it's going to be a few whales making donations)
(The dynamic is very different when it's voluntary and feels like supporting a community, though, and in practice it's going to be a few whales making donations)
Their audiences will move first, then either they'll move, or they won't have audiences, and will stop posting.
[deleted]
> this is the only one so far that really, really, does seems stupid.
To you.
To you.
Probably X fits into the story then, for most of us seeing an X means "close this window".
> On February 13, Musk expressed concern over the fact that his tweet about Super Bowl LVII had garnered fewer impressions than U.S. President Joe Biden's. Summoning another meeting with engineers, Musk ordered an 80-person team to address the perceived issue, under penalty of being fired. As a result, engineers altered Twitter's algorithm to boost Musk's tweets by a factor of 1000
> By December 17, Twitter was blocking some links to Mastodon as being "potentially harmful" or "malware".
Other top contenders
> By December 17, Twitter was blocking some links to Mastodon as being "potentially harmful" or "malware".
Other top contenders
I guess he wanted 400 million prospective customers for $ 100 each.
I think he actually wanted to change it to Titter and have the bird logo have tits. Seriously.
Is that because the owner of twitter is acting like a 'boob' (colloquial phrase for acting the fool)
This was is the most obviously and definitely stupid, sure, but the other stuff was also very stupid.
Apparently tweets will now be called "x's".
And audio-visual tweets will be "X videos" I presume.
Like Threads?
Could this all be part of Musk's plan, though? As Sun Tzu said, "when you are strong, appear weak". There's no denying that Musk is highly intelligent. If a play of his seems completely bone-headed, there's a good chance it's actually the opposite.
> "there's a good chance it's actually the opposite."
There isn't a "good" chance. It's extraordinarily, extremely rare that someone makes such a genius play that other experts consider it foolish. These events in sport buisness or other areas are often stuff of legend because of how rare they are. Sure, if this play works out and turns to have been undoubtably right, it will be studied for years in buisness schools around the world. But up until that moment, we can be reasonably sure that this isnt one of those exceptionally rare cases
There isn't a "good" chance. It's extraordinarily, extremely rare that someone makes such a genius play that other experts consider it foolish. These events in sport buisness or other areas are often stuff of legend because of how rare they are. Sure, if this play works out and turns to have been undoubtably right, it will be studied for years in buisness schools around the world. But up until that moment, we can be reasonably sure that this isnt one of those exceptionally rare cases
There is a better chance it's actually completely bone-headed.
Was the full quote “when you are weak, appear strong, so cut off your arms if you want to intimidate people,” or something like that?
How often is thidsever true? This kind of 4D chess move is from my experience very rare in real life and mostly exist in the realm of fiction.
A solid move to instill faith with advertisers that what is left of "the platform formerly known as twitter" will be stable, avoid confusion with their users, and be a brand-positive environment.
What's everyone's timetable for either shutdown or sell-off of twitter, 18 months. Ad revenue will continue to shrink, effective 'cost per' rates will decrease while Ex-Twitter will try to squeeze out stable or higher, likely push brands toward longer term campaign spend, engagements so as to reflect long-term dollars on a balance sheet.
Only reasonable counterpoint would be if this is part of a strategy to convert X to a portal with Ex-Twitter being one app/platform tied to central identity graph with other services/platforms to be connected later.
What's everyone's timetable for either shutdown or sell-off of twitter, 18 months. Ad revenue will continue to shrink, effective 'cost per' rates will decrease while Ex-Twitter will try to squeeze out stable or higher, likely push brands toward longer term campaign spend, engagements so as to reflect long-term dollars on a balance sheet.
Only reasonable counterpoint would be if this is part of a strategy to convert X to a portal with Ex-Twitter being one app/platform tied to central identity graph with other services/platforms to be connected later.
Despite all the chaos, Musk and his personal image are the only thing holding everything together.
I’m sure he could raise a few billion via text message by the weekend if he wanted to.
Given Musk’s success in other ventures and no prominent Twitter competitor for journalists or government orgs to share quick breaking news updates, the show goes on.
If Musk gets bored and moves on though, then I think your timeline is spot on.
I’m sure he could raise a few billion via text message by the weekend if he wanted to.
Given Musk’s success in other ventures and no prominent Twitter competitor for journalists or government orgs to share quick breaking news updates, the show goes on.
If Musk gets bored and moves on though, then I think your timeline is spot on.
Or, just, governments and journalists will start using one of the million other applications where they could share those updates.
For what I can tell, Elon bought Twitter to take it off the stock market, fix it as a private company, creating growth and profitability, and then list it later to make his money back.
He sees the X vision to make Twitter become the Everything App, where people turn to it for more than just messaging, but video calls and commerce. Very much like WeChat where it serves as a platform for things like restaurant bookings and hailing a taxi.
I do agree though, it doesn't feel like renaming it to X is the right approach if this is the longer term vision. Personally I would have thought about Twitter X with these additional services and a much slower migration to X to align with the Everything App vision.
He sees the X vision to make Twitter become the Everything App, where people turn to it for more than just messaging, but video calls and commerce. Very much like WeChat where it serves as a platform for things like restaurant bookings and hailing a taxi.
I do agree though, it doesn't feel like renaming it to X is the right approach if this is the longer term vision. Personally I would have thought about Twitter X with these additional services and a much slower migration to X to align with the Everything App vision.
> He sees the X vision to make Twitter become the Everything App, where people turn to it for more than just messaging, but video calls and commerce
This is the exact vacuous nonsense Sam Bankman-Fried was spouting while playing League of Legends in a VC meeting and it made Sequoia Capital wet their pants. It really puts the cart before the horse of "how or why" Twitter should position themselves this way. It is frustrating to watch people continuously buy into his complete lack of vision or execution.
This is the exact vacuous nonsense Sam Bankman-Fried was spouting while playing League of Legends in a VC meeting and it made Sequoia Capital wet their pants. It really puts the cart before the horse of "how or why" Twitter should position themselves this way. It is frustrating to watch people continuously buy into his complete lack of vision or execution.
I really dislike Musk - but it does seem like sometimes - he has a really strong vision.
Tesla and SpaceX and StarLink are really impressive from a "had a vision for something on a broadly positive world-changing scale, successfully executed it" perspective.
With Twitter, I'm not sure he actually has a vision.
The best realistic pro-Musk argument you can make is that he can be a real ass, but he's an ass whose companies tend to do amazing things. With Twitter, the best I can come up with is that he had a personal grudge against the platform, and the means to take pattiness to unheard of scales.
Tesla and SpaceX and StarLink are really impressive from a "had a vision for something on a broadly positive world-changing scale, successfully executed it" perspective.
With Twitter, I'm not sure he actually has a vision.
The best realistic pro-Musk argument you can make is that he can be a real ass, but he's an ass whose companies tend to do amazing things. With Twitter, the best I can come up with is that he had a personal grudge against the platform, and the means to take pattiness to unheard of scales.
It almost feels Trumpian in its need to remove any trace of what was built before he took over.
Wait until he sues for the founder title.
Yeah, I suspect he's going to start calling himself "the creator/founder of X" soon
Well, he is the cofounder of X(.com). It just took a few decades to fully execute his vision.
Plus I would think by this point in human events we understand that nothing that does everything actually does anything well. This is a terrible idea. At least he's had a financial hit because if it, nothing else has any change of convincing him otherwise. Even he knows it's a bad idea, which is why he never actually wor4ked towards it.
> It is frustrating to watch people continuously buy into his complete lack of vision or execution.
"Hey, look over there! I'll make the 6 Million Dollar Man!"
I'm pretty sure he just watches 80s TV for vaporware announcement ideas to use when there's bad press to suppress.
"Hey, look over there! I'll make the 6 Million Dollar Man!"
I'm pretty sure he just watches 80s TV for vaporware announcement ideas to use when there's bad press to suppress.
Actually it is closer to Zuckerberg‘s meta rebrand. You don't save a company by slapping in a new brand and wasting billions on VR without doing market research.
Yes, that rebrand is also foolish, but it's not hard to see that Facebook is way better positioned to actually fulfill the "everything" app than others are. Facebook marketplace is huge.
I don't think it's nonsense. Patreon, OnlyFans, etc are basically things that should've been apart of Twitter UX from the jump, all with a simple 'Subscribe ($X /month)' button, the overlap in their user interfaces is no accident. IG is already trying to do this as well already, but its niche limits its scale.
I would hazard a guess that pre-Musk Twitter, for whatever reason, had fears around bringing payments onto the service, particularly in the case of sexual content and resolving that, but this led to a situation where other services spring up to fill that void.
However, Twitter Blue was a case of having your cake-and-eating-it-too where I think Musk wanted a story on cash flow not dependent on ads ASAP. In truth, Twitter Blue should've exclusively been a service tier for creators who want to monetize content on Twitter; a case naturally requiring verificaiton. That would've given an incentive and a rationale to the extant pre-Musk creator class that bemoaned its introduction, but Musk really fucked that up by trying to exploit Right wing allegations of Twitter being biased towards the Left (which it never was, rather, the reverse was true[0]) to make up for freaking out advertisers.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...
I would hazard a guess that pre-Musk Twitter, for whatever reason, had fears around bringing payments onto the service, particularly in the case of sexual content and resolving that, but this led to a situation where other services spring up to fill that void.
However, Twitter Blue was a case of having your cake-and-eating-it-too where I think Musk wanted a story on cash flow not dependent on ads ASAP. In truth, Twitter Blue should've exclusively been a service tier for creators who want to monetize content on Twitter; a case naturally requiring verificaiton. That would've given an incentive and a rationale to the extant pre-Musk creator class that bemoaned its introduction, but Musk really fucked that up by trying to exploit Right wing allegations of Twitter being biased towards the Left (which it never was, rather, the reverse was true[0]) to make up for freaking out advertisers.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...
> I don't think it's nonsense. Patreon, OnlyFans, etc are basically things that should've been apart of Twitter UX from the jump, all with a simple 'Subscribe ($X /month)' button, the overlap in their user interfaces is no accident. IG is already trying to do this as well already, but its niche limits its scale.
I'm not sure what you mean by its niche. There are way more Instagram users than Twitter ones, and they are way more exposed to products. It sounds like a much better fit for Instagram than Twitter.
I'm not sure what you mean by its niche. There are way more Instagram users than Twitter ones, and they are way more exposed to products. It sounds like a much better fit for Instagram than Twitter.
I don't see much overlap with Twitter and Patreon (or only fans). YouTube has more overlap with Patreon and did finally get a channel membership/paid subscription thing although I'm not sure how popular that is.
sam bankman-fried is closer to Musk opponents at every angle you look at. and btw those opponents crowned sam bankman fried while they hate musk in every newspaper you can buy in the US
What opponents? You mean in the tech VC world? Cause the rest of us are disillusioned with both of them.
pretty much every newspaper, tv journalist and a big chunk of the politicians. its easy just look at everyone that gave money to Sam Bankman and try to link see what those people think of Musk. I guarantee you the spread will be something like 90% against Musk
> For what I can tell, Elon bought Twitter to take it off the stock market, fix it as a private company, creating growth and profitability, and then list it later to make his money back.
A reminder that Elon had to be sued into buying this company.
A reminder that Elon had to be sued into buying this company.
So he wanted it to take it off the stock market, fix it, yada yada but then realized this is a bad idea?
He made the offer impulsively without due diligence, then got cold feet when the market dropped. Real genius business moves
TSLA was crazy overvalued, does no one remember that? The reason the ARK funds and Cathie Woods is famous is basically cuz she bet the farm on TSLA.
The stock was absurd -- cars with QA issues and lots of recalls outperforming stocks like Ford or Toyota, companies with decades of making reliable vehicles.
Everyone knew it was overvalued by a long shot, and if Musk sold it would crater. So create a headline grabbing buy that would justify shedding tons of shares, then back out and keep the $$$. When TSLA later has a correction he can just ignore it -- got his money already -- and launch some buybacks on the cheap.
Except he couldn't back out.
The stock was absurd -- cars with QA issues and lots of recalls outperforming stocks like Ford or Toyota, companies with decades of making reliable vehicles.
Everyone knew it was overvalued by a long shot, and if Musk sold it would crater. So create a headline grabbing buy that would justify shedding tons of shares, then back out and keep the $$$. When TSLA later has a correction he can just ignore it -- got his money already -- and launch some buybacks on the cheap.
Except he couldn't back out.
Evidence points to him wanting to use the potential of buying Twitter as a cover for selling a few billion in Tesla stock without impacting it's value.
He tried to back away when the stock markets fell making financing more difficult/expensive. He wanted a better price. He still wanted to buy it.
If he wanted a better price he shouldn't have started purchasing talks by posting a ludicrous price on twitter before talking to anyone.
In the normal world, this is called being really stupid and bad at business
In the normal world, this is called being really stupid and bad at business
What makes you think this? IMO he really wanted to not buy them but was forced to do it.
I hear what you're saying, but I don't think this is remotely the right way to go about it.
It would be like Google changing the Google name to Alphabet, or to "A.com" or something. Imagine throwing away "to Google something" in an effort to popularize a big, story-less, meaningless name.
It would be like Google changing the Google name to Alphabet, or to "A.com" or something. Imagine throwing away "to Google something" in an effort to popularize a big, story-less, meaningless name.
Yeah if it was like "Twitter - an X.com app" then maybe, or maybe building out the brand of X and merging the two if X takes off. This switch seems a bit sudden and misguided. I was certain he was doing some weird Elon joke but he seems to have gone through with it.
> I was certain he was doing some weird Elon joke but he seems to have gone through with it.
I think that describes nearly all of his public behavior over the last few years.
I think that describes nearly all of his public behavior over the last few years.
I feel like in the past others were able to keep Musk in check when he was having a manic phase. Nowadays, he has enough power that I suspect anybody who wants to stay in his good graces doesn't dare to contradict him.
Worse than that.
tweet -> excrete
tweet -> excrete
At this point it seems like he’s dismantling Twitter on purpose. I can understand why the Saudis who lent him money would want it gone after the Arab spring.
Occam's Razor might suggest he is simply bad at managing a social media company
Something that has become abundantly clear over the past few years is that all the supposed instances of "[my beloved idol] is actually playing 9-dimensional chess; their master plan will become clear soon" are wrong, and that in every case the idol in question is actually just an idiot. That's almost certainly what's happening again here.
This. Twitter has been the bane of billionaires, aspiring billionaires, and corrupt nation-states for a long time now.
I could understand this if it was acquired and then heavily censored or monitored. Or if something more obviously destructive was done. But if this is all part of a plan to ruin twitter, it relies on having an egotistical person very publicly take an enormous "L" and everyone involved keeping quiet about it. I'm still going with Elon biting off a bit more than he could chew.
Twitter has been complying with more government censorship demands since the takeover including pre election censorship demanded by government of Turkey and banning a BBC documentary about Indian PM Modi. Before Musk Twitter often fought such requests in courts. But he did ban some journalists after they reported on him banning the Musk flight tracker account
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/tech/elon-musk-twitter-govern...
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/tech/elon-musk-twitter-govern...
Right, but was that the purpose of the $44b takeover? No it’s just something Elon did, in an interesting reverse on his whole “free speech” thing.
Again, I am certain this is incompetence rather than conspiracy
Again, I am certain this is incompetence rather than conspiracy
>I could understand this if it was acquired and then heavily censored
This has happened. Impression count has been decimated for anyone without a check. Bonus points if you've ever blocked Elon or posted with a sentiment he disagrees with.
This has happened. Impression count has been decimated for anyone without a check. Bonus points if you've ever blocked Elon or posted with a sentiment he disagrees with.
Wait the suggestion is that billionaires/powerful people bought Twitter for nefarious purposes. Is it not worth more intact but surveilled and censored than utterly sabotaged with Elon graciously taking one for the team?
I’m not convinced, this is a bit complex, conspiratorial and nonsensical for me. When the simpler explanation is that Elon has just mismanaged the company.
I’m not convinced, this is a bit complex, conspiratorial and nonsensical for me. When the simpler explanation is that Elon has just mismanaged the company.
The answer to that is simple: it was worth more to them destroyed than as an intelligence asset.
t h e m
*Elon and whoever he owes favors to and/or is influenced by. (Owing favors and being influenced by others is a normal human person trait thing.)
So they were so harmed by the newly censored and under-friendly-control-for-$44b Twitter that they decided to spike it altogether and presume no similar social network would ever pop up again?
This is qanon-level stuff man, come on.
This is qanon-level stuff man, come on.
It really isn't. State - really, conservative party - antipathy to Twitter is well-known. This antipathy was instigated by Twitter's role in incubating several large, progressive movements over the past decade: the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, the anti-TPP and anti-SOPA protests, the Umbrella Movement and its descendants, etc. We know this antipathy exists because many of the states vulnerable to similar movements and that have the power to ban Twitter have done so.
Twitter also allows for the real-time dissemination of information unfavorable to corporations, like during outages and accidents, and the widespread dissemination of less time-sensitive information by journalists who aren't beholden to corporate media gatekeepers.
Elon Musk's various ventures rely heavily on buy-in from the government - SpaceX relies on NASA's resources, Tesla has only been profitable because of generous renewable energy grants, and even Paypal benefited from lax oversight from financial regulators. That there is likely a relationship is less "Pizzagate" and more "Trump and Russian interference." And if you're going to pretend that that's not a damning analogy, all that does is expose how unserious you are about the matter.
All of that aside, there is also the matter of Musk 1) having had a checkered history with Twitter as it was, including its users, and 2) not having actually wanted to buy Twitter after his initial due diligence. Considering that his actions after completing the deal included firing most of the workforce, stripping users of multiple privileges, and stripping the company itself of its branding, it's not at all farfetched to conclude that he has no intention of simply renovating Twitter, but instead means to strip it down to studs or foundation and build a gaudy temple to his own warped sense of entrepreneurship. This is, after all, the man who insisted that the model names of his cars spell out "S3XY".
Twitter also allows for the real-time dissemination of information unfavorable to corporations, like during outages and accidents, and the widespread dissemination of less time-sensitive information by journalists who aren't beholden to corporate media gatekeepers.
Elon Musk's various ventures rely heavily on buy-in from the government - SpaceX relies on NASA's resources, Tesla has only been profitable because of generous renewable energy grants, and even Paypal benefited from lax oversight from financial regulators. That there is likely a relationship is less "Pizzagate" and more "Trump and Russian interference." And if you're going to pretend that that's not a damning analogy, all that does is expose how unserious you are about the matter.
All of that aside, there is also the matter of Musk 1) having had a checkered history with Twitter as it was, including its users, and 2) not having actually wanted to buy Twitter after his initial due diligence. Considering that his actions after completing the deal included firing most of the workforce, stripping users of multiple privileges, and stripping the company itself of its branding, it's not at all farfetched to conclude that he has no intention of simply renovating Twitter, but instead means to strip it down to studs or foundation and build a gaudy temple to his own warped sense of entrepreneurship. This is, after all, the man who insisted that the model names of his cars spell out "S3XY".
Please give some concrete examples (which aren't a decade old) of twitter being the bane of billionaires and corrupt nation states, that would help a lot. For now my only reaction to your comment is 'huh?'
Elon himself didn't like that an account was tweeting the location of his private jet, generating bad publicity, going so far as paying for the owner of the account to stop.
Trivial, yes, but does show how it can be an annoyance even through simple things.
Trivial, yes, but does show how it can be an annoyance even through simple things.
That is indeed trivial.
And it was the best idea I had before asking my question.
But I though it was too trivial to even mention.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4019109-twitters-turke...
This was after he took over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...
This was before.
This was after he took over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...
This was before.
Search for: Leader of Turkey censorship twitter
Yet it's been a god-send for nation-state authoritarians in the US.
Really? Why? What problems does Twitter cause for them?
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They didn't lend him money, they kept the stake they had before he bought twitter, both the Qatari and the saudi. Also I'm not sure why they would want it gone after the arab spring, given how the Persians only benefited from it and Qatar was pretty much a state instigator of it in other countries.
The Arab Spring, you mean a decade ago?
In any case, they would rather have a tool they can control (just get Twitter to shadowban tweets about democracy) that their population uses seems better than a void.
In any case, they would rather have a tool they can control (just get Twitter to shadowban tweets about democracy) that their population uses seems better than a void.
No the arab spring that is coming soon. Remember why it was there: because many countries could not pay for food anymore because of the high grain prices. And what is happening now in ukraine? Exactly: they cannot ship cheap grain anymore to the arab countries that need it the most.
> He sees the X vision to make Twitter become the Everything App
Seems easier to do that without buying Twitter. He has enough reach that anything he talks about gets fanboy traction, there's no value into Twitter's infrastructure for this, and converting tweeters into everything app users is possible, but a stretch.
Plus the ship has sailed for an everything app outside China.
Seems easier to do that without buying Twitter. He has enough reach that anything he talks about gets fanboy traction, there's no value into Twitter's infrastructure for this, and converting tweeters into everything app users is possible, but a stretch.
Plus the ship has sailed for an everything app outside China.
If you ever ask the question "Is this a dumb move or 4D chess?" the answer is literally always "dumb move".
I heard some pal of his (owner of the big MMA league or something? IDK, some other Saudi-loving guy I gather, I don't know much about combat sports) interviewed on NPR a couple weeks ago and he was still saying Musk is a business genius (but he also had some weird "once someone's in the circle, they're in the circle, and Musk's in the circle" thing going on, like from goddamn Meet the Parents—dude was a living caricature, the interview was fawning but the guy was just an absurd human being).
Look, everyone makes mistakes, but the whole Twitter thing, from the beginning, has been the equivalent of hiring a fry cook and then he sticks his fucking hand in the fryer, on purpose, on day 1. Then he sticks the other hand in.
You wouldn't say that dude's a genius chef—or, if he ever was, he's either gone nuts or is on way too many drugs to trust with anything. Or both.
Look, everyone makes mistakes, but the whole Twitter thing, from the beginning, has been the equivalent of hiring a fry cook and then he sticks his fucking hand in the fryer, on purpose, on day 1. Then he sticks the other hand in.
You wouldn't say that dude's a genius chef—or, if he ever was, he's either gone nuts or is on way too many drugs to trust with anything. Or both.
Eh, Musk will 100% make money on Twitter. All of these moves aren’t meant for you. They’re meant for the stock market, which has lived in an alternate reality for the last few years.
Musk is cramming the social media app with all of those useless buzzwords that Wall Street loves. When he IPOs it, you can bet it will have AI, Finance, and depending on its standing then, Crypto in the prospectus. It will be hot trash but the markets will lap it up as they always do.
You are literally not the audience for these shenanigans.
Musk is cramming the social media app with all of those useless buzzwords that Wall Street loves. When he IPOs it, you can bet it will have AI, Finance, and depending on its standing then, Crypto in the prospectus. It will be hot trash but the markets will lap it up as they always do.
You are literally not the audience for these shenanigans.
His purchase of Twitter was explicitly to take it private. He would look like a pretty humongous moron to just take it public again. And I seriously doubt Wall St would ever mindless lap up a super app with no users. It makes no sense. It's a ten-year old, mature company that was already public-traded. He can't just take it private, make it a whole new company, rebuild the user base from scratch then expect it to be worth more than he paid. He should have just bootstrapped a new company from zero if that was the intent.
Wall Street will pump random shitty companies when they add the current buzzword to their press release [0]. Of course they’ll lap up whatever trash their favorite pied piper decides to take public.
As for looking like a fool, I think we can all agree that Musk is past that.
0: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-c...
As for looking like a fool, I think we can all agree that Musk is past that.
0: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-c...
Said everyone about spacex and Tesla too.
That doesn’t mean this twitter thing is going to succeed, but your always “dumb move” comment is not very well founded based on musks history.
The entire tone of voice of this thread is exactly what people said about Tesla 5 years ago and why so many were shorting it. Turns out - that was a bad move.
That doesn’t mean this twitter thing is going to succeed, but your always “dumb move” comment is not very well founded based on musks history.
The entire tone of voice of this thread is exactly what people said about Tesla 5 years ago and why so many were shorting it. Turns out - that was a bad move.
Let’s see, 5 years from now maybe you can Xeet us about how right you are.
Tesla stock is still vastly overvalued. That's not to say it's worthless but I see it going below other car companies as they start converting over to EVs.
But EVs and private space flight are useful things with demand and large government subsidies. There's little demand to whatever he wants to do with Twitter
But EVs and private space flight are useful things with demand and large government subsidies. There's little demand to whatever he wants to do with Twitter
Sure, everyone wants to be "WeChat for the rest of the world", but even WeChat hasn't really made progress in pulling it off.
His vision is to turn it into a bank. He talked about this with Baron's last year. The part of the "everything app" he actually cares about is banking. His goal is to make it into the world's largest bank. He actually said so.
Honestly, not a bad idea. If you are the world's richest person you might as well have a company that can actually make money.
Honestly, not a bad idea. If you are the world's richest person you might as well have a company that can actually make money.
He wants a bank, and buys a social media company for 44 Bn. Interesting strategy, as someone else so pointly called it: 5d checkers.
He want a P2P payment platform, double as a social network, function like a bank, without a bank license.
Even if you think social graphs are the future of banking/payments, Twitter is still an... interesting... strategy. It's exactly the wrong social graph for that sort of thing.
(I also don't think that hypothesis makes a lick of sense -- Apple+Google, not any particular app, is the "WeChat of the west".)
(I also don't think that hypothesis makes a lick of sense -- Apple+Google, not any particular app, is the "WeChat of the west".)
And even if you think the Twitter social graph is the right social graph for it, it seems unlikely that the best way of converting it into a ubiquitous payment platform is to make a lot of noise about most of its user base being bots, relaunch the "verification" feature as something which has nothing to do with verification, wade into populist politics, and slash its employee base whilst panning the quality of its tech platform.
Also many people had been suspended their twitter account for unknown reason after Elon. Anyone would want to use it for payment? lol
It worked well for WeChat because they were able to launch a feature at a point when there were not very strict AML requirements in China and it was much easier to get consumers and merchants onboarded compared to credit cards. I don't have any anecdotes about how often person2person payments are done on WeChat vs person2business, but I have seen it being used very frequently for p2b. If you can build a low friction app that solves a problem, people will use it.
That being said, Wechat payments are also rife with every form of scam, irreversibility, and fake QR code issues that people in the West warn about. That (and the AML stuff) is why it seems to be getting more scrutiny by the Chinese govt.
That being said, Wechat payments are also rife with every form of scam, irreversibility, and fake QR code issues that people in the West warn about. That (and the AML stuff) is why it seems to be getting more scrutiny by the Chinese govt.
> If you can build a low friction app that solves a problem, people will use it.
For p2b, Apply Pay lets me tap my power button twice and hold it next to the payment terminal. Hard to get lower friction than that.
For p2p, the space is already saturated (Zelle, Venmo, etc.) It's unclear why I would want to use Twitter -- sorry, x -- for this in particular. Also, with the launch of FedNow, the days of new entrant intermediaries in the USA are coming to a close.
Finally, as Goldman Sachs just learned, consumer banking is a brutal business. I think the closest they got to building anything like breaking into consumer credit/banking was becoming the bank that supported the Apple-branded credit card.
For p2b, Apply Pay lets me tap my power button twice and hold it next to the payment terminal. Hard to get lower friction than that.
For p2p, the space is already saturated (Zelle, Venmo, etc.) It's unclear why I would want to use Twitter -- sorry, x -- for this in particular. Also, with the launch of FedNow, the days of new entrant intermediaries in the USA are coming to a close.
Finally, as Goldman Sachs just learned, consumer banking is a brutal business. I think the closest they got to building anything like breaking into consumer credit/banking was becoming the bank that supported the Apple-branded credit card.
WestChat
To bad FTX went under too early then.
But then why they aren't interested in retaining user and trust? I don't see how financial dependency works on a platform that can't stop banning high profile users. Even right now people are reporting follower losses in 2-3 digits.
For 44 billion he could just develop a banking and social app and then deposit $100 in every new account as a bribe.
Elon has become known for mandating large policy changes at Twitter. These change the way the service works, what different features mean, and how much sway different users have on the communities. By now, business owners should know not to rely on Twitter's features or community remaining unchanged beyond maybe a couple years. Which isn't terrible. It's a social media service, society is inherently messy, and messiness makes for good profit opportunities.
But who would want those qualities in a bank? Banks should be boring.
But who would want those qualities in a bank? Banks should be boring.
> business owners should know not to rely on Twitter's features or community remaining unchanged beyond maybe a couple years.
It’s more like hours or days under Elon. Maybe weeks but certainly not years.
It’s more like hours or days under Elon. Maybe weeks but certainly not years.
> Honestly, not a bad idea.
There is a massive distance between an idea and its successful execution. Most of the success comes from execution, not the original idea.
There is a massive distance between an idea and its successful execution. Most of the success comes from execution, not the original idea.
[deleted]
if he wanted all that, he wouldn't have cratered the app economy around Twitter's API, nobody's going to be build apps like taxi/restaurant booking services off the framework if they can't afford to even get started.
So do that instead of bike shedding the logo.
I see zero indication he ever intends to sell X/Twitter. He wants to pivot it into the worlds most successful and useful app. He won’t sell that.
Right, what a genius move. Pivoting your 17-year old startup company from 'social messaging' into the 'most successful and useful' category.
No one will buy twitter / X?! again because it's going to be bankrupted in a couple of years.
I said he doesn't intend to sell it. Being forced to due to bankruptcy is an entirely different thing that I didn't comment on.
People in this thread are all saying this is part of his master plan to get Twitter/X to be worth hundreds of billions and then to sell it and walk away. I don't see any reason why he would sell and walk away if he manages to pull it off.
People in this thread are all saying this is part of his master plan to get Twitter/X to be worth hundreds of billions and then to sell it and walk away. I don't see any reason why he would sell and walk away if he manages to pull it off.
It’s so embarrassing to me being a Tesla vehicle owner now.
And as someone who thought it was awesome he took a drag on Rogan: I hope the government retracts his security clearance and he has to divest his holdings in SpaceX and Tesla. Or Tesla finds a way to separate their identity from Musk. Maybe the FSD fiasco will create a path to that.
I hope and believe, at this point, SpaceX and Tesla are thriving despite Elon and have proper adult management.
And as someone who thought it was awesome he took a drag on Rogan: I hope the government retracts his security clearance and he has to divest his holdings in SpaceX and Tesla. Or Tesla finds a way to separate their identity from Musk. Maybe the FSD fiasco will create a path to that.
I hope and believe, at this point, SpaceX and Tesla are thriving despite Elon and have proper adult management.
The one thing that’s kept me going as a Tesla car owner through this is to remind myself over and over, “Elon’s public persona is commodity fetishism, his far more talented employees did literally 100% of the work”
I mean what does the man even do all day while his companies are running themselves? Make bad Elden Ring builds and rampage on Twitter like he’s in the depths of a coke binge, I guess. In terms of actual responsibility for designing and building the cars themselves, he has very little to truthfully speak of.
I mean what does the man even do all day while his companies are running themselves? Make bad Elden Ring builds and rampage on Twitter like he’s in the depths of a coke binge, I guess. In terms of actual responsibility for designing and building the cars themselves, he has very little to truthfully speak of.
Elon rebranding twitter x makes you embarrassed to be a tesla owner?
Imagine descending into practically fascism because someone doesn't agree with your political candidate of choice. Where were these warnings when Twitter was full of spam bots, got hacked by a 17 year old, mass censoring, etc?
Did you reply to the wrong comment? Seems like a bunch of non sequitors
The person I replied to wants the state to forcefully remove Elon Musk from the companies he currently runs because of software decisions he's making.
Not sure if the person 'embarrassed' to drive a Tesla has looked into the history of other car companies.
Not sure if the person 'embarrassed' to drive a Tesla has looked into the history of other car companies.
I didn't say anything about the government forcing Elon from his companies -- losing his security clearance seems like a reasonable outcome of his proclivities driving his instability.
As for the rest -- I don't think his choices are consistent with CEO leadership roles across the companies he's in. Twitter & Tesla have issues, Tesla's largely revolving around AutoPilot & FSD -- and eventually the market and/or Boards and/or his creditors will see a change in the risk and ROI of his leadership.
SpaceX seems to run pretty smoothly. Elon's halo is massive, and the lift he provided to Tesla and the EV market, in particular, can't be underestimated. But, IMO, there's no way this ends smoothly and happily, 10 years hence, given how he's acting in at least the Twitter corner of his field.
As for the previous leadership at Twitter and their censorship / collusion with governments -- yeah, that sucked, but it grants Elon nothing at all. Different shit, different day.
As for the rest -- I don't think his choices are consistent with CEO leadership roles across the companies he's in. Twitter & Tesla have issues, Tesla's largely revolving around AutoPilot & FSD -- and eventually the market and/or Boards and/or his creditors will see a change in the risk and ROI of his leadership.
SpaceX seems to run pretty smoothly. Elon's halo is massive, and the lift he provided to Tesla and the EV market, in particular, can't be underestimated. But, IMO, there's no way this ends smoothly and happily, 10 years hence, given how he's acting in at least the Twitter corner of his field.
As for the previous leadership at Twitter and their censorship / collusion with governments -- yeah, that sucked, but it grants Elon nothing at all. Different shit, different day.
It should be obvious to anyone who has an education and even the faintest understanding of what is freedom , what is living in a democracy. but I guess when you had everything handed over you and did not have to fight for it you don't need to learn about the past and your life is just a permanent present where your actions and thoughts are based on your surroundings rather than on facts, history, beliefs. the previous twitter (in his last years) was an FBI cover operated by politicians that had a clear agenda and always censored voices that were against them INCLUDING the POTUS that like it or not had millions of american voices behind him. Even if you don't like the guy at least you should acknowledge that banning is against everything that freedom stands for. I don't understand why the opinion is not 50/50 on this. If Musk was a hardcore democrat he'd be praised in HN...
Another example of that btw is Julian Assange, he was praised as a hero until he revealed some corruption in the side of the 'good guys' since then he is a russian agent and evil....
Another example of that btw is Julian Assange, he was praised as a hero until he revealed some corruption in the side of the 'good guys' since then he is a russian agent and evil....
I think the workers of those companies and consumers who buy their products would likely be better off if Musk's behavior wasn't a liability dragging it down.
It seems like the market will remove him from power soon, but the state could probably do it more efficiently.
It seems like the market will remove him from power soon, but the state could probably do it more efficiently.
It is fun to see the fall of Musk, I don't know anyone who defends him at this point, everyone I know (myself included) have changed how we think of him since he acquired twitter. He has become an egocentric man with need for acceptance.
I'll defend him, he's done great work at SpaceX and Tesla, and I hope he can somehow accept that he's failed at Twitter/X and move back to doing great work at Tesla/SpaceX. I don't expect it to happen anytime soon, he's got too much money, but people can do great things and not necessarily have admirable character overall or only have admirable traits in certain contexts.
Edit: I'm ejecting this thread, Musk discourse is so divorced from rational conversation, the hatred (and admiration) is too overpowering for too many.
Edit: I'm ejecting this thread, Musk discourse is so divorced from rational conversation, the hatred (and admiration) is too overpowering for too many.
Hope Musk ever takes a company public again. The anti-Musk aura means there’s decent odds of a far-below-real valuation in the public markets.
Can you explain to those who never saw anything in him, what you originally saw in him, and what changed?
I originally thought he seemed alright, when Tesla and SpaceX started to look like viable companies doing good and interesting stuff.
Then he started fucking around with trying to fool the financial system by pumping and dumping stocks/cryptocurrencies, and started calling people pedophiles randomly and I'm guessing it was somewhere there I started to see him differently.
Then he started fucking around with trying to fool the financial system by pumping and dumping stocks/cryptocurrencies, and started calling people pedophiles randomly and I'm guessing it was somewhere there I started to see him differently.
That was 4 years ago, long time before he buy Twitter.
I think the early years of Tesla (around the Model S release) were peak Musk in my mind. It was nice to see someone pursuing a technology that would reduce the need for fossil fuels. He was also not yet posting constantly, so his public image mostly stemmed from the companies he was involved in.
> He has become an egocentric man with need for acceptance.
Everyone has a need for acceptance and is driven by their ego. I think Musk's issues may lie a bit beyond those.
Everyone has a need for acceptance and is driven by their ego. I think Musk's issues may lie a bit beyond those.
Wanting to see the failure of one of the few people who have made lasting important contributions to humanity, and inspires millions of builders to achieve big things, is a sad way to live life. It's frankly anti-progress and anti-humanity.
Inspired or hired? You make it sound like he has sacrificed everything and gave us perfect electric vehicles out of the goodness of his heart, when he's just a guy selling products with famously questionable build quality. And while he simultaneously puts dumb gimmicky things in his vehicles like "Gaming consoles" to jack up the price, he trolls other companies trying to make electric vehicles affordable so we can actually impact the planet and not just build toy cars for the few people that can afford them.
I don't understand the tendency to portray Elon Musk like a civil rights leader.
I don't understand the tendency to portray Elon Musk like a civil rights leader.
What I see is a man who has done some great things, but who seems to be having some mental health issues that are getting worse over time. If he isn’t already, I hope he gets some help.
Elon's acquisition of Twitter is a gift that just keeps on giving. At this point, considering the social polarization it brought, destroying Twitter for good would be an immense service to humanity, and Musk is doing exactly that, even if unwillingly.
Did twitter bring the polarization or simply act as a venue for it?
Either way, despite how polarized it may have been, it was valuable for many groups and a large number of genuinely grassroots social & artistic movements originated there or effectively used it. Destroying those doesn't seem like a clear cut positive for humanity, as you're framing it.
Either way, despite how polarized it may have been, it was valuable for many groups and a large number of genuinely grassroots social & artistic movements originated there or effectively used it. Destroying those doesn't seem like a clear cut positive for humanity, as you're framing it.
I would argue it did in a way- mostly because of the character limit and lack of a comment tree.
You can't have an actual discussion with such a small character limit. However it's easy to spout off nonsense bullshit in a small character limit. And then no one can really argue with you because it takes more words to actually back things up. Thus it's really easy to spread bullshit and the people who are more susceptible just eat it up as they can only stay focused for a few sentences anyway.
TikTok was kind of the same way and it drove me crazy up until the last year, because the comment limit was so short (and the fact that you can't really see a thread properly, just like twitter.) The user base of tiktok seems to have vastly changed over the last year (or maybe they keep improving their algo so much I just don't encounter it) but I've gotten used to the limit because people aren't arguing as much they are just genuinely commenting on a video.
I was always a fan of Reddit (until recently) because it was just a message board- you could actually read real thoughts and have a formatted threaded discussion (like on HN).
You can't have an actual discussion with such a small character limit. However it's easy to spout off nonsense bullshit in a small character limit. And then no one can really argue with you because it takes more words to actually back things up. Thus it's really easy to spread bullshit and the people who are more susceptible just eat it up as they can only stay focused for a few sentences anyway.
TikTok was kind of the same way and it drove me crazy up until the last year, because the comment limit was so short (and the fact that you can't really see a thread properly, just like twitter.) The user base of tiktok seems to have vastly changed over the last year (or maybe they keep improving their algo so much I just don't encounter it) but I've gotten used to the limit because people aren't arguing as much they are just genuinely commenting on a video.
I was always a fan of Reddit (until recently) because it was just a message board- you could actually read real thoughts and have a formatted threaded discussion (like on HN).
As someone who argues routinely with long-winded racists on Reddit, it's no haven. Nor are the crackpots spewing 1/6 rants and COVID conspiracies on Facebook.
I think social media itself is the problem, not the post length.
I think social media itself is the problem, not the post length.
Platform features and limitations do matter. Tumblr is considered the original rage mob platform, because the only way to write an extended response to a post was via reblog, so if you ranted about something you hate, you'd put that something in front of your followers to hate too. Good engagement though, so now that feature is everywhere.
100%.
Letting everyone talk is free speech. On the street you walk away from the lunatic, but with social media they find their kind and yell together.
Letting everyone talk is free speech. On the street you walk away from the lunatic, but with social media they find their kind and yell together.
Imagine two people walk past you on the street. One says "hi" and smiles. The other smears themselves with peanut butter and starts clucking like a chicken and saluting Hitler. Which one maximizes engagement?
Which one would the social media algorithms promote?
I credit algorithmic timelines as one of the primary factors in today's hyper-polarization. Twitter was one of the more influential ones, especially when coupled with a short character limit that prohibits deep discourse and as others have mentioned a lack of comment threads or other tools to organize ideas. The whole thing promote vapid sound bite meme-think, which best fits fanaticism and trolling.
Facebook and YouTube are the other big mass-lobotomizing engines. The mechanism is largely the same-- promoting things that maximize engagement which means the most inflammatory or ridiculous ideas.
Which one would the social media algorithms promote?
I credit algorithmic timelines as one of the primary factors in today's hyper-polarization. Twitter was one of the more influential ones, especially when coupled with a short character limit that prohibits deep discourse and as others have mentioned a lack of comment threads or other tools to organize ideas. The whole thing promote vapid sound bite meme-think, which best fits fanaticism and trolling.
Facebook and YouTube are the other big mass-lobotomizing engines. The mechanism is largely the same-- promoting things that maximize engagement which means the most inflammatory or ridiculous ideas.
I mean once it became a tool used by government, FBI operatives and politician the sole purpose was to polarize the world and censor anything that was hurting them.
I have had this opinion since day one: either he makes it better or burns it to the ground, either way, it's a win.
Its interesting given that it would probably be easier to just hire a few competent managers to steer Twitter into profitability rather than Musk actively managing Twitter into the ground.
Musk is operating Twitter in a "divine right of kings" sort of way. He's been chosen by (who? God? investors? being rich?) to run things, and therefore whatever it is he does is obviously the correct choice and it's heresy to suggest otherwise (and will get you fired).
He thinks that every idea he has is a good idea, simply because he had it, and therefore his ability to think on his feet and come up with and try new ideas is a virtue; he doesn't understand having to build and maintain something, to provide stability and consistency, because that would mean not using all of his new great ideas.
Unfortunately, all of his ideas sound like he came up with them while sitting around in his mom's basement getting high and saying "wouldn't it be cool if...", so I guess we'll see how this all bears out. My biggest hope is that people see him for who he really is: an insecure and entitled man-child who's never been told no.
He thinks that every idea he has is a good idea, simply because he had it, and therefore his ability to think on his feet and come up with and try new ideas is a virtue; he doesn't understand having to build and maintain something, to provide stability and consistency, because that would mean not using all of his new great ideas.
Unfortunately, all of his ideas sound like he came up with them while sitting around in his mom's basement getting high and saying "wouldn't it be cool if...", so I guess we'll see how this all bears out. My biggest hope is that people see him for who he really is: an insecure and entitled man-child who's never been told no.
This rebranding is so bad, it sounds like you are denigrating the average stoner idea with that comparison imo.
That would be better for twitter and Elon Musk. But it's better for the rest of us if he crashes and burns the company.
I don’t remember who stated this but basically there is this thought that Musk was in fact mad about how on Twitter the “common man” could indeed vocally and effectively share their disagreement with his decisions.
It also might have been an impulsive decision to become relevant in “new tech” at the same time (why would he care so much about this, boredom?). Ultimately he probably just wanted to get out of that impulsive deal again though but it was too late.
Lastly he probably also had/has some WeChat ambitions.
We can see how most of these potential goals are now falling apart spectacularly due to extreme unreflected and unchecked ego.
He seems to have succeeded in the first case though, the “moderated”/“mostly sane”(?) free speech “town square” basically destroyed and replaced by an increasingly irrelevant echo chamber for his greater brand.
It also might have been an impulsive decision to become relevant in “new tech” at the same time (why would he care so much about this, boredom?). Ultimately he probably just wanted to get out of that impulsive deal again though but it was too late.
Lastly he probably also had/has some WeChat ambitions.
We can see how most of these potential goals are now falling apart spectacularly due to extreme unreflected and unchecked ego.
He seems to have succeeded in the first case though, the “moderated”/“mostly sane”(?) free speech “town square” basically destroyed and replaced by an increasingly irrelevant echo chamber for his greater brand.
> (why would he care so much about this, boredom?)
> due to extreme unreflected and unchecked ego
Unfortunately, I think it's worse than that. My belief is that it's manic phases caused by bipolar disorder. If you squint and chart these 'manic' decisions, it seems to be about every 4-5 months. In between he'll often (though not always) post some self-reflective and more 'down' things and be generally more quiet (remember the diet-coke and gun pics?). Then, like with many bipolar sufferers, he'll get 'manic' again and do these kinda things to his businesses and to those around him who care. His personal life is famously a mess.
I want to be clear, I'm not a shrink, I have no degrees in this, and I'm 'diagnosing' this very far removed from the guy. But I do have a few bipolar people in my life and, to me, the parallels are very striking.
I feel for him in that way. Despite all the money and fame, the disease that I suspect he suffers from (with, again, low evidence) is a very tough one to accept. Of the people in my own life that suffer from it, none have moved past a confirmed diagnosis and started the long road to recovery and acceptance.
> due to extreme unreflected and unchecked ego
Unfortunately, I think it's worse than that. My belief is that it's manic phases caused by bipolar disorder. If you squint and chart these 'manic' decisions, it seems to be about every 4-5 months. In between he'll often (though not always) post some self-reflective and more 'down' things and be generally more quiet (remember the diet-coke and gun pics?). Then, like with many bipolar sufferers, he'll get 'manic' again and do these kinda things to his businesses and to those around him who care. His personal life is famously a mess.
I want to be clear, I'm not a shrink, I have no degrees in this, and I'm 'diagnosing' this very far removed from the guy. But I do have a few bipolar people in my life and, to me, the parallels are very striking.
I feel for him in that way. Despite all the money and fame, the disease that I suspect he suffers from (with, again, low evidence) is a very tough one to accept. Of the people in my own life that suffer from it, none have moved past a confirmed diagnosis and started the long road to recovery and acceptance.
I'm not sure when in the last 9 months since he bought Twitter you found Elon reflective and "down". It's been lunacy after lunacy every single week.
Does it seem like manic? Yes. But when this behavior is persistent, not sure bipolar is the diagnosis per se.
Does it seem like manic? Yes. But when this behavior is persistent, not sure bipolar is the diagnosis per se.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/elon-musk-is-bipolar-has-ter...
> Sunday, on Twitter, Musk was also asked if he was bipolar, to which Musk replied, “yeah,” but then he explained further, saying his psychological highs and lows are associated with actual ups and downs in his life.
> “Maybe not medically tho,” says his tweet. “Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for.”
https://sports.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-tweeted-bip...
> Sunday, on Twitter, Musk was also asked if he was bipolar, to which Musk replied, “yeah,” but then he explained further, saying his psychological highs and lows are associated with actual ups and downs in his life.
> “Maybe not medically tho,” says his tweet. “Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for.”
https://sports.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-tweeted-bip...
He's self-diagnosed Asperger's, self-diagnosed bipolar, many things.
In what sense is bipolar disorder worse than extreme unreflected and unchecked ego?
What I believe OP was getting at is that while he’s being an asshole he’s completely tormented by his own mind not allowing him empathy or understanding beyond his suffering. Since he, like so many with bipolar disorder (myself included) is that the cycle of suffering and abhorrent behavior will continue until he can accept that his brain will not let him out of torment long enough to see how his infliction is broadcast outward and who it really effects. Now combine that with the world’s biggest microphone being used by a man with enough means that it will be dumb luck for him to realize it as he has no consequences for his actions. It’s not impossible to make that realization on your own and it’s even harder to make it stick without medication to make your brain break out of a cycle that you have no more control over than anyone else, and it’s your own mind doing it to you.
Mixed episodes and the inevitable downward swing to depression.
Mixed episodes are no joke, I've experienced a couple and hope to never do so again.
Mixed episodes are no joke, I've experienced a couple and hope to never do so again.
I think (guessing) the two of you might possibly be using different definitions of “better”/“worse”.
We’re not morally responsible for the fact some of us may have mental disorders (some like OCD which I have won’t leave us entirely), so stealing which we would be morally responsible for is worse than having a mental disorder.
However, having a mental disorder would be worse than stealing in terms of its consequences (we just can’t get rid of it no matter how much we try).
(At least I think it makes sense to accept both of your statements that way since I think having a large ego is morally bad independently of any consequences.)
We’re not morally responsible for the fact some of us may have mental disorders (some like OCD which I have won’t leave us entirely), so stealing which we would be morally responsible for is worse than having a mental disorder.
However, having a mental disorder would be worse than stealing in terms of its consequences (we just can’t get rid of it no matter how much we try).
(At least I think it makes sense to accept both of your statements that way since I think having a large ego is morally bad independently of any consequences.)
I don't think it's OK to remotely analyze a mental illness of another person.
I think that Mr. Musk is an undiluted asshole and one of the worst douchebags to ever grace our planet, which he has proven again and again.
But analyzing his mental condition is sure as shit not up to me or to anybody else.
I think that Mr. Musk is an undiluted asshole and one of the worst douchebags to ever grace our planet, which he has proven again and again.
But analyzing his mental condition is sure as shit not up to me or to anybody else.
He kind of opens that door by interactively self-analyzing in the public space. Also, while you make that point, you declare a lot of judgement on his personality; is that really any better then?
I feel that it's my right to make a judgement call on his behavior.
After all, he proved again and again what a sad excuse of a human being he is.
But I don't think it's OK to judge his mental state as an outsider.
After all, he proved again and again what a sad excuse of a human being he is.
But I don't think it's OK to judge his mental state as an outsider.
This is a forum. People will say stuff. You may or may not agree with the stuff they say. They'll do it anyway. Judging someone's mental state as an outsider is fine as long as you don't purport to do it from the perspective of telling them what to do next, that's pretending you're a doctor. But I've seen plenty of actual doctors do remote diagnosis of Musk's various mental issues (ditto: Trump, Putin) and I'm fine with it, I just take it with a grain of salt. If we take being a sad excuse of a human being as a reflection of someone's mental state then you are in fact engaging in the same, the only difference is whether or not you use terms with clinical relevance.
What’s the difference between an outsider and, e.g., his therapist? Consent? Proximity?
Curious; not trying to bust your balls.
Curious; not trying to bust your balls.
Calling someone a sad excuse of a human being sure sounds like an assessment of their mental state lol.
I'm a bit perplexed that you see trashing a man's character with certainty as right and pondering if his actions could reflect a struggle with mental illness as wrong.
I don't like Musk, nor do I trust the things he says, but I usually err on the side of granting people some humanity.
I don't like Musk, nor do I trust the things he says, but I usually err on the side of granting people some humanity.
> But analyzing his mental condition is sure as shit not up to me or to anybody else.
Why not? Am I unallowed to suggest that Howard Hughes had OCD? That Kurt Gödel was paranoid?
Submitting a hypothesis about some’s mental condition is a reasonable thing to do, given that you have a substantial body of evidence in the form of behavioural reports.
I don’t find the above argument convincing, but only because it’s vague and lacks specific examples - not because it’s ”not okay.”
Why not? Am I unallowed to suggest that Howard Hughes had OCD? That Kurt Gödel was paranoid?
Submitting a hypothesis about some’s mental condition is a reasonable thing to do, given that you have a substantial body of evidence in the form of behavioural reports.
I don’t find the above argument convincing, but only because it’s vague and lacks specific examples - not because it’s ”not okay.”
> one of the worst douchebags to ever grace our planet
Cool your jets, man!
Musk has done plenty of good, for the country and the world. I can think of plenty, plenty others who have accomplished nothing but feel entitled to run other peoples' lives.
Cool your jets, man!
Musk has done plenty of good, for the country and the world. I can think of plenty, plenty others who have accomplished nothing but feel entitled to run other peoples' lives.
> Lastly he probably also had/has some WeChat ambitions.
Years ago I remember reading something about the Chinese microblogging sites and it was mentioned "these sites also have a character limits. However, b/c in Chinese a character can be an entire word, the 'word limits' are much longer."
Moving to the 4000 character limit feels very much a response to the above.
Years ago I remember reading something about the Chinese microblogging sites and it was mentioned "these sites also have a character limits. However, b/c in Chinese a character can be an entire word, the 'word limits' are much longer."
Moving to the 4000 character limit feels very much a response to the above.
I sure hope it wasn't a response to that! Twitter dealt with that in 2017!
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2017/Giving-yo...
They made Unicode code points below U+1100 count as 1/280 of the character limit, and code points above it count as 1/140 of the character limit.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2017/Giving-yo...
They made Unicode code points below U+1100 count as 1/280 of the character limit, and code points above it count as 1/140 of the character limit.
This is my problem with Twitter. It's not meant for serious discussion. We have blogs for that. Nobody wants to read it for an interesting article about geopolitics- foreignaffairs.com already exists. Know your audience.
> It's not meant for serious discussion.
What exactly is it meant for then if not serious discussion?
> We have blogs for that.
You mean the one sided discussions? Also not every thought is worthy of a blog post, but is worthy of being put out there.
> Nobody wants to read it for an interesting article about geopolitics- foreignaffairs.com already exists
Geopolitics isn't the only thing longer convos are for... The problem with pre-Musk/4000 char limit Twitter is that nuances are heavily lost because of the lack of characters and that nobody wants to do thread storms.
> Know your audience.
Ironic.
What exactly is it meant for then if not serious discussion?
> We have blogs for that.
You mean the one sided discussions? Also not every thought is worthy of a blog post, but is worthy of being put out there.
> Nobody wants to read it for an interesting article about geopolitics- foreignaffairs.com already exists
Geopolitics isn't the only thing longer convos are for... The problem with pre-Musk/4000 char limit Twitter is that nuances are heavily lost because of the lack of characters and that nobody wants to do thread storms.
> Know your audience.
Ironic.
> What exactly is it meant for then if not serious discussion?
All other types of discussion. Promoting serious discussion elsewhere.
All other types of discussion. Promoting serious discussion elsewhere.
That's a byproduct of a lack of characters, not the reason it was created.
Well it was created so we could all tell everyone what we were having for lunch. It took a few years before someone tried having anything resembling serious discussion.
Well, at the time of the pandemic, our prime minister tweeted important changes to policies to have effect in the next few days.
Whether or not that was what the platform was meant for, it was what it was. And as far as I heard, our country was not the only one where this was happening.
Whether or not that was what the platform was meant for, it was what it was. And as far as I heard, our country was not the only one where this was happening.
He certainly has WeChat ambitions, he said it himself!
video: https://werunbtc.com/wechat.mp4
video: https://werunbtc.com/wechat.mp4
This just happened a few weeks after Geohot said that Facebook was the only alive startup company out there because they managed to change their name to Meta. (He said something like that on the lex friedman podcast.)
IMHO think it is something of a looking back / looking forward situation. Looking back, the Twitter brand has indeed accumulated massive goodwill. Looking forward, it would appear that some kind of LLM is replacing search (bard.google.com replacing google.com; chat.openai.com replacing bing.com). Elon has been very busy establishing the new https://x.ai/ as an alternative LLM "to understand the true nature of the universe", with no fewer than 11 new key executive technical employees this July. It is clear that looking forward, Elon has a hybrid vision of Twitter morphing not just into a WeChat clone, but going well past that and potentially knocking on the heals of ChatGPT/Bard as the next obvious incarnation of search.
It pokes a hole in the yes man bubble. Ironically society Algo bubbles it's leaders since the dawn of time and they can't stand it to rupture. Loyalty and uniform support or else the big boss gets anxiety atracks.At the same time they can not stop lurking near dissent, cause it's the last window to reality they have. Next on mamal brain bugs..
I feel like a lot of people don’t fully appreciate this point because they are well adjusted and hear no constantly.
You have to view these billionaires as toddlers. They never hear a simple “no”, and when they do they go apoplectic.
You have to view these billionaires as toddlers. They never hear a simple “no”, and when they do they go apoplectic.
Not disagreeing, but these aren't just toddlers, but insecure toddlers who have never been told no and think people pushing back is equivalent to hate. A normal toddler who has caretakers who are loving and accepting does not respond like this.
As a parent (no longer of toddlers... but I had them), I have to disagree with this somewhat. In my experience even the best of parents, with the best of kids, sometimes has them go off the rails when they hear "no". Certainly there are some parents who are (significantly) less able to get their children to accept limitations ("no"), but I don't believe that this is something that is ever perfect.
None of this should ever apply to any even moderately-adjusted individual beyond childhood. Certainly not as an adult.
None of this should ever apply to any even moderately-adjusted individual beyond childhood. Certainly not as an adult.
I see what you're saying, but in my experience children do not have this response unless there's a hyper-addictive product such as modern TV/video or sugary/processed food, which bypasses the normal social circuitry in young brains. I have never experienced/witnessed this kind of meltdown over pre-modern experiences, and almost always if the toddler is redirected to a socially-positive response, it works.
How often do you tell people no? I find it pretty common to get a visceral reaction when I disagree with people, and that's even after spending years working on delivering that disagreement in more friendly ways, both professionally and personally.
I think it's a relatively universal human trait to resent dissent, these guys just have more resources to make their distate known.
I think it's a relatively universal human trait to resent dissent, these guys just have more resources to make their distate known.
IMHO emotional maturity is learning to accept these feelings in one’s self, sit with them, and reflect on them. Not make them go away.
Just saying yes as a parent doesn’t help them learn to cope with it. Rather a close similarity to GP’s point!
Just saying yes as a parent doesn’t help them learn to cope with it. Rather a close similarity to GP’s point!
> How often do you tell people no?
A few times a day.
> I find it pretty common to get a visceral reaction when I disagree with people,
I only find this common with people who are very sensitive (not that there is anything at all wrong with that). An interesting corollary I've found as well: very sensitive people tend to think the rest of the normal world is equally as sensitive (something I've picked up from having a very sensitive partner for over 5 years now; a partner who has many very sensitive friends); they somehow seem to forget that countries like Germany have people that are super direct as the norm.
> I think it's a relatively universal human trait to resent dissent
I hear far "worse" from good friends on the spectrum or from Germany or Russia and it's rather easy to chalk it up to them just communicating in a different way.
A few times a day.
> I find it pretty common to get a visceral reaction when I disagree with people,
I only find this common with people who are very sensitive (not that there is anything at all wrong with that). An interesting corollary I've found as well: very sensitive people tend to think the rest of the normal world is equally as sensitive (something I've picked up from having a very sensitive partner for over 5 years now; a partner who has many very sensitive friends); they somehow seem to forget that countries like Germany have people that are super direct as the norm.
> I think it's a relatively universal human trait to resent dissent
I hear far "worse" from good friends on the spectrum or from Germany or Russia and it's rather easy to chalk it up to them just communicating in a different way.
Many billionaires, especially the top celebrity billionaires, seem to have extremely disordered and malignant personalities. Narcissism and sociopathy seem to run strong in these individuals. Their money amplifies and multiplies the reach and effect of their narcissism.
Most people when they hear “no” feel a little upset and get over it.
When a narcissist hears “no” he suffers a narcissistic injury and seeks revenge.
When a narcissistic billionaire hears “no”… well, buckle up. 1/6 showed us how bad that can get.
Most people when they hear “no” feel a little upset and get over it.
When a narcissist hears “no” he suffers a narcissistic injury and seeks revenge.
When a narcissistic billionaire hears “no”… well, buckle up. 1/6 showed us how bad that can get.
> 1/6 showed us how bad that can get.
I think it didn't even scratch the surface of how bad it can get. But it was already plenty bad.
I think it didn't even scratch the surface of how bad it can get. But it was already plenty bad.
What or who is '1/6' ?
It was the day a narcissistic billionaire (Trump) decided he had the right to burn the whole system (American democracy) to the ground because he was rejected by it.
Which is also the story of Twitter and Musk.
Which is also the story of Twitter and Musk.
January 6th.
> You have to view these billionaires as toddlers. They never hear a simple “no”, and when they do they go apoplectic.
It doesn't have to be just billionaires, one of the startups I worked in had a leadership culture like this. I ended up leaving after the new person I was reporting to took this to an extreme.
It doesn't have to be just billionaires, one of the startups I worked in had a leadership culture like this. I ended up leaving after the new person I was reporting to took this to an extreme.
I think they do it slightly differently.
One they are billionaires, hearing no is likely exceedingly rare, however to get to prestige, I'm certain they heard no many many times (or the equivalent, say "no way you can do that") so they're so used to people objecting and they succeed anyway - Tesla, SpaceX come to mind here - that no just makes them want to double down on what they're doing, combined with the fact that their inner circle at this point likely isn't saying no very often, if at all, directly to the person at hand, it makes them very resistant to real feedback
One they are billionaires, hearing no is likely exceedingly rare, however to get to prestige, I'm certain they heard no many many times (or the equivalent, say "no way you can do that") so they're so used to people objecting and they succeed anyway - Tesla, SpaceX come to mind here - that no just makes them want to double down on what they're doing, combined with the fact that their inner circle at this point likely isn't saying no very often, if at all, directly to the person at hand, it makes them very resistant to real feedback
The jet guy broke Elon and there’s no putting him back together.
kfrzcode(1)
gjsman-1000(5)
Elon Musk founded X.com before it bought one of its competitors and changed its name to PayPal. He bought the domain name back from PayPal in 2017 and had been sitting on it for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
It looks like this isn't a rebranding so much as making an "everything app".
> On October 4, 2022, Elon Musk described his acquisition of Twitter as "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app".[28] This has been linked to x.com.[29] In conversation with Ron Baron a month later, Musk said he will execute the X product plan "with some improvements" which will make Twitter "the most valuable financial institution in the world."[30]
Well, it'll be interesting whether he succeeds or fails. But this does not look like it is impulsive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
It looks like this isn't a rebranding so much as making an "everything app".
> On October 4, 2022, Elon Musk described his acquisition of Twitter as "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app".[28] This has been linked to x.com.[29] In conversation with Ron Baron a month later, Musk said he will execute the X product plan "with some improvements" which will make Twitter "the most valuable financial institution in the world."[30]
Well, it'll be interesting whether he succeeds or fails. But this does not look like it is impulsive.
"If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we'll make go live worldwide tomorrow" sounds impulsive to me.
A rebranding would make more sense at the point where you actually roll out those everything features. Him being a marketing engineer, I guess he just had to stay in the conversation this week.
A rebranding would make more sense at the point where you actually roll out those everything features. Him being a marketing engineer, I guess he just had to stay in the conversation this week.
It’s marketing and storytelling.
The impulsiveness and crowd sourcing writes the headline itself.
I’m not implying it’s a super calculated masterplan, more that he just knows it’ll grab headlines and mindshare cheaper than any paid marketing launch ever could.
The impulsiveness and crowd sourcing writes the headline itself.
I’m not implying it’s a super calculated masterplan, more that he just knows it’ll grab headlines and mindshare cheaper than any paid marketing launch ever could.
the people he's marketing to will eat that shit up.
those who are already looking at him skeptically will not care and were already on the way out / not using the app.
dumb, but riding the hype train is really his only play IMO.
those who are already looking at him skeptically will not care and were already on the way out / not using the app.
dumb, but riding the hype train is really his only play IMO.
> Elon Musk founded X.com before it bought one of its competitors and changed its name to PayPal.
Elon's company merged with Confinity. Confinity was already well underway with PayPal (owned trademarks, patents, and the domain name) at the time of the merger, and notably, had a working MVP.
I say "notably" because when Elon was initially selected as CEO, he spent his tenure trying to throw away this working MVP because it was written in Java on Solaris, which he didn't know, so he wanted it rewritten in Classic ASP so he could better understand the codebase.
A few months (four, IIRC) of stubbornness about that, and the board had had enough, and removed him as the CEO.
Elon's company merged with Confinity. Confinity was already well underway with PayPal (owned trademarks, patents, and the domain name) at the time of the merger, and notably, had a working MVP.
I say "notably" because when Elon was initially selected as CEO, he spent his tenure trying to throw away this working MVP because it was written in Java on Solaris, which he didn't know, so he wanted it rewritten in Classic ASP so he could better understand the codebase.
A few months (four, IIRC) of stubbornness about that, and the board had had enough, and removed him as the CEO.
> But this does not look like it is impulsive.
Believe it or not, with all that being said, it still looks like it is impulsive.
Believe it or not, with all that being said, it still looks like it is impulsive.
Probably still can't believe nobody likes his cool domain name.
Agreed. Musk has been talking about this for a long time, if you’ve followed him at all.
[deleted]
that is pretty unfair. the common man never had that amount of freedom on twitter. the lobbies, the blue elite and the powerful however lost a similar if not more amount of control over the masses thanks to Musk.
What are you talking about? I used to be able to interact with interesting people in the public sphere on twitter, now it's just a bunch of people verified that I never cared who they were anyway, and everyone I joined to follow has been gradually leaving.
My own account is still in a banned state for telling Microsoft they suck for making their OS bloated. Before I was off twitter, because fuck deleting a reasonable tweet to appease some censorship bot and its review team, twitter was less and less 'free' for anyone not worshiping that rich ass-hat.
My own account is still in a banned state for telling Microsoft they suck for making their OS bloated. Before I was off twitter, because fuck deleting a reasonable tweet to appease some censorship bot and its review team, twitter was less and less 'free' for anyone not worshiping that rich ass-hat.
Twitter was the only platform I could tell our public health director they were doing way more damage with their insane covid mandates than good. I even got replies from the dude. There isn't any other platform out there where you can do this.
So while Twitter is indeed a toxic hellhole, it is oftentimes the only way you can directly attempt to communicate with "the right people" in an organization.
So while Twitter is indeed a toxic hellhole, it is oftentimes the only way you can directly attempt to communicate with "the right people" in an organization.
That sounds like you were making Twitter a toxic hellhole by harassing a public servant trying to protect people's health. Maybe that's not what actually happened (possibly context makes it seem less bad) but that's what it sounds like
Twitter was a useful tool years ago... indeed.
You could do that. It was that platform. As it increasingly loses its universality in favor of incentivizing subscriptions, it will increasingly lose that position.
sounds like a need for something like a utility or public corporation.
Twitter should just be an open protocol like email. I.e. Mastodon.
Literally just RSS.
you might have missed the covid era under twitter. or the presential elections. all before musk, all freedom altering events by a scale your "microsoft sucks" is a story you tell yourself to think you a justice warrior.
they even censored the president of your country but no Musk is the evil lol. Somehow I can understand that the average joe is deep into politics and biased because they want their team to win but in HN, between engineers, that like facts and concepts that are abstract can't we just say that censoring the POTUS was something unseen in any kind of social media platform and that was probably the biggest event that ever happened? whatever we think of the guy, he got trough where he was through the voices of millions of american and just banning those is a danger to freedom and democracy
they even censored the president of your country but no Musk is the evil lol. Somehow I can understand that the average joe is deep into politics and biased because they want their team to win but in HN, between engineers, that like facts and concepts that are abstract can't we just say that censoring the POTUS was something unseen in any kind of social media platform and that was probably the biggest event that ever happened? whatever we think of the guy, he got trough where he was through the voices of millions of american and just banning those is a danger to freedom and democracy
Banned for speaking the truth? Sad to hear of this.
I'd like to give a little background. This isn't intended in defense of the move, I share the general discomfort with the change
X.com, a payments company, was Musk's second company formed in 1999. In March 2000 PayPal was formed by the merger X.com with Thiel and Levchin's Continuity. Musk was the initial CEO, but by September 2000 the board replaced Musk with Thiel while Musk was on vacation to Australia. October 2002, eBay purchased PayPal for US$1.5 billion
Musk repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal in 2017
In October 2022, Musk said he will execute the X product plan "with some improvements" which will make Twitter "the most valuable financial institution in the world"
Other notes:
- Musk is a fan of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin
- Starlink is an independent internet backbone that can be access from anywhere on earth
- Starlink plans to separate from SpaceX and IPO. Funds from the IPO is how SpaceX plans to pay for the Mars project
X.com, a payments company, was Musk's second company formed in 1999. In March 2000 PayPal was formed by the merger X.com with Thiel and Levchin's Continuity. Musk was the initial CEO, but by September 2000 the board replaced Musk with Thiel while Musk was on vacation to Australia. October 2002, eBay purchased PayPal for US$1.5 billion
Musk repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal in 2017
In October 2022, Musk said he will execute the X product plan "with some improvements" which will make Twitter "the most valuable financial institution in the world"
Other notes:
- Musk is a fan of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin
- Starlink is an independent internet backbone that can be access from anywhere on earth
- Starlink plans to separate from SpaceX and IPO. Funds from the IPO is how SpaceX plans to pay for the Mars project
>opposed to censorship
He's not or rather he's in favor of being able to say anything he wants and shutting up anyone who says what he doesn't like (such as his jet's location or anything he views as woke).
He's not or rather he's in favor of being able to say anything he wants and shutting up anyone who says what he doesn't like (such as his jet's location or anything he views as woke).
He's opposed to censorship by others, but in favour of censorship by him.
Actually, he's also fine with government censorship as long as they're not censoring him or people he likes. Twitter obeying government censorship requests have gone way up since he took over.
Actually, he's also fine with government censorship as long as they're not censoring him or people he likes. Twitter obeying government censorship requests have gone way up since he took over.
Do you have a source for "Twitter obeying government censorship requests have gone way up since he took over"?
Two specific cases I've heard of:
Twitter honoring censorship requests from the Indian government has gone up from 20% to 90%:
* https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...
Musk defended censorship of the Turkish opposition saying he "had no choice". Jimmy Wales disagreed:
* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/musk-defends-ena...
Twitter honoring censorship requests from the Indian government has gone up from 20% to 90%:
* https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...
Musk defended censorship of the Turkish opposition saying he "had no choice". Jimmy Wales disagreed:
* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/musk-defends-ena...
It's the GOP mantra: "rules for thee, not for me" - makes complete sense since he's been "unshackled".
Musk is absolutely not anti censorship. He's proudly removed views he disagrees with and fulfilled government requests to remove tweets (which is about as definitionally censorship as you can be.)
> but by September 2000 the board replaced Musk with Thiel while Musk was on vacation to Australia
These kinds of stuff always surprise me, like are you so scared of the CEO that you can only replace them on vacation?
These kinds of stuff always surprise me, like are you so scared of the CEO that you can only replace them on vacation?
I initially thought buying twitter was about converting massively overvalued TSLA stock into only somewhat overvalued TWTR stock. I now think I was wrong.
Another stupid play is to merge verification with membership. I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification.
Maybe he is really being paid by the Saudis to intentionally ruin Twitter to reduce the freedom of speech
Maybe he is really being paid by the Saudis to intentionally ruin Twitter to reduce the freedom of speech
> I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification.
Because the sell the whole time was to let people roleplay as famous people. And that would have worked a bit more if the actual celebrities didn't immediately respond with "ew, no"
The features are ... pretty crummy. Longform tweets nobody wants to read, up to what ... 40 hour videos that nobody will watch. A basic functionality like edit?
And now the funniest one: getting paid to tweet, which the biggest accounts on Twitter got joke RPM to entice people to sign up for blue. I feel really bad for anyone who thinks they're going to make their $8 back.
He can't get any of this right and he seriously is already talking about becoming a bank or payment system? Good luck.
Because the sell the whole time was to let people roleplay as famous people. And that would have worked a bit more if the actual celebrities didn't immediately respond with "ew, no"
The features are ... pretty crummy. Longform tweets nobody wants to read, up to what ... 40 hour videos that nobody will watch. A basic functionality like edit?
And now the funniest one: getting paid to tweet, which the biggest accounts on Twitter got joke RPM to entice people to sign up for blue. I feel really bad for anyone who thinks they're going to make their $8 back.
He can't get any of this right and he seriously is already talking about becoming a bank or payment system? Good luck.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Malicious people love it!
> Maybe he is really being paid by the Saudis to intentionally ruin Twitter to reduce the freedom of speech
Conspiracy theories aside, one has to wonder how all the geniuses running the sovereign wealth funds and investment banks that backed his Twitter takeover missed all the red flags. It's almost as if they don't have any idea what they are doing. Or they really bought into a cult of personality rather than a business strategy.
Conspiracy theories aside, one has to wonder how all the geniuses running the sovereign wealth funds and investment banks that backed his Twitter takeover missed all the red flags. It's almost as if they don't have any idea what they are doing. Or they really bought into a cult of personality rather than a business strategy.
> to reduce the freedom of speech
This is giving me "homophobes are actually raging homosexuals" energy.
This is giving me "homophobes are actually raging homosexuals" energy.
It was a tongue in cheek comment because he didn't choose the obvious profitable and sensible route where lots of the ppl thought the same.
Not sure what kind of rationale could arrive at ur conclusion
Not sure what kind of rationale could arrive at ur conclusion
That was my thinking, too.
What do you think now ?
What do you think now ?
He is even stupider and has even less impulse control than I thought.
I wonder if it’s something that happened as years rolled on. He didn’t seem to be very contrarian or even social say over a decade ago.
Elon is self described with Aspergers Syndrome. This is from an interview :
“Other features of Asperger's syndrome include difficulty interacting with peers, inappropriate social or emotional behavior, and engaging in repetitive routines. Both children and adults with Asperger's syndrome are at an increased risk for depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mood and anxiety disorders, and other mental health disorders.”
Elon is self described with Aspergers Syndrome. This is from an interview :
“Other features of Asperger's syndrome include difficulty interacting with peers, inappropriate social or emotional behavior, and engaging in repetitive routines. Both children and adults with Asperger's syndrome are at an increased risk for depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mood and anxiety disorders, and other mental health disorders.”
If he was stupid, he wouldn't have so much success with both Tesla and SpaceX. Compare Jeff Bezos, who was highly successful with Amazon but not with Blue Origin. Which suggests that his success with Amazon was significantly due to luck. There are very few people who manage to create two world class companies.
I think you're confusing wealth, luck and general privilege with intelligence. Sure, intelligence depends a lot on your viewpoint and some people, especially in economics, take general success as an important factor. Not me though, anyone taking this hyperloop nonsense seriously can't be very intelligent from my point of view.
Maybe you could call Musk charismatic, but then he's rather atypically charismatic, cause his rethoric isn't exactly smooth. He stutters, mumbles and keeps repeating the same weird points like "interplanetary species". As if we need another hostile planet while we turn our own planet to desert. Don't get me wrong, i think exploration is great fun, but the way he's claiming it a necessity is just delusional.
There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful. Elon was in the right place at the right time with his first big exit, which compounds to create additional opportunity, but you're right: that's no guarantee of continued success. However, someone at some point is going to be in the right place at the right time successively 3 or maybe even 4 times. That person will become exceedingly rich and everyone will think, as you have, that it must be due to their skill. However, eventually their luck runs out and they're exposed as being just as frail as the rest of us. Elon is no smarter than Jeff.
> There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful.
Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" that someone who was highly successful once will be highly successful again. Because the number of people with one highly successful company is very small, unlike the number of people with zero highly successful companies. (If you throw a die ten times and get a six ten times, that is massive luck, which means that you almost certainly won't manage to do it again.)
So when people have one successful company, that may well be partly due to sheer luck, but if so, on their second attempt they almost certainly won't be so lucky. That's exactly what Jeff Bezos shows with Blue Origin. He started earlier than Musk did with SpaceX, had more money, and still is far less successful.
Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" that someone who was highly successful once will be highly successful again. Because the number of people with one highly successful company is very small, unlike the number of people with zero highly successful companies. (If you throw a die ten times and get a six ten times, that is massive luck, which means that you almost certainly won't manage to do it again.)
So when people have one successful company, that may well be partly due to sheer luck, but if so, on their second attempt they almost certainly won't be so lucky. That's exactly what Jeff Bezos shows with Blue Origin. He started earlier than Musk did with SpaceX, had more money, and still is far less successful.
> Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos
The Amazon.com e-commerce store, Kindle (category-defining), the Amazon fulfillment network (rivaling UPS/FedEx), and of course AWS. That's at least 4 distinct very successful companies. But the way in which one success enabled the next is more obvious, so you don't want to separate them.
The comparison to Gates is just pathetic -- instead of Twitter and private space programs, his second act has been focused on things like food security, HIV/AIDS, and polio.
The Amazon.com e-commerce store, Kindle (category-defining), the Amazon fulfillment network (rivaling UPS/FedEx), and of course AWS. That's at least 4 distinct very successful companies. But the way in which one success enabled the next is more obvious, so you don't want to separate them.
The comparison to Gates is just pathetic -- instead of Twitter and private space programs, his second act has been focused on things like food security, HIV/AIDS, and polio.
These things are all part of Amazon, not separate companies. Moreover:
> The Amazon.com e-commerce store
This was mostly a copy of eBay which used the existing Amazon market dominance.
> Kindle (category-defining)
Kindle came after the excellent Sony e-book readers. The reason why Kindle was so much more successful was the existing market dominance of Amazon combined with the fact that they used a proprietary Kindle-specific file format to squash the competition.
> The comparison to Gates is just pathetic -- instead of Twitter and private space programs, his second act has been focused on things like food security, HIV/AIDS, and polio.
SpaceX was not a "second act", except if you count PayPal as his first successful company. SpaceX was founded before Tesla. They do offer a global satellite network which brings Internet to remote areas around the world. That's quite different from a mere "private space program". As for the Gates foundation: This is not a profit driven company, so it is difficult to estimate how successful it is relative to the funds it has. I was talking about Musk's abilities as a founder and manager, not about altruism. (He definitely did things which people might classify as altruistic, such as paying for Ukraine's Starlink access for several months.)
> The Amazon.com e-commerce store
This was mostly a copy of eBay which used the existing Amazon market dominance.
> Kindle (category-defining)
Kindle came after the excellent Sony e-book readers. The reason why Kindle was so much more successful was the existing market dominance of Amazon combined with the fact that they used a proprietary Kindle-specific file format to squash the competition.
> The comparison to Gates is just pathetic -- instead of Twitter and private space programs, his second act has been focused on things like food security, HIV/AIDS, and polio.
SpaceX was not a "second act", except if you count PayPal as his first successful company. SpaceX was founded before Tesla. They do offer a global satellite network which brings Internet to remote areas around the world. That's quite different from a mere "private space program". As for the Gates foundation: This is not a profit driven company, so it is difficult to estimate how successful it is relative to the funds it has. I was talking about Musk's abilities as a founder and manager, not about altruism. (He definitely did things which people might classify as altruistic, such as paying for Ukraine's Starlink access for several months.)
> not separate companies
They literally are separate companies. There's no debate to be had here. Your assertion is just not true.
> I was talking about Musk's abilities as a founder and manager, not about altruism.
Gates doesn't fire and forget. He plays an active role in his foundation.
They literally are separate companies. There's no debate to be had here. Your assertion is just not true.
> I was talking about Musk's abilities as a founder and manager, not about altruism.
Gates doesn't fire and forget. He plays an active role in his foundation.
> Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen"
It totally is bound to happen to someone. They get the right people involved and find the right contracts and make the right decision, it’s mostly timing.
It totally is bound to happen to someone. They get the right people involved and find the right contracts and make the right decision, it’s mostly timing.
[deleted]
He can be good in certain sectors and stupid in others. If his goal is to make money with Twitter he definitely failed at it
Musk isn't running SpaceX.
You can also be lucky several times.
You can also be lucky several times.
> Musk isn't running SpaceX.
He is, and the success of SpaceX compared to Blue Origin is explained by the difference between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
> You can also be lucky several times.
Yes, but that's very improbable.
He is, and the success of SpaceX compared to Blue Origin is explained by the difference between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
> You can also be lucky several times.
Yes, but that's very improbable.
Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable.
That one specific person will be very lucky multiple times is indeed improbable, but that someone will be lucky will over time be expected.
That one specific person will be very lucky multiple times is indeed improbable, but that someone will be lucky will over time be expected.
> Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable.
For all we know she is "running" SpaceX in the sense that she handles most smaller day-to-day decisions, but there is no evidence that she makes the large and important decisions about Starship and Starlink. All the evidence points to Musk making those decisions. It is even doubtful if she is more capable by herself than Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, since she hasn't started a large successful company, unlike Bezos. The situation is probably similar for Linda Yaccarino, the new Twitter CEO. For the big decisions, Musk remains in charge.
For all we know she is "running" SpaceX in the sense that she handles most smaller day-to-day decisions, but there is no evidence that she makes the large and important decisions about Starship and Starlink. All the evidence points to Musk making those decisions. It is even doubtful if she is more capable by herself than Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, since she hasn't started a large successful company, unlike Bezos. The situation is probably similar for Linda Yaccarino, the new Twitter CEO. For the big decisions, Musk remains in charge.
My (very personal and unsubstantiated) opinion is that his thinking was something along the lines of "You say I can't buy Twitter for 44 billion $ and then drive it into the ground?! Ha! Watch this!"
[deleted]
Seems there's a bug:
https://i.imgur.com/aL0ap8h.png
I'm clicking the X but the modal won't go away
https://i.imgur.com/aL0ap8h.png
I'm clicking the X but the modal won't go away
This looks so amateurish; they're running around the code, changing all references to 𝕩 but with no real brand thinking behind it. For example https://i.imgur.com/CxF6iri.png how does "𝕩" related to "Twitter" here? Am I still visiting Twitter? Is Twitter a product of 𝕩?
The workaround here is to not visit the website in the first place
I don't think that's a bug, Twitter has been really limiting what non-users are able to see anymore. I think the bug is that the X shouldn't be there at all (there's a joke here somewhere as well)
Can't wait to X about this and re-X other people's X's too. Maybe I'll sub-X or quote-X a few too.
Looking forward also to the news outlets having to talk about famous people and politicians having X'd about a topic on X.
Looking forward also to the news outlets having to talk about famous people and politicians having X'd about a topic on X.
It’ll probably go back to the generic “posted”, “re-posted”, “quoted”, etc.
Now that Elon no longer wants the Twitter brand, somebody please steal it, make a new "twitter" clone hosted in Kosovo so they can't take it down (cough) and we all just move there.
Related: https://basehost.eu/
Do you really need a brand name to tell you what to do?
No but you need a user base for a twitter clone to be useful.
The CEO latest tweets is hilarious - never read so much word salad in my life.
It makes that hippy WeWork CEO look like a genius.
X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.
SoftBank - time to double down !!!!.
X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.
SoftBank - time to double down !!!!.
Kendall Roy energy
I love that the company is "centered" on a bunch of separate areas. It's like someone really wanted to disrespect the definition of the word "centered".
So WeChat does this:
> text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.[1]
Twitter does public messaging and DMs, but is not a chat platform and doesn't have any of the other features of WeChat.
To become a SuperApp, X will need a lot of additional features: X will need enough features to both convince new users to join the platform AND keep them using it for most of their daily needs. That would mean Twitter would need to replace WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram when people want to chat with friends and businesses.
That would require a lot of new Twitter users! Twitter is noisy, but quite small for a social media.
Based on the track record of Twitter acquisition and subsequent changes, I don't see how Elon is going to massively increase the user base to have enough critical mass to make this happen.
Wechat is successful and became a de-facto "everything app" in great part because it's extremely useful to the Chinese government as a way to monitor and control its populace.
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat
> text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.[1]
Twitter does public messaging and DMs, but is not a chat platform and doesn't have any of the other features of WeChat.
To become a SuperApp, X will need a lot of additional features: X will need enough features to both convince new users to join the platform AND keep them using it for most of their daily needs. That would mean Twitter would need to replace WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram when people want to chat with friends and businesses.
That would require a lot of new Twitter users! Twitter is noisy, but quite small for a social media.
Based on the track record of Twitter acquisition and subsequent changes, I don't see how Elon is going to massively increase the user base to have enough critical mass to make this happen.
Wechat is successful and became a de-facto "everything app" in great part because it's extremely useful to the Chinese government as a way to monitor and control its populace.
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat
The obsession with WeChat's success is honestly disturbing. Even if that would work in the west nobody actually wants that, right?
Anecdotally, in Japan and SEA we have Line which tries to be an everything and fails everything but the messaging itself because individual components are simply better elsewhere. AFAIK it's losing market to Whatsapp and Telegram pretty badly these days too.
Launching a different app is not that much more difficult than going to a different window within an app. It's almost like we already have everything apps in the form of app stores and web browsers huh!
Anecdotally, in Japan and SEA we have Line which tries to be an everything and fails everything but the messaging itself because individual components are simply better elsewhere. AFAIK it's losing market to Whatsapp and Telegram pretty badly these days too.
Launching a different app is not that much more difficult than going to a different window within an app. It's almost like we already have everything apps in the form of app stores and web browsers huh!
I have seen a lot of complaints from those who used (or is obligated to use) LINE at work, particularly the inability to retain anything in the chat for more than 7 days (except if it is saved in the Album for that chat or Keep), meaning that it's very difficult to keep track of all previous conversations and files. They said "LINE is anything but a good Chat App", and I fully concur.
I recall that LINE's infrastructure wasn't built for multi-device use, and since the focus is needed for reliability, the underlying infrastructure wasn't touched or improved. There is a session at LINE Dev Day 2019 [1] that addressed this issue, though I still don't see much progress ever since
[1] https://linedevday.linecorp.com/jp/2019/sessions/A1-2/
I recall that LINE's infrastructure wasn't built for multi-device use, and since the focus is needed for reliability, the underlying infrastructure wasn't touched or improved. There is a session at LINE Dev Day 2019 [1] that addressed this issue, though I still don't see much progress ever since
[1] https://linedevday.linecorp.com/jp/2019/sessions/A1-2/
[deleted]
* Spend 44 billion because of memes
* Fire 90% of the workforce
* Get clowned on every day on the very platform you own
* Lose half of your advertising revenue because you insist on platforming fascists
* Destroy any brand recognition you had, including having created a damn verb out of it
* Have your puppet CEO spout some vapid shit about your new platform being all about AI
* Have your logo be blatant copyright infringement of a well known typeface
Eagerly awaiting Paul Graham to tell everyone how Elon is a complete genius and that he puts rockets into space, making a WeChat clone can't be this complicated.
Every single one of them, clowns failing upwards
* Fire 90% of the workforce
* Get clowned on every day on the very platform you own
* Lose half of your advertising revenue because you insist on platforming fascists
* Destroy any brand recognition you had, including having created a damn verb out of it
* Have your puppet CEO spout some vapid shit about your new platform being all about AI
* Have your logo be blatant copyright infringement of a well known typeface
Eagerly awaiting Paul Graham to tell everyone how Elon is a complete genius and that he puts rockets into space, making a WeChat clone can't be this complicated.
Every single one of them, clowns failing upwards
"I don't think about you at all."
So the 'world's most brilliant entrepreneur' paid 44 billion - about twice as much as its estimated worth at the time, though much less that that now - to own the Twitter brand, only to toss it out within a year. Arguably the one thing that, while damaged, still holds some value. Help me make it make sense.
I usually don't comment on these threads but I think it is the stupidest decision Musk could ever take. Marketing 101,Branding 101, you don't rebrand a (relatively) successful product and confuse both your users and advertisers unless you really want to destroy your product. Because despite all its problems, users were still willing to stay on the platform.
Even Zuck knew that after the company rebranded as Meta, Facebook is still Facebook.
Well the good thing is that there is room for a replacement, although it's going to be tougher than 15 years ago because the tech and legal landscape has changed and VC are much less inclined to fund social media. Threads had a huge start but it's already shedding users and Bluesky is already ultra partisan.
Even Zuck knew that after the company rebranded as Meta, Facebook is still Facebook.
Well the good thing is that there is room for a replacement, although it's going to be tougher than 15 years ago because the tech and legal landscape has changed and VC are much less inclined to fund social media. Threads had a huge start but it's already shedding users and Bluesky is already ultra partisan.
If only there was a common phrase that could describe this change, hmmmm - perhaps something like:
"Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"
"Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"
After reading some comments here, this rebranding seems so ridiculous that looks like a joke, honestly.
> X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered > in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking...
How do we call videos from X? xvideos?
> X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered > in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking...
How do we call videos from X? xvideos?
> xvideos
It's a funny joke, but is actually one of the main reasons I stopped using Twitter. The onlyfans spam got really bad.
It's a funny joke, but is actually one of the main reasons I stopped using Twitter. The onlyfans spam got really bad.
This is such bad web design its amazing
Go to the Twitter.com on mobile in a private browsing window or basically be not logged in. The standard popup will come up asking you to logon.
In the top left is a small X you can click to close this popup and continue to twitter without loggin in. In the center top left is the new X logo which is just slightly larger. I immediately clicked on the larger X and of course nothing happened. I then realized it was the smaller but very similar X in the upper left hand corner I needed to click to close the popup.
How is the basic design this bad?
Go to the Twitter.com on mobile in a private browsing window or basically be not logged in. The standard popup will come up asking you to logon.
In the top left is a small X you can click to close this popup and continue to twitter without loggin in. In the center top left is the new X logo which is just slightly larger. I immediately clicked on the larger X and of course nothing happened. I then realized it was the smaller but very similar X in the upper left hand corner I needed to click to close the popup.
How is the basic design this bad?
They only have, like, four people employed right now.
A case study in brandicide.
This is much worse that the blandification of the Slack logo.
Actually the X logo itself is good on it's own terms. And would be great for a newcomer startup, but not for Twitter. Twitter is the household name. This looks like a midlife crisis.
Actually the X logo itself is good on it's own terms. And would be great for a newcomer startup, but not for Twitter. Twitter is the household name. This looks like a midlife crisis.
Agree.
Not to mention that we speak of "tweets" and "retweets", not "mini-posts on Twitter" and "shares on Twitter"...
Not to mention that we speak of "tweets" and "retweets", not "mini-posts on Twitter" and "shares on Twitter"...
wouldn't this logo be not trademarkable since its a mathematical symbol?
Blandification? More like Penisification and Swastikafication in one swoop.
Honestly the first time I saw it (I saw it in the app before it was announced) my reaction was "I don't use Python... what is this??"
The conversation about it is a case study in bikeshedding.
I embrace this change! Now I might just stop impulsively clicking on links that report on the Twitter trash fire. Because now it's the X trash fire and whatever is X anyway.
I remember when Facebook turned into Meta. Made it much easier to ignore them.
I remember when Facebook turned into Meta. Made it much easier to ignore them.
It’s all just so dumb, isn’t it? It isn’t even interesting any more. I can’t exactly say I had high hopes when Musk took over Twitter but I was interested to see where he’d go with it. Now we’re just at the lipstick on a pig stage.
I’ve been assured that Musk is a business genius , so just have confidence folks.
So how do we call tweets now? I nominate "eXcrements".
Lately I've been mostly supportive of things Musk was doing with Twitter, but this rebranding thing is just insane. I almost think it's trolling to generate buzz and the name change will be reverted in a few days.
Lately I've been mostly supportive of things Musk was doing with Twitter, but this rebranding thing is just insane. I almost think it's trolling to generate buzz and the name change will be reverted in a few days.
"eXcrements" makes mastodons 'toots' a lot more likable!
A common saying amongst rich family dynasties is 'The first generation builds the business, the second makes it a success, and the third wrecks it'.
Elon seems to be trying hard to break that rule, as he seems to be working to achieve all of this in a single generation.
Elon seems to be trying hard to break that rule, as he seems to be working to achieve all of this in a single generation.
Elizabeth Holmes, Bernie Madoff and Sam bankman freid have entered the chat.
[deleted]
As a frequent internet user, I must admit that "X" is my go-to symbol when I want to close a browser tab quickly. It's a simple yet effective design that has become almost universally recognized across various web browsers.
Tweeting was like googling, or photoshopping. It demonstrated market lead on a linguistic level.
I guess this kind of rebranding must be very appreciated by competing platforms.
I guess this kind of rebranding must be very appreciated by competing platforms.
When Musk bought Twitter, I had the notion that Musk doesn't care if twitter falls under. I completely underestimated the depth of his indifference. He's going to have twitter be his way totally, and survival won't be a consideration. Twitter stays alive? Great. It fails? Oh well.
Looks like the X11 logo, doesn’t it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
I mean, it's an X. There aren't many things you can do to an X to make it look unique.
Was jokingly musing that perhaps the "brand change" is to intentionally create a dust-up with Microsoft, claiming MS needs to change the icon for Excel from the green X to something else. The intent would be to create a distraction in the news from the other chain of poor choices made around Ex-Twitter.
> The company’s CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted that while Twitter changed the way people conversed with each other, X will go further and will have features “centered in [...] payment/banking”
Good luck with that. I was permanently banned from Twitter for reporting Russian terrorist content.
If you fancy being locked out of your money for apparently a thought crime, then X (or rather Z) is for you, comrades.
Good luck with that. I was permanently banned from Twitter for reporting Russian terrorist content.
If you fancy being locked out of your money for apparently a thought crime, then X (or rather Z) is for you, comrades.
> If you fancy being locked out of your money for apparently a thought crime, then X is for you
The entire banking system is for you*
The entire banking system is for you*
It's really hard to be blocked from your money by the entire banking system. In my country, at worst you're banned from credit and investment, which is really not cool (cannot use checks, only have debit cards, no saving account trying to keep up with inflation...), but in the end you don't have to sue to get your money back.
It's quite different from payment apps (my father used PayPal once to collect a 7k payment, spent 3k in lawyer fees to get the money).
It's quite different from payment apps (my father used PayPal once to collect a 7k payment, spent 3k in lawyer fees to get the money).
In all this nonsense with the so called Metaverse, the reddit shitshow and now with twitter, keep in mind: Brands are made up and even if a few platform commit suicide, the internet will continue. New things will fill the gaps left. Humans want to communicate and will find ways to do so. The fediverse is already one potential way out and more will surely pop up.
This is even more bone headed than hbo renaming to max and forcing all users to re-download a new app just because of the name change.
I feel like I'm watching The Producers in real life.
Springtime for Twitler in Germany!
What does the path to success look like for "the everything app"?
I can't picture it. So far it looks like they're acting like a FAANG in a "fake it til you make it" move to try to attract money. But not only do they not have the scale, Twitter is also losing its place as the reference app for live text updates.
I can't picture it. So far it looks like they're acting like a FAANG in a "fake it til you make it" move to try to attract money. But not only do they not have the scale, Twitter is also losing its place as the reference app for live text updates.
An "everything app" is just an operating system. There is nothing to picture, we've been having them since the 1950s [1].
We could imagine some new way of operating over systems: for instance the Alan Kay original meaning of object-orientedness [2], or instead of a compiled binary to have some stable diffusion model + large language model which hallucinates the OS on the go [3].
But that's not what the quantifiably greediest person on the planet has in mind, by "everything app" they just mean "everything must be controlled by me, not by you".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_operating_systems
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjJaFG63Hlo
[3] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/opena...
We could imagine some new way of operating over systems: for instance the Alan Kay original meaning of object-orientedness [2], or instead of a compiled binary to have some stable diffusion model + large language model which hallucinates the OS on the go [3].
But that's not what the quantifiably greediest person on the planet has in mind, by "everything app" they just mean "everything must be controlled by me, not by you".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_operating_systems
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjJaFG63Hlo
[3] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/opena...
Thank you for the read. The idea of an OS supplanted by an AI is fascinating.
> "everything must be controlled by me, not by you"
Right, the end goal I had in mind for "the everything app" is the control of the software (including communication), the data and the payment system by the same company.
Few companies have achieved that outside of China. I'm thinking, Apple, Google, Samsung in Korea maybe? And no one I know personally is fully tied to one ecosystem. My friends only use the individual services they need. Becoming WeChat will not happen.
Even the idea of Twitter growing into a Google size company seems completely unrealistic. Meta struggles with achieving this and right now they're more popular than Twitter.
> "everything must be controlled by me, not by you"
Right, the end goal I had in mind for "the everything app" is the control of the software (including communication), the data and the payment system by the same company.
Few companies have achieved that outside of China. I'm thinking, Apple, Google, Samsung in Korea maybe? And no one I know personally is fully tied to one ecosystem. My friends only use the individual services they need. Becoming WeChat will not happen.
Even the idea of Twitter growing into a Google size company seems completely unrealistic. Meta struggles with achieving this and right now they're more popular than Twitter.
If they can replicate WeChat it might be a good outcome, since WeChat is essentially the everything app for most China
Problem is that the CCP is basically intimately tied to it so WeChat has massive advantages there.
Problem is that the CCP is basically intimately tied to it so WeChat has massive advantages there.
There isn't a chance that I'll ever use something like WeChat. I keep all of those components on separate companies because I don't ever want to be tied into something that has that kind of power over my life. Having choice is far better than integration.
I've switched banks 3 times over four decades, ISP more times than that, comms channels a couple of times as well (most recently due to Musk's acquisition of Twitter) and will probably do so again at least once. Tying it all together with an 'everything app' seems like a stupendously stupid move to me (from the consumers perspective). Especially with an unhinged guy like Musk at the helm.
I've switched banks 3 times over four decades, ISP more times than that, comms channels a couple of times as well (most recently due to Musk's acquisition of Twitter) and will probably do so again at least once. Tying it all together with an 'everything app' seems like a stupendously stupid move to me (from the consumers perspective). Especially with an unhinged guy like Musk at the helm.
Indeed, just hearing the stories here on HN about how people are suddenly locked out of just their gmail or other accounts without explanation or recourse is pretty good reason to not but all your eggs in one dystopian corporate basket.
I don't know how he can be this stupid to try such a thing. Many companies tried to replicate WeChat in the west, and they all failed because nobody wants to have some gigantic clusterfuck of an app on their phone. It works in China only because of China's political system, as in people literally have no choice.
This is what he's been envisioning since back in the PayPal days.
The problem for Musk is that the US, EU, UK, AU etc are not remotely interested in a mainstream commerce platform that takes a lax approach to KYC/AML.
And despite Musk's delusions the "blue tick" program is not a suitable verification foundation to build payments on top of.
The problem for Musk is that the US, EU, UK, AU etc are not remotely interested in a mainstream commerce platform that takes a lax approach to KYC/AML.
And despite Musk's delusions the "blue tick" program is not a suitable verification foundation to build payments on top of.
There is a reason why Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram is not in one app called Meta.
It does not work too well with western audiences - cluttered and too busy mobile apps do not succeed.
I half think some of the issue with the everything app idea is that the west already has everything apps, they're called "Android" and "iOS". It's the slightly weird regulatory / political situation in China that's led to WeChat becoming a thing.
And that tracks perfectly with what he's doing, because he's betting on the fascists winning the next election cycle, so they can bail him out by making X-Twitter the official "free speech" platform of the new dictatorship.
If Whatsapp failed to become WeChat organically, even though it's installed in most phones around the world and in some places you can already make payments through it, do you really think Twitter can pull it off by brute force?
That'll not fly at least not outside of the US.
Nobody (in power) want's a (foreign) app that can essentially ban a citizen from live arbitrarily.
Regulators are no longer asleep at the wheel when it comes to tech, as can be seen on the HN front page every other day, and in this case it might be better to have nothing than something controlled by Elon Musk.
Such an App is a political risk and the only reason it works in China is because it's basically an extension of the governemnt.
Nobody (in power) want's a (foreign) app that can essentially ban a citizen from live arbitrarily.
Regulators are no longer asleep at the wheel when it comes to tech, as can be seen on the HN front page every other day, and in this case it might be better to have nothing than something controlled by Elon Musk.
Such an App is a political risk and the only reason it works in China is because it's basically an extension of the governemnt.
Mr Praline:
It is an X-company!
Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for the fjordsIs this really relevant news for HN? I mean, I know we’re talking about a large tech company, but this feels pretty insignificant (just a marketing stunt, we already knew about his plans for Twitter). I feel like any other business doing that would be ignored on HN and rightly so.
I wonder how long will this last, will it be the same as Doge logo?
I think Twitter had among the best brands across social media, similar with HBO in entertainment. To use a generic letter instead of all of the goodwill that the brand and accompanying verbs had seems really ridiculous.
I think Twitter had among the best brands across social media, similar with HBO in entertainment. To use a generic letter instead of all of the goodwill that the brand and accompanying verbs had seems really ridiculous.
For a company that isn’t making the economics work, how does one justify such a massive resource investment in a brand change like this?! Do the gains from the related PR (ie news coverage) make up for it? These are not meant to be rhetorical questions.
He owns Twitter/X and he can name it anything he wants.
I had not been using Twitter much before he bought it, and I use Mastodon a bit, but ironically I started using Twitter/X more after he bought it.
There are a few things that give me hope for the future: Twitter/X strongly supporting free speech, and the presidential campaigns of Kennedy and Cornel West. I think the corporate-democrats and the corporate-republicans are a sign of a ruined country. Our country is being looted as we watch.
That is just my opinion, which is only important to me. I am not trying to tell anyone else how to vote or how to think.
I had not been using Twitter much before he bought it, and I use Mastodon a bit, but ironically I started using Twitter/X more after he bought it.
There are a few things that give me hope for the future: Twitter/X strongly supporting free speech, and the presidential campaigns of Kennedy and Cornel West. I think the corporate-democrats and the corporate-republicans are a sign of a ruined country. Our country is being looted as we watch.
That is just my opinion, which is only important to me. I am not trying to tell anyone else how to vote or how to think.
Elon does not have principled notions of speech -- his only principle is power and money. When Kanye starts to piss off advertisers? He gets banned. When reporters piss on Elon during live audio chat? The entire feature is immediately shut down, right as the event is ongoing.
PG got his account disabled just for mentioning his other social media presence. When most people are thinking about the thresholds for speech they most certainly aren't drawing the line around whether you can talk about competing products.
This is coming from the guy who thinks it's fair play in speech to repeatedly accuse an emergency rescue worker of pedophilia, which he clarified as having sex with underaged Thai boys.
PG got his account disabled just for mentioning his other social media presence. When most people are thinking about the thresholds for speech they most certainly aren't drawing the line around whether you can talk about competing products.
This is coming from the guy who thinks it's fair play in speech to repeatedly accuse an emergency rescue worker of pedophilia, which he clarified as having sex with underaged Thai boys.
You're just glad an anti-vax conspiracy theorist has a platform.
I am glad everyone has a platform. Yeah, I disagree with some of what Kennedy says, but I also believe he has a kind heart and good intentions.
You know that he has had his children vaccinated, etc., right? I took the time to listen to his long interview on the All In podcast and it seems like his big complaint was rushing the Covid vaccines. You might want to look into Pfizer’s interactions with the Indian government recently. They wanted some limited efficacy double blind tests and Pfizer decided to ignore the Indian market.
Anyway, I am an old man, and I was happy getting the Covid vaccination, but I always thought that everyone should get to make the choice for themselves.
There are really too many people in the world who are hung up on telling other people what to do.
You know that he has had his children vaccinated, etc., right? I took the time to listen to his long interview on the All In podcast and it seems like his big complaint was rushing the Covid vaccines. You might want to look into Pfizer’s interactions with the Indian government recently. They wanted some limited efficacy double blind tests and Pfizer decided to ignore the Indian market.
Anyway, I am an old man, and I was happy getting the Covid vaccination, but I always thought that everyone should get to make the choice for themselves.
There are really too many people in the world who are hung up on telling other people what to do.
You're just glad that you never get downvoted or flagged because your name protects you.
How is that even supposed to work? Go ahead and downvote and flag and try to deplatform and cancel me all you want (even though it would disprove your conspiracy theory that my name somehow protects me, and make you a hypocrite). So you actually created that brand new green account just to say that, huh? You're so ridiculously and ignorantly wrong, no wonder you don't want to associate your own name with your comment. You're so addicted to conspiracy theories, you even make them up about me. I invite everyone to downvote and flag this comment just to prove how wrong you are.
I've been very indifferent to the Elon love/hate stuff and don't really see the point in investing personal opinions on someone I'll never meet. I do have a strong annoyance for this change though.
This yet another company is trying to horn in and "claim" stuff that is fundamental to language. A company cannot own a letter, for goodness sake! It bothers me at how much common, everyday stuff that big brands are trying to steal from the lexicon. Meta, Apple, Sky, etc.
These are things that belong to the public. They don't exist for the sole purpose of some company to hawk its wares - the word does not exist solely for them to swoop in and claim it for their stupid VR-branded neckties.
Use your family name. Make up some goofy nonsense word. Make up a phony sounding "foreign" word if you have to (Starbucks cup sizes, etc.) I'm fine with all of that! Just don't call your company some everyday word like "Dog" or "L" whatever. That's ours.
It's not right that companies would take these very basic elements of language. It's cheesy, and lame, and tedious. If I remember correctly, Sony tried something like this with trying to trademark the word "blue" for Bluray. You don't get to own the word blue, for goodness sake! It's aggravating.
This yet another company is trying to horn in and "claim" stuff that is fundamental to language. A company cannot own a letter, for goodness sake! It bothers me at how much common, everyday stuff that big brands are trying to steal from the lexicon. Meta, Apple, Sky, etc.
These are things that belong to the public. They don't exist for the sole purpose of some company to hawk its wares - the word does not exist solely for them to swoop in and claim it for their stupid VR-branded neckties.
Use your family name. Make up some goofy nonsense word. Make up a phony sounding "foreign" word if you have to (Starbucks cup sizes, etc.) I'm fine with all of that! Just don't call your company some everyday word like "Dog" or "L" whatever. That's ours.
It's not right that companies would take these very basic elements of language. It's cheesy, and lame, and tedious. If I remember correctly, Sony tried something like this with trying to trademark the word "blue" for Bluray. You don't get to own the word blue, for goodness sake! It's aggravating.
Musk's either trying to show everyone how _not_ to approach web product development and engineering, part of some weird accelerationist ploy, or he's simply lost the plot.
Musk and other media attention black holes distract us from more pressing issues, specially these past weeks as we have seen all sort of weather records being broken.
Elon Musk has hit the tipping point I like to call "too big to succeed" (a riff on "too big to fail"). He has successfully failed upwards his entire career and bought into his own hype. This isn't new. He was ousted from Paypal for incompetence.
What fooled a lot of people (including me) was SpaceX but it's become clear that SpaceX has succeeded in spite of Elon, not because of him. Someone in the SpaceX leadership has done an exceptional job of insulating SpaceX from Elon's terrible and random micromanagement. Some might say Tesla. I think the jury is still out on Tesla. The business doesn't justify its market cap but irrational hype can last a very long time. Just look at Bitcoin.
Eventually these fail-sons make a bet so large it costs them everything. It's why wealth rarely lasts more than a few generations. It's why the wealthiest people in America aren't named Astor, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan or Carnegie. Eventually some fail-son destroyed the fortune their forebears built.
Elon wants to turn Twitter into WeChat, basically. An all-encompassing destination and platform. Chat, banking, etc.
Elon has done the Mckinsey or Private Equity thing of just raising prices and cutting costs without regard for long-term consequences. His actions have caused a huge drop in advertiser revenue, one that won't be recouped at $8/month. He has to come up with the money to cover interest payments and the Tesla board and shareholders have limited patience for him selling Tesla stock to do it. Should Tesla crater, Elon could well go under.
To paraphrase something I saw on Twitter (sorry, "X"), Elon has thrown away a 15 year old household name for a delete button.
What fooled a lot of people (including me) was SpaceX but it's become clear that SpaceX has succeeded in spite of Elon, not because of him. Someone in the SpaceX leadership has done an exceptional job of insulating SpaceX from Elon's terrible and random micromanagement. Some might say Tesla. I think the jury is still out on Tesla. The business doesn't justify its market cap but irrational hype can last a very long time. Just look at Bitcoin.
Eventually these fail-sons make a bet so large it costs them everything. It's why wealth rarely lasts more than a few generations. It's why the wealthiest people in America aren't named Astor, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan or Carnegie. Eventually some fail-son destroyed the fortune their forebears built.
Elon wants to turn Twitter into WeChat, basically. An all-encompassing destination and platform. Chat, banking, etc.
Elon has done the Mckinsey or Private Equity thing of just raising prices and cutting costs without regard for long-term consequences. His actions have caused a huge drop in advertiser revenue, one that won't be recouped at $8/month. He has to come up with the money to cover interest payments and the Tesla board and shareholders have limited patience for him selling Tesla stock to do it. Should Tesla crater, Elon could well go under.
To paraphrase something I saw on Twitter (sorry, "X"), Elon has thrown away a 15 year old household name for a delete button.
Is it just me or does http://x.com/ redirect to a GoDaddy parking page?
Goes to twitter.com for me
Disappointed by the commentary here. Most commenters are focussed on their view of Musk's personal attributes, and think he was stupid all along, and that he had successes only through luck. Many bizarre comments seem to be able to read his mind and understand his inner motivations too.
I'd expect more nuance and less bias from Hacker News contributors.
I'd expect more nuance and less bias from Hacker News contributors.
Reminds me of when Blackwater renamed themselves Xe to try to get people to forget their little problem with killing civilians.
Interesting... x.com has in contrast to twitter.com an AAAA record
dig +short x.com AAAA 2606:4700::6812:11d5 2606:4700::6812:10d
dig +short x.com AAAA 2606:4700::6812:11d5 2606:4700::6812:10d
The bird logo is still showing up in Twitter's HTML icon tags:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="//abs.twimg.com/favicons/twitter.2.ico">
<link rel="mask-icon" sizes="any" href="https://abs.twimg.com/responsive-web/client-web/icon-svg.168..." color="#1D9BF0">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="192x192" href="https://abs.twimg.com/responsive-web/client-web/icon-ios.b1f...">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="//abs.twimg.com/favicons/twitter.2.ico">
<link rel="mask-icon" sizes="any" href="https://abs.twimg.com/responsive-web/client-web/icon-svg.168..." color="#1D9BF0">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="192x192" href="https://abs.twimg.com/responsive-web/client-web/icon-ios.b1f...">
"x.com is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com"
Wild. I was expecting they'd use the obvious domain name.
Does this rename include retaining the original trademarks (name, "twitter blue", etc etc?) - or can someone now clone the site and restore the original functionality?
Wild. I was expecting they'd use the obvious domain name.
Does this rename include retaining the original trademarks (name, "twitter blue", etc etc?) - or can someone now clone the site and restore the original functionality?
Plot twist: Elon realized how harmful twitter is to the society and decided to destroy it.
He could have just, you know, turned it off.
He sure is going about it in an odd way.
Ah, the end of an era...
http://x.com used to return a single uncached "x" as a reply. I used it countless times as a quick connectivity test. Alas, simplicity always fades...
http://x.com used to return a single uncached "x" as a reply. I used it countless times as a quick connectivity test. Alas, simplicity always fades...
Better to use something that's specified for usage like this and much more guaranteed to not change, like example.com.
Elon Musk is addicted to the messaging app formerly known as Twitter.
Elon Musk seems to believe everyone else is addicted to the same degree.
Everything he does with twitter only makes sense to me given the assumption that all users have to stay and they can not possibly leave.
How many people are like "I don't want an everything app, I just wanna read silly tweets"? This demographic apparently doesn't exist in his mind.
Everything he does with twitter only makes sense to me given the assumption that all users have to stay and they can not possibly leave.
How many people are like "I don't want an everything app, I just wanna read silly tweets"? This demographic apparently doesn't exist in his mind.
> the messaging app formerly known as Twitter.
I like that. Permission to re-use?
I like that. Permission to re-use?
I feel pity for the developers now
(In el risitas sound)
- Quick, we need a new icon
- X
- Rushing to change all birds svg to x svg
- Uhh sir, we broke the layout..
- Also, it still says twitter in the text next to it..
- No problem, search replace-all twitter to X
- uhh sir, the frontend isn’t communicating with backend anymore!!
- Uhh I think we broke the site!!
- Quick, we need a new icon
- X
- Rushing to change all birds svg to x svg
- Uhh sir, we broke the layout..
- Also, it still says twitter in the text next to it..
- No problem, search replace-all twitter to X
- uhh sir, the frontend isn’t communicating with backend anymore!!
- Uhh I think we broke the site!!
Rebranding makes sense, though how I'd done it was only when the "X app" had enough use cases that many users came to it not from the existing Twitter user pool but from anywhere, like for payments like with WeChat.
Rebranding then could just be more complicated though and could kill the potential user rush so in a way this might be the right thing, even though it will look foolish in the case that X.com doesn't take off as hoped and will be easy to make fun of. But I do appreciate the attempt, one can't say it's done due to a lack of courage.
Rebranding then could just be more complicated though and could kill the potential user rush so in a way this might be the right thing, even though it will look foolish in the case that X.com doesn't take off as hoped and will be easy to make fun of. But I do appreciate the attempt, one can't say it's done due to a lack of courage.
It was certainly worth making your employees work over the weekend to do a half-assed rebrand for no reason, now the site is full of "interim" X logos and text referring to twitter. Pointless and stupid.
Via Ukraine war footage I learned that "getting off the X" is an established military idiom (for leaving a dialed-in target area of e.g. artillery). Now it might find a newer even more popular meaning.
How is Alphabet going to take this, considering their “moonshot factory” is also called X (https://x.company/)?
In my opinion if you call your company 'X' or 'Apple' you shouldn't expect everyone else to just shrug and say okay, this letter/this word now belongs exclusively to you.
Of course the trademark system is not that simple.
Of course the trademark system is not that simple.
An earlier thread on why an everything app is bad for liberal democracy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33151774
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33151774
Perhaps subscribers get to call it XX, or even XXX?
Rebranding requires careful thought and planning and even then is often unsuccessful. This name change hasn't even been given a second's thought.
Rebranding requires careful thought and planning and even then is often unsuccessful. This name change hasn't even been given a second's thought.
[deleted]
$44 billion so he can finally call something "X" without any grownups in the room to tell him why it's a terrible idea. Well, I guess we all have our hobbies.
First thing that came to my mind was this:
https://youtu.be/hS57I6swXcc?t=59s
More seriously, at least it's not an unforeseen step. Musk actually mentioned his longtime plan shortly after the acquisition: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-every...
https://youtu.be/hS57I6swXcc?t=59s
More seriously, at least it's not an unforeseen step. Musk actually mentioned his longtime plan shortly after the acquisition: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-every...
I'm tired of tech blogs stroking musk every time he sneezes. The billionaire worship is exhausting.
He's also a classless egomaniac xenophobe who never had a tough day in his life.
He's also a classless egomaniac xenophobe who never had a tough day in his life.
X.com
Where all the 'cross' people hang out.
Where all the 'cross' people hang out.
I absolutely don't care about what's going on at Twitter, but, wow, the current owner like to spend very little time between announcing and shipping features!
I can't believe how salty HN is about CEOs like Musk or Jobs. This sounds like people making fun on the iPad. Let's watch what happens over 6 months and see.
Twitter is dead.
Twitter was dying even before Musk bought it. There was no way of running Twitter profitable in a market where ad revenue is shrinking and VC founding is drying up. Forcing Musk to actually buy Twitter, at a grossly inflated price, was one of the smartest business moves in the past 10 years.
I don't know, I think the rebranding is a bit silly, but I also think Twitter should have gone bankrupt years ago. Musk paid $44 billion dollars of other peoples money for what was a billion dollar company at best. Trying to turn that around probably require someone as reckless as Elon Musk.
The dream of the everything app just seems to fare way. The potential early adopters shy away because it's Musk. Unless his own branding (as in "Elon Musk") is enough to get other businesses to jump onboard I don't see how it will ever get off the ground.
I don't know, I think the rebranding is a bit silly, but I also think Twitter should have gone bankrupt years ago. Musk paid $44 billion dollars of other peoples money for what was a billion dollar company at best. Trying to turn that around probably require someone as reckless as Elon Musk.
The dream of the everything app just seems to fare way. The potential early adopters shy away because it's Musk. Unless his own branding (as in "Elon Musk") is enough to get other businesses to jump onboard I don't see how it will ever get off the ground.
The collective sentiment is that using "X" will make searching and referencing the platform and actions in the platform more challenging. "Did you 'X' it?"
Someone in the branding team will make a juvenile tag line of "X marks the spot" and ironically it might catch on for the sake of people calling the platform "the spot". "Did you find 'the spot' for it?"
Someone in the branding team will make a juvenile tag line of "X marks the spot" and ironically it might catch on for the sake of people calling the platform "the spot". "Did you find 'the spot' for it?"
Does Musk have the same PR people as Kanye West? Being publicly crazy seems a really odd choice and, if it works, quite worrying for the future of humanity.
I thought Musk is his PR people?
I wonder if this is because of Musk's fixation on him owning x.com since he was a young man.
Twitter by itself is a valuable brand, why ditch it for a letter which he embeds in apocalyptical darkness?
And regarding the logo, would it give him OCD if he realized that he could have elongated one side of the stick into the center of the area in order for it to also symbol a line crossing a plane?
Twitter by itself is a valuable brand, why ditch it for a letter which he embeds in apocalyptical darkness?
And regarding the logo, would it give him OCD if he realized that he could have elongated one side of the stick into the center of the area in order for it to also symbol a line crossing a plane?
Exactly how inept do you have to be before the shareholders can successfully sue you for blowing up a company? Musk isn't a slope-browed incompetent; why is he acting this way? I knew when he bought it his stated intentions were probably going to cost the company money long-term but it's like he's intentionally trying to burn it to the ground.
Some fun takes from non-techies. Nobody's into this: https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/158ery9/elon_m...
I'm really, really interested in the way Elon's psyche works. He was touted as an IT gargantuan for so long, but to me (and this is only my opinion) he just seems... fairly... simple-minded. Some of his more brazen actions, such as this one just reinforce my opinion.
I remember, in 1999, a colleague telling me the story of how he sold the domain to Musk, and how upset Musk was about the price.
To me, even if my Linux now use Wayland, X is my Linux graphic interface. I created a rasterizer for Xserver, but i'm sure anybody who has worked on Linux GUI, mouse, tiling or even keyboard event will be the same. Like how at work they called a project group 'GCC'. This perturb me.
The logo is interim, so we should expect a re-design in the near future.
No any other assets have changed, which means the logo change was mainly to highlight on the vision. I actually appreciate the sloppiness. Twitter is now like a dorm startup. Change the logo? Sure, <img src="new_logo.png"...>
No any other assets have changed, which means the logo change was mainly to highlight on the vision. I actually appreciate the sloppiness. Twitter is now like a dorm startup. Change the logo? Sure, <img src="new_logo.png"...>
When they register the domain x.com do we have to be worried about a UFO Defense network that’s run by Elon?
[deleted]
Hey everyone, I’m having a genius business idea. Let’s create ambiguity around everything we do by just calling it all “x”. That way, nobody will know wtf we’re talking about half the time. SpaceX? X.ai? X.com? The shit I took earlier while forming this idea?
Here is the thread we should continually reëxamine: https://x.com/mattschnuck/status/1590732559029194752
It’s as if this man child is on a personal vendetta to destroy and deform Twitter after they “made him” follow through with the purchase of Twitter.
This, together with the Reddit debacle and the whole Threads privacy thing really puts a spin on social.
What a time to be alive.
This, together with the Reddit debacle and the whole Threads privacy thing really puts a spin on social.
What a time to be alive.
I'm no branding expert but this sounds like a bad idea, yet given Musk's whimsical decisions, I'm not entirely sure he's serious about it rather than trying to reap the benefits of keeping Twitter in the news.
I’m annoyed that this will be the bridge too far that killed a useful service, even though it was never one I checked daily. If I’d have known 6 months ago I would have accepted the offer to sell my twitter handle for $400.
There is already a bug report for this: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/issues/1876
The other problem with “x” as a logo is that it looks a lot like a close button.
I hope people begin realizing by this move that this guy is a complete fraud. Government funded puppet and media clickbait egotist.
The nerve of this guy to call his company "Tesla" after a genius that could vividly model his ideas. A genius that invented radio, AC power to homes, etc.
"X" sounds so stupid and he picked it because it makes people think "his" things are bigger than they actually are. My advice is to not use his products as he'll only produce further garbage.
The nerve of this guy to call his company "Tesla" after a genius that could vividly model his ideas. A genius that invented radio, AC power to homes, etc.
"X" sounds so stupid and he picked it because it makes people think "his" things are bigger than they actually are. My advice is to not use his products as he'll only produce further garbage.
It's wild how much emotion and turmoil freaking twitter changing their freaking logo causes for people. An article about the DEA trying to end end-to-end encryption has one quarter the comments.
fascinating isn't it. Everyday I have thoughts like this. Why does X get people so riled up, when the real shit (planet heating, finite resources, plastics pollution, corrupt/broken western democratic systems, who owns your poop, etc etc)
You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gangbanger will get shot or a truckload of soldiers will be blowing up nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well, then, everyone loses their minds. Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylwMWpbv5Fk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylwMWpbv5Fk
[deleted]
Imagine if Google rebranded it's core product to Alphabet Search :).
Or you can spin up your amateur, brittle fediverse instances, pay out of pocket for electricity/internet, and devote to volunteer system administration.
No where to run wokists, the Xtermination has begun!
No where to run wokists, the Xtermination has begun!
[deleted]
So, is it just the logo? Or will the whole platform renamed to Twitter X, Twi-x or something like that? I mean he already has Space X, maybe he will now line them up for the giggles?
Elon thinks X represents a variable. So a "super app" that will do anything.
I think X represents closing a dialog/window or deleting things.
We'll see which one is more apt in the near future.
I think X represents closing a dialog/window or deleting things.
We'll see which one is more apt in the near future.
When I was a child, I went to grade school. My classmates engaged in dramatic actions to attract attention. They have since matured. In contrast, Musk evidently has not.
Is this similar to when Google and Facebook renamed to Alphabet and Meta respectively and then rebalanced the former applications under the latter like a red-black tree?
Will they also replace their stock ticker symbol with U+1D54F ?
And now I start counting down for someone to point out how this particular logo has already been trademarked.
It's a bit similar to the X Window System. Who owns that these days?
It's a bit similar to the X Window System. Who owns that these days?
Someday MBAs will study this guy to learn how ego is a killer.
Stylized aleph ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph
Why Aleph? Wouldn't it be more like a stylized Chi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_(letter)
Which has the added bonus that it's pronounced in modern Greek as an aspirated soft S sound. I'm all for pronouncing the new Xitter as "shitter".
Which has the added bonus that it's pronounced in modern Greek as an aspirated soft S sound. I'm all for pronouncing the new Xitter as "shitter".
Xitter is clogged.. Scribbles on a bathroom stall
The rumour is that Musk will soon be renaming it to Wayland...
That rebranding will have some benefits, but won't really be viable for the general user until 2037.
https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-x-windows-disaster-128d398...
Official Notice
Post Immediately
First, a little history. The X window system escaped from Project Athena at MIT where it was being held in isolation. When notified, MIT stated publicly that “MIT assumes no responsibility…”. This is a very disturbing statement. It then infiltrated Digital Equipment Corporation, where it has since corrupted the technical judgement of this organization.
After sabotaging Digital Equipment Corporation, a sinister X consortium was created to find a way to use X as part of a plan to dominate and control interactive window systems. X windows is sometimes distributed by this secret consortium free of charge to unsuspecting victims. The destructive cost of X cannot even be guessed.
X is truly obese — whether it’s mutilating your hard disk or actively infesting your system, you can be sure it’s up to no good. Innocent users need to be protected from this dangerous virus. Even as you read this, the X source distribution and the executable environment is being maintained on hundreds of computers, maybe even your own.
Digital Equipment Corporation is already shipping machines that carry this dreaded infestation. It must be destroyed.
This is what happens when software with good intentions goes bad. It victimizes innocent users by distorting their perception of what is and what is not good software. This malignant window system must be destroyed.
Ultimately DEC and MIT must be held accountable for this heinous software crime, brought to justice, and made to pay for a software cleanup. Until DEC and MIT answer to these charges, they both should be assumed to be protecting dangerous software criminals.
Don’t be fooled! Just say no to X.
X-Windows: …A mistake carried out to perfection. X-Windows: …Dissatisfaction guaranteed. X-Windows: …Don’t get frustrated without it. X-Windows: …Even your dog won’t like it. X-Windows: …Flaky and built to stay that way. X-Windows: …Complex non-solutions to simple non-problems. X-Windows: …Flawed beyond belief. X-Windows: …Form follows malfunction. X-Windows: …Garbage at your fingertips. X-Windows: …Ignorance is our most important resource. X-Windows: …It could be worse, but it’ll take time. X-Windows: …It could happen to you. X-Windows: …Japan’s secret weapon. X-Windows: …Let it get in your way. X-Windows: …Live the nightmare. X-Windows: …More than enough rope. X-Windows: …Never had it, never will. X-Windows: …No hardware is safe. X-Windows: …Power tools for power fools. X-Windows: …Putting new limits on productivity. X-Windows: …Simplicity made complex. X-Windows: …The cutting edge of obsolescence. X-Windows: …The art of incompetence. X-Windows: …The defacto substandard. X-Windows: …The first fully modular software disaster. X-Windows: …The joke that kills. X-Windows: …The problem for your problem. X-Windows: …There’s got to be a better way. X-Windows: …Warn your friends about it. X-Windows: …You’d better sit down. X-Windows: …You’ll envy the dead.
Official Notice
Post Immediately
X x
X x
X x
X
x X
x X
x X
First, a little history. The X window system escaped from Project Athena at MIT where it was being held in isolation. When notified, MIT stated publicly that “MIT assumes no responsibility…”. This is a very disturbing statement. It then infiltrated Digital Equipment Corporation, where it has since corrupted the technical judgement of this organization.
After sabotaging Digital Equipment Corporation, a sinister X consortium was created to find a way to use X as part of a plan to dominate and control interactive window systems. X windows is sometimes distributed by this secret consortium free of charge to unsuspecting victims. The destructive cost of X cannot even be guessed.
X is truly obese — whether it’s mutilating your hard disk or actively infesting your system, you can be sure it’s up to no good. Innocent users need to be protected from this dangerous virus. Even as you read this, the X source distribution and the executable environment is being maintained on hundreds of computers, maybe even your own.
Digital Equipment Corporation is already shipping machines that carry this dreaded infestation. It must be destroyed.
This is what happens when software with good intentions goes bad. It victimizes innocent users by distorting their perception of what is and what is not good software. This malignant window system must be destroyed.
Ultimately DEC and MIT must be held accountable for this heinous software crime, brought to justice, and made to pay for a software cleanup. Until DEC and MIT answer to these charges, they both should be assumed to be protecting dangerous software criminals.
Don’t be fooled! Just say no to X.
X-Windows: …A mistake carried out to perfection. X-Windows: …Dissatisfaction guaranteed. X-Windows: …Don’t get frustrated without it. X-Windows: …Even your dog won’t like it. X-Windows: …Flaky and built to stay that way. X-Windows: …Complex non-solutions to simple non-problems. X-Windows: …Flawed beyond belief. X-Windows: …Form follows malfunction. X-Windows: …Garbage at your fingertips. X-Windows: …Ignorance is our most important resource. X-Windows: …It could be worse, but it’ll take time. X-Windows: …It could happen to you. X-Windows: …Japan’s secret weapon. X-Windows: …Let it get in your way. X-Windows: …Live the nightmare. X-Windows: …More than enough rope. X-Windows: …Never had it, never will. X-Windows: …No hardware is safe. X-Windows: …Power tools for power fools. X-Windows: …Putting new limits on productivity. X-Windows: …Simplicity made complex. X-Windows: …The cutting edge of obsolescence. X-Windows: …The art of incompetence. X-Windows: …The defacto substandard. X-Windows: …The first fully modular software disaster. X-Windows: …The joke that kills. X-Windows: …The problem for your problem. X-Windows: …There’s got to be a better way. X-Windows: …Warn your friends about it. X-Windows: …You’d better sit down. X-Windows: …You’ll envy the dead.
What is the meaning of x, I mean all possible meanings? Why it seems that "x" is a favourite letter in an alphabet when some things need to be named.
X is Elons equivalent of "Fetch".
He's obsessed with making it "a thing", but he's forgotten "Fetch will never be a thing"....
He's obsessed with making it "a thing", but he's forgotten "Fetch will never be a thing"....
Lol x.com is blocked from Indonesia, probably one of the largest Twitter users.
Probably the website was used for pr0n, or the dev who made the blocking rule use a wrong regex.
Probably the website was used for pr0n, or the dev who made the blocking rule use a wrong regex.
Elon has owned x.com for over 20 years.
Whenever I see another change to twitter, I ask myself: Will this break the spell? Will this finally let me quit twitter? Well, maybe this is it.
If they do a photo app, would it be called Xzibit ? :P
On the one hand, Musk was always obsessed with X, so the change may be organic.
On the other hand, a name change together with new product announcements is standard for American CEOs if they don't know what to do and have to show to their investors that they are doing something. I believe Musk has a number of Saudi investors.
Let's see what he does. If he goes into streaming like with Tucker Carlson the renaming may be appropriate. Perhaps he'll buy Fox News, who knows.
I have little hopes for the payment processor. I've avoided PayPal and I sure will avoid this one.
On the other hand, a name change together with new product announcements is standard for American CEOs if they don't know what to do and have to show to their investors that they are doing something. I believe Musk has a number of Saudi investors.
Let's see what he does. If he goes into streaming like with Tucker Carlson the renaming may be appropriate. Perhaps he'll buy Fox News, who knows.
I have little hopes for the payment processor. I've avoided PayPal and I sure will avoid this one.
If he goes into streaming, will the platform be called XVideos?
As another wag put it "Cancelling my X Blue subscription before my wife sees it on my credit card statement"
Something as generic is X is bad for an "everything platform", and something where lots of the existing use has specific connotations is worse
Something as generic is X is bad for an "everything platform", and something where lots of the existing use has specific connotations is worse
'Tweet' is a word pronounced pretty good in many european languages. 'X' does not.
I don't find this a smart move for such a big brand.
I don't find this a smart move for such a big brand.
I think it’s a great idea. Keeps things fresh to change branding from time to time. I do think they should keep calling posts tweets though.
The blue bird will live on in favicon (until they notice) and in many websites that has link to twitter, but won't be updated anymore.
X or Y, Twitter has a failed business model that will never generate positive cash flow, to me, that's a bigger problem to solve.
Well, with the X Window System now obsolete, I guess Elon can have that thick and thin stroked X... for whatever it's worth.
[deleted]
Shockingly contrarian view: while product feedback is always great to read, we should be offering our love and support. Go Elon!
As someone who is a non-user and a bystander watching all this twitter stuff -- I got two words "yikes... yikes"
Interesting thread today. I see lots of haters here in the comments.
While you all very well may be right about his future failure with Twitter, I think it’s important to highlight that Musk is very different from most people in that he looks like he’s failing until he succeeds, and he’s done that with just about every company he’s run.
Twitter make look like a dumpster fire now, but based on past history, I’m betting he’s going to make a ton of money here (but it won’t happen over night).
While you all very well may be right about his future failure with Twitter, I think it’s important to highlight that Musk is very different from most people in that he looks like he’s failing until he succeeds, and he’s done that with just about every company he’s run.
Twitter make look like a dumpster fire now, but based on past history, I’m betting he’s going to make a ton of money here (but it won’t happen over night).
> in that he looks like he’s failing until he succeeds
Is that true? When I look at very old SpaceX or Tesla posts on HN the comments are generally very positive on product direction.
Is that true? When I look at very old SpaceX or Tesla posts on HN the comments are generally very positive on product direction.
Today they are, but it wasn’t always that way.
SpaceX only exists today because he somehow found enough money to launch one more time (his 4 launch attempt) which finally worked.
Even after that, people thought he would fail at landings rockets and also fail at reusing them. He upended the entire industry.
Tesla was considered bankrupt and a fraud so much that well-respected shortsellers gambled tons of money that it would go bankrupt.
The Boring company is still considered by many to not be a success despite raising nearly a billion dollars last year.
Solar City (now part of Tesla) was ridiculed for its battery approach to power grids, but that approach now is being emulated by numerous competitors.
SpaceX only exists today because he somehow found enough money to launch one more time (his 4 launch attempt) which finally worked.
Even after that, people thought he would fail at landings rockets and also fail at reusing them. He upended the entire industry.
Tesla was considered bankrupt and a fraud so much that well-respected shortsellers gambled tons of money that it would go bankrupt.
The Boring company is still considered by many to not be a success despite raising nearly a billion dollars last year.
Solar City (now part of Tesla) was ridiculed for its battery approach to power grids, but that approach now is being emulated by numerous competitors.
No, what I'm saying is that posts on HN a decade-plus ago were always very optimistic about Tesla and SpaceX. It's not like everybody here was hating on him and he suddenly succeeded, people (at least on here) always saw the benefits to "The Car of the Future" or "Private Space Launches, Done Cheap".
Tesla posts pre profitability:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317921
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534198
SpaceX posts pre profitability:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=409653
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=320362
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317918
(Please excuse the low comment counts. That's not because I'm cherry-picking, old HN was just a much quieter place.)
Tesla posts pre profitability:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317921
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534198
SpaceX posts pre profitability:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=409653
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=320362
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=317918
(Please excuse the low comment counts. That's not because I'm cherry-picking, old HN was just a much quieter place.)
Ah - I misread your comment. I was thinking “posts” instead of “comments”.
It seems you’re correct and that HN has generally been more positive than my recollection. I’ve been focused on the titles of posts that appeared, but of course those can be very different from the comments as you pointed out.
It seems you’re correct and that HN has generally been more positive than my recollection. I’ve been focused on the titles of posts that appeared, but of course those can be very different from the comments as you pointed out.
I thought they would just do xtwitter just to highlight the change . xwitter would be ok too. Xtagram would be interesting.
This looks a lot like the X Windows logo from MIT/Project Athena. Am I the only one that's seeing this?
What's the new name for tweets? Xosts?
[deleted]
The first thing I thought of was "eggs"
"equis"
Who’s going to be brave enough to put anything on an online platform this man ever “builds” in the future?
Well, I'm gone. Just deactivated my account. So done with literally anything that smells like Musk.
I thought for a second that I click bad link earlier when the X showed up and the twitter logo turn into X.
its tiresome that non-technical folk treat musks ideas as novel, but anyone familiar knows that Snapchat, IG, wechat and others are already well along the paths of "everything apps". Sorta interested to see how twitter can compete, being so far behind capability wise.
Meanwhile twitter is having some serious glitches since 3 days. Replies hidden, broken notifications.
Bye Bye Birdie
Instead of the birds singing it from the roofs you're going to get X-ed out. Not encouraging.
I'll use X like "ex-twitter user", with "ex-tweets and ex-comments".
Does anyone remember the original bird logo, which was literally from iStockphoto IIRC?
How much of this is due to Elon wanting to pretend "I built this?" insert meme.
I wonder what's more inane: The Facebook name change to 'meta', or this.
twitters brand is valuable. the only logical explanation is that musk thinks he will get something even more valuable in return for axing the brand. the strength of the brand is exactly why it needs to go. twitters brand is too strong for an identity change into an app that does all kinds of content, banking, identity, etc. the set of services that is offered online is emerging from the primordial soup of the early 2000s and gaining a definitive shape — the wave of the future is all platforms offering the same services on dedicated apps instead of the internet being a hodgepodge of scattered javascript apps. if x can be the first foot in the door of a paradigm change like that, ditching the bird will be an excellent decision. i think the long established pattern of people laughing at musk and then promptly copying him will hold true here.
I instinctively click on 'X' when I want to close a thread. It kinda works.
The new logo is tacky and foolish. This guy is trying really hard to kill Twitter.
Twitter is now a windowing framework? The domains are similar too (x.com vs. x.org).
I don't like the new logo, Twitter is not it without the little blue bird :(
Ketamine is a hell of a drug.
X.com: terror from the deep.
Twitter is Musk's hobby. An expensive hobby, but nonetheless a hobby.
Are there still folks on HN who think Musk isn't destroying Twitter?
Is it just me or does that new logo look an awful lot like the X11 logo?
I think X.org could have a claim on Musk's "new" logo.
Musk will do what Musk does, whether or not he will be successful time will tell. But he has proven track record and he has made me a lot of money historically. To all you cringe haters, use your valuable energy else where rather than trashing others online.
Twitter is everybody’s favorite popcorn drama! Or maybe that’s Reddit.
[deleted]
I would like to be a fly on the wall of meta headquarters right now.
Is there a way to filter out the anti Elon comments on this thread?
Twitter logo now copies X Windows system logo, public left gawping
What's a post on X going to be called? An "Eh?"
It feels like that all Musk wanted was to destroy twitter.
I really don't understand why Twitter really wanted to sell it to Musk. It always felt like a bad idea.
I understand that it was probably a matter of money and law or whatever, but I wonder how the former twitter execs are feeling about all this now.
I never really used twitter, to be clear, but to sell anything to somebody who clearly seems unfit for it because he just made an arrogant, seems quite like a bad decision. I wonder if they regret it.
Although there is one benefit in this story: it shows that Elon Musk is a clown, and as he initially did not want to buy Twitter, it seems like he is taking revenge by destroying it, which is an even better proof. Capitalism is really really awful. This story is a good example why capitalism often doesn't work.
I really don't understand why Twitter really wanted to sell it to Musk. It always felt like a bad idea.
I understand that it was probably a matter of money and law or whatever, but I wonder how the former twitter execs are feeling about all this now.
I never really used twitter, to be clear, but to sell anything to somebody who clearly seems unfit for it because he just made an arrogant, seems quite like a bad decision. I wonder if they regret it.
Although there is one benefit in this story: it shows that Elon Musk is a clown, and as he initially did not want to buy Twitter, it seems like he is taking revenge by destroying it, which is an even better proof. Capitalism is really really awful. This story is a good example why capitalism often doesn't work.
Wow - I know this is not a fresh comment (6 days old, now), but, too many points to pass up writing something.
I'll start, for some semblance of "full disclosure", by writing that I was never a fan of Twitter, and I quite dislike Musk in recent years for a Thai-cave-system-sized set of reasons. Nevertheless:
1) It was the money. And, to your point about capitalism, it was "brilliant" within that context. "Free money" wasn't going to last forever, some were already beginning to prepare (more actively) for inflation and interest rate changes, Twitter always had significant trouble with the whole VC and ad-based model* and had continual challenges with profitability and "expectations", etc.
No one ever had a great plan for turning Twitter into the kind of economic power that comparable companies, in terms of a certain importance to the information ecosystem of the net, were. A particular challenge in the kind of gray area occupied by a social media company so dependent on the writings of experts, journalists, etc. that led to importance and power yet created serious "conflict of interest"-like challenges (beyond those of systems where user fame and economic power and such were directly coupled to that of the system etc.).
So, "exit strategy", particularly in the context of the very "pump-and-dump" (and pyramid-esque, in outcome if not exact implementation) economic model "Silicon Valley" enabled**, was of significant interest to people with that mindset who still had "capital" 'trapped' in Twitter [1].
As for how former execs might be feeling, most are represented by this clip here: https://youtu.be/0Z2JTPalv_s
Some, like Dorsey***, are probably actually mildly unhappy about events. But, even people who were trying to run that company - when Musk walked in with a sink like the class clown on the first day of junior high school - felt more relief to be freed of the burdens, after the initial shock and unpleasantness of the lead-up wore off.
2) Other factors involved in the mess likely include Saudi Arabia (nice chunk of money from them), and their sadistic authoritarianism (looked up - Saudi dissidents twitter - and similar terms for info), China and their continuing work to have more of a say in global affairs, various billionaires annoyed at journalists who depended on the platform (including Musk), etc.
3) Capitalism often does work. It works incredibly well, crucially WITH adequate regulation. There is no way we have the kind of material and other wealth (distributed far too unevenly, but existing and distributed nonetheless) without "capitalism". That written, it undeniably has every bit the potential for harm, corruption, etc. as just about every other system, technology, etc. we've come up with or discovered with similar reach and power. I loathe numerous aspects of it, yet, have no better system to offer - and that is primarily because it isn't systems, technologies, ideas, or anything else really, that causes problems. It's people, and no system, technology, etc. can fix that underlying problem.
* More so than most other comparable companies in terms of name recognizability, "importance", etc. & with origins somewhat clustered in an "era" of opportunity within the "internet framework"
** Motto: "This ain't your grandfather's 'Gilded Age'"
*** It was his baby, if it was anyone's, in more recent years
[1] Recent article on exactly what anyone with some degree of brain power and hanging around "Wall Street Bets" and its more curated and expert offshoots has known for years: https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-big-tech-ant...
I'll start, for some semblance of "full disclosure", by writing that I was never a fan of Twitter, and I quite dislike Musk in recent years for a Thai-cave-system-sized set of reasons. Nevertheless:
1) It was the money. And, to your point about capitalism, it was "brilliant" within that context. "Free money" wasn't going to last forever, some were already beginning to prepare (more actively) for inflation and interest rate changes, Twitter always had significant trouble with the whole VC and ad-based model* and had continual challenges with profitability and "expectations", etc.
No one ever had a great plan for turning Twitter into the kind of economic power that comparable companies, in terms of a certain importance to the information ecosystem of the net, were. A particular challenge in the kind of gray area occupied by a social media company so dependent on the writings of experts, journalists, etc. that led to importance and power yet created serious "conflict of interest"-like challenges (beyond those of systems where user fame and economic power and such were directly coupled to that of the system etc.).
So, "exit strategy", particularly in the context of the very "pump-and-dump" (and pyramid-esque, in outcome if not exact implementation) economic model "Silicon Valley" enabled**, was of significant interest to people with that mindset who still had "capital" 'trapped' in Twitter [1].
As for how former execs might be feeling, most are represented by this clip here: https://youtu.be/0Z2JTPalv_s
Some, like Dorsey***, are probably actually mildly unhappy about events. But, even people who were trying to run that company - when Musk walked in with a sink like the class clown on the first day of junior high school - felt more relief to be freed of the burdens, after the initial shock and unpleasantness of the lead-up wore off.
2) Other factors involved in the mess likely include Saudi Arabia (nice chunk of money from them), and their sadistic authoritarianism (looked up - Saudi dissidents twitter - and similar terms for info), China and their continuing work to have more of a say in global affairs, various billionaires annoyed at journalists who depended on the platform (including Musk), etc.
3) Capitalism often does work. It works incredibly well, crucially WITH adequate regulation. There is no way we have the kind of material and other wealth (distributed far too unevenly, but existing and distributed nonetheless) without "capitalism". That written, it undeniably has every bit the potential for harm, corruption, etc. as just about every other system, technology, etc. we've come up with or discovered with similar reach and power. I loathe numerous aspects of it, yet, have no better system to offer - and that is primarily because it isn't systems, technologies, ideas, or anything else really, that causes problems. It's people, and no system, technology, etc. can fix that underlying problem.
* More so than most other comparable companies in terms of name recognizability, "importance", etc. & with origins somewhat clustered in an "era" of opportunity within the "internet framework"
** Motto: "This ain't your grandfather's 'Gilded Age'"
*** It was his baby, if it was anyone's, in more recent years
[1] Recent article on exactly what anyone with some degree of brain power and hanging around "Wall Street Bets" and its more curated and expert offshoots has known for years: https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-big-tech-ant...
Hey uh, why not pay top-tier talent to build a more modern platform from scratch, starting with zero technical debt, and then when it's ready, merge in the Twitter userbase, and sunset it?
It's because he's a fucking moron.
It's because he's a fucking moron.
X Twitter - HN will be my future single source of truth
Junior high male marketing. X is soooo coooool!
I don’t really see what Musk is trying to accomplish.
Everything he’s done to Twitter carries the foul stench of Death by Private Equity. No product improvements, but worse reliability, more spam, and a weird desperate-looking rebrand. This is what it looks like when inept MBAs try to squeeze some more life out of a dying platform.
The strange thing here is that Musk’s acquisition was supposed to be the exact opposite. He’s not beholden to private equity masters. He’s supposed to be a product genius. He was supposed to bankroll exciting new ventures. Instead it’s kind of like MySpace meets SourceForge.
Everything he’s done to Twitter carries the foul stench of Death by Private Equity. No product improvements, but worse reliability, more spam, and a weird desperate-looking rebrand. This is what it looks like when inept MBAs try to squeeze some more life out of a dying platform.
The strange thing here is that Musk’s acquisition was supposed to be the exact opposite. He’s not beholden to private equity masters. He’s supposed to be a product genius. He was supposed to bankroll exciting new ventures. Instead it’s kind of like MySpace meets SourceForge.
He is not a good engineer or strategist. He is good at marketing though. He got lucky with Space X and the rockets launched. He got a shit-ton of funding for Tesla, the whole business doesn't make sense (competitors can do better with tighter margins) but people threw money at him, so it worked.
So he thought he is a genius and can make this one work too. He realized his mistake (tried to get off the deal) but when the deal stuck, he thought he could run this thing; and turn it over to a massive success.
His latest money (valuation) came from his Twitter pumping/dumping shitposting. That's why he wanted to have Twitter and that's what he is doing with Twitter right now. He is obviously burning Twitter to the ground and with it Tesla, which has a 800bn valuation as of today...
I just hope Space X survives all this madness.
So he thought he is a genius and can make this one work too. He realized his mistake (tried to get off the deal) but when the deal stuck, he thought he could run this thing; and turn it over to a massive success.
His latest money (valuation) came from his Twitter pumping/dumping shitposting. That's why he wanted to have Twitter and that's what he is doing with Twitter right now. He is obviously burning Twitter to the ground and with it Tesla, which has a 800bn valuation as of today...
I just hope Space X survives all this madness.
The current vision for SpaceX is great, the product as well.
Let's not forget that the initial plan of SpaceX was to meet and get drunk with Russian leaders to buy missiles from them and resell them to US market.
Imagine the nightmare if it actually had worked as planned.
Regarding implementation in SpaceX, the success is mostly due to very good engineers and to a less bureaucratic process, where you can move fast and break things.
The NASA is a big boat that cannot steer due to political issues. It works ok but it is extremely slow and expensive.
Let's not forget that the initial plan of SpaceX was to meet and get drunk with Russian leaders to buy missiles from them and resell them to US market.
Imagine the nightmare if it actually had worked as planned.
Regarding implementation in SpaceX, the success is mostly due to very good engineers and to a less bureaucratic process, where you can move fast and break things.
The NASA is a big boat that cannot steer due to political issues. It works ok but it is extremely slow and expensive.
> political issues
Ah those pesky "political issues" commonly known as "process", "due diligence", or "laws".
Ah those pesky "political issues" commonly known as "process", "due diligence", or "laws".
> Let's not forget that the initial plan of SpaceX was to meet and get drunk with Russian leaders to buy missiles from them and resell them to US market. Imagine the nightmare if it actually had worked as planned.
The story I've heard is that he wanted to buy a single missile, but regardless.. where is the 'nightmare' in disarming Russia by buying up all their missiles in a firesale? It seems doubtful that such purchases would have effectively funded the construction of new missiles since Russia is/was so corrupt. I think the money would have gone into the hands of some oligarchs, and not been invested back into new missile development.
Even if that plan had gone through, it would have been child's play compared to the ESA and NASA as well as numerous western corporations buying rocket rides from Russia since the mid 90s up to the second Russian invasion of Ukraine a few years ago. Go down the lists of Proton launches on wikipedia and mouse over each of the payloads, you'll see that most of them since the mid 90s have been for American or European organizations. Even ULA and Orbital Sciences have bought hundreds of engines from Russia and used them to launch US payloads. I don't see many people raking them over the coals for this. Has this even proven to be a nightmare? Western money has kept Russia's space program alive, but has that funded any successful 'Wunderwaffes'? Russia's military is still running off the fumes of the Soviet Union and their supposedly amazing wonder weapons either don't exist or aren't relevant. Most of that money probably went up their noses.
The story I've heard is that he wanted to buy a single missile, but regardless.. where is the 'nightmare' in disarming Russia by buying up all their missiles in a firesale? It seems doubtful that such purchases would have effectively funded the construction of new missiles since Russia is/was so corrupt. I think the money would have gone into the hands of some oligarchs, and not been invested back into new missile development.
Even if that plan had gone through, it would have been child's play compared to the ESA and NASA as well as numerous western corporations buying rocket rides from Russia since the mid 90s up to the second Russian invasion of Ukraine a few years ago. Go down the lists of Proton launches on wikipedia and mouse over each of the payloads, you'll see that most of them since the mid 90s have been for American or European organizations. Even ULA and Orbital Sciences have bought hundreds of engines from Russia and used them to launch US payloads. I don't see many people raking them over the coals for this. Has this even proven to be a nightmare? Western money has kept Russia's space program alive, but has that funded any successful 'Wunderwaffes'? Russia's military is still running off the fumes of the Soviet Union and their supposedly amazing wonder weapons either don't exist or aren't relevant. Most of that money probably went up their noses.
Musk's companies operate without a lot of the kind of beaurocratic bloat found in most other auto makers or NASA. No dozens of DEI administrators making everyone's work life miserable, pretending it's not just politics being rammed down their throat, treating grown adults like children, etc. That alone gives him a competitive advantage.
Do you honestly think DEI is the biggest source of bureaucratic bloat?
Yes, though not directly perhaps in many private companies, but it's a sure sign of a serious systemic inefficiency in management and company culture. Unless it's a major University, then it's absolutely a massive problem by itself.
I thought he wanted to just buy a single rocket to fly a plant with a webcam to Mars to inspire people.
> I just hope Space X survives all this madness.
Should SpaceX even threaten to go off the rails, the US government can and will seize it faster than Elon can go crying to the Supreme Court.
Space access is too much of a national security risk.
Should SpaceX even threaten to go off the rails, the US government can and will seize it faster than Elon can go crying to the Supreme Court.
Space access is too much of a national security risk.
I think they're more likely to bail it out than seize it
I don't have any worries that SpaceX goes under financially. I'm more worried Musk allowing Russian or Chinese companies access to their launch vehicles, or refusing to launch US/Western hardware because he thinks his ass hasn't been kissed enough.
Something like Tesla only worked because of the era of low interest rates, quantitative easing, insanely busy tech investment market, etc, in the post 2008 era. 15 years of record low interest rates meant investors were desperate to find places to shove money to get returns, and Tesla was one of the chosen spots, profitability be damned.
These days it would be harder to pull something like that off, investors would be demanding better books from day one.
These days it would be harder to pull something like that off, investors would be demanding better books from day one.
> profitability be damned
Currently, Tesla makes each car with a profit of almost 10k USD. That is insane compared to competitors, VW is at 973USD. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-teslas-unrivaled-pr...
It was really bad in the beginning, but now it's stellar, second only to Ferrari and other luxury cars. I don't like the guy, but this is not just luck.
Currently, Tesla makes each car with a profit of almost 10k USD. That is insane compared to competitors, VW is at 973USD. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-teslas-unrivaled-pr...
It was really bad in the beginning, but now it's stellar, second only to Ferrari and other luxury cars. I don't like the guy, but this is not just luck.
Well yes that's my point. In the long run it worked out for them... but only after years of intense non-profitable investment that would not have happened in a more conservative investment climate where higher interest rates prevailed.
There would have been other places for investors to stick their money.
There would have been other places for investors to stick their money.
They're not comparable numbers. Tesla doesn't count profit per car the same way as the rest of the industry.
care to explain yourself? All I could find was this article, lamenting that car dealerships take up too much profit for everyone else other than Tesla.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins...
I don't see how that negates everything I said. Tesla can and does ship directly to buyers, so kudos to them.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins...
I don't see how that negates everything I said. Tesla can and does ship directly to buyers, so kudos to them.
The only thing Twitter has ever had going for it is its brand. The rebranding is weird and indicative of an obsession on Musk's part, but everyone needs to stop pretending that Twitter was anything more than that brand, which could disappear at any moment. It was a financial black hole propped up by frankly stupid amounts of capital injection, made briefly profitable by the black swan of Trump hysteria. I have yet to hear a plan for Twitter less stupid than the one currently being executed by Musk.
Twitter missed out big time in search. There is so much high-quality content on that platform, yet it's practically undiscoverable. I've way too often spent 15 minutes+ trying to find a tweet I saw at some point. Usually I never find it again. Search is a great save for ad revenue.
Leave Twitter as is otherwise, add search and cut opex. Twitter was great for what it was from a user perspective.
Leave Twitter as is otherwise, add search and cut opex. Twitter was great for what it was from a user perspective.
> There is so much high-quality content on that platform, yet it's practically undiscoverable.
That problem really must be bad because I don't think I've seen anything of major value on Twitter in my entire time using it.
That problem really must be bad because I don't think I've seen anything of major value on Twitter in my entire time using it.
Your experience on Twitter is very dependent on whom you follow. I've spend a lot of time curating my lists and pruning them even of people who list good content of it comes with too much noise.
Edit: Example of the first Tweet thread in my favorite list that's valuable and hard to find elsewhere: https://twitter.com/devonzuegel/status/1683301667733663744?s...
Edit2: To be clear, I'm not saying Twitter needs better recommendations. Maybe they do, I don't care. I'm explicitly saying search.
Edit: Example of the first Tweet thread in my favorite list that's valuable and hard to find elsewhere: https://twitter.com/devonzuegel/status/1683301667733663744?s...
Edit2: To be clear, I'm not saying Twitter needs better recommendations. Maybe they do, I don't care. I'm explicitly saying search.
People aren't going to suddenly stop calling it Twitter and tweets.
I doubt it will have much impact on marketing. It's most just a domain name and some corporate heading stuff.
The only utility and potential confusion is a single letter domain for linking to tweets until people get used to it. But on sfuff like imessage, SERPs etc it pulls in the <title> tag above the domain so it's not the only signal
I doubt it will have much impact on marketing. It's most just a domain name and some corporate heading stuff.
The only utility and potential confusion is a single letter domain for linking to tweets until people get used to it. But on sfuff like imessage, SERPs etc it pulls in the <title> tag above the domain so it's not the only signal
If sub-generational slang can come and go in a single-digit number of years, I think the population at large will have little problem forgetting "Twitter" and "tweet" as general terminology. The verb "to google" has stuck around because Google is still around, though I'm sure there's some threshold of time where terminology gets passed down and sticks (velcro, kleenex, etc).
I'm still convinced he's just going for a "clever" way to declare bankruptcy in order to not pay full price for the Twitter acquisition.
Make it look like a business... "accident", publicly say twitter actually never had a chance to get out of debt, Sell the assets, refinance the whole thing at a fraction of the original buyout price, threw a few millions to the creditors and get away with the whole thing.
Make it look like a business... "accident", publicly say twitter actually never had a chance to get out of debt, Sell the assets, refinance the whole thing at a fraction of the original buyout price, threw a few millions to the creditors and get away with the whole thing.
This would have made sense if he delegated the responsibility of running it to third-parties and completely severed ties with the company. He didn't do that, which given the colossal amounts involved will get him into litigation.
And if you think he is smart, think again. He tried to "smartly" get off the deal but the other party was smarter. He is clearly not the smartest man in the room.
And if you think he is smart, think again. He tried to "smartly" get off the deal but the other party was smarter. He is clearly not the smartest man in the room.
He's probably way less smart than he believes himself to be. But he's already tried in the past to get out of problems by throwing a a curveball to the issue.
Boring Company / Hyperloop existed mainly to stop California from building their own high speed rail, and The Tesla Truck existed mainly to rebuild hype around the Tesla brand at the time, and it's probably never going to go into production. Both were "built to fail".
Once he realized that he couldn't get out of buying Twitter, I believe he's trying to apply the same script to make sure the loss is way smaller than 44 billion dollars.
Boring Company / Hyperloop existed mainly to stop California from building their own high speed rail, and The Tesla Truck existed mainly to rebuild hype around the Tesla brand at the time, and it's probably never going to go into production. Both were "built to fail".
Once he realized that he couldn't get out of buying Twitter, I believe he's trying to apply the same script to make sure the loss is way smaller than 44 billion dollars.
> The Tesla Truck existed mainly to rebuild hype around the Tesla brand at the time, and it's probably never going to go into production. Both were "built to fail".
Regardless of whether "truck" here refers to the Cybertruck (https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck, for which you can place an order) or the Semi (https://www.tesla.com/semi), are you really suggesting it is just fake and there's nobody working on these vehicles?
I will throw in the new Roadster (https://www.tesla.com/roadster) for good measure too.
Regardless of whether "truck" here refers to the Cybertruck (https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck, for which you can place an order) or the Semi (https://www.tesla.com/semi), are you really suggesting it is just fake and there's nobody working on these vehicles?
I will throw in the new Roadster (https://www.tesla.com/roadster) for good measure too.
Yep, I was talking about the Cybertruck! thanks for the correction!
Also, I wouldn't call it fake outright. Something more along the lines of the Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato[1] or the Porsche 911 Dakar[2] - which are like... yep, they're real cars, but it's more of a limited run branding exercise than an actual vehicles range.
[1]https://www.lamborghini.com/it-en/modelli/huracan/huracan-st...
[2]https://www.porsche.com/international/models/911/911-dakar/9...
Also, I wouldn't call it fake outright. Something more along the lines of the Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato[1] or the Porsche 911 Dakar[2] - which are like... yep, they're real cars, but it's more of a limited run branding exercise than an actual vehicles range.
[1]https://www.lamborghini.com/it-en/modelli/huracan/huracan-st...
[2]https://www.porsche.com/international/models/911/911-dakar/9...
> He tried to "smartly" get off the deal but the other party was smarter.
Well, the other party sold their company to Elon Musk to run into the ground, so smarter isn't quite the word I'd use for them, either.
Well, the other party sold their company to Elon Musk to run into the ground, so smarter isn't quite the word I'd use for them, either.
They are investors and emotionally detached from the company. I don't think they care about what happens to the company after they hand it over.
They sold their company at a very good price, much higher than its actual worth. That’s hardly a dumb business decision. They will also have a good track record on management, given how much better twitter were under their control.
> They sold their company at a very good price, much higher than its actual worth.
Yeah, I get that, but in doing so destroyed a thing that lots of people found value in. So yeah, they made more money than the thing was worth, great business decision, but I'm not willing to award "this nice thing is worth more as scrap than it is on its own right now" as being called "smart".
Yeah, I get that, but in doing so destroyed a thing that lots of people found value in. So yeah, they made more money than the thing was worth, great business decision, but I'm not willing to award "this nice thing is worth more as scrap than it is on its own right now" as being called "smart".
If someone wanted to buy your house for three times its market value and their grand plan was to turn it into lumber, would the smart move be to decline?
As a followup to my previous comment—we've lived in this house for over 13 years, and own it outright. If we had lived here only a few years, and had no real equity in the house, that would probably change the equation considerably.
[deleted]
I've thought about this too and have mentioned it to friends a couple of times. Not sure if bankruptcy, but it's a way to get tax credits if it's not successful.
i dont remember who said it but isnt there a famous adage in the accounting world that its not a smart idea to get tax credits by making actual real losses. You're supposed to find ways to make book losses without actually lighting real money on fire
That's why companies pay for acquisitions or mergers primarily in stock. It keeps cash reserves available for other uses. If the acquisition flops, you can write down the value, take a hit on the income statement, and lower your tax owed for the year.
That is why sellers do not always agree to accept stock instead of cash.
When in the "billions" range, the deals are going to be light on cash. That's how Adobe can "pay" $20bn for Figma using stock.
I believe twitter was an all cash transaction.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/876661/0000876661220...
> The merger between Twitter, Inc. and X Holdings II, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings I, Inc., wholly owned by Elon R. Musk became effective on October 27, 2022. Each share of Twitter, Inc. Common Stock was exchanged for USD 54.20 in cash, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/876661/0000876661220...
> The merger between Twitter, Inc. and X Holdings II, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings I, Inc., wholly owned by Elon R. Musk became effective on October 27, 2022. Each share of Twitter, Inc. Common Stock was exchanged for USD 54.20 in cash, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.
> No product improvements, but worse reliability, more spam, and a weird desperate-looking rebrand.
What are you talking about? There has been more change at Twitter in the last year than in the last ten. From editable comments, subscriptions, revenue sharing, blue checkmark for sale, alternative check marks for govts and org, culling of old accounts, API restrictions, forcing people to put parody in acct. I noticed a lot less spam as well. A year and a half ago I remember every top reply being crypto scams from fake vitalik accounts
I get you prob don't like the guy but saying the product is unchanged is just delusional. Maybe some of the changes are worse but there have been a lot of changes
What are you talking about? There has been more change at Twitter in the last year than in the last ten. From editable comments, subscriptions, revenue sharing, blue checkmark for sale, alternative check marks for govts and org, culling of old accounts, API restrictions, forcing people to put parody in acct. I noticed a lot less spam as well. A year and a half ago I remember every top reply being crypto scams from fake vitalik accounts
I get you prob don't like the guy but saying the product is unchanged is just delusional. Maybe some of the changes are worse but there have been a lot of changes
Editable comments and subscriptions predate Musk.
Alternative check marks and forcing people to put parody in the account were both caused by the idiotic decision to put blue checkmarks for sale. There's no need to conspicuously identify government/business accounts as "no really, this is for real" if you haven't completely devalued the "no really, this is for real" symbol of your platform. And there's no need to put "parody" on an Elon parody account if you can clearly see that it's not verified.
Are you saying that API restrictions is a good thing? You seem to be suggesting that, but I don't know why you'd feel that way. Revenue sharing just incentivizes inflammatory behavior, which is an obvious net-negative for the platform as a whole. Culling of old accounts is neutral at best.
And the DM spam problems were basically unchanged until just the past week when he forced everyone's DMs closed. He did manage to introduce new spam problems though, because now every large account's replies is full of the most braindead nonsense, just because the user paid $8. I'll gladly take crypto spam instead this.
Also, the text you quoted said "no product improvements", but you're saying that the product is not "unchanged". I agree the product has been changed, but I would agree with the GP's statement that there haven't been improvements.
Alternative check marks and forcing people to put parody in the account were both caused by the idiotic decision to put blue checkmarks for sale. There's no need to conspicuously identify government/business accounts as "no really, this is for real" if you haven't completely devalued the "no really, this is for real" symbol of your platform. And there's no need to put "parody" on an Elon parody account if you can clearly see that it's not verified.
Are you saying that API restrictions is a good thing? You seem to be suggesting that, but I don't know why you'd feel that way. Revenue sharing just incentivizes inflammatory behavior, which is an obvious net-negative for the platform as a whole. Culling of old accounts is neutral at best.
And the DM spam problems were basically unchanged until just the past week when he forced everyone's DMs closed. He did manage to introduce new spam problems though, because now every large account's replies is full of the most braindead nonsense, just because the user paid $8. I'll gladly take crypto spam instead this.
Also, the text you quoted said "no product improvements", but you're saying that the product is not "unchanged". I agree the product has been changed, but I would agree with the GP's statement that there haven't been improvements.
Blue checkmarks should be available to all or should have objective rules for qualification. It was used as a carrot and a stick. The opaque process refused people with millions of followers and gave it to others with a few k followers and no notoriety. It was extremely political. It should be available to all and not just the annoited class. More explicit tags like govt or corp are a no brainier.i shouldn't have to guess if this is a personal account, corp or govt
As for revenue sharing, take musk out of the picture and if I were to ask about a social platform that is primarily supported by subscriptions and content generators get paid, you would be all for it. Do you apply the same criticism with YouTube sharing revenue?
Come on, I can't take you seriously for criticizing a social network for sharing revenue with creators. We're just so far apart on basic values nothing I can say could change your mind
As for revenue sharing, take musk out of the picture and if I were to ask about a social platform that is primarily supported by subscriptions and content generators get paid, you would be all for it. Do you apply the same criticism with YouTube sharing revenue?
Come on, I can't take you seriously for criticizing a social network for sharing revenue with creators. We're just so far apart on basic values nothing I can say could change your mind
I agree the verification process was flawed. It was supposed to be "this person is who they seem to be", and it became also a symbol of prestige. That needed to be addressed, likely by being a bit more available (though I don't think available to all is the right move), and also by just suspending/banning anyone who broke rules badly enough to get their badge taken away. But blasting the doors open and removing a symbol of trust is a pretty clear example of throwing out the baby with the bath water. And I agree more explicit tags are also good, but they became necessary because Elon nuked the previous system. A few gentle changes could have addressed all the problems.
The kind of toxicity and algorithmic pushing of content on Twitter isn't quite like other platforms. Users are regularly exposed to content from deliberately inflammatory users. Your timeline can be filled with retweets, suggested content, or replies to accounts you don't follow by accounts you do. Adding a monetary reward for being inflammatory before addressing the toxicity is the problem. Adding revenue share to Twitter is like throwing money into a mosh pit; it wasn't done thoughtfully enough to not make things worse.
If Musk wanted to expand revenue share, he could have done it in thoughtful ways. Expanding the subscriptions feature would have been a good start.
The kind of toxicity and algorithmic pushing of content on Twitter isn't quite like other platforms. Users are regularly exposed to content from deliberately inflammatory users. Your timeline can be filled with retweets, suggested content, or replies to accounts you don't follow by accounts you do. Adding a monetary reward for being inflammatory before addressing the toxicity is the problem. Adding revenue share to Twitter is like throwing money into a mosh pit; it wasn't done thoughtfully enough to not make things worse.
If Musk wanted to expand revenue share, he could have done it in thoughtful ways. Expanding the subscriptions feature would have been a good start.
No-one's claiming it's _unchanged_. The word they used was 'improvements'.
The only change I would say is not an improvement is the api restrictions. Which ones don't you like?
Rate limits, even more censorship, more blue checkmarks, blue checkmarks sorted to the top of threads, can't see accounts if not logged in, growth in scam ads, musk's tweets promoted to everyone's feeds...
I'm sure there's more. I stopped using the service because it was never great but now it's one of the worst properties on the internet.
I'm sure there's more. I stopped using the service because it was never great but now it's one of the worst properties on the internet.
To add some recent gems:
* everyone's DM settings got changed to only allow DMs from blue checkmarks/Musk sycophants
* There are now rate limits on DMs unless you pay for the checkmark
These changes of course are justified with spam reduction. IMO the best spam reduction would be to allow me to hide all tweets from people who pay for a checkmark and didn't have one pre-Musk
* everyone's DM settings got changed to only allow DMs from blue checkmarks/Musk sycophants
* There are now rate limits on DMs unless you pay for the checkmark
These changes of course are justified with spam reduction. IMO the best spam reduction would be to allow me to hide all tweets from people who pay for a checkmark and didn't have one pre-Musk
> musk's tweets promoted to everyone's feeds...
Almost surprisingly, blocking him does still appear to work. Though it will sometimes have him in the list of suggestions to follow, even if you've blocked him...
Almost surprisingly, blocking him does still appear to work. Though it will sometimes have him in the list of suggestions to follow, even if you've blocked him...
Changes for the worse. Also, you might want to check out that crypto scam timeline.
As they said on The Verge podcast - it's like he's addicted to cigarettes and he bought the cigarette factory.
bought the factory, and then slashed the already minimal product quality assurance the factory was operating under. The top replies to tweets these days are all paid blue check hustle vultures.
Sounds accurate. He has no real talent for managing a social media platform. He probably has some (more or less accidental) talent for managing certain kinds of tech businesses. But now he's sticking to an addiction that doesn't serve anyone.
$10 on the rebrand being so he can claim to be the founder of x.com.
God I'd forgotten about X.com.
Holy hell he's still on that tragic dream.
gwd(1)
PayPal only worked UX-wise because of Levchin and Thiel, a former Mafia member told me once. Musk never had a knack for keeping things spic and clean - it's well known how he interferes in codebases to add in his shitty bad-practices code, or how he advocated for using Windows over Linux at Paypal.
Musk is a business genius alright, but not what I would call a product genius like Jobs was.
Musk is a business genius alright, but not what I would call a product genius like Jobs was.
I think his work at Tesla displays product genius. The cars are best in class, have transformed car UX, and are selling like hot cakes.
> have transformed car UX
True in the sense that it's made it worse. The "giant touchscreen and fewer knobs" UX sucks once the novelty wears off. Then there are things like the "yoke" and the retracting door handles...
I think many Tesla fans confuse novelty for improvement.
True in the sense that it's made it worse. The "giant touchscreen and fewer knobs" UX sucks once the novelty wears off. Then there are things like the "yoke" and the retracting door handles...
I think many Tesla fans confuse novelty for improvement.
I think there's good evidence here: Teslas consistently have high review scores, and are selling in huge numbers. E.g. The Model Y was the top selling car in the world for Q1 this year.
Edit. The 'top selling car' figure is contested (see below) and depends on how you define single model. However multiple news sites (including reuters/The Verge etc) have reported this story without retraction. We also have more recent stories saying the Model Y is the highest selling car in Europe for H1. Whatever way you look at it, these cars are selling very well.
Edit. The 'top selling car' figure is contested (see below) and depends on how you define single model. However multiple news sites (including reuters/The Verge etc) have reported this story without retraction. We also have more recent stories saying the Model Y is the highest selling car in Europe for H1. Whatever way you look at it, these cars are selling very well.
It wasn’t the top selling car. That seems to be something Elon made up:
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tes...
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tes...
And the 4 other best selling cars were all Toyota.
I rented a Tesla while on a business trip a few weeks back (not by choice, the rental agency just gave it to me in the Economy class) and I absolutely hated the UI. The basic car interface has converged on its standard form after decades of desiggn, and that means that when I get into most cars I immediately know how to adjust the various settings to my preferences. Having to spend 15 minutes sitting in a rental car parking lot digging through the menu at 1am just so I could move the wing mirrors and seat was an incredible pain. All the settings I care about were like 3 levels deep in some menu, and that sucks! Sure having a lot of knobs in view isn't as "aesthetic" from a premium product perspective, but damn does it make it easy to change things quickly.
> No product improvements
That's false though. Some of the improvements are gated behind a subscription, but HD video streams with more options and longer durations (allowing full movies to be distributed on it), longer tweets (reducing the need for "threads" which are obnoxious to read on Twitter and have led people to write bots that put them together), view counts, bringing back the chronological timeline and increased transparency are all net improvements.
What makes this surprising, or sad, or funny depending on your perspective, is that among the rapid product improvements, he sprinkles odd, impulsive decisions with little context and controversial messages that alienate a bunch of people. I guarantee you that without that he'd be hailed as a genius by the people who are calling him Elmo and pretending that revolutionizing the car industry and satellite Internet was "just luck". If there's a lesson to be learned there it's that social media addiction can spoil anyone.
That's false though. Some of the improvements are gated behind a subscription, but HD video streams with more options and longer durations (allowing full movies to be distributed on it), longer tweets (reducing the need for "threads" which are obnoxious to read on Twitter and have led people to write bots that put them together), view counts, bringing back the chronological timeline and increased transparency are all net improvements.
What makes this surprising, or sad, or funny depending on your perspective, is that among the rapid product improvements, he sprinkles odd, impulsive decisions with little context and controversial messages that alienate a bunch of people. I guarantee you that without that he'd be hailed as a genius by the people who are calling him Elmo and pretending that revolutionizing the car industry and satellite Internet was "just luck". If there's a lesson to be learned there it's that social media addiction can spoil anyone.
My favourite part is firing everything but a skeleton crew and now claiming the goal is to build the wests wechat. Might need a few more employees for that.
> I don’t really see what Musk is trying to accomplish.
Twitter wasnt profitable or sustainable so he s going to experiment in whatever way possible only to realize what everybody knows: mass media is not profitable in the financial sense, but in the political
Twitter wasnt profitable or sustainable so he s going to experiment in whatever way possible only to realize what everybody knows: mass media is not profitable in the financial sense, but in the political
> No product improvements
Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement (something I'd wanted for a decade). Showing view counts is also nice. I don't like the login-walls and selling blue checkmarks, but I understand that the company was financially struggling prior to Elon. In any case my impression has been that Twitter has improved more since Elon than prior to that. My Twitter usage is definitely higher than before, though admittedly that could be unrelated to Elon.
Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement (something I'd wanted for a decade). Showing view counts is also nice. I don't like the login-walls and selling blue checkmarks, but I understand that the company was financially struggling prior to Elon. In any case my impression has been that Twitter has improved more since Elon than prior to that. My Twitter usage is definitely higher than before, though admittedly that could be unrelated to Elon.
> Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement
The essence of Twitter is precisely that the tweets are short, bite-sized thoughts. It's what drives interactions and engagement, removing the limit shows a lack of understanding of what makes Twitter Twitter. And I assume that most people aren't even using the limits even when they're paying Twitter blue, precisely because they know that it's not how you use Twitter.
> Showing view counts is also nice
I don't know if they have fixed this, but those view counts were fairly inaccurate.
> I don't like the login-walls and selling blue checkmarks, but I understand that the company was financially struggling prior to Elon.
The login walls and the blue checkmarks are again a massive mistake that is driving away brands and institutions from the site. Now their statements aren't visible to everyone, and people can't even be sure which one is the official account because the already existing symbol that said "this account is who they say they are" now just means "this account paid for Twitter".
The essence of Twitter is precisely that the tweets are short, bite-sized thoughts. It's what drives interactions and engagement, removing the limit shows a lack of understanding of what makes Twitter Twitter. And I assume that most people aren't even using the limits even when they're paying Twitter blue, precisely because they know that it's not how you use Twitter.
> Showing view counts is also nice
I don't know if they have fixed this, but those view counts were fairly inaccurate.
> I don't like the login-walls and selling blue checkmarks, but I understand that the company was financially struggling prior to Elon.
The login walls and the blue checkmarks are again a massive mistake that is driving away brands and institutions from the site. Now their statements aren't visible to everyone, and people can't even be sure which one is the official account because the already existing symbol that said "this account is who they say they are" now just means "this account paid for Twitter".
> The essence of Twitter is precisely that the tweets are short, bite-sized thoughts
Yea hard disagree there. I spend more time and get more value and depth from reading Twitter threads than random tweets. Twitter threads however are an abomination UI-wise and annoying to write. Longer tweets make more sense.
In any case if you prefer shorter content that's fine, but there's nothing to be gained by restricting content type. Give people freedom and let the users decide what they find worthwhile.
It's funny to me that everytime I'd mention increasing the tweet length all the replies I'd get would be people telling me I'm wrong and that Twitter should keep the same smaller character limit. It's like vocal people on the internet fear change.
> massive mistake
Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.
From a user perspective however I don't care at all. If anything making that more egalitarian instead of some mythical status symbol makes more sense.
For the record I say all of this as someone who hasn't purchased a blue checkmark.
Yea hard disagree there. I spend more time and get more value and depth from reading Twitter threads than random tweets. Twitter threads however are an abomination UI-wise and annoying to write. Longer tweets make more sense.
In any case if you prefer shorter content that's fine, but there's nothing to be gained by restricting content type. Give people freedom and let the users decide what they find worthwhile.
It's funny to me that everytime I'd mention increasing the tweet length all the replies I'd get would be people telling me I'm wrong and that Twitter should keep the same smaller character limit. It's like vocal people on the internet fear change.
> massive mistake
Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.
From a user perspective however I don't care at all. If anything making that more egalitarian instead of some mythical status symbol makes more sense.
For the record I say all of this as someone who hasn't purchased a blue checkmark.
> Give people freedom and let the users decide what they find worthwhile.
Well, as I already said what people find worthwhile is the shorter tweets, it's what generates more engagement. I do agree that one gets more value and depth from longer tweets, but Twitter isn't really a place for value and depth, but for shortness and content density. And also, while threads are not really the best UX, they have a very interesting advantage for Twitter: they allow users to engage and amplify the part they find the most interesting, and that drives more engagement than waiting for people to find the interesting part in a five paragraph-long tweet.
> Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.
Well, we don't have the exact numbers but Elon Musk already said that ad revenue fell 50% and cash flow is negative. IIRC, Twitter was cash flow positive when he bought them if you didn't take into account some one-time expenses.
Well, as I already said what people find worthwhile is the shorter tweets, it's what generates more engagement. I do agree that one gets more value and depth from longer tweets, but Twitter isn't really a place for value and depth, but for shortness and content density. And also, while threads are not really the best UX, they have a very interesting advantage for Twitter: they allow users to engage and amplify the part they find the most interesting, and that drives more engagement than waiting for people to find the interesting part in a five paragraph-long tweet.
> Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.
Well, we don't have the exact numbers but Elon Musk already said that ad revenue fell 50% and cash flow is negative. IIRC, Twitter was cash flow positive when he bought them if you didn't take into account some one-time expenses.
It seems to be contradicting his statement that the login-walls are going to be removed.
>financially struggling prior to Elon
It wasn't. It's been profitable every quarter except 2 since late 2017.
Musk chose to load Twitter with massive debt when he bought it which is why it's now financially struggling after the buy out. That's not due to Twitter, that's due to Musk.
It wasn't. It's been profitable every quarter except 2 since late 2017.
Musk chose to load Twitter with massive debt when he bought it which is why it's now financially struggling after the buy out. That's not due to Twitter, that's due to Musk.
A lot of public companies are managed in such a way that an LBO is basically financially infeasible. They do this intentionally.
Musk's LBO of Twitter should not be expected to be going well.
Musk's LBO of Twitter should not be expected to be going well.
Are you sure about that? Twitter's net loss in 2020 and 2021 were $1.1b and $221m.
What “tweet limit” are you talking about? Twitter went to 280 well before Musk and I’m almost certain view counts were there before him as well in the little bar chart icon.
He talks about this tweet limit:
"The character limit for subscribers in the U.S. is now 4,000—more than 14 times the existing 280-character limit, which remains in place for all non-subscribers and Twitter Blue users outside of the United States".
"The character limit for subscribers in the U.S. is now 4,000—more than 14 times the existing 280-character limit, which remains in place for all non-subscribers and Twitter Blue users outside of the United States".
So the limit in the US for Twitter Blue users is 4000 characters, but even paying user outside the US are limited to 280?
What a strange limitation, if the character limit is a problem, won't that just drive away users who see the service as racist now?
What a strange limitation, if the character limit is a problem, won't that just drive away users who see the service as racist now?
I don’t browse Twitter since 3rd party apps got kicked to the curb but I think it’s telling that not a single tweet I have seen in the interim was longer than 280 (aka one that was popular enough to be posted here or somewhere else I’d see). I think less of people who have a blue check now. The idea of paying for “less ads” and shit features would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
Bill Ackman posts primarily long tweets, and I see it often enough from other random accounts that the feature is definitely being used. But even if it wasn't, just having the option is a nice feature. Always found it absurd how people in comments want to restrict peoples' freedoms in applications - I guess people are afraid of change, hence why these big corporations often stop innovating.
> Always found it absurd how people in comments want to restrict peoples' freedoms in applications
"Restrict peoples' freedoms", good lord, as the kids say you might need to touch grass. What an absolutely absurd (and incorrect) thing to say. I just said I had never seen it, I didn't pass judgement for or against longer tweets. I think people that pay for that are silly but comparing that to restricting freedoms is just a new level of disconnected from reality.
"Restrict peoples' freedoms", good lord, as the kids say you might need to touch grass. What an absolutely absurd (and incorrect) thing to say. I just said I had never seen it, I didn't pass judgement for or against longer tweets. I think people that pay for that are silly but comparing that to restricting freedoms is just a new level of disconnected from reality.
restricting freedoms was referring to the people who were adamant on keeping Twitter's previous 280 character restriction, which I see now you weren't advocating for
The humorous thing is that a lot some people are paying $8/month to then post tweets that most people (everyone?) only see the beginning of.
So unless you are in the US and are a paying user, you can't even see these longer posts, or do they get truncated?
I wonder what the motivation is for making the service less useful for non-Americans.
I wonder what the motivation is for making the service less useful for non-Americans.
They get truncated with a "show more" link that points to the full tweet (rather than expanding it in-place).
Social media besides FB and Tiktok are largely unprofitable. Twitter was no exception, but it was unique in that it had close to no debt and so could get financing fairly easily. With the acquisition, Musk added $13bn to Twitter's debt, and tanked their revenue by chasing off advertisers. Besides the ads for Starlink and SpaceX, every other advertiser on Twitter looks like a Wish.com-caliber brand.
If they were struggling before, they're circling the drain now.
If they were struggling before, they're circling the drain now.
> Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement
Sure but Notes (long-form tweets) began public testing in June 2022, 4 months before he took over.
Sure but Notes (long-form tweets) began public testing in June 2022, 4 months before he took over.
Notes were terrible though - having to click into a separate page that seemed entirely removed from the app. If I recall one couldn't even see replies to them.
(at least that's my memory of it, admittedly it's been a while so could be off)
(at least that's my memory of it, admittedly it's been a while so could be off)
> "Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement (something I'd wanted for a decade). Showing view counts is also nice."
I used Twitter for a decade, and frustration was the primary emotion associated with the service. I had about a thousand followers but barely any engagement to anything I ever posted. There was never any positive reinforcement to an insignificant little guy like myself.
I don't really see how longer tweets or view counts do anything to help with that fundamental problem. (View counts only make it more obvious that nobody cares about my tweets, which is presumably why Twitter had previously hidden them under the engagement metrics UI.)
It's a platform dominated by big accounts. As the owner of one of the biggest accounts on Twitter, Musk doesn't experience or see the problem and can't fix it.
I used Twitter for a decade, and frustration was the primary emotion associated with the service. I had about a thousand followers but barely any engagement to anything I ever posted. There was never any positive reinforcement to an insignificant little guy like myself.
I don't really see how longer tweets or view counts do anything to help with that fundamental problem. (View counts only make it more obvious that nobody cares about my tweets, which is presumably why Twitter had previously hidden them under the engagement metrics UI.)
It's a platform dominated by big accounts. As the owner of one of the biggest accounts on Twitter, Musk doesn't experience or see the problem and can't fix it.
That's not a "fundamental problem", that's just the way it works. Unless you're already popular somewhere else, or your content is very good, strangers don't care about what you have to say. On Twitter or irl or on any other platform.
People seem to have forgotten that social media is for friends. If you make friends on Twitter, they'll care about your content because they care about you.
People seem to have forgotten that social media is for friends. If you make friends on Twitter, they'll care about your content because they care about you.
I'm in the same boat in that I have 1k followers and my tweets generally only get 10-30 views, which is pretty pathetic and seems oddly low. But maybe my content just sucks, idk. In any case being a Twitter influencer is not so important to me.
I agree and I wonder what plan Threads has to fix it.
He's rebranding. It seems apt since Twitter is becoming quite a different platform.
The URL is still twitter.com, and it looks like they're haven't got rid of the Tweet button yet. That's a powerful marketing verb. But now the platform is X and you still tweet? Seems like a mismash of the old and new brand. Still in progress perhaps.
The URL is still twitter.com, and it looks like they're haven't got rid of the Tweet button yet. That's a powerful marketing verb. But now the platform is X and you still tweet? Seems like a mismash of the old and new brand. Still in progress perhaps.
Musk might very well be just a useful idiot to kill a platform that was globally connecting people for positive, political change. Twitter played crucial roles in bringing down Mubarak in Egypt, in the Euromaidan and elsewhere.
40 billion dollars is just two years of Gazprom profits.
40 billion dollars is just two years of Gazprom profits.
"kill a platform" is an overstatement, isn't it? I follow several dozens people at twitter and they are all there, posting regularly as before. Honestly, I didn't notice any degradation of twitter during Musk era. There is Andrew Tate shitposting now, and for a few hours twitter logo was changed to Doge, but what else?
Did you not notice the huge increase in abuse against green, tolerant or otherwise progressive people (fascists like to call them "woke")?
The emperor has no clothes. Whether it's just his natural personality, or serious internet-poisoning, or some kind of substance problem, Musk has a habit of making rash decisions, and buying Twitter for way more than it was worth was one of those.
So he's scrambling. Trying to find any way to make it pencil out, using all the stunts he can think of. "X" is just another one he'd kept in his back pocket for decades. He'd obviously always liked the brand, since "X.com" was part of his PayPal story, and he named his space company "SpaceX", and one of his Tesla models, and his kid.
So he's scrambling. Trying to find any way to make it pencil out, using all the stunts he can think of. "X" is just another one he'd kept in his back pocket for decades. He'd obviously always liked the brand, since "X.com" was part of his PayPal story, and he named his space company "SpaceX", and one of his Tesla models, and his kid.
It's not even good PE. Like unironically Vista and Thoma Bravo are too smart to do stuff like this. This is like MBA search funds rebranding the trash disposal company they purchased.
he was never really a product genius. he was an inspirer. And he inspired people to work hard and dream big. and so they did. and he let them be. yet borrowed their knowledge. And looked smarter than he really was.
Now he is full of himself and he doesn't know how to move forward. So he stumbles repeatedly. And then regrets it. But never is humbled by any of that.
He is also no longer surrounded by people who are intelligent. He is surrounded by sycophants.
Now he is full of himself and he doesn't know how to move forward. So he stumbles repeatedly. And then regrets it. But never is humbled by any of that.
He is also no longer surrounded by people who are intelligent. He is surrounded by sycophants.
> I don’t really see what Musk is trying to accomplish.
Have you followed his twitter account? Watch his interviews. Read his SEC filings? He's been pretty open about his intentions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
> Everything he’s done to Twitter carries the foul stench of Death by Private Equity. No product improvements, but worse reliability, more spam
That's not what 'Death by Private Equity' is or looks like.
> and a weird desperate-looking rebrand.
Desperate weird rebrand? The rebrand happens months ago. It's not a new thing.
"The concept for X solidified in October 2022, when Musk tweeted that acquiring Twitter is "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
Elon is doing what exactly what he said he was going to do but you are twisting into some bizarre 'Death by Private Equity' that doesn't make sense because you don't like elon? Isn't that the gist of it? The anti-elon pr campaign is no different than the anti-zuckerburg campaign.
Have you followed his twitter account? Watch his interviews. Read his SEC filings? He's been pretty open about his intentions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
> Everything he’s done to Twitter carries the foul stench of Death by Private Equity. No product improvements, but worse reliability, more spam
That's not what 'Death by Private Equity' is or looks like.
> and a weird desperate-looking rebrand.
Desperate weird rebrand? The rebrand happens months ago. It's not a new thing.
"The concept for X solidified in October 2022, when Musk tweeted that acquiring Twitter is "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
Elon is doing what exactly what he said he was going to do but you are twisting into some bizarre 'Death by Private Equity' that doesn't make sense because you don't like elon? Isn't that the gist of it? The anti-elon pr campaign is no different than the anti-zuckerburg campaign.
> Elon is doing what exactly what he said he was going to do but you are twisting into some bizarre 'Death by Private Equity' that doesn't make sense because you don't like elon? Isn't that the gist of it?
Exactly. It was going to eventually be rebranded as soon as he acquired it. Not sure why HNers here are seemingly very surprised about this and still screaming at the changes?
But it is quite funny to see lots of HNers here already showing signs of memory loss in less than a year since he made that comment with lots of emotional reactions to the news.
> The anti-elon pr campaign is no different than the anti-zuckerburg campaign.
Absolutely. I remember when the 'anti-zuckerburg' campaign of HNers and the media all screamed and attempted to prothesize the death of Meta Platforms when it's stock plunged to $90.
Even before the layoffs, Zuckerberg was the 'villain' somehow and is somehow called by the most angriest of people a 'Nazi'. Now it is 200% up in less than a year and now the media's opinions have changed like the weather and are now cheering him again.
Today, Elon is somehow now the 'villain' of the year because of the layoffs and buying Twitter and now they are even angrier that Twitter / X did not 'die' immediately before 2023 as incorrectly predicted. So every speed bump Elon makes to Twitter / X is now 100x magnified from now on by the media.
Either way, the predictions of both the deaths of Twitter / X and Meta Platforms by the media and on HN has always been greatly exaggerated.
Exactly. It was going to eventually be rebranded as soon as he acquired it. Not sure why HNers here are seemingly very surprised about this and still screaming at the changes?
But it is quite funny to see lots of HNers here already showing signs of memory loss in less than a year since he made that comment with lots of emotional reactions to the news.
> The anti-elon pr campaign is no different than the anti-zuckerburg campaign.
Absolutely. I remember when the 'anti-zuckerburg' campaign of HNers and the media all screamed and attempted to prothesize the death of Meta Platforms when it's stock plunged to $90.
Even before the layoffs, Zuckerberg was the 'villain' somehow and is somehow called by the most angriest of people a 'Nazi'. Now it is 200% up in less than a year and now the media's opinions have changed like the weather and are now cheering him again.
Today, Elon is somehow now the 'villain' of the year because of the layoffs and buying Twitter and now they are even angrier that Twitter / X did not 'die' immediately before 2023 as incorrectly predicted. So every speed bump Elon makes to Twitter / X is now 100x magnified from now on by the media.
Either way, the predictions of both the deaths of Twitter / X and Meta Platforms by the media and on HN has always been greatly exaggerated.
This is what it looks like when inept MBAs try to squeeze some more life out of a dying platform.
Dying platforms are often the result of negative network effects, superior competitors, and self-centered founders who believe early successes make them brilliant business leaders and experts in everything else they touch.
Dying platforms are often the result of negative network effects, superior competitors, and self-centered founders who believe early successes make them brilliant business leaders and experts in everything else they touch.
I used to see news stories with tweets in it. I can’t recall many recently except for musks tweets. While the choices seem questionable Twitter is constantly in the news and getting talked about. If any publicity is good publicity Musk has certainly been able to continually be part of the news cycle.
I think he's trying to transform the platform into an "app for everything" (like WeChat or Meituan Dianping in China), one that does communication, financial transactions, commerce, food orders, ticketing, the whole gamut.
And so, X. Which doesn't mean anything in particular.
And so, X. Which doesn't mean anything in particular.
> I don’t really see what Musk is trying to accomplish.
Have you taken the time to understand?
> No product improvements
I disagree. Musk owns Twitter for less than 9 months. Just off the top of my head:
* view counts
* revenue share with creators
* fewer bots
* long videos
* improved spaces
* no censorship
> This is what it looks like when inept MBAs try to squeeze some more life out of a dying platform
Inept MBAs do whatever it takes to bootlick advertisers. Not the case with the today's Twitter.
> He’s supposed to be a product genius
According to whom? I've never heard anybody saying so. However, here is an anecdote from my personal experience: I recently purchased Tesla and the UX was as simple as buying shampoo on Amazon–just a few clicks from the app.
> He was supposed to bankroll exciting new ventures
Isn't that what he is trying to do? X is the experiment to launch an exciting new venture. Give him a chance?
> Instead it’s kind of like MySpace meets SourceForge
I'm confused on this analogy–cannot see the connection. Please, elaborate.
P.S. Your reactstudio.com certificate is not valid.
Have you taken the time to understand?
> No product improvements
I disagree. Musk owns Twitter for less than 9 months. Just off the top of my head:
* view counts
* revenue share with creators
* fewer bots
* long videos
* improved spaces
* no censorship
> This is what it looks like when inept MBAs try to squeeze some more life out of a dying platform
Inept MBAs do whatever it takes to bootlick advertisers. Not the case with the today's Twitter.
> He’s supposed to be a product genius
According to whom? I've never heard anybody saying so. However, here is an anecdote from my personal experience: I recently purchased Tesla and the UX was as simple as buying shampoo on Amazon–just a few clicks from the app.
> He was supposed to bankroll exciting new ventures
Isn't that what he is trying to do? X is the experiment to launch an exciting new venture. Give him a chance?
> Instead it’s kind of like MySpace meets SourceForge
I'm confused on this analogy–cannot see the connection. Please, elaborate.
P.S. Your reactstudio.com certificate is not valid.
Here is my theory. That giant Tesla supercomputer is an updated real time global map of everything a Tesla sees. The giant satellite network is to move the data around. Twitter is the login window to Musk world.
It’s not a popular opinion on this site, and I’m probably going to be savagely downvoted, but whatever talent Musk had for business was eroded at least a decade ago by him surrounding himself with ego-stroking yes men.
He drank his own cool aid.
He drank his own cool aid.
Gavin Belson: All I hear from everybody is good news. Have I just surrounded myself with sycophants, who are just telling me whatever I want to hear, regardless of the truth?
Denpok: *gulp* ... no.
Gavin Belson: Thank you Denpok. I really needed to hear that.
Denpok: *gulp* ... no.
Gavin Belson: Thank you Denpok. I really needed to hear that.
Burns: I see it all, now. You're just a bunch of yes-men. I
was making the wrong moves and you were too gutless to
tell me! Isn't that right??
Yes-men: Oh, yes, sure, etc.
Smithers: Right on, sir.
Yes-men: Oh, yes, sure, etc.
Smithers: Right on, sir.
Any time I see Naval Ravikant's mystical musings on the philosophy of innovation or whatever, I think of Denpok guy in Silicon Valley.
Naval cribs a lot of his musings from various books, but never credits them, passes them off as his own. Folks who have read most or all of the same books he has can recognize the source. He so desperately wants to be a philosopher, but is cheating at it.
It's all regurgitated and repackaged into tweet-size aphorisms, too. It's a sort of junk-food version of philosophy.
I feel like "Sapiens" and Eckhart Tolle cover a large percentage of what he's saying (though admittedly I haven't checked out his latest musings). I wonder if anyone's crowd-sourced a "top 5" of what the underlying worthwhile books to read would be.
Some brief searching turned up this "reading list," [1] though it looks a lot like one of those book-lists people make to show how they smart they are.
[1]: https://www.kevinrooke.com/book-recommendations/naval-ravika...
I feel like "Sapiens" and Eckhart Tolle cover a large percentage of what he's saying (though admittedly I haven't checked out his latest musings). I wonder if anyone's crowd-sourced a "top 5" of what the underlying worthwhile books to read would be.
Some brief searching turned up this "reading list," [1] though it looks a lot like one of those book-lists people make to show how they smart they are.
[1]: https://www.kevinrooke.com/book-recommendations/naval-ravika...
Does any philosopher mostly come up with their own unique ideas in a black box, uninfluenced by and not based upon ideas that preceded them in culture and literature?
This is an actual question, I don't know the answer, but it does seem extremely unlikely to me that this would be the case.
This is an actual question, I don't know the answer, but it does seem extremely unlikely to me that this would be the case.
I don't think getting ideas from elsewhere was the issue.
> Does any philosopher mostly come up with their own unique ideas in a black box,
No of course not. Philosophy is a progression of original insights built upon the prior progression of original insights. But the key word here is "original", aka a leap of intuition that reveals something about existence not previously recognized. Not regurgitated, un-credited, pop-philosophy.
No of course not. Philosophy is a progression of original insights built upon the prior progression of original insights. But the key word here is "original", aka a leap of intuition that reveals something about existence not previously recognized. Not regurgitated, un-credited, pop-philosophy.
yeah, fair enough. On first reading of your comment I missed that the 'cheating' was specifically describing the repetition of prior ideas without credit, as opposed to generally.
Oh right, yeah it's basically a form of plagiarism for internet cred instead of a grade in school.
What a great TV show. I miss Sunday nights...
This scene is perfect.
I don't think he had any talent, he just got lucky and companies insulated themselves from him. With Twitter we're seeing what happens when companies don't insulate themselves from him.
>he just got lucky
Several times?
Oscar Wilde wrote: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Something of the kind, with an opposite sign, could be said for repeated business success. And in this case it's more than 2 times, and not just some small successess either.
Isn't it more like "He's idiosyncratic and often erratic and/or has political views I don't like" that people translate to an absurd "he has no business talent"?
Several times?
Oscar Wilde wrote: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Something of the kind, with an opposite sign, could be said for repeated business success. And in this case it's more than 2 times, and not just some small successess either.
Isn't it more like "He's idiosyncratic and often erratic and/or has political views I don't like" that people translate to an absurd "he has no business talent"?
Yes I think he got lucky multiple times, because his failures are also quite significant. Remember hyperloop? Remember he got kicked out of PayPal? Remember boring company? Remember solar city?
If anything it just shows he has enough money that it’s okay when some of his extremely ambitious projects fail. A less wealthy person couldn’t even attempt any of what he does much less fail as often and as publicly as he has. Elizabeth Holmes went to prison, for example.
If anything it just shows he has enough money that it’s okay when some of his extremely ambitious projects fail. A less wealthy person couldn’t even attempt any of what he does much less fail as often and as publicly as he has. Elizabeth Holmes went to prison, for example.
>Remember hyperloop? Remember he got kicked out of PayPal? Remember boring company? Remember solar city?
One could say similar things for other well succesful businessmen:
Remember NeXT? Remember he got kicked out of Apple? Remember the G4 Cube? Remember MobileMe? Remember Ping?
One could say similar things for other well succesful businessmen:
Remember NeXT? Remember he got kicked out of Apple? Remember the G4 Cube? Remember MobileMe? Remember Ping?
> Remember NeXT?
You mean the basis for Mac OS X?
> Remember he got kicked out of Apple?
You mean by John Sculley, who basically nobody remembers as having been associated with Apple? And then how Steve Jobs came back to Apple and led it through most of its golden years?
> Remember the G4 Cube?
You mean the spiritual predecessor to not only the Mac Mini, but the Intel NUC and other small form factor computing platforms? A platform that only suffered from the failing of being before its time, rather than a fundamental design flaw?
> Remember MobileMe?
The service that eventually transmogrified into iCloud, which, if not a driving force, can hardly be considered a minor player on the Internet today, if for no other reason than the number of @icloud.com email addresses?
> Remember Ping?
No, I honestly don't, but hey, not every idea can be a winner. At least Steve Jobs' bad ideas failed quietly. Compare and contrast to some of Elongated Muskrat's more… questionable business decisions, like buying Twitter for $420.69 per share just for the lulz.
You mean the basis for Mac OS X?
> Remember he got kicked out of Apple?
You mean by John Sculley, who basically nobody remembers as having been associated with Apple? And then how Steve Jobs came back to Apple and led it through most of its golden years?
> Remember the G4 Cube?
You mean the spiritual predecessor to not only the Mac Mini, but the Intel NUC and other small form factor computing platforms? A platform that only suffered from the failing of being before its time, rather than a fundamental design flaw?
> Remember MobileMe?
The service that eventually transmogrified into iCloud, which, if not a driving force, can hardly be considered a minor player on the Internet today, if for no other reason than the number of @icloud.com email addresses?
> Remember Ping?
No, I honestly don't, but hey, not every idea can be a winner. At least Steve Jobs' bad ideas failed quietly. Compare and contrast to some of Elongated Muskrat's more… questionable business decisions, like buying Twitter for $420.69 per share just for the lulz.
>You mean the basis for Mac OS X?
I mean the company and OS that failed to leave to Jobs expectations, company pivoted to sell the OS on PCs, failed on that too, and was only spared bunkruptcy because Apple was desperate for an OS and Jobs.
The rest is meaningless retorts in the same vain, when all of the above are failed projects associated with Jobs, just like Musk has his own, which was the point.
I mean the company and OS that failed to leave to Jobs expectations, company pivoted to sell the OS on PCs, failed on that too, and was only spared bunkruptcy because Apple was desperate for an OS and Jobs.
The rest is meaningless retorts in the same vain, when all of the above are failed projects associated with Jobs, just like Musk has his own, which was the point.
You’re kind of undercutting your point by saying “Apple was desperate for an OS and Jobs.” In other words, firing Jobs was Apple’s fault, not Jobs’. Steve Jobs was exactly what Apple needed and would go on to provide exactly what they needed, only Apple under Sculley was too short-sighted to see that. If anything, getting fired from Apple was ultimately a triumph for Steve Jobs, given the benefit of hindsight.
My point is that when you put Musk among the pantheon of Silicon Valley CEOs, he doesn’t especially stand out for anything except being lucky. Compare him to Bill Gates, who, for better or for worse, revolutionized computing? Or Larry Ellison, who has somehow despite the odds miraculously managed to keep Oracle afloat and somewhat relevant for decades—no mean feat indeed?
Elon seems to be little more than a charming, lucky idiot. Make no mistake, charm and luck will take you far, but only so far. Sooner or later, one or the other will run out, and for Elon, it seems like he has depleted both resources at this point.
My point is that when you put Musk among the pantheon of Silicon Valley CEOs, he doesn’t especially stand out for anything except being lucky. Compare him to Bill Gates, who, for better or for worse, revolutionized computing? Or Larry Ellison, who has somehow despite the odds miraculously managed to keep Oracle afloat and somewhat relevant for decades—no mean feat indeed?
Elon seems to be little more than a charming, lucky idiot. Make no mistake, charm and luck will take you far, but only so far. Sooner or later, one or the other will run out, and for Elon, it seems like he has depleted both resources at this point.
Elon depleted his 'charm' a long, long time ago.
Yes. When he voiced opinions that some people disagree with.
Opinions like calling a selfless diver risking his life to perform a Hail Mary rescue a pedophile yeah
No, much earlier than that.
> Elon seems to be little more than a charming, lucky idiot
This is selling him too short. He's also a sort of cult leader, one who keeps an eye out for who his next population of acolytes will be.
This is selling him too short. He's also a sort of cult leader, one who keeps an eye out for who his next population of acolytes will be.
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> Or Larry Ellison, who has somehow despite the odds miraculously managed to keep Oracle afloat and somewhat relevant for decades—no mean feat indeed?
I'm not sure how one can consider Larry Ellison more savvy and impactful than Musk.
I'm not sure how one can consider Larry Ellison more savvy and impactful than Musk.
Steve Jobs single handidly killed Apple's presence in the early PC market by taking his project (handling the development and launch of the first Macintosh) and commandeering it into a monster project.
What was meant to be an affordable alternative to the Apple II, became under Job's supervision a method to take control of the Apple line of computers. He ended up making a less feature-rich Apple II, which rivaled it in price, killing the idea that the computer could compete with other cheaper computers on the market.
All to stroke his own ego.
What was meant to be an affordable alternative to the Apple II, became under Job's supervision a method to take control of the Apple line of computers. He ended up making a less feature-rich Apple II, which rivaled it in price, killing the idea that the computer could compete with other cheaper computers on the market.
All to stroke his own ego.
I don’t get it. Are you saying the Macintosh was a failure for Apple? Or was Jobs right, whatever his motivations may have been?
Yes, it was a disappointment. It lacked color (something the Apple II already had), had buggy software, and all at a price that rivaled the Apple II.
$1,298 for the Apple II $2,495 for the Macintosh
It completely destroyed the progress they'd made. Jobs took this project opportunistically at a time when Steve Wozniak was recovering from a plane crash. If he'd approached the project more strategically, it could have positioned Apple to take a place in the market share of cheaper PC's of the time.
$1,298 for the Apple II $2,495 for the Macintosh
It completely destroyed the progress they'd made. Jobs took this project opportunistically at a time when Steve Wozniak was recovering from a plane crash. If he'd approached the project more strategically, it could have positioned Apple to take a place in the market share of cheaper PC's of the time.
Hey, you're finally understanding that Steve Jobs was a hack!
Not quite. He was very good on gathering a specific kind of people and organizing them to an specific kind of work.
He got that very reliably. When that kind of work aligned with success, he was successful.
He got that very reliably. When that kind of work aligned with success, he was successful.
Just like that Alexander the Great guy. Way overrated. He didn't kill that many Persians at all, it turns out. Just sat there on a horse barking orders.
You're right, other businesspeople get lucky too.
> Remember NeXT?
Wasn't that the computer that the first web browser and web server were developed for and on? And a bunch of famous video games were developed on it? It was never a consumer computer company, but for its niche it was pretty successful.
Wasn't that the computer that the first web browser and web server were developed for and on? And a bunch of famous video games were developed on it? It was never a consumer computer company, but for its niche it was pretty successful.
We're speaking about success as a business, on its business goals, not what was developed on it.
If somebody wrote the "first web browser" on BeOS it make it any less of a failure as a business venture.
If somebody wrote the "first web browser" on BeOS it make it any less of a failure as a business venture.
> If somebody wrote the "first web browser" on BeOS it make it any less of a failure as a business venture.
Maybe if Tim Berners-Lee had, BeOS wouldn't have been a business failure. Or at least successful enough to be purchased for $400 million?
Maybe if Tim Berners-Lee had, BeOS wouldn't have been a business failure. Or at least successful enough to be purchased for $400 million?
This is about the business itself and NeXT Inc. was a commercial failure for workstation class personal computers in the market.
>Wasn't that the computer that the first web browser and web server were developed for and on
Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW, and wrote the first server and browser while working for CERN.
Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW, and wrote the first server and browser while working for CERN.
Yes, using NeXT workstations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server#/media/File:First_W...
> Remember the G4 Cube? Remember MobileMe? Remember Ping?
I think it's weird to compare failed products within a company (and minor products at that) to failed companies. I think you may have not even listed some of the more notable ones (The Apple LISA, the iPod HiFi). But he wasn't betting the company on the Cube, or MobileMe, or even Ping. These were low-stakes (and arguably low effort) bets taken within a company that was simultaneously having insane success in other departments. The G4 Cube came out between the iMac and the iPod (2 years after the iMac, 1 year before the iPod). That seems like a damn good product-line, and if you could choose any one to miss on, it'd be the niche prosumer device, not the two consumer devices.
> Remember NeXT? > Remember he got kicked out of Apple?
These could be interpreted either way. It seems all part of the larger "Apple story arc", and more comparable to Tesla's shaky middle period, than as binary successes and failures void of any surrounding context. However, I do mean that it could go either way. I wouldn't fault someone as judging them as true failures separate from the later Apple success.
I think it's weird to compare failed products within a company (and minor products at that) to failed companies. I think you may have not even listed some of the more notable ones (The Apple LISA, the iPod HiFi). But he wasn't betting the company on the Cube, or MobileMe, or even Ping. These were low-stakes (and arguably low effort) bets taken within a company that was simultaneously having insane success in other departments. The G4 Cube came out between the iMac and the iPod (2 years after the iMac, 1 year before the iPod). That seems like a damn good product-line, and if you could choose any one to miss on, it'd be the niche prosumer device, not the two consumer devices.
> Remember NeXT? > Remember he got kicked out of Apple?
These could be interpreted either way. It seems all part of the larger "Apple story arc", and more comparable to Tesla's shaky middle period, than as binary successes and failures void of any surrounding context. However, I do mean that it could go either way. I wouldn't fault someone as judging them as true failures separate from the later Apple success.
> Remember NeXT? Remember he got kicked out of Apple? Remember the G4 Cube? Remember MobileMe? Remember Ping?
Your rebuttal doesn't really make sense. Only NeXT and getting ousted from Apple were personal events for Steve Jobs. MobileMe (now iCloud), the G4 Cube, and Ping were all initiatives of Apple as a company which was far more people than just Steve Jobs.
Your rebuttal doesn't really make sense. Only NeXT and getting ousted from Apple were personal events for Steve Jobs. MobileMe (now iCloud), the G4 Cube, and Ping were all initiatives of Apple as a company which was far more people than just Steve Jobs.
He was well known for disliking fans in computers, a factor in the G4 Cube. Also a big reason why the Apple 3 was such a failure.
Just saying. Overall I certainly think Steve Jobs was anything but a failure.
Just saying. Overall I certainly think Steve Jobs was anything but a failure.
I was there when Scully "took over", and can tell you from firsthand experience that Steve Jobs was the young, rebellious entrepreneur whose startup had grown far beyond his experience (or interest at the time). Scully may have been the only man in Silicon Valley with the guts to push Steve out, and Steve knew that it needed to happen. He couldn't, because Apple was his baby - he needed someone to give him that last shove.
You mean NeXT, the company he sold back to Apple for $400 million dollars?
I would argue that the majority of design flops from Apple in the past twenty years were more Jony Ive than Steve Jobs, based on history and design style. That said yeah not every idea the man had was rock solid, but comparing Steve Jobs to Elon Musk is laughable.
Elon was wealthier than 95% of the people in the United States, the second he was born. He's been playing with a stacked deck this whole time.
Whenever someone says "oh so-and-so is so successful" only two questions enter my mind:
1. where did they start? 2. how much help did they get along the way?
I would argue that in Elon's case he's been successful despite himself.
You mean NeXT, the company he sold back to Apple for $400 million dollars?
I would argue that the majority of design flops from Apple in the past twenty years were more Jony Ive than Steve Jobs, based on history and design style. That said yeah not every idea the man had was rock solid, but comparing Steve Jobs to Elon Musk is laughable.
Elon was wealthier than 95% of the people in the United States, the second he was born. He's been playing with a stacked deck this whole time.
Whenever someone says "oh so-and-so is so successful" only two questions enter my mind:
1. where did they start? 2. how much help did they get along the way?
I would argue that in Elon's case he's been successful despite himself.
>Elon was wealthier than 95% of the people in the United States, the second he was born. He's been playing with a stacked deck this whole time.
So like 16,595,000 other US citizens?
So like 16,595,000 other US citizens?
Just guessing here, but I'd guess out of that ~16m US citizens, you're more likely to find people that have started a multi-billion dollar business than compared to the general population. And the other demographic that tends to be big on starting businesses are immigrants. And Elon Musk just happens to fall into both groups really.
Ives fading into non existence was the best thing that happened to modern apple. He was slowly killing everything.
> Remember hyperloop?
An idea, not a company
> Remember boring company?
Still a company.
> Remember solar city?
Acquired by Tesla, who remains a major supplier of residential solar panels.
An idea, not a company
> Remember boring company?
Still a company.
> Remember solar city?
Acquired by Tesla, who remains a major supplier of residential solar panels.
Solar city was saved with Tesla money in a situation it would have gone bankrupt had Musk not lied about the product (and that it was "ready"), without telling Tesla shareholders about what's going on.
Which is typical Musk conduct: he lies a lot, people believe him, and he somehow makes it through until the lies do not matter any more. See robotaxis, self driving, etc.
Which is typical Musk conduct: he lies a lot, people believe him, and he somehow makes it through until the lies do not matter any more. See robotaxis, self driving, etc.
I find it odd how people refuse to admit that Musk has made some errors. He is a human who takes big swings, and has his share of failures to prove it. It's ok to admit that. I'll note, there is no mention of "Thud" [0], another failure of his.
==Acquired by Tesla, who remains a major supplier of residential solar panels.==
Tesla bought Solar City for $2.6 billion in 2016. In 2019, they targeted 1,000 installations a week. In 7 years, Tesla has installed a total of 3,000 solar systems, getting to about 20 installations a week. Add in the fact that he purchased the company from his own cousins and the story looks worse. [1]
==Still a company.==
It is still an existing company, but that doesn't make it a success. Founded 7 years ago, has built one actively used tunnel. They also had to change the entire idea (it's actually just Teslas driving underground).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thud_(media_company)
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/tesla-has-installed-3000-sol...
==Acquired by Tesla, who remains a major supplier of residential solar panels.==
Tesla bought Solar City for $2.6 billion in 2016. In 2019, they targeted 1,000 installations a week. In 7 years, Tesla has installed a total of 3,000 solar systems, getting to about 20 installations a week. Add in the fact that he purchased the company from his own cousins and the story looks worse. [1]
==Still a company.==
It is still an existing company, but that doesn't make it a success. Founded 7 years ago, has built one actively used tunnel. They also had to change the entire idea (it's actually just Teslas driving underground).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thud_(media_company)
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/tesla-has-installed-3000-sol...
> I find it odd how people refuse to admit that Musk has made some errors.
GP was merely trying to dunk on Musk and didn't have a real argument.
I'm very aware of Musk's failures. Heck, they are the very things that define his companies and enable their successes. Every rocket explosion was a failure on the road to success. Every over-promise drives his people to work that much harder.
But you want to dunk on Musk a little more, fine, let's get this out of the way. (Not a comprehensive list.)
Bad:
- Twitter looks like a bad deal (so far), and is a public opinion disaster
- FSD did not deliver the promised value to its original customers (future remains to be seen)
- Boring has under-delivered and is not growing explosively (but they are still in business)
- His general skepticism of any COVID precautions (I think his entrepreneurial bias is behind this)
Worse:
- The handling of the cave rescue aftermath
Arguable:
- His political statements
- Twitter layoffs
- Personal life stuff (not really our business)
- Work-at-home policies (his track record says he knows what he is doing here)
There. Can we pin these somewhere so we don't have to keep hijacking every Elon post with these "revelations"?
GP was merely trying to dunk on Musk and didn't have a real argument.
I'm very aware of Musk's failures. Heck, they are the very things that define his companies and enable their successes. Every rocket explosion was a failure on the road to success. Every over-promise drives his people to work that much harder.
But you want to dunk on Musk a little more, fine, let's get this out of the way. (Not a comprehensive list.)
Bad:
- Twitter looks like a bad deal (so far), and is a public opinion disaster
- FSD did not deliver the promised value to its original customers (future remains to be seen)
- Boring has under-delivered and is not growing explosively (but they are still in business)
- His general skepticism of any COVID precautions (I think his entrepreneurial bias is behind this)
Worse:
- The handling of the cave rescue aftermath
Arguable:
- His political statements
- Twitter layoffs
- Personal life stuff (not really our business)
- Work-at-home policies (his track record says he knows what he is doing here)
There. Can we pin these somewhere so we don't have to keep hijacking every Elon post with these "revelations"?
I find it weird when people list hyperloop as a Musk failure. He had an idea, decided to give away the idea instead of pursuing himself. It's certainly not a success, it's just an idea. Will somebody eventually make a go of it, or something similar? Maybe, maybe not.
'major supplier' is only true in the US, in the residential market, and effectively, his whole Solarcity presentation was a lie[0]. And obviously fake for anyone with limited knowledge of the market (I thought he had a new patent in the blocks but nothing of note). This is the moment I thought the success and fame was getting to him.
[0] https://youtu.be/4sfwDyiPTdU
[0] https://youtu.be/4sfwDyiPTdU
He’s had his wrists firmly slapped by the SEC, but I’m not convinced he’s perpetrated fraud at the scale of Theranos.
If he’s lost his own money on stupid projects, that’s fine ? Hitting it for six once an over is still a good innings…
If he’s lost his own money on stupid projects, that’s fine ? Hitting it for six once an over is still a good innings…
Most startups would consider a continually expanding Vegas Loop project, $5.7B valuation, and competitive throughput to non-express, bulk transport to be marks of success at this age.
Relevant post right here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
He can keep throwing darts at the board as long as he maintains his ability to rope other rich people into his delusional self-confidence. Twitter might just be what breaks the spell.
He can keep throwing darts at the board as long as he maintains his ability to rope other rich people into his delusional self-confidence. Twitter might just be what breaks the spell.
> Yes I think he got lucky multiple times, because his failures are also quite significant. Remember hyperloop? Remember he got kicked out of PayPal? Remember boring company? Remember solar city?
Failure is precisely how we learn. To be afraid to fail does not lead to success.
Failure is precisely how we learn. To be afraid to fail does not lead to success.
If we can refine the "he got lucky" statement I'd say it's this:
He's a talented motivational speaker, he can inspire as a leader, he can paint a vivid future of great accomplishments , not in the least bolstered by his extreme confidence of expertise and knowledge (often not actualized). Everything he talks about is at least about the entire planet, sometimes multiple planets, and with xAI even for understanding the entire Universe, and this helps him attract two key resources:
- Capital.
- Talent.
And then when he puts talent and capital together... yes he got lucky couple of times. But he's always been a terrible manager and this is visible not just with Twitter.
He's a talented motivational speaker, he can inspire as a leader, he can paint a vivid future of great accomplishments , not in the least bolstered by his extreme confidence of expertise and knowledge (often not actualized). Everything he talks about is at least about the entire planet, sometimes multiple planets, and with xAI even for understanding the entire Universe, and this helps him attract two key resources:
- Capital.
- Talent.
And then when he puts talent and capital together... yes he got lucky couple of times. But he's always been a terrible manager and this is visible not just with Twitter.
> He's a talented motivational speaker
He IS? In what contexts? Because every time I see him speak, it's painful. His delivery is so stilted/awkward, that I think he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen.
He IS? In what contexts? Because every time I see him speak, it's painful. His delivery is so stilted/awkward, that I think he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen.
Being a very good speaker, or leader, isn't really about convincing everyone, but convincing a certain group of people consistently. This being HN I don't want to get all that political, but I am sure you can think of a few recent US presidents, from both parties, which were seen as quite charismatic and great at speaking, even though they were seen as unconvincing, and downright loathed by many in their opposition. You can find the same situation in many non-political speakers: The magnetism doesn't really hit everyone.
So someone can be very effective and charismatic while turning off a non-trivial percentage of the people: I've seen this in company executives a whole lot. The people that dislike the CEO will bounce quick, and in the end you end up with a workforce that is very loyal, via self-selection.
So is he a talented speaker? Just by by how many people react well to him, the answer is yes, regardless of how well he might convince you or me.
So someone can be very effective and charismatic while turning off a non-trivial percentage of the people: I've seen this in company executives a whole lot. The people that dislike the CEO will bounce quick, and in the end you end up with a workforce that is very loyal, via self-selection.
So is he a talented speaker? Just by by how many people react well to him, the answer is yes, regardless of how well he might convince you or me.
He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves. For example when he makes a long dramatic pause, so he seems deeply contemplative. Or when he stops himself midway through a sentence and corrects himself, he seems earnest.
We're ready to forgive a lot if we suspect behind the awkwardness hides a genius. The trope of the distracted professor, the autistic savant is at least centuries old. He leans into every such trope, and he's very careful in cultivating an image of a "founder", of an "inventor" of an "engineer". Most people by now know he hasn't founded Tesla, or PayPal (was fired from it in fact), he hasn't engineered the SpaceX rockets (although he had a hand in those that blew up), and he in fact has no engineering degree despite claiming otherwise.
So I'd say all this means he's building this image very intentionally, and he's trying to turn his weaknesses into strengths. The more he stutters and repeats, the less we notice how much of what he says is kinda... vapid. Trump has some similar patterns by the way, you can ask him a specific question and he'll say he has great ways of answering that, some of the best people told him he has the best answers, his history of a businessman speaks about long experience providing great answers to all kinds of questions... and he won't answer your question in the end.
Trump and Musk are very different in some ways, but very similar in others.
We're ready to forgive a lot if we suspect behind the awkwardness hides a genius. The trope of the distracted professor, the autistic savant is at least centuries old. He leans into every such trope, and he's very careful in cultivating an image of a "founder", of an "inventor" of an "engineer". Most people by now know he hasn't founded Tesla, or PayPal (was fired from it in fact), he hasn't engineered the SpaceX rockets (although he had a hand in those that blew up), and he in fact has no engineering degree despite claiming otherwise.
So I'd say all this means he's building this image very intentionally, and he's trying to turn his weaknesses into strengths. The more he stutters and repeats, the less we notice how much of what he says is kinda... vapid. Trump has some similar patterns by the way, you can ask him a specific question and he'll say he has great ways of answering that, some of the best people told him he has the best answers, his history of a businessman speaks about long experience providing great answers to all kinds of questions... and he won't answer your question in the end.
Trump and Musk are very different in some ways, but very similar in others.
>He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves.
Exactly. A significant number of people want to see "Iron Man" in him or that he is playing 5D chess and they will fill the gaps to rationalize that image they have made of him.
Exactly. A significant number of people want to see "Iron Man" in him or that he is playing 5D chess and they will fill the gaps to rationalize that image they have made of him.
My personal belief was after 2016 there was a Trump effect. Once everyone saw you could say WHAT!? and still become the president of the United States. I think that made a lot of people bolder in what they could think, say and do from business people to sports athletes.
It's complex. On one hand, some people feel emboldened to reveal their "true side". On the other hand, we realize the guardrails we thought protect society from illogical or immoral behavior... aren't really there.
From that point on we have a choice. Accept increasing chaos and corruption, or build up the missing guardrails we thought were there. However, from what I see, things aren't going strongly in the right direction as I see it, so far...
A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
From that point on we have a choice. Accept increasing chaos and corruption, or build up the missing guardrails we thought were there. However, from what I see, things aren't going strongly in the right direction as I see it, so far...
A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
"Very stable genius"
"I alone can fix it"
"I alone can fix it"
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I saw him in Machete and people were calling him the real life Tony Stark. With little other context I just assumed he was a cool guy. After all people were always super positive about his projects. In fact, I don’t think I actually heard Elon Musk speak freely until the cybertruck announcement. By then he started appearing on YouTube channels I watch and my opinion of him has done nothing but lower ever since.
I’m wondering if my experience was only my experience, was Elon Musk surrounded by good marketers who made sure the right things were said 10 years ago but he somehow lost them along the way? Because he is definitely not the man with the mystique he used to have for me.
I’m wondering if my experience was only my experience, was Elon Musk surrounded by good marketers who made sure the right things were said 10 years ago but he somehow lost them along the way? Because he is definitely not the man with the mystique he used to have for me.
Not sure if he had good marketers, I think he himself is a good marketer. But restraint is very hard. Especially when you love to talk. Which he clearly does if we judge by his tweets.
It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself.
It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself.
> It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself.
Hah, I'd never have considered the parallels between Big Brother and Twitter before but you're spot on here - even more so when you consider the existence of Celebrity Big Brother showing that celebrities are - of course - people who act like people do. Musk isn't the only famous person who's been unable to stop revealing who they are on Twitter, but he's certainly the one who's taken it the farthest.
Hah, I'd never have considered the parallels between Big Brother and Twitter before but you're spot on here - even more so when you consider the existence of Celebrity Big Brother showing that celebrities are - of course - people who act like people do. Musk isn't the only famous person who's been unable to stop revealing who they are on Twitter, but he's certainly the one who's taken it the farthest.
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Several times?
I don't know if Musk's success is down to luck or not, but to answer your implied question of "Do you really think it could be luck to succeed on several different occasions?" the answer is yes. To suggest otherwise would be falling for the old "it's been heads 9 times in a row, it must be tails next" gambler's fallacy. Someone could succeed in building billion dollar companies largely on luck many of times in a row. It's very unlikely, but it's not impossible, at least as far as any company's success is down to the luck of the founders.
I don't know if Musk's success is down to luck or not, but to answer your implied question of "Do you really think it could be luck to succeed on several different occasions?" the answer is yes. To suggest otherwise would be falling for the old "it's been heads 9 times in a row, it must be tails next" gambler's fallacy. Someone could succeed in building billion dollar companies largely on luck many of times in a row. It's very unlikely, but it's not impossible, at least as far as any company's success is down to the luck of the founders.
>To suggest otherwise would be falling for the old "it's been heads 9 times in a row, it must be tails next" gambler's fallacy
I don't think you understand how this fallacy (and logic ) works. This is only a fallacy because the coin toss events are trivially expected (and assumed) to be independent chance events in the first place.
Business success are not supposed to be independent like that, unless you take for granted what you're supposed to prove.
And to do that, you'd have to ignore some pretty big factors different to coin tosses, like the continuity of an agent making business decisions, their promotional and organizational skills, their connections, their reputation with VCs and the press, past performance as part of their image, their experience, and several other factors besides, which makes repeated business successes nothing like independent coin tosses.
I don't think you understand how this fallacy (and logic ) works. This is only a fallacy because the coin toss events are trivially expected (and assumed) to be independent chance events in the first place.
Business success are not supposed to be independent like that, unless you take for granted what you're supposed to prove.
And to do that, you'd have to ignore some pretty big factors different to coin tosses, like the continuity of an agent making business decisions, their promotional and organizational skills, their connections, their reputation with VCs and the press, past performance as part of their image, their experience, and several other factors besides, which makes repeated business successes nothing like independent coin tosses.
I don't think you understand how this fallacy (and logic ) works.
I don't think you understand how similes work.
There's no way to really know what extent luck is involved when a business succeeds, but it's probably not zero. It's entirely reasonable to suggest Musk has been lucky many times over. That doesn't mean he'll be lucky again, nor does it mean the lucky events he's had so far have been trivial. Believing that Musk will (or won't if you're not a fan) be lucky again in his next business because things will fall in Musk's favor again is the gambler's fallacy - the belief that past events influence future events. No doubt the things Musk can influence will go his way, but there will be things outside of his control that he might not be so lucky with. Even big, important things. Nothing about the gambler's fallacy says anything about how trivial or otherwise the lucky events are.
I don't think you understand how similes work.
There's no way to really know what extent luck is involved when a business succeeds, but it's probably not zero. It's entirely reasonable to suggest Musk has been lucky many times over. That doesn't mean he'll be lucky again, nor does it mean the lucky events he's had so far have been trivial. Believing that Musk will (or won't if you're not a fan) be lucky again in his next business because things will fall in Musk's favor again is the gambler's fallacy - the belief that past events influence future events. No doubt the things Musk can influence will go his way, but there will be things outside of his control that he might not be so lucky with. Even big, important things. Nothing about the gambler's fallacy says anything about how trivial or otherwise the lucky events are.
A coin flip is a single event. How many "coin flips" do you think would need to go your way to start rocket company through sheer luck that lands them in reverse?
In business, it works more like:
Get one coin flip right => get 10 flips for free.
Get one coin flip right => get 10 flips for free.
I'm not saying the success of a company is entirely down to luck. That would be stupid. I'm saying that some part of it is. I suspect Musk has been luckier than most, mainly because he's had more success than most. If he hadn't had some of that luck then any of his ventures could have failed.
I completely agree. Musk reminds me of Eric Hartmann, the most successful fighter pilot ever with 352 kills. Much is made of his skill as a pilot, but what isn't said is that he had to crash land 16 times and each time he came away from it fine and kept going. Tremendously lucky, something like 1/2^16 odds of surviving that. He was, however, also an exceptional pilot, who in particular understood how to tilt the odds in his favor. You could say that he also had the good luck to be the best at what he did.
It's very unlikely to have been largely luck -> it's likely it wasn't mostly luck -> no reason to bring up luck as an argument.
There's no fallacy here either, the implication is he was repeatedly successful due to his business skills, not luck, which he can be reasonably expected to apply to his future ventures.
To suggest otherwise would be falling for the old HN 'but technically' fallacy.
There's no fallacy here either, the implication is he was repeatedly successful due to his business skills, not luck, which he can be reasonably expected to apply to his future ventures.
To suggest otherwise would be falling for the old HN 'but technically' fallacy.
There are 8 billion people in the world.
With such a large population, we expect some people to just be stupidly lucky many times in a row, right? Especially since they aren't really independent events - if you get a lucky break, it keeps you in the game longer, making your second break more likely.
And it would make sense that the lucky outliers would be some of the wealthiest, right?
With such a large population, we expect some people to just be stupidly lucky many times in a row, right? Especially since they aren't really independent events - if you get a lucky break, it keeps you in the game longer, making your second break more likely.
And it would make sense that the lucky outliers would be some of the wealthiest, right?
>With such a large population, we expect some people to just be stupidly lucky many times in a row, right?
No, that's not how business work. This is not coin-tossing, the "being lucky" includes attracting VCs and investments, building a good image, picking a good niche, delivering, getting buyers, and several other things besides.
You can get lucky with one of those, but not all of those, and several independent times.
Else skill doesn't mean anything, and you could make the same argument for any human venture.
No, that's not how business work. This is not coin-tossing, the "being lucky" includes attracting VCs and investments, building a good image, picking a good niche, delivering, getting buyers, and several other things besides.
You can get lucky with one of those, but not all of those, and several independent times.
Else skill doesn't mean anything, and you could make the same argument for any human venture.
Try thinking about it like a scientist or a statistician rather than a business person.
Which is to say, don't think in terms of inviolable rules - that's useful for engineering the system, but can sabotage your ability to understand the system - and think instead in terms of what is possible and at what rate you expect it to happen. Then try multiplying that by 8 billion.
> Else skill doesn't mean anything
Skill matters, it just isn't the only factor.
> You could make the same argument for any human venture.
Luck profoundly effects every aspect of our lives, yeah.
Think about, say, professional gamers. Are they skilled? Doubtless. May the winner of a match be decided by the RNG? Definitely. If we're talking about a tournament of the best players, they're going to be pretty evenly matched, and it becomes pretty likely that luck will determine the winner.
Which is to say, don't think in terms of inviolable rules - that's useful for engineering the system, but can sabotage your ability to understand the system - and think instead in terms of what is possible and at what rate you expect it to happen. Then try multiplying that by 8 billion.
> Else skill doesn't mean anything
Skill matters, it just isn't the only factor.
> You could make the same argument for any human venture.
Luck profoundly effects every aspect of our lives, yeah.
Think about, say, professional gamers. Are they skilled? Doubtless. May the winner of a match be decided by the RNG? Definitely. If we're talking about a tournament of the best players, they're going to be pretty evenly matched, and it becomes pretty likely that luck will determine the winner.
>Which is to say, don't think in terms of inviolable rules - that's useful for engineering the system, but can sabotage your ability to understand the system - and think instead in terms of what is possible and at what rate you expect it to happen. Then try multiplying that by 8 billion
Notice that the above have nothing to with statistics. It's just handwaving based on the "with 8 billion people trying, anything is possible".
>Think about, say, professional gamers. Are they skilled? Doubtless. May the winner of a match be decided by the RNG? Definitely. If we're talking about a tournament of the best players, they're going to be pretty evenly matched, and it becomes pretty likely that luck will determine the winner.
That has already shifted the goalposts, to "luck among the best players" as opposed to "he just got lucky".
Notice that the above have nothing to with statistics. It's just handwaving based on the "with 8 billion people trying, anything is possible".
>Think about, say, professional gamers. Are they skilled? Doubtless. May the winner of a match be decided by the RNG? Definitely. If we're talking about a tournament of the best players, they're going to be pretty evenly matched, and it becomes pretty likely that luck will determine the winner.
That has already shifted the goalposts, to "luck among the best players" as opposed to "he just got lucky".
> Notice that the above have nothing to with statistics.
I was suggesting a thought experiment. I thought the way you were approaching this was rigid, I was encouraging you to see this as more of a scientific phenomenon than something rote.
It was just a suggestion, it's your business if you don't wanna take it.
> That has already shifted the goalposts...
Just trying to give you an example where both luck and skill matter. No goalposts were moved. I was responding to your objection, wherein the goalpost was, "does the existence of luck imply the nonimportance of skill?"
I was suggesting a thought experiment. I thought the way you were approaching this was rigid, I was encouraging you to see this as more of a scientific phenomenon than something rote.
It was just a suggestion, it's your business if you don't wanna take it.
> That has already shifted the goalposts...
Just trying to give you an example where both luck and skill matter. No goalposts were moved. I was responding to your objection, wherein the goalpost was, "does the existence of luck imply the nonimportance of skill?"
> You can get lucky with one of those, but not all of those, and several independent times.
The point that you are missing is that these are not only not independent times, but in fact extremely highly correlated. Especially for someone who already comes from an extremely wealthy background and has social connections to other wealthy elites.
The point that you are missing is that these are not only not independent times, but in fact extremely highly correlated. Especially for someone who already comes from an extremely wealthy background and has social connections to other wealthy elites.
One would expect the richest Man in the world to also be the luckiest. The latter is simply not possible without the former. I do think he's also pretty smart, and very hardworking, but let's not pretend that lucky isn't 99.9% what it takes to be the richest man in the world. There is a ton of people out there that are just as smart, and just as hardworking, and none of them have 1/1000th Musk's wealth.
He is a talented.. scammer, who is good at hyping up shit on which his people may or may not be able to deliver.
It’s not exactly rocket science to employ smart people.
It’s not exactly rocket science to employ smart people.
"It’s not exactly rocket science to employ smart people."
To employ, no, but to get a stream of important innovations out of them, that might actually be harder than rocket science.
The vast majority of smart people around the world are stuck in mediocre jobs. Hotspots of technical productivity like Bell Labs or SpaceX or NASA of the 1960s are pretty rare and rarely last for more than approximately a generation.
How to get smart people to be actually scientifically productive is a major question of history.
An example: 100 years ago, several very important innovators like von Neumann were Hungarians; nowadays, Hungary is a scientific backwater. (With the exception of Katalin Karikó, the mRNA lady.)
To employ, no, but to get a stream of important innovations out of them, that might actually be harder than rocket science.
The vast majority of smart people around the world are stuck in mediocre jobs. Hotspots of technical productivity like Bell Labs or SpaceX or NASA of the 1960s are pretty rare and rarely last for more than approximately a generation.
How to get smart people to be actually scientifically productive is a major question of history.
An example: 100 years ago, several very important innovators like von Neumann were Hungarians; nowadays, Hungary is a scientific backwater. (With the exception of Katalin Karikó, the mRNA lady.)
>It’s not exactly rocket science to employ smart people.
This is a ridiculous statement if you've ever run a company. "Just hire smart people and your company will be successful!"
Great, glad you cracked the code.
This is a ridiculous statement if you've ever run a company. "Just hire smart people and your company will be successful!"
Great, glad you cracked the code.
You can also employ a hiring manager who will hire smart people for you? He is definitely not operating on startup money, he can do that as well.
If only all those companies who got bankrupt knew this wise advice!
HN is trully a trove of business wisdom!
HN is trully a trove of business wisdom!
You absolutely cannot outsource talent acquisition. I’d go so far as to say it’s the single most important job of the entrepreneur— as Khosla has said “The team you build IS the company you build”
<< It’s not exactly rocket science to employ smart people.
Oh, but it is based on how hard it is for corporate America to even accept such a notion without going for 'egghead' in their internal vocabulary.
I think I disagree.
Oh, but it is based on how hard it is for corporate America to even accept such a notion without going for 'egghead' in their internal vocabulary.
I think I disagree.
It’s easy to get lucky several times when you have a rich family that keeps you from truly failing
Basically the "no-life-risk" thesis. I don't think it's entirely crazy either, Elon was going to be comfortable whatever he did, and some people in that position will roll the dice several times, and some of those guys will win several times.
Still takes some skill, I don't doubt that. But the main ingredient is risk.
Still takes some skill, I don't doubt that. But the main ingredient is risk.
"It’s easy to get lucky several times when you have a rich family that keeps you from truly failing"
This hypothesis is somewhat testable statistically.
There are approximately 25 thousand people worth 100 million dollars+ in the world, with more than a third of that number residing in the US. [0] I think we can safely say that people worth 100 million and more are rich.
If it is easy to get lucky several times with a rich family, you would expect some nontrivial share of Musk equivalents among them or their kids. Say, two hundred?
Not observed. Either the willingness to risk own money in engineering startups is < 1 per cent among those, or it is not that easy.
[0] https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2022/10/18/us...
This hypothesis is somewhat testable statistically.
There are approximately 25 thousand people worth 100 million dollars+ in the world, with more than a third of that number residing in the US. [0] I think we can safely say that people worth 100 million and more are rich.
If it is easy to get lucky several times with a rich family, you would expect some nontrivial share of Musk equivalents among them or their kids. Say, two hundred?
Not observed. Either the willingness to risk own money in engineering startups is < 1 per cent among those, or it is not that easy.
[0] https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2022/10/18/us...
> Either the willingness to risk own money in engineering startups is < 1 per cent among those
Maybe? The thing about having a rich family is... you're already rich.
That removes one of the prime motivations to take serious risks, of the sort that paid off for Musk; namely, to become rich.
I'm sure you get a lot of people who invest, or toss some money into this or that.
But I'd be surprised if a significant number invested their entire net worth and time into a single endeavor.
Maybe? The thing about having a rich family is... you're already rich.
That removes one of the prime motivations to take serious risks, of the sort that paid off for Musk; namely, to become rich.
I'm sure you get a lot of people who invest, or toss some money into this or that.
But I'd be surprised if a significant number invested their entire net worth and time into a single endeavor.
"But I'd be surprised if a significant number invested their entire net worth and time into a single endeavor."
AFAIK Musk was a relative nobody in the millionaire world when he poured a majority of his wealth into SpaceX (2002). They were very close to bankruptcy during the Falcon 1 experiments and if the fourth launch failed, they would have joined a fairly extensive graveyard of defunct space startups, together with Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace and a few hundred others.
AFAIK Musk was a relative nobody in the millionaire world when he poured a majority of his wealth into SpaceX (2002). They were very close to bankruptcy during the Falcon 1 experiments and if the fourth launch failed, they would have joined a fairly extensive graveyard of defunct space startups, together with Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace and a few hundred others.
By that point, he'd already been CEO of PayPal for a bit (after co-founding X.com that merged into the company that became PayPal) and made $175M for his stake when eBay bought it.
Then $100M went to found SpaceX.
But that does seem like a very large bet that millionaires don't often make.
Then $100M went to found SpaceX.
But that does seem like a very large bet that millionaires don't often make.
I believe your analysis is flawed. Children of rich people often times aren’t motivated to be creators or be hard working. It’s not easy succeeding since luck plays a huge role but what is true is the following:
Smart people, who are cutthroat, and who are driven/motivated have a much higher chance of success if they start out rich than those who don’t.
Smart people, who are cutthroat, and who are driven/motivated have a much higher chance of success if they start out rich than those who don’t.
Not even one percent of them?
I get the argument and it has certain logic in it, but surely they all cannot be 100 per cent lazy. And if the non-lazy ones have it relatively easy to succeed, we should see a lot of successes from that cohort, even if they are in a minority compared to their lazy peers.
I get the argument and it has certain logic in it, but surely they all cannot be 100 per cent lazy. And if the non-lazy ones have it relatively easy to succeed, we should see a lot of successes from that cohort, even if they are in a minority compared to their lazy peers.
Much higher chance meaning it goes from something like 0.001% to 0.01%.
And yet I don't any great percentage of people from a "rich family" making multi-billion dollar companies.
I'm also pretty sure with his first company sale he made much more money than his family ever had to begin with.
I'm also pretty sure with his first company sale he made much more money than his family ever had to begin with.
> And yet I don't any great percentage of people from a "rich family" making multi-billion dollar companies.
Because of the rarity of multi-billion dollar companies it makes more sense to flip the question - what are the demographics of those who found those companies?
If the odds of doing something are 1:100 who is going to have better odds at succeeding - the person who gets 1 throw or 10 throws? Neither are guaranteed to succeed, but they both have a chance and one is much more likely than the other. That's what's at play here.
Because of the rarity of multi-billion dollar companies it makes more sense to flip the question - what are the demographics of those who found those companies?
If the odds of doing something are 1:100 who is going to have better odds at succeeding - the person who gets 1 throw or 10 throws? Neither are guaranteed to succeed, but they both have a chance and one is much more likely than the other. That's what's at play here.
[deleted]
There’s a lot more non-rich people though. So even at 1 throw each you’d expect them to be most of the successes under this theory.
Of course there’s also hereditary factors at play that people like to ignore.
Of course there’s also hereditary factors at play that people like to ignore.
> There’s a lot more non-rich people though. So even at 1 throw each you’d expect them to be most of the successes under this theory.
Well, this is why we have to look at the numbers. And it depends on the odds. If it's one in a billion and the rich get ten million throws and the poor get 1 each then the fact there are a lot of non-rich people isn't as impactful.
> Of course there’s also hereditary factors at play that people like to ignore.
Yes, like having cash to throw around and a safety net to rely on so that those shots can be taken as well as easier access to potentially important connections and resources.
Well, this is why we have to look at the numbers. And it depends on the odds. If it's one in a billion and the rich get ten million throws and the poor get 1 each then the fact there are a lot of non-rich people isn't as impactful.
> Of course there’s also hereditary factors at play that people like to ignore.
Yes, like having cash to throw around and a safety net to rely on so that those shots can be taken as well as easier access to potentially important connections and resources.
He is an outlier, nobody is disputing that. Regardless of the odds to end up a multi-billionaire from a wealthy background, the odds of doing that from the working class are much lower. It does not mean that it never happens, I am sure there are examples.
> I'm also pretty sure with his first company sale he made much more money than his family ever had to begin with.
Well yeah. But he got there partly because he had some money to invest in the first place, and partly because he had useful connexions.
> I'm also pretty sure with his first company sale he made much more money than his family ever had to begin with.
Well yeah. But he got there partly because he had some money to invest in the first place, and partly because he had useful connexions.
> "Several times?"
With enough people in the world, someone will eventually get lucky in several improbable ways and may look like a genius thanks to survivorship bias.
I'm not saying Musk is that, but maybe his primary talent is risk-taking and fundraising rather than product innovation.
With enough people in the world, someone will eventually get lucky in several improbable ways and may look like a genius thanks to survivorship bias.
I'm not saying Musk is that, but maybe his primary talent is risk-taking and fundraising rather than product innovation.
> Several times?
Yes ? Not only there is no reason for it not to be the case ( it's not like rolling 6 two times in a row is impossible... ) but anyway once you've achieved your first success it's easier to buy the next ones.
Yes ? Not only there is no reason for it not to be the case ( it's not like rolling 6 two times in a row is impossible... ) but anyway once you've achieved your first success it's easier to buy the next ones.
(Read: investors chasing the next big thing (after seeing the tech boom) give money to a person smart enough to know that to get the money all he has to do is promise the next big thing from the next tech boom) (and later use the money to hire smart people who sometimes actually do build a big thing)
Statistically shouldnt someone get lucky 2 or 3 times?
Say there are million people with 1 million to invest.
Then 1/100 chance to get lucky. Do it 3 times (1/100)^3?
Maybe the general idea was nor bad and he got lucky in recruitment? Recruiting young people believing in his idea and getting overworked to reach them?
Say there are million people with 1 million to invest.
Then 1/100 chance to get lucky. Do it 3 times (1/100)^3?
Maybe the general idea was nor bad and he got lucky in recruitment? Recruiting young people believing in his idea and getting overworked to reach them?
> Then 1/100 chance to get lucky. Do it 3 times (1/100)^3?
It’s easier to do when you can be bailed out by friends and family after the first failure, compared to people who end up sleeping on the street. Considering that even succeeding once is a rare event, it is not that surprising that the final population is heavily skewed.
> Maybe the general idea was nor bad and he got lucky in recruitment? Recruiting young people believing in his idea and getting overworked to reach them?
There is certainly a bit of that. And to be fair, it is the best strategy: a single human has only so much bandwidth them handling all the aspects of a large-ish company is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention, a single point of failure, so the company’s dead the moment anything happens to them. It’s been the same with Jobs, one of his talents was to hire the right people.
It’s easier to do when you can be bailed out by friends and family after the first failure, compared to people who end up sleeping on the street. Considering that even succeeding once is a rare event, it is not that surprising that the final population is heavily skewed.
> Maybe the general idea was nor bad and he got lucky in recruitment? Recruiting young people believing in his idea and getting overworked to reach them?
There is certainly a bit of that. And to be fair, it is the best strategy: a single human has only so much bandwidth them handling all the aspects of a large-ish company is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention, a single point of failure, so the company’s dead the moment anything happens to them. It’s been the same with Jobs, one of his talents was to hire the right people.
> he just got lucky
>
> Several times?
Yes. @notacoward had a perfect comment about this a few years back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
Yes. @notacoward had a perfect comment about this a few years back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
That really is a perfect comment.
There were tons of 100x richer kids who didn't manage to throw succesfully any such darts, much less do so on highly competitive, highly unrelated domains...
That is not how statistics work. We are talking about odds, not certainties. If people from the working class are 10 times less likely to end up CEOs of multi-billion corporations (which does sound very generous), you’d still expect to see one every so often.
Which is neither here, nor there.
The argument was that Musk was just a lucky incompetent person, not that he was skilled but "only" among a "limited" ten million plus people in the US alone starting at the same wealth levels...
Or you still mean the first, that those say, 10 million Americans at similar wealth starting points had the chance to throw their darts, and Musk just happened by chance to hit bullseye on a major company sale/exit/buildup 4 or more times in a row, including turning out the richest man in the world by mere lucky darting?
The argument was that Musk was just a lucky incompetent person, not that he was skilled but "only" among a "limited" ten million plus people in the US alone starting at the same wealth levels...
Or you still mean the first, that those say, 10 million Americans at similar wealth starting points had the chance to throw their darts, and Musk just happened by chance to hit bullseye on a major company sale/exit/buildup 4 or more times in a row, including turning out the richest man in the world by mere lucky darting?
> The argument was that Musk was just a lucky incompetent person
That wasn't the argument. The argument was about luck, not competence
> Or you still mean the first, that those say, 10 million Americans at similar wealth
You're assuming all those wealthy Americans decided to throw darts, or threw the same amount of darts. They did not.
If you follow his successes, you can see a repeated cycle: "invested millions or billions of his own money, kept the company afloat for years". You don't get to do that on competence alone.
All of his companies were on the verge of bankrupcy at one point. And lookey lookey, on "competence alone" NASA awards SpaceX a 1.6 billion dollar contract after a single successful launch (after three failed attempts).
As an aside, "Griffin later estimated that SpaceX was around 85% funded by the federal government, mostly through his NASA awards, with the remaining 15% funding split between Elon Musk and other private investors".
Same for Tesla. It existed for 7 years before it delivered its first car. And even by then it was at least 70 million of Musk's own money. And then a huge infusion of government money.
SolarCity. Failed, and bought with Tesla's money.
Neuralink. No idea if it's a failure yet, exists due to Musk's money.
BoringCompany. A non-entity that existed only because of Musk's money, and then due to unlimited investor money (what the US mistakes for "innovation"). It really exists only due to anti-public-transportation lobbying.
And so on.
He exemplifies the quote I posted.
That wasn't the argument. The argument was about luck, not competence
> Or you still mean the first, that those say, 10 million Americans at similar wealth
You're assuming all those wealthy Americans decided to throw darts, or threw the same amount of darts. They did not.
If you follow his successes, you can see a repeated cycle: "invested millions or billions of his own money, kept the company afloat for years". You don't get to do that on competence alone.
All of his companies were on the verge of bankrupcy at one point. And lookey lookey, on "competence alone" NASA awards SpaceX a 1.6 billion dollar contract after a single successful launch (after three failed attempts).
As an aside, "Griffin later estimated that SpaceX was around 85% funded by the federal government, mostly through his NASA awards, with the remaining 15% funding split between Elon Musk and other private investors".
Same for Tesla. It existed for 7 years before it delivered its first car. And even by then it was at least 70 million of Musk's own money. And then a huge infusion of government money.
SolarCity. Failed, and bought with Tesla's money.
Neuralink. No idea if it's a failure yet, exists due to Musk's money.
BoringCompany. A non-entity that existed only because of Musk's money, and then due to unlimited investor money (what the US mistakes for "innovation"). It really exists only due to anti-public-transportation lobbying.
And so on.
He exemplifies the quote I posted.
>Several times?
People that are wealthy very very very very often, fail upwards.
People that are wealthy very very very very often, fail upwards.
> Several times?
Yes. Capital tends to make it easier on each iteration.
Yes. Capital tends to make it easier on each iteration.
How can you be so sure that it was just luck? Why should anyone trust you above Carmack and Karpathy who are talented without any doubt and who have worked closely with him, who has nothing but high praise for him.
Once can be luck. Succeeding multiple times at very hard things is not luck.
People can't wrap their heads around the idea that someone can be simultaneously a genius and an idiot. In the real world this is very common.
I like to put it this way: how many musicians do you like who are geniuses at composition, drums, guitar, vocals, or some other musical skill but are absolutely intolerable assholes and/or complete lunatics in the rest of their lives? Can you still enjoy their music? Does their music cease to be good when you learn about their personality flaws?
IMHO much of Elon's success can be attributed to two things:
(1) He is at least a good enough engineer or has good enough "engineers' intuition" to hire people who know what they are talking about and get them working on the right things. He seems much stronger in physical areas like rockets can cars though, not software.
(2) He doesn't listen to pessimists and nihilists who say things are impossible if, when reasoning from first principles, they can be shown to be quite possible. Example: ignoring people who said you can't land a rocket or that an EV could never do well in the market. Ignoring pessimism can be a superpower.
I do think Elon shows signs of chronic burnout at this point. The far-right / conspiranoid brain worm infection he's developed is IMHO a symptom. Opportunistic infections take hold when the immune system is weak.
People can't wrap their heads around the idea that someone can be simultaneously a genius and an idiot. In the real world this is very common.
I like to put it this way: how many musicians do you like who are geniuses at composition, drums, guitar, vocals, or some other musical skill but are absolutely intolerable assholes and/or complete lunatics in the rest of their lives? Can you still enjoy their music? Does their music cease to be good when you learn about their personality flaws?
IMHO much of Elon's success can be attributed to two things:
(1) He is at least a good enough engineer or has good enough "engineers' intuition" to hire people who know what they are talking about and get them working on the right things. He seems much stronger in physical areas like rockets can cars though, not software.
(2) He doesn't listen to pessimists and nihilists who say things are impossible if, when reasoning from first principles, they can be shown to be quite possible. Example: ignoring people who said you can't land a rocket or that an EV could never do well in the market. Ignoring pessimism can be a superpower.
I do think Elon shows signs of chronic burnout at this point. The far-right / conspiranoid brain worm infection he's developed is IMHO a symptom. Opportunistic infections take hold when the immune system is weak.
> I don't think he had any talent
He has a talent: self-promotion.
He has a talent: self-promotion.
Not lucky, subsidized [1].
[1] Company with $15 million revenue in 2008 gets $465 million "loan" in 2009, https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/the-government-comes-throu... https://www.statista.com/statistics/272120/revenue-of-tesla Of course, Ford got $5.9 billion bailout, because capitalism is the lie profiteers tell to the wage slaves as they privatize profits while socializing losses.
[1] Company with $15 million revenue in 2008 gets $465 million "loan" in 2009, https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/the-government-comes-throu... https://www.statista.com/statistics/272120/revenue-of-tesla Of course, Ford got $5.9 billion bailout, because capitalism is the lie profiteers tell to the wage slaves as they privatize profits while socializing losses.
I’m not seeing reputable sources reporting ford got bailouts. Nor do I see ford on this list. https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
It's in the first paragraph of the linked article [1]. They were called "loans" in the government-speak of the post-2008 crash, but if you look at the semantics, they were just risk-free bailouts.
[1] "the U.S. Secretary of Energy will be giving details about the first loans to come out of the government’s $25 billion program to help auto manufacturers. Ford got a $5.9 billion loan, but Tesla Motors, Silicon Valley’s electric car manufacturer, is receiving $465 million from the program"
[1] "the U.S. Secretary of Energy will be giving details about the first loans to come out of the government’s $25 billion program to help auto manufacturers. Ford got a $5.9 billion loan, but Tesla Motors, Silicon Valley’s electric car manufacturer, is receiving $465 million from the program"
Bailout or not, the loan was however repaid nine years ahead of time in 2013.
https://www.cnbc.com/id/100759230
https://www.cnbc.com/id/100759230
Looks like Ford argued for it in 2009 and in 2010 didn’t take it. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/59862-rejecting-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Icon:_Alan_Mulally_...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Icon:_Alan_Mulally_...
Just avoiding the inevitable I suppose: June 22, 2023, "Ford agrees to $9.2 billion US government loan" [1].
That's the joke in the end: there are no companies (and there is no government), just a bunch of chaebols [2], at least South Koreans don't lie to themselves.
[1] "Ford previously took out a $5.9 billion loan under the program in 2009. That loan was fully repaid as of last year (2022), according to the DoE. [3]", https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/22/business/ford-department-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
[3] https://www.energy.gov/lpo/ford
That's the joke in the end: there are no companies (and there is no government), just a bunch of chaebols [2], at least South Koreans don't lie to themselves.
[1] "Ford previously took out a $5.9 billion loan under the program in 2009. That loan was fully repaid as of last year (2022), according to the DoE. [3]", https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/22/business/ford-department-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
[3] https://www.energy.gov/lpo/ford
How is not a loan if they’ve been repaying it?
Can I, just a random citizen, get a loan from the government for not even billions or hundreds of millions but let's say $100,000? I will of course repay "in due course, at the appropriate juncture, in the fullness of time" [1], at 0% interest.
There is nothing loan-like in government "loans" (of 2008, or of 2021, see the PPP heist [2]) almost by definition: no interest, no shares changing hands, not even a share buyback restriction (how most of the government loans are spent anyway).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYEUXlYcSI
[2] "How Did PPP Scammers Steal $100+ Billion", https://www.aura.com/learn/ppp-loan-fraud
There is nothing loan-like in government "loans" (of 2008, or of 2021, see the PPP heist [2]) almost by definition: no interest, no shares changing hands, not even a share buyback restriction (how most of the government loans are spent anyway).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYEUXlYcSI
[2] "How Did PPP Scammers Steal $100+ Billion", https://www.aura.com/learn/ppp-loan-fraud
treeman79(5)
Nice hypothesis. I’ll remember you when I need to sell my Oceanside property in Arizona.
I can see why you think that, but I think you're wrong.
Musk's success in Zip2 and X.com was mostly realizing there was a market opportunity and working long hours personally on the code to get the sites up and running.
With SpaceX and Telsa mostly his value-add has been looking at things and saying "This isn't elegantly designed enough" sort of like Steve Jobs but for internals. And he seems to be right often enough to be successful.
But he seems to think that he has this ability for software engineering and user interfaces too, but he doesn't. Which is why he was canned at PayPal and why he's making such a mess of Twitter.
All people are composed of both strengths and weaknesses. The important part is finding a position which plays to your strenths. Sadly, I think critical introspection is a strength that Elon doesn't possess.
Musk's success in Zip2 and X.com was mostly realizing there was a market opportunity and working long hours personally on the code to get the sites up and running.
With SpaceX and Telsa mostly his value-add has been looking at things and saying "This isn't elegantly designed enough" sort of like Steve Jobs but for internals. And he seems to be right often enough to be successful.
But he seems to think that he has this ability for software engineering and user interfaces too, but he doesn't. Which is why he was canned at PayPal and why he's making such a mess of Twitter.
All people are composed of both strengths and weaknesses. The important part is finding a position which plays to your strenths. Sadly, I think critical introspection is a strength that Elon doesn't possess.
> With SpaceX and Telsa mostly his value-add has been looking at things and saying "This isn't elegantly designed enough" sort of like Steve Jobs but for internals. And he seems to be right often enough to be successful.
That wasn't his value add for either case. In both situations he brought together teams of extremely passionate and talented individuals and gave them a greenlight to employ a "move fast and break things" mindset that they otherwise couldn't in extremely conservative industries. Elon didn't send people back to the drawing board because he had some vision of a more elegant solution, they went back to the drawing board after the most recent iteration exploded.
That wasn't his value add for either case. In both situations he brought together teams of extremely passionate and talented individuals and gave them a greenlight to employ a "move fast and break things" mindset that they otherwise couldn't in extremely conservative industries. Elon didn't send people back to the drawing board because he had some vision of a more elegant solution, they went back to the drawing board after the most recent iteration exploded.
> critical introspection is a strength that Elon doesn't possess
He absolutely does. We’ve seen it in his prior reversals, when fortunes at his firms were down and he changed course savvily. The sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, namely, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks, do not. And that’s rubbing off on him.
He absolutely does. We’ve seen it in his prior reversals, when fortunes at his firms were down and he changed course savvily. The sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, namely, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks, do not. And that’s rubbing off on him.
The sycophants are one thing, but he's gone off the loon end himself for extremely personal stuff as well such as the names of his children with Grimes.
Grimes also wanted a weird name.
Grimes isn't her given name. It's a chosen name, which is common in performers.
> We’ve seen it in his prior reversals, when fortunes at his firms were down and he changed course savvily.
More like when he gets called out on his lies and abuse, he buries what he previously said. When was the last time he talked about Hyperloop? Did he ever apologize to the person he accused of being a pedo? Robotaxis?
He lies to pump his stock or ego, then hopes people forget what he said. That’s not “savvy”, it’s just sleazy.
More like when he gets called out on his lies and abuse, he buries what he previously said. When was the last time he talked about Hyperloop? Did he ever apologize to the person he accused of being a pedo? Robotaxis?
He lies to pump his stock or ego, then hopes people forget what he said. That’s not “savvy”, it’s just sleazy.
> The sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, namely, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks, do not. And that’s rubbing off on him.
Shouldn't a person with a high ability for critical introspection be impervious to and deeply suspicious of the influences of sycophants?
Shouldn't a person with a high ability for critical introspection be impervious to and deeply suspicious of the influences of sycophants?
I think you're making some good points - Zip2 and X, whatever the ultimate "quality" of the tech / UI*, realizing the opportunities, pushing to ship quickly, etc., that was all key. Musk was a clear driver.
With SpaceX and Tesla, I'm not as sure about the facts - I believe there is / was a strong component of "Jobs", but also (especially at Tesla), plenty of pissing engineers off with really BAD proposed solutions. I.e., plenty of "thinking differently" (which can be very valuable, and Musk has had some notable successes here and there), but not enough "filter".
I would say, though, that as his value** has fluctuated on the technical side (and, I personally have the sense has likely never been that high), he did build some real strength in "branding" and selling / marketing. He created / built a personal brand, especially, that was quite important in raising money / funding for R&D etc. at SpaceX and Tesla, especially.
Ultimately, his arc is ... an archetype. His arc is a great example of a pattern that is seen frequently (enough) among ambitious people who become very successful through drive, risk-taking / (some degree of) unconventional thinking, etc. You see this with people like George Lucas, and part of it is the "yes men" trope alluded to in another comment.
Basically, early in their careers, their impulses and "visions" and the like are tempered by others and organizational structures of various types. This tempering is a key additional filter which helps keep their creativity and problem-solving skills etc. more focused / ~"pointed in the right direction". But, over time, they gain more and more power - more and more freedom to do what they want, to not have to listen to anyone else. The decline in quality / success / etc. of their projects and companies seems to very closely mirror the degree to which they are unfiltered / unconstrained / no longer (so) dependent on others.
Basically, classic human "ego stories" (that don't necessarily depend on "big ego", but even the simple blindness of "ego" we all have) recognized and well-explored by the Ancient Greeks, in particular (e.g., "Icarus", "Odysseus", etc.).
* Not really pertinent / germane to this discussion
** To the degree I have any ability to judge, particularly as regards actual knowledge of much of this history (similar to the vast majority of people)
With SpaceX and Tesla, I'm not as sure about the facts - I believe there is / was a strong component of "Jobs", but also (especially at Tesla), plenty of pissing engineers off with really BAD proposed solutions. I.e., plenty of "thinking differently" (which can be very valuable, and Musk has had some notable successes here and there), but not enough "filter".
I would say, though, that as his value** has fluctuated on the technical side (and, I personally have the sense has likely never been that high), he did build some real strength in "branding" and selling / marketing. He created / built a personal brand, especially, that was quite important in raising money / funding for R&D etc. at SpaceX and Tesla, especially.
Ultimately, his arc is ... an archetype. His arc is a great example of a pattern that is seen frequently (enough) among ambitious people who become very successful through drive, risk-taking / (some degree of) unconventional thinking, etc. You see this with people like George Lucas, and part of it is the "yes men" trope alluded to in another comment.
Basically, early in their careers, their impulses and "visions" and the like are tempered by others and organizational structures of various types. This tempering is a key additional filter which helps keep their creativity and problem-solving skills etc. more focused / ~"pointed in the right direction". But, over time, they gain more and more power - more and more freedom to do what they want, to not have to listen to anyone else. The decline in quality / success / etc. of their projects and companies seems to very closely mirror the degree to which they are unfiltered / unconstrained / no longer (so) dependent on others.
Basically, classic human "ego stories" (that don't necessarily depend on "big ego", but even the simple blindness of "ego" we all have) recognized and well-explored by the Ancient Greeks, in particular (e.g., "Icarus", "Odysseus", etc.).
* Not really pertinent / germane to this discussion
** To the degree I have any ability to judge, particularly as regards actual knowledge of much of this history (similar to the vast majority of people)
> But he seems to think that he has this ability for software engineering and user interfaces too, but he doesn't.
I find that many many people in software think they have a knack for thinking what is a good user interface, even though they are just users and not experts in the field.
I find that many many people in software think they have a knack for thinking what is a good user interface, even though they are just users and not experts in the field.
That Musk's genius acumen were either fake or something that he has since lost, is not an unpopular opinion, but the ruling wisdom here and elsewhere.
It's true, lots of people did fall for his Tony Stark act, but the past year has really opened people's eyes to the fact that it was all narcissism. The signs were there long before, but they were easy to ignore in light of the success of innovative companies like Tesla and SpaceX. But now people are wondering whether the success of those companies was really because of him, or that we was just there to provide the money and bask in the glory.
It's true, lots of people did fall for his Tony Stark act, but the past year has really opened people's eyes to the fact that it was all narcissism. The signs were there long before, but they were easy to ignore in light of the success of innovative companies like Tesla and SpaceX. But now people are wondering whether the success of those companies was really because of him, or that we was just there to provide the money and bask in the glory.
> or that we was just there to provide the money and bask in the glory
The "raising money" part is the inarguably most important part of any startup. Given enough money, you can ride through absolutely anything - and the kind of projects that Musk provided with money always need a crapton of them: Tesla to even have a tiny chance at surviving against the established behemoths, and SpaceX because (prior to them) spaceflight was something for rich developed nation states only.
The "raising money" part is the inarguably most important part of any startup. Given enough money, you can ride through absolutely anything - and the kind of projects that Musk provided with money always need a crapton of them: Tesla to even have a tiny chance at surviving against the established behemoths, and SpaceX because (prior to them) spaceflight was something for rich developed nation states only.
I became convinced when he said he was putting CPUs in the Tesla Wall batteries during the cpu shortage for mining. I knew there were signs (cybertruck, the robot gimmick possibly being earlier one) but that was it for me. This is separate from his personality which I disliked earlier.
I don't think he really had special talent for business, he had strong beliefs that happened to line up with what was profitable at the time. I don't think when he invested in Tesla or started SpaceX he was thinking about whether it made business sense - he just wanted to build futuristic technology, and he was one of the few people willing to spend a lot of money on a new company to actually make it happen.
That doesn't really mean he is a genius at business, just that he is really good at pitching his vision and getting people excited about it.
That doesn't really mean he is a genius at business, just that he is really good at pitching his vision and getting people excited about it.
I think it's more that being terminally online has given him the brain worms when it comes to Twitter, and everything he does with Twitter has to be interpreted through the mass of brain worms.
He does come across as Twitter-addicted. And now I'm wondering if Trump's lunacy may also have been caused by Twitter, and that he may have been a more reasonable person in the past.
Everything I've heard is that Trump has been regarded as a moron for more than 50 years. He was a moron, raised by uncaring parents, and is now dealing with dementia. I'm sure the addictive nature of social media engagement didn't help, but as a person Trump is just like that.
If you read the history, it sounds like many of his... dysfunctions... go back to the start of his business career, and the latest debacles look a lot like stuff that went down at PayPal/X.com over 20 years ago; where it sounds like he got evicted and Peter Thiel had to clean up the mess.
And in fact this X.com renaming sounds like him dealing with personal baggage and vendettas from back then.
Basically the opposite of the stoic and calculating personality one expects a giant of capitalism to be.
So I actually just wonder if it's more than there was a 10 year period of Musk... getting lucky... by surrounding himself with some competence. That, and the investing world after 2008, with its intensely low interest rates and high tech-sector profits made it easy to "swim naked."
The efforts of a narcissistic showman Dunning-Kruger personality like Musk... are a great place to dump your money as long as you're not the last one holding the bag when shit hits the fan (aka Twitter).
And in fact this X.com renaming sounds like him dealing with personal baggage and vendettas from back then.
Basically the opposite of the stoic and calculating personality one expects a giant of capitalism to be.
So I actually just wonder if it's more than there was a 10 year period of Musk... getting lucky... by surrounding himself with some competence. That, and the investing world after 2008, with its intensely low interest rates and high tech-sector profits made it easy to "swim naked."
The efforts of a narcissistic showman Dunning-Kruger personality like Musk... are a great place to dump your money as long as you're not the last one holding the bag when shit hits the fan (aka Twitter).
I tend to think it's more internet-poisoning than yes-men. When he was sleeping in his office and living and breathing his companies, he didn't have time to get corrupted by social media.
Then he slowed down once his companies got big-enough and stable-enough to run themselves. His transphobia (combined with his hatred of the COVID policies that were hurting his bottom line) led him down the worst internet rabbit-holes and now he's off the deep end.
Then he slowed down once his companies got big-enough and stable-enough to run themselves. His transphobia (combined with his hatred of the COVID policies that were hurting his bottom line) led him down the worst internet rabbit-holes and now he's off the deep end.
Do any of these "yes men" have names or positions? Do you have an example? A lot of these criticisms read like "extrapolations on an unsupported basis that aligns with my current over-simplification".
> It’s not a popular opinion on this site
Lmfao your opinion is literally the popular opinion on this site. Talk of bubbles within bubbles within bubbles!
Lmfao your opinion is literally the popular opinion on this site. Talk of bubbles within bubbles within bubbles!
I've come to view this qualifier as HN's answer to LinkedIn's humblebrag.
Note I am guilty of using that qualifier once or twice prior to stating a popular opinion on HN...
Note I am guilty of using that qualifier once or twice prior to stating a popular opinion on HN...
I tend to downvote the "this will probably be downvoted but..." comments (except when it's an extraordinarily insightful comment).
Just leave that sentence out. It adds nothing to the discussion.
Just leave that sentence out. It adds nothing to the discussion.
Yeah, any complaint/presaging about imaginary internet points gets an automatic downvote from me.
Maybe; and yet Tesla still rolls off cars off the assembly line and SpaceX is still reliably launching and recovering rockets.
He's playing with his own money, no different than Bezos losing money and 500K subs on the WaPo.
He's playing with his own money, no different than Bezos losing money and 500K subs on the WaPo.
Teslas notoriously has very shit QA before they're released to customers at this point, and is this the same SpaceX that destroyed their launch pad on the last launch?
Real stellar performance.
Real stellar performance.
> It’s not a popular opinion on this site, and I’m probably going to be savagely downvoted
At best, it's hard to take someone seriously when they intentionally lie about the obvious. At worst, it makes it seem like you are part of a pr campaign.
Can you point to a post where you were savagely downvoted for criticizing elon and anything having to do with twitter? I genuinely interested. Maybe your experience on hn is different from everyone else's.
At best, it's hard to take someone seriously when they intentionally lie about the obvious. At worst, it makes it seem like you are part of a pr campaign.
Can you point to a post where you were savagely downvoted for criticizing elon and anything having to do with twitter? I genuinely interested. Maybe your experience on hn is different from everyone else's.
> Can you point to a post where you were savagely downvoted for criticizing elon and anything having to do with twitter?
I see more people complaining about hidden posts than hidden posts (which I do read every time, and I have seen once or twice a hidden post that should not have been). It’s difficult to take seriously people banging on about a down-voting cabal being after them because they’re so edgy and right.
I see more people complaining about hidden posts than hidden posts (which I do read every time, and I have seen once or twice a hidden post that should not have been). It’s difficult to take seriously people banging on about a down-voting cabal being after them because they’re so edgy and right.
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Why isn't he seeing his successful companies fail then?
Which other ones did he run directly where he had the 'expertise'?
Basically, they had other people to help guide it vs just Musk doing it himself.
Basically, they had other people to help guide it vs just Musk doing it himself.
As opposed to Bezos and Jobs and Cook and Ellisson and Zuckerberg every other CEO, which doesn't have "people to run it"?
They fail to amuse me either, like, CEOs not being some gods is not a controversial statement, you ain’t disproving anything.
That myth (or rather propaganda) that they are some übermensch that work more than you could ever imagine and are so productive and it’s all thanks to the magic of powernaps or whatever bullshit they make up to sell you the temporarily embarrassed billionaire tale is thoroughly debunked. They are ordinary people who got into a very lucky situation and didn’t fuck up too bad.
That myth (or rather propaganda) that they are some übermensch that work more than you could ever imagine and are so productive and it’s all thanks to the magic of powernaps or whatever bullshit they make up to sell you the temporarily embarrassed billionaire tale is thoroughly debunked. They are ordinary people who got into a very lucky situation and didn’t fuck up too bad.
>CEOs not being some gods is not a controversial statement, you ain’t disproving anything.
Bro, do you even HN? That's like the gospel here...
Bro, do you even HN? That's like the gospel here...
HN is definitely too libertarian to my liking, and many believe that the free market will solve every problem known to mankind in itself. But that’s their (naive) worldview.
I think the major difference there is, those people are all running one company. So while they also had/have other people to run it, they were/are much more significantly involved.
Yet. They don't do anything which can't be done by someone else for less money and at less risk to investors.
Imagine being the world's richest man, even for a little bit. I would imagine that does some stuff to your ego.
> It’s not a popular opinion on this site
Oh come on.
Oh come on.
Criticizing elon musk is very popular on HN…
> at least a decade ago by him surrounding himself with ego-stroking yes men
It’s more recent. The Sacks-Chamatch-Calacanis axis didn’t go into gear until Covid. Somewhere between the election of Trump and lockdown, the rot set in. That suggests it’s still excusable.
It’s more recent. The Sacks-Chamatch-Calacanis axis didn’t go into gear until Covid. Somewhere between the election of Trump and lockdown, the rot set in. That suggests it’s still excusable.
[deleted]
okeuro49(1)
Do you mean... MyForge? The new (old) social media platform for open source?
Is that back?
I speculate that musk is trying to build something like weChat for the US
“ X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
You’re rebranding information from the article as your own speculation?
You’re rebranding information from the article as your own speculation?
The same account for a bank and a shitposting platform. What could possibly go wrong?
He’s said as much personally back at the beginning. Notably, WeChat enjoys a government monopoly in China. Musk was hoping that the critical mass of Twitter would let him achieve the he same here.
Many of Musk's plans for Twitter appear to been formulated after the fact.
Twitter was first going to be a safe harbour for free speech. Then it was going to the launch site for De Santis' presidential campaign (ignoring the irony of championing politicians who can't sign censorious bills fast enough).
Now it'll be a payment platform? People don't want to come to Twitter to spend money, it's reality TV for the internet -- nobody's paying for that. It would be like purchasing a sports team, and setting up a credit card signup booth at the stadium.
Twitter was first going to be a safe harbour for free speech. Then it was going to the launch site for De Santis' presidential campaign (ignoring the irony of championing politicians who can't sign censorious bills fast enough).
Now it'll be a payment platform? People don't want to come to Twitter to spend money, it's reality TV for the internet -- nobody's paying for that. It would be like purchasing a sports team, and setting up a credit card signup booth at the stadium.
He should have bought Facebook then.
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> I speculate that musk is trying to build something like weChat for the US
You don't need to "speculate", because Musk has literally said this.
You don't need to "speculate", because Musk has literally said this.
Except like 90% of the comments here completely ignore the fact.
I speculate your username is simou.
It might work. We don't like silos but they're handy for users.
Too late now, with advent of CBDCs , the time for paypal has passed
WeChat is just an app platform, like Android or iOS.
coming soon: "Go back to Twitter" for $20/month on X.com
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Phil_Latio(1)
Theories about a global service app ala Chinese Platforms... Would make sense to try to recover losses by more in-app sales.
The product has had several new features added, is more performant, the bots have been culled, and a rebrand is common when a company is going in a new direction. Not to mention when Elon first bought the company he announced his goal was to create an "everything app" called X so I'd hardly call the move "desperate".
> the bots have been culled
Source, please?
Source, please?
It's definitely not "anyone who browses the trending topic for a sports event" because you'll still see hundreds of scammy "WATCH LIVE AT ..." tweets per hour.
I agree with this statement.
Twitter as a platform and product works better today than it did a year ago. Less bots makes a huge difference.
It's also not hard to imagine why they lost 50% of their advertisers. 50% kind of lines up with the percentage of "woke" (horrible label, but whatever) companies out there who basically "had to" pull their ad dollars to not piss off the camp they put themselves in.
Prognostication is fun, but to be honest, we don't really have any idea whether or not this rebranding and redirection will work. Time will tell.
I, however, applaud people willing to take moonshots.
Twitter as a platform and product works better today than it did a year ago. Less bots makes a huge difference.
It's also not hard to imagine why they lost 50% of their advertisers. 50% kind of lines up with the percentage of "woke" (horrible label, but whatever) companies out there who basically "had to" pull their ad dollars to not piss off the camp they put themselves in.
Prognostication is fun, but to be honest, we don't really have any idea whether or not this rebranding and redirection will work. Time will tell.
I, however, applaud people willing to take moonshots.
Scaling down engineering and product, reducing revenue by significant amounts in order to reach "profitability" is not directionally in line with a moonshot.
SpaceX, sure - but what he's doing to Twitter is straight from a private equity / corporate raider textbook.
SpaceX, sure - but what he's doing to Twitter is straight from a private equity / corporate raider textbook.
> companies out there who basically "had to" pull their ad dollars to not piss off the camp they put themselves in
Musk used to be political Teflon. He threw away that bipartisan edge for no gain. That was one of the beginnings of his Howard Hughes analogy.
Musk used to be political Teflon. He threw away that bipartisan edge for no gain. That was one of the beginnings of his Howard Hughes analogy.
Not a fan and don't use the product, but giving away substantial money to highly engaged users on the platform is a very novel and interesting product idea which I doubt would have ever seen the light of day in a public company, and has the potential to be a disruptive business model.
Imagine the discussion if the idea was presented in a public company with the CFO in the room "Rather than spend money trying to attract churned users, we decided to use it instead to reward loyal and highly engaged users even though we are pretty sure their engagement level would be high no matter what, and in fact they would happily pay us to use the platform".
Imagine the discussion if the idea was presented in a public company with the CFO in the room "Rather than spend money trying to attract churned users, we decided to use it instead to reward loyal and highly engaged users even though we are pretty sure their engagement level would be high no matter what, and in fact they would happily pay us to use the platform".
Isn't this just what YouTube has been doing for years?
It's just acknowledging that on Twitter there's an implicit division been content producers and consumers, and that the content producers are getting close to leaving and taking their followers with them now that there are viable competitors. Paying them to keep producing content is hardly novel.
It's just acknowledging that on Twitter there's an implicit division been content producers and consumers, and that the content producers are getting close to leaving and taking their followers with them now that there are viable competitors. Paying them to keep producing content is hardly novel.
I think there is a significant difference conceptually between the two. The novelty is that it was more like compensating users who are highly active in leaving popular comments on youtube, the more popular their comment the more they get.
Not really, because almost no one comes to YouTube for the comments, so paying people to comment would be stupid.
In contrast, most people are on Twitter to read tweets produced by a tiny minority of Twitter users. These users are directly analogous to YouTube content creators (and indeed, many YouTubers are also active with large numbers of followers on Twitter). It doesn't take great business acumen to see the parallel, all you have to do is look at the distribution of follower counts.
In contrast, most people are on Twitter to read tweets produced by a tiny minority of Twitter users. These users are directly analogous to YouTube content creators (and indeed, many YouTubers are also active with large numbers of followers on Twitter). It doesn't take great business acumen to see the parallel, all you have to do is look at the distribution of follower counts.
What people don‘t seem to take into account here is that Elon was forced to buy the company due to a binding offer he made but later found out user numbers to be manipulated and so on. He‘s already burned down the 40 billion market cap to less than 20 billion today and he doesn‘t have much to lose. He is meme-style trying to enjoy the blunder he made while having a tiny but an exponential chance he still may hit it big by doing something outright crazy such as his long-time aspiration of x.com (the everything company). He is finding out currently that social-human systems work very differently than engineering systems, and he is not very talented at all on the human side of things. Don‘t take him too seriously just as he doesn‘t take himself all that seriously either. And hey, there‘s always the upshot opportunity of it going big, but that is a tiny chance by know.
To me it looks like everyone who‘s trying to take him seriously by now with all this are making themselves laughing stock. And Musk couldn‘t care less.
For me the only problem is that I‘m a Tesla shareholder and I‘ve seen a sort of dilution and all his suffering first-hand, where a single share of mine has already turned into 15 since I bought it. Thus of course I have skin in the game, but I still consider this all as a big meme-like joke.
Soon we‘re all dead anyway, so let‘s not think about things too serious and money is just money for most people who have it. It‘s no bigger than life. Have fun and enjoy the ride, our 100 years on this planet are a sliver so we‘ll all be enjoying it in our own messed up ways. Elon does it this way.
This is how I see it.
To me it looks like everyone who‘s trying to take him seriously by now with all this are making themselves laughing stock. And Musk couldn‘t care less.
For me the only problem is that I‘m a Tesla shareholder and I‘ve seen a sort of dilution and all his suffering first-hand, where a single share of mine has already turned into 15 since I bought it. Thus of course I have skin in the game, but I still consider this all as a big meme-like joke.
Soon we‘re all dead anyway, so let‘s not think about things too serious and money is just money for most people who have it. It‘s no bigger than life. Have fun and enjoy the ride, our 100 years on this planet are a sliver so we‘ll all be enjoying it in our own messed up ways. Elon does it this way.
This is how I see it.
> What people don‘t seem to take into account here is that Elon was forced to buy the company due to a binding offer he made but later found out user numbers to be manipulated and so on.
My understanding is that manipulated numbers would have been a legit reason to exit the deal but it turned out that Musk couldn’t provide that and thus was forced to go through with the offer. Am I misremembering?
My understanding is that manipulated numbers would have been a legit reason to exit the deal but it turned out that Musk couldn’t provide that and thus was forced to go through with the offer. Am I misremembering?
This could be the case, but he himself claims it to be more the way I said it. The details are obscure but I tend to believe his word rather than the passionate hater-horde and an army of mis-representers that are so many in number today. It’s Elon’s blunder so I don’t care all that much. Too bad for him!
It's not a matter of taking Elon's word over the horde of haters, it's a matter of taking Elon's word over Elon's actions.
If he had evidence that his offer to buy Twitter was based on false information, he would have gone to court to fight it. Instead he caved before the court date, presumably because his lawyers persuaded him he stood no chance.
If he had evidence that his offer to buy Twitter was based on false information, he would have gone to court to fight it. Instead he caved before the court date, presumably because his lawyers persuaded him he stood no chance.
> but later found out user numbers to be manipulated and so on.
I think he complained about bots on twitter before he made the offer.
I think he complained about bots on twitter before he made the offer.
Kind of reminds me of the X11 logo....
Sorry, there can only be one zombo.com
let's hope this goes as well as MySpace did under the wise stewardship of the Murdoch oligarchy.
Doesn’t Google have a trademark on X?
they made their logo the same as the "close this app" button on every OS.
I think it’s a great change
Is it April 1st already?
The world of "tech" seems to be spiralling into a realm of absurd metaverses, the dark obsessions of a tiny gang of annointed leaders, a house of cards, lies built upon lies, increasingly desperate hypes.
The whole thing detached from the deteriorating human reality, a pervasive lack of empathy for our condition.
Not clear how we could / should respond to this grand fiasco. Somehow tech needs to be reinvented. Much more grassroots, more authentic, more focused on real problem solving.
The whole thing detached from the deteriorating human reality, a pervasive lack of empathy for our condition.
Not clear how we could / should respond to this grand fiasco. Somehow tech needs to be reinvented. Much more grassroots, more authentic, more focused on real problem solving.
> The whole thing detached from the deteriorating human reality, a pervasive lack of empathy for our condition.
This is a result, not a cause. This is learned helplessness in the face of not being able to vote for change, and having no say in the policies of our country. The US government has become 100% beholden to the deep state and the oligarchy. We squabble over left/right social issues while both parties are in almost total lockstep with spending and foreign policy.
I mean, I'd love to be proven wrong in next year's election, with some definite outsiders trying to muscle into the circle. And, even if one of them does get elected, we've already seen how one supposed outsider fared against this machine already. If both Vivek and RFK run as independents, it would at least be a BONKERS election cycle.
This is a result, not a cause. This is learned helplessness in the face of not being able to vote for change, and having no say in the policies of our country. The US government has become 100% beholden to the deep state and the oligarchy. We squabble over left/right social issues while both parties are in almost total lockstep with spending and foreign policy.
I mean, I'd love to be proven wrong in next year's election, with some definite outsiders trying to muscle into the circle. And, even if one of them does get elected, we've already seen how one supposed outsider fared against this machine already. If both Vivek and RFK run as independents, it would at least be a BONKERS election cycle.
The upside of those absurd metaverses is that you can mostly just ignore them, and do your own thing.
Here here. I have no solution, the money/windfall is too perverting a force.
Everything is fandom.
Don’t shoot the messenger but the developer scene in crypto is like you describe. People trying out cool and strange ideas with very low technical barriers to entry once you understand the architecture and development paradigms. Lots of interesting personalities and deep tech bonafides. A lot of people doin their own thing focused deep in the infrastructure or user facing apps.
There are power players and centralization, and the above freedom exists for marketing/product people as well and imo this is where most of the fraud comes from.
But ultimately - no one controls pushing a new app onto a blockchain. for a lot of reason, idk if blockchain will solve or help solve the centralized internet issue. But it’s got a lot of freedom and oddities like the 90’s internet did.
There are power players and centralization, and the above freedom exists for marketing/product people as well and imo this is where most of the fraud comes from.
But ultimately - no one controls pushing a new app onto a blockchain. for a lot of reason, idk if blockchain will solve or help solve the centralized internet issue. But it’s got a lot of freedom and oddities like the 90’s internet did.
Another goof from Musk
The writing has been on the walls for a while now. Musk has officially killed Twitter. It has basically turned into an anti LGBTQ and right wing circle jerk. Majority of users have already migrated elsewhere. At least we can give him credit for not hiding it anymore.
I think Elon Musk is planning to expand the features of Twitter and transform this social network in something bigger and not entirely correlated with we know as Twitter right now. We should expect some big announcements after this name change.
For some reason this finally gave me the motivation to delete my account. Not the outages or endorsing fascists or giving Tucker Carlson media deals or removing features behind paywalls or making reach pay-to-win or...
I'm extremely excited to see if Elon Musk can actually pull off driving twitter into the ground to the point where his entire purchase becomes an utter waste of money.
X-genius throwing a brand in the toilet.
the logo reminds me of xerox
ButWhy.gif
This must be an ID10T error...
this is worth a listen re: elon musk, technocracy and "X"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAddtaCFKYg
The worst thing that ever happened to Twitter is Elon Musk
Insane decision
This man is burning anything that had any value at Twitter. From an extremely valuable list of verified users to the name which is even used as a verb.
There is absolutely no reason to rename Twitter. The name isn't even that stained compared to like Comcast or what ever the name was of that phone company in the 90s that sucked so bad it was renamed.
There is absolutely no reason to rename Twitter. The name isn't even that stained compared to like Comcast or what ever the name was of that phone company in the 90s that sucked so bad it was renamed.
The sheer genius of throwing away the brand of one of a handful of companies that has a phrase that has entered common parlance: hoover it up, google it, and tweet it.
Feels like Musk has caught some of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers 'Introducing Monday' nonsense. At least we could attribute that to the dotcom madness.
Feels like Musk has caught some of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers 'Introducing Monday' nonsense. At least we could attribute that to the dotcom madness.
I thought it was pretty clever, we used to tweet about it, now we're just going to x it to another platform.
It's the "New Coke" of websites.
Nothing can top the 2008 Pepsi brand philosophy:
https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
Wow, I want to take classes from whoever authored this document in how to business bullshit. They seem to have mastered it completely.
This is completely incomprehensible and very funny. It's also amusing how different this is to what Twitter has done. It seems incredibly unlikely that any consultants (overpriced or otherwise) were involved in Twitter's rebranding, whereas the Pepsi document seems like outsiders trying very earnestly to deliver to an executive they don't understand.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qImHuiYnVQ0
So great it inspired a song.
So great it inspired a song.
There's a version of that with video that Neil reuploaded a while back as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3ETgAvQrw
The corporate PowerPoint visuals just adds so much.
The corporate PowerPoint visuals just adds so much.
Wow, thanks for that (:
It's like someone read about Time Cube for too long and then tried to port that reasoning to the logo redesign.
It's like someone read about Time Cube for too long and then tried to port that reasoning to the logo redesign.
Oh man that's an amazing document!
PEPSI GALAXY
Holy crap, to be a fly on the wall in the room when this was presented lol
Holy crap, to be a fly on the wall in the room when this was presented lol
It's been a while since I saw this one. Pepsi universe, lol.
That was… breathtaking
What if there were massive economic changes coming in the next 10 years? including gold backed BRICs currency competing with USD. Rise in a cdbc including carbon credit to limit spending and continued inflation globally.
Could this be a way to secure a global payment system away from a potential tyrannical alternative? Probably not. But if you were more in the know and were an insane billionaire, you might want to try..
Could this be a way to secure a global payment system away from a potential tyrannical alternative? Probably not. But if you were more in the know and were an insane billionaire, you might want to try..
Ok... why on earth you would try to turn Twitter into a payment system? And what does it have to do with a this new logo anyway?
It is wrong to conflate economic success with intelligence.
Or to think intelligence in one domain transfers to another. There’s a long history of Nobel prize winners having stupid ideas outside the domain where they did the work for which they’re celebrated.
It’s silly to think that Elon isnt incredibly talented and smart in some ways. That doesn’t mean he’s universally talented and smart.
It’s silly to think that Elon isnt incredibly talented and smart in some ways. That doesn’t mean he’s universally talented and smart.
> It’s silly to think that Elon isnt incredibly talented and smart in some ways.
EVERYBODY is "incredibly talented and smart in some ways".
EVERYBODY is "incredibly talented and smart in some ways".
sadly no they aren't... thus the word "incredibly" -> "to a great degree; extremely or unusually."
Most people are average, many are below average.
Most people are average, many are below average.
This falls under the "curse of dimensionality"[0]. There are so many tasks/patterns/parts of life that humans can develop specialized skills in that most humans (nearly every human?) are exceptional at something. It might be "identifying the best cardboard scraps and arranging it to make a bed on the sidewalk which is optimally comfortable", or "knowing how to make one specific family member smile" but it'll be something.
If you were to enumerate every skill that improves the life of at least one human, there are probably more than 10 billion such skills which require complex analysis, deep experience, and aptitude to execute at a high level. That's enough for everyone to have something they're "best" at.
One of my favorite quotes is: "If you judge a dolphin by its ability to fly, you are the idiot."
If you're speaking of "generalized intelligence", i.e. some metric which collapses the dimensionality to just a few axes, then obviously you start seeing a more classic distribution where many people are "dumber" than you. But you'd still lack many, many life skills necessary to comfortably take over their life were you to magically swap places with them.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality
If you were to enumerate every skill that improves the life of at least one human, there are probably more than 10 billion such skills which require complex analysis, deep experience, and aptitude to execute at a high level. That's enough for everyone to have something they're "best" at.
One of my favorite quotes is: "If you judge a dolphin by its ability to fly, you are the idiot."
If you're speaking of "generalized intelligence", i.e. some metric which collapses the dimensionality to just a few axes, then obviously you start seeing a more classic distribution where many people are "dumber" than you. But you'd still lack many, many life skills necessary to comfortably take over their life were you to magically swap places with them.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality
This is trivializing exceptional skill dimensions and exceptional achievements by equating them to the mundane and unremarkable ones.
The curse of dimensionality doesn't imply all skills are equal, only that finding meaningful exceptions in high dimensional data by just data analysis is hard, but we as a society don't find and filter for exceptionality in a data driven way like that, we have a very limited set of dimensions we assign to "success" (financial means being a big one). Someone making a great cardboard bed on the street will never be one of those dimensions.
The curse of dimensionality doesn't imply all skills are equal, only that finding meaningful exceptions in high dimensional data by just data analysis is hard, but we as a society don't find and filter for exceptionality in a data driven way like that, we have a very limited set of dimensions we assign to "success" (financial means being a big one). Someone making a great cardboard bed on the street will never be one of those dimensions.
are exceptional at something
Not even remotely true. At best, most humans are good at something. Not exceptional. That's massively rare.
Not even remotely true. At best, most humans are good at something. Not exceptional. That's massively rare.
Undecided. Society is not doing a good job of teasing talent out of people. The only exceptional thing is that some talent is exposed at all...despite our best efforts to stifle it.
Exceptional talent shines with the intensity of 37.6 suns. It doesn't need help to be seen, it just is.
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
Nonsense. If Julius had not been isolated with his tutors he would be dumb as a rock.
Given the curse of dimensionality, I actually think most humans could be exceptional at something--just that something might be incredibly specific, like "washing dishes while hopping on one foot and having fifteen people tickle you with feathers."
You're just wrapping hope and "everyone's special!" in a ball of fluffy, warm "lookit this!"
I'm sorry, but most people have nothing, even the tiniest exceptional thing, about them. There's no latent kingfu master, hidden in pandas.
I'm sorry, but most people have nothing, even the tiniest exceptional thing, about them. There's no latent kingfu master, hidden in pandas.
Neither of you really have a conclusion. Your modality is overly-reductionist. His is overly broad. In both cases it's impossible to reliably measure. What had ought to reasonably be concluded, then, is that we're entirely ignorant as the the capacities of an individual. From that agnosticism, then, we can build a framework of expectations. And that is entirely elective - if you want to say that nobody is exceptional, you'll seek to reinforce that. If one elects to search in every individual for some special capacity, that's what they'll find. I don't know about you, but between those two framings I'd prefer the latter.
Then there's the objectivist train wherein no expectations are allowed, one must duly profess their ignorance and make baseless measurements in estimation and comment on the distribution of faculties per individual and the degree of resolution to which these measurements are allowed to take place - and it isn't to the degree which any great conclusions can be drawn, I assure you. There is no means by which you can splay out a person's whole and examine them. Time spent with one or two is time spent neglecting some other specimen. Not to mention the interference added by environment. And even in the best of cases that time spent may only be revelatory of some minute fraction of the whole, where again only some shallow conclusions may be drawn and they're only conclusive insofar as the observer has decided they are at some point in the context of time and space within their ever-evolvong system because there's hardly a tape measure suited to the infinite degrees of freedom that exist in the world.
Then there's the objectivist train wherein no expectations are allowed, one must duly profess their ignorance and make baseless measurements in estimation and comment on the distribution of faculties per individual and the degree of resolution to which these measurements are allowed to take place - and it isn't to the degree which any great conclusions can be drawn, I assure you. There is no means by which you can splay out a person's whole and examine them. Time spent with one or two is time spent neglecting some other specimen. Not to mention the interference added by environment. And even in the best of cases that time spent may only be revelatory of some minute fraction of the whole, where again only some shallow conclusions may be drawn and they're only conclusive insofar as the observer has decided they are at some point in the context of time and space within their ever-evolvong system because there's hardly a tape measure suited to the infinite degrees of freedom that exist in the world.
In both cases it's impossible to reliably measure
Just look into the endless pit of nothingness, the void that is a myriad of vacant, rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms, that is the average person's eyes!
There is nothing there. I think they're all chatgtp clones!
Just look into the endless pit of nothingness, the void that is a myriad of vacant, rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms, that is the average person's eyes!
There is nothing there. I think they're all chatgtp clones!
The average person knows orders of magnitude more about many subjects than you do. Average doesn't mean that you're half-good at everything.
Sure but that's just a singular person out of billions.
The remaining what 4 billion people that are below the average person can easily be worse at everything then the 4 billion above the average person.
The remaining what 4 billion people that are below the average person can easily be worse at everything then the 4 billion above the average person.
Could you elaborate on this statement? Approximately how many people do you think fit into this "worse at everything" category?
liberals talking about billionaires always gives me a brain aneurysm, but regardless I'd just like to point out that whatever talent and intelligence Musk possesses in your minds, is very inconsequential in comparison to his families wealth through ownership of an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.
Somewhat ironic, since the mine was in Zambia.
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Well the lobotomy and several nobel price for peace winners prove that nobel prize winners have stupid ideas also within their domain.
I think being smart is more of a state of a person than a property of a person, kind of like health. Genetics plays a role in it (you can be born unhealthy) but so does the environment. I think extreme success in the modern world creates a very unhealthy environment for the state of your smartness.
After all, if I am to believe what Mercier and Sperber are saying in "The Enigma of Reason", reasoning evolved not as a tool to find the truth and make good decisions but as a social tool - to convince others to cooperate with you, to justify your actions in front of the others, to secure your social status. If your cultish following showers you with cheers no matter what you say or do (especially if you label your critics by that label that your followers hate - woke, ideological, racist, censors, or whatever), how can you not lose contact with reality?
That is the simplified version of my explanation for the phenomenon of previously really successful people saying and doing borderline insane stuff. I could name 10 famous people in the last 3 years that IMO fit that pattern.
After all, if I am to believe what Mercier and Sperber are saying in "The Enigma of Reason", reasoning evolved not as a tool to find the truth and make good decisions but as a social tool - to convince others to cooperate with you, to justify your actions in front of the others, to secure your social status. If your cultish following showers you with cheers no matter what you say or do (especially if you label your critics by that label that your followers hate - woke, ideological, racist, censors, or whatever), how can you not lose contact with reality?
That is the simplified version of my explanation for the phenomenon of previously really successful people saying and doing borderline insane stuff. I could name 10 famous people in the last 3 years that IMO fit that pattern.
“Everyone is ignorant but in different things” Feynman.
It is wrong to think it has nothing to do with intelligence, especially repeated success.
No it's not. Money is a positive-feedback loop. No intelligence required.
Lottery winners and the like tell a different story, don't they?
And do you think an 80 IQ founder == 120 IQ founder all else being equal?
And do you think an 80 IQ founder == 120 IQ founder all else being equal?
The people who play lotto's are very uneducated, so it's selection bias. None of them were taught how to manage money because they never had any.
Founders aren't the ones with the money. They're making it for someone else and then being paid for that.
In any case, it's what happens on average that matters, not minuscule exceptions. Money makes money.
Founders aren't the ones with the money. They're making it for someone else and then being paid for that.
In any case, it's what happens on average that matters, not minuscule exceptions. Money makes money.
> And do you think an 80 IQ founder == 120 IQ founder all else being equal?
Musk and Bezos seem to have come to roughly similar outcomes, so evidence suggests yes.
Musk and Bezos seem to have come to roughly similar outcomes, so evidence suggests yes.
Does that imply that everyone who started with more money than Musk now has even more money than Musk? Or perhaps it implies that you just can't ever get poorer?
I don't think its possible, or fair, to reduce success to a single digestible dimension.
I don't think its possible, or fair, to reduce success to a single digestible dimension.
You deny that investment costs money? You deny that investment makes money? The more you make, the more more you invest; the more you invest, the more you make. Exceptions are irrelevant to the norm.
And somone had to come out the winner in a stochastic Market. It just halpened to be Musk. No competence requirer, at all.
And somone had to come out the winner in a stochastic Market. It just halpened to be Musk. No competence requirer, at all.
well there's the alternative theory that this is a deliberate ploy to destroy the largest platform for grassroots public organisation the world has ever seen
If this happened like a year or two after Arab Spring I’d more receptive to the idea, but a decade later?
I would imagine unionisation is higher on Elon's list of concerns, although the Saudi backers will likely have that in the back of their minds too
By a billionaire mostly funded by government contracts…
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It is even more wrong to conflate someone’s parents’ economic success with intelligence.
Elon Musk is massively more successful than his parents.
I think you missed the point of the post you're replying to:
elmu's current wealth is owed in large part, perhaps the most, to wealth he received from his rich, apartheid African jewel mine owning parents: that is the money with which he was able to get the rest of the money
elmu's current wealth is owed in large part, perhaps the most, to wealth he received from his rich, apartheid African jewel mine owning parents: that is the money with which he was able to get the rest of the money
I understand that but and I think you missed the point of my post.
If I had multiplied the advantage provided by my upbringing in the same way that Musk had, I'd be massively wealthy (but not nearly as wealthy). From a relative perspective, Musk is still a massive success.
I haven't come close. I'm ahead in some ways and behind in others.
If I had multiplied the advantage provided by my upbringing in the same way that Musk had, I'd be massively wealthy (but not nearly as wealthy). From a relative perspective, Musk is still a massive success.
I haven't come close. I'm ahead in some ways and behind in others.
I think you're missing an even greater point: if someone (perhaps, self-admittedly, not you) had been gifted the wealth elmu was, they could have turned it into more wealth the way elmu has
though, don't get down on yourself and where you started vs. where you are: the relationship obviously isn't linear: the richer you are, the easier it becomes to turn 1 dollar into 2 dollars, especially when your family is wealthy, too
though, don't get down on yourself and where you started vs. where you are: the relationship obviously isn't linear: the richer you are, the easier it becomes to turn 1 dollar into 2 dollars, especially when your family is wealthy, too
> had been gifted the wealth elmu was, they could have turned it into more wealth the way elmu has
I definitely would have not done that. I am not that ambitious and I guarantee I would have been happy to achieve practically nothing while enjoying the comforts of my upbringing.
I definitely would have not done that. I am not that ambitious and I guarantee I would have been happy to achieve practically nothing while enjoying the comforts of my upbringing.
> I definitely would have not done that
I understand and acknowledge that, and tried to account for it in the full sentence, of which you only quoted half. The relevant portion is italicized below:
> if someone (perhaps, self-admittedly, not you) had been gifted the wealth elmu was, they could have turned it into more wealth the way elmu has
I understand and acknowledge that, and tried to account for it in the full sentence, of which you only quoted half. The relevant portion is italicized below:
> if someone (perhaps, self-admittedly, not you) had been gifted the wealth elmu was, they could have turned it into more wealth the way elmu has
Isn't that completely torpedoing your point though? Elon might have had a head start but he still lapped me 16 times on the way to where he is now.
If everyone had the exact same head start he did (or didn't, it seems disputed), we all wouldn't have achieved what he has. Just because he had a head start that we would all have liked to have doesn't mean we all could have accomplished what he has.
It'd be like dismissing an MLB pitcher throwing a perfect game because his parents could afford to send him to private coaches.
If everyone had the exact same head start he did (or didn't, it seems disputed), we all wouldn't have achieved what he has. Just because he had a head start that we would all have liked to have doesn't mean we all could have accomplished what he has.
It'd be like dismissing an MLB pitcher throwing a perfect game because his parents could afford to send him to private coaches.
> Isn't that completely torpedoing your point though?
why would it? You aren't everybody, or anybody else but you, so saying you wouldn't want to do it doesn't really have any affect on the point (especially since we're discussing ability, not ambition)
why would it? You aren't everybody, or anybody else but you, so saying you wouldn't want to do it doesn't really have any affect on the point (especially since we're discussing ability, not ambition)
>had been gifted the wealth elmu was
How much wealth was he gifted with? Order of magnitude would be a sufficient response.
How much wealth was he gifted with? Order of magnitude would be a sufficient response.
Is there actual proof he inherited the money?
Nope. Just some guy who happens to be Elon's dad making these 'claims' but other than that single person's 'claims' nothing. /s
No, this is an unverified meme that refuses to die because "rich people bad".
He said that there's no proof the mine ever existed. He also said that his parents' wealth didn't help him that much. Which is why he also never bothered much about the mine.
I'm going on memory here, from what I read/heard online. I think people just want to write him off, tbh.
I'm going on memory here, from what I read/heard online. I think people just want to write him off, tbh.
given elmu's long, strong history of dishonest public statements, "he said" should be considered evidence that the opposite is true, if anything
He seems to have been incredibly honest thus far including on his own failures.
Yet humans have done that since the dawn of time and will continue to do it until the end of humanity.
Around a decade ago it was considered pretty dumb to spend all your time and money building rockets and electric cars. I sometimes wonder how high the bar is set for 'intelligence.'
Did you know that neither spacex not Tesla were founded by musk?
But I give him credit for scale and gtm. I just think he doesn’t get social software
But I give him credit for scale and gtm. I just think he doesn’t get social software
I never understood this obsession with who founded what. How is founding something useful if it doesn't grow? Elon has a *demonstrated* talent for taking good ideas and making them wildly successful. Granted he seems to be off on a very weird tangent with Twitter and it will be interesting to see where it leads, but it would be dumb to just dismiss him as a childless out of control billionaire (seriously?).
There was zero way Twitter could have survived on the path it was going; if not for drastic changes he instituted - mainly in dramatically cutting costs and overhead - they would have been dead anyway. They are no longer bleeding. They have lots of debt, thus they still need to do something new to pay it off, but at least they aren't accruing more debt like they were before.
Twitter was a niche player anyway - it was disproportionately used by techies but was far from having a broad penetration so why not move in a bold, new direction? Its current model is already known to be untenable long term - even before Elon bought them.
The real issue is ads are no longer going to be enough to sustain the tech giants (ads were mostly a scam of bot farmed clicks, over promised results, etc.). I wouldn't worry about Twitter now X - it will survive, whether this crowd feels it's for them or not. What I'm really interesting in seeing is how Google, Facebook and others are going to remain relevant. In the near term I would expect layoffs to accelerate since that's the lowest hanging fruit for these companies, but at some point they are likely going to have to come up with something more substantial and of actual value.
There was zero way Twitter could have survived on the path it was going; if not for drastic changes he instituted - mainly in dramatically cutting costs and overhead - they would have been dead anyway. They are no longer bleeding. They have lots of debt, thus they still need to do something new to pay it off, but at least they aren't accruing more debt like they were before.
Twitter was a niche player anyway - it was disproportionately used by techies but was far from having a broad penetration so why not move in a bold, new direction? Its current model is already known to be untenable long term - even before Elon bought them.
The real issue is ads are no longer going to be enough to sustain the tech giants (ads were mostly a scam of bot farmed clicks, over promised results, etc.). I wouldn't worry about Twitter now X - it will survive, whether this crowd feels it's for them or not. What I'm really interesting in seeing is how Google, Facebook and others are going to remain relevant. In the near term I would expect layoffs to accelerate since that's the lowest hanging fruit for these companies, but at some point they are likely going to have to come up with something more substantial and of actual value.
okay...
Tesla I get but SpaceX? According it its wikipedia he directly started this company.
Did you read what I wrote? When did I ever claim that Tesla or SpaceX were founded/not founded by Musk?
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX in every meaning of the word.
So, who founded spacex?
Cad ee
I think Elon is a bit misguided, especially in his business ventures in the UK. For instance, it seems egregious to most people that Elon expects people to pay £100 a year for a social media site in the midst of a Cost of Living crisis.
Personally, I don't see what the hype is around Elon. I think he's done good things, but in other ways he's not a very good businessman.
Personally, I don't see what the hype is around Elon. I think he's done good things, but in other ways he's not a very good businessman.
> Personally, I don't see what the hype is around Elon.
Well I do. Or at least I did.
He made electric cars sexy. They were decidedly unsexy before he bought Tesla.
He gave us reusable rockets. Without that, the US would now be embarrassingly dependent on Russia's Soyuz.
He also contributed something to PayPal. I don't know what, and I personally hate PayPal, but some people clearly love it.
Up to this point, he came across as a genius serial entrepreneur. I don't know if this was just luck+money, or that he really had some talent that contributed to these successes, but after this, people started lauding him as a real-life Tony Stark, and he apparently started to believe a bit too much in his own genius, and he started to do increasingly stupid things.
But there absolutely was a time when the hype seemed absolutely justified.
Well I do. Or at least I did.
He made electric cars sexy. They were decidedly unsexy before he bought Tesla.
He gave us reusable rockets. Without that, the US would now be embarrassingly dependent on Russia's Soyuz.
He also contributed something to PayPal. I don't know what, and I personally hate PayPal, but some people clearly love it.
Up to this point, he came across as a genius serial entrepreneur. I don't know if this was just luck+money, or that he really had some talent that contributed to these successes, but after this, people started lauding him as a real-life Tony Stark, and he apparently started to believe a bit too much in his own genius, and he started to do increasingly stupid things.
But there absolutely was a time when the hype seemed absolutely justified.
I don’t know, is it really fair to attribute any of these to him? There are thousands of engineers/scientists that did the actual work. Hiring them (especially a competent manager who will manage the operations) is just putting money on the table. With a big enough wallet it’s not particularly hard. Also, spacex had plenty of government funds going to it — wouldn’t those same funds going to NASA resulted in similar results from taxpayer money?
Afaik only paypal had some kind of actual work done by him personally (and frankly, I hate paypal with a burning passion so that’s not necessary a good thing).
Afaik only paypal had some kind of actual work done by him personally (and frankly, I hate paypal with a burning passion so that’s not necessary a good thing).
> Hiring them (especially a competent manager who will manage the operations) is just putting money on the table.
I love to shit on Musk as much as anyone but I dunno about this lol.
There's a lot of skill in hiring good technical people. IMO that "skill" basically just comes down to being a good technical person yourself so you can tell the difference. You can't hire an elite engineering team with hype, out of 100 applicants you'll get 2 good ones and 98 muppets that want to work at the trendy place and be seen to be doing so.
I've worked for like 5+ companies that were doing fine before some dipshit head of engineering hired a bunch of other dipshits and they took over and turned it into a big dipshit orgy hellbent on driving a perfectly good company straight into an iceberg. The person doing the hiring has a shitton of influence in how a business goes unless your business model can live with enterprise-grade average and you can just hire everyone. I can't see that being the case at Tesla or SpaceX...
I think Musk deserves some credit for Tesla and SpaceX. Doesn't stop him being a flog though.
I love to shit on Musk as much as anyone but I dunno about this lol.
There's a lot of skill in hiring good technical people. IMO that "skill" basically just comes down to being a good technical person yourself so you can tell the difference. You can't hire an elite engineering team with hype, out of 100 applicants you'll get 2 good ones and 98 muppets that want to work at the trendy place and be seen to be doing so.
I've worked for like 5+ companies that were doing fine before some dipshit head of engineering hired a bunch of other dipshits and they took over and turned it into a big dipshit orgy hellbent on driving a perfectly good company straight into an iceberg. The person doing the hiring has a shitton of influence in how a business goes unless your business model can live with enterprise-grade average and you can just hire everyone. I can't see that being the case at Tesla or SpaceX...
I think Musk deserves some credit for Tesla and SpaceX. Doesn't stop him being a flog though.
The people who did the work deserve credit. So does the person who had the vision and brought them together. Those engineers didn't get together of their own accord and nominate musk as a mascot. Regardless of how you want to summarize Musk's career in the context of his current behavior, which is getting tiresome, I think this is a false dichotomy.
Musk didn't even have the vision of spacex. He bought it from the original founders and strongarmed the founder label on himself in the legal dispute.
So what if he did? What were they doing before he got involved?
If it was so easy to bring this kind of stuff to market then why aren't more people as wildly successful? This kind of "Musk didn't do do anything or have the vision" hate is beyond tiring.
If it was so easy to bring this kind of stuff to market then why aren't more people as wildly successful? This kind of "Musk didn't do do anything or have the vision" hate is beyond tiring.
There are plenty wildly successful people. There's a list of billionaires, and even more millionaires. Of course, these people tend to pull up ladders behind them, so they prevent other people from their opportunities. :)
You're confusing SpaceX and Tesla.
Maybe you should review these pages and get your facts straight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_SpaceX
Maybe you should review these pages and get your facts straight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_SpaceX
I think you're massively underestimating how difficult it is to allocate capital and execute business plans.
When a normal person gets a lot of money (like by winning the lottery) they do not become like Elon or Bezos. A third of lottery winners will declare bankruptcy within five years. The smartest ones will put their money in an index fund and enjoy a nice retirement.
For people with actual ideas, there are lots of ways to get funding- venture capital, government money etc. Having your own money to spend is nice but that's not the overwhelming advantage everyone seems to think it is.
On the other hand, doing the "actual work" as a scientist/engineer is not particularly difficult. Each individual engineer is responsible for a very small and well-defined problem that can be solved using skills that are taught at thousands of universities around the world. If any of them were to quit, they could be easily replaced with someone who's just as good.
When a normal person gets a lot of money (like by winning the lottery) they do not become like Elon or Bezos. A third of lottery winners will declare bankruptcy within five years. The smartest ones will put their money in an index fund and enjoy a nice retirement.
For people with actual ideas, there are lots of ways to get funding- venture capital, government money etc. Having your own money to spend is nice but that's not the overwhelming advantage everyone seems to think it is.
On the other hand, doing the "actual work" as a scientist/engineer is not particularly difficult. Each individual engineer is responsible for a very small and well-defined problem that can be solved using skills that are taught at thousands of universities around the world. If any of them were to quit, they could be easily replaced with someone who's just as good.
While you're not completely wrong, your estimation on replaceability of engineers in general isn't just "hey monster.com please send 5x general engineers my way" after you lose a few. Especially when it comes to senior positions, or unique aerospace roles like at SpaceX. There's a reason those salaries go sky high at times.
That aside, in many cases it takes an engineering-minded businessman to create the greatest enterprises. Not just in valuation, but in general value and appreciation in fields where one can do a lot of good but not get a lot of profit.
That aside, in many cases it takes an engineering-minded businessman to create the greatest enterprises. Not just in valuation, but in general value and appreciation in fields where one can do a lot of good but not get a lot of profit.
NASA (or perhaps a better comparison ULA) wouldn't have taken the risk to try to make reusable rockets. I think Elon's value in Space X (aside from hiring because he clearly has some brilliant engineers working there) is that he's crazy enough to risk it all on "crazy" ideas. He was REALLY close to failing on both Tesla and SpaceX because of this, but it wound up working out and producing things that almost certainly wouldn't exist otherwise.
What he's doing with Twitter is, I guess, a similar leap of faith, but I don't think it is going to pan out this time.
What he's doing with Twitter is, I guess, a similar leap of faith, but I don't think it is going to pan out this time.
The Shuttle was reusable and NASA built that in the 1970s.
The shuttle might as well have been disposable for all the inefficiencies in its design. If it was really reusable and cost effective we'd still be using it. Guess what - we aren't.
It was a hell of a lot cheaper to refurbish and reuse a shuttle than to build a new one each time. That's why 135 shuttle missions were flown with 5 shuttles instead of 135 shuttles. It's true that refurbishment between use was far more expensive and time consuming than had been planned, however it was a hell of a lot cheaper than building a new shuttle each time. Refurbishing a shuttle took months but building Endeavour to replace Challenger took several years and cost several orders of magnitude more. There can be no serious question that the shuttle orbiters were mostly reusable.
> cost effective
That's another matter entirely. It would have been cheaper to use conventional disposable rockets. Even better than that is reusable conventional rockets; the economic sense of which has now been demonstrated by Falcon 9.
> cost effective
That's another matter entirely. It would have been cheaper to use conventional disposable rockets. Even better than that is reusable conventional rockets; the economic sense of which has now been demonstrated by Falcon 9.
Falcon 9 and STS do not have the same capabilities. F9 can match STS on payload but only if the booster is expended. With booster recovery F9 payload to LEO is ~25% less than STS. Falcon 9 has no capability to recover payload from space like STS [1]. They're different vehicles with different missions. We didn't need the shuttle anymore so we reallocated resources. All the F9 ISS missions are only happening because we had STS to build the ISS in the first place.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A
That’s a strange conclusion. A 1978 Ford Fairmont does everything the common person needs in a car. But there was room for improvement in terms of features, reliability, and efficiency. So we continued to develop cars. Expecting any vehicle to be perfect is unrealistic. Even the Falcon 9 has evolved. SpaceX is working on another vehicle that is even more efficient. The shuttle had flaws but it was reusable.
But the Shuttle was retired well before the US had a replacement ready. For quite some time, the US was dependent on the Russian Soyuz. It was technically reusable, but at a pretty steep cost. It was not very efficient.
With respect to the missions the US government cares the most about, the US did have replacements for the Shuttles. Namely Atlas V and Delta IV. After ISS construction was finished, there was little point in keeping the shuttle around just to ferry people around unsafely. Launching people into space is more of a side gig to keep a steady stream of young idealistic recruits coming in. Letting that lapse for a few years was demoralizing (less demoralizing than losing a third shuttle would have been) but not a real problem for the US government otherwise.
Incidentally, Atlas V used/uses Russian engines. Pretty bad idea in retrospect but at the time a lot of people thought it seemed reasonable.
Incidentally, Atlas V used/uses Russian engines. Pretty bad idea in retrospect but at the time a lot of people thought it seemed reasonable.
Nobody claimed the Shuttle was efficient. The claim is that Musk gave us reusable rockets. NASA did that.
Having money is necessary but not sufficient to achieve the things he did. There are other millionaires and billionaires who tried to do what he did but couldn't. Regardless of your personal animus towards Elon, give the man credit where credit is due. Tesla and SpaceX are great contributions to the world and he was instrumental in implementing them, from capital to the business core ideas.
You could probably say the same things about Henry Ford. I heard he didn't do any of the hard work either...
No way would SpaceX happen without him
> He made electric cars sexy. They were decidedly unsexy before he bought Tesla.
True that.
> He gave us reusable rockets. Without that, the US would now be embarrassingly dependent on Russia's Soyuz.
Well, NASA decided that building rockets isn't their core purpose anymore as rocket building isn't as scientific, experimental anymore and could be comodotized and financed private industry to take over.
Musk was in thebright spot ant the right time, with enough capital and hype to take over the engineers and and funds and found the right executive team.
These are achievements, but I he hadn't blue origin or somebody else would be in the spot.
True that.
> He gave us reusable rockets. Without that, the US would now be embarrassingly dependent on Russia's Soyuz.
Well, NASA decided that building rockets isn't their core purpose anymore as rocket building isn't as scientific, experimental anymore and could be comodotized and financed private industry to take over.
Musk was in thebright spot ant the right time, with enough capital and hype to take over the engineers and and funds and found the right executive team.
These are achievements, but I he hadn't blue origin or somebody else would be in the spot.
lol - SpaceX didn't surpass Blue Origin or NASAs contractors because of hype!
How can people be this sincerely deluded?
The point is the market was positioned so that any participant would have benefited. Maybe Blue Origin or another company would have taken years longer to achieve what SpaceX did. Maybe more expensively, not as good, though one doubts hardly any less unreliably. But circumstances made it so that any player who tried could have gotten NASA the rockets more or less, if they tried, because the government was actively supporting private industry efforts to do so.
> IF he hadn't blue origin or somebody else would be in the spot.
What is your basis for this belief? Blue Origin was founded two years before SpaceX, by a man who was far richer than Elon Musk, hired people connected and accomplished in the space industry and with that opportunity has accomplished far far less. They've never put anything into orbit, even as a test. SpaceX's success has not precluded Blue Origin's success. Blue Origin hasn't succeeded despite hiring many of the best people in the industry because they're unfocused and undriven. Blue Origin is poorly managed by Bezos, not hindered by SpaceX's success.
Really, explain your reasoning for thinking otherwise. I would love to hear this.
What is your basis for this belief? Blue Origin was founded two years before SpaceX, by a man who was far richer than Elon Musk, hired people connected and accomplished in the space industry and with that opportunity has accomplished far far less. They've never put anything into orbit, even as a test. SpaceX's success has not precluded Blue Origin's success. Blue Origin hasn't succeeded despite hiring many of the best people in the industry because they're unfocused and undriven. Blue Origin is poorly managed by Bezos, not hindered by SpaceX's success.
Really, explain your reasoning for thinking otherwise. I would love to hear this.
> But there absolutely was a time when the hype seemed absolutely justified
My personal take at the time when I regarded him positively was that he, although not really a genius, "got" things in general and being in a position of power, would allow those who really were geniuses to do their jobs.
If that was ever true, he switched from letting those brilliant people do their work to actually telling them to blindly follow his crazy ideas (for lulz and otherwise).
My personal take at the time when I regarded him positively was that he, although not really a genius, "got" things in general and being in a position of power, would allow those who really were geniuses to do their jobs.
If that was ever true, he switched from letting those brilliant people do their work to actually telling them to blindly follow his crazy ideas (for lulz and otherwise).
Did Musk originally go to Roscosmos to license their tech and it was only after the laughed him out of the door that SpaceX pursued it's current strategy? His original plan was literally to be dependent on Russia's Soyuz.
> and I personally hate PayPal
PayPal is really old at this point though, the original people have had nothing to do with it for a very long time. IIRC PayPal had novel and useful functionality initially, before it was run into the ground as a product.
PayPal is really old at this point though, the original people have had nothing to do with it for a very long time. IIRC PayPal had novel and useful functionality initially, before it was run into the ground as a product.
Yes, before the founders sold out, Paypal was very novel and unique. Now they seem to be more interested in tying up people's money to use for float as their primary business model, rather than providing value as a transaction clearing house.
Eberhard and Tarpenning had the idea to make an EV sports car (rather than the traditional "green" branding that EV's tried to go for), so I think they deserve credit for the "sexy" approach. Musk deserves credit for recognizing the opportunity, commandeering it, and keeping the idea going.
The concept of reusable rockets isn't new, but Musk and Shotwell helped make them reality. What really made it work and where Musk doesn't get enough credit is in the iterative "fail fast" approach to rocket design... something untenable under risk-adverse bureaucracies like NASA and Boeing.
His contributions to Paypal are dubious (IIRC) at best.
I think his true genius was building a fan base with the technocratic class that appealed to their techno-libertarian dreams of a future utopia. This allowed him to raise huge amounts of money despite constantly failing to meet his promises. Trump for us nerds, basically.
The concept of reusable rockets isn't new, but Musk and Shotwell helped make them reality. What really made it work and where Musk doesn't get enough credit is in the iterative "fail fast" approach to rocket design... something untenable under risk-adverse bureaucracies like NASA and Boeing.
His contributions to Paypal are dubious (IIRC) at best.
I think his true genius was building a fan base with the technocratic class that appealed to their techno-libertarian dreams of a future utopia. This allowed him to raise huge amounts of money despite constantly failing to meet his promises. Trump for us nerds, basically.
When someone is that successful a lot of people will try and write them off. I wrote in another comment, I don't agree with everything he says or does. But he is undoubtedly in the firing line.
> But he is undoubtedly in the firing line.
Billionaires are uniquely positioned to be, because they tend to get away repeatedly with things that would be career- or life-ending for others.
Billionaires are uniquely positioned to be, because they tend to get away repeatedly with things that would be career- or life-ending for others.
One thing I vehemently disagree with is the crazy hours he makes his employees work. I think it's wrong from a people perspective in general, and as a programmer I think this could only lead to bad outcomes.
He made electric cars sexy. They were decidedly unsexy before he bought Tesla.
I actually don't agree with this because I find Tesla's so unsexy, I would never buy one. What I think he did do though, is bring a fairly reliable electric car into production, which was pretty cool, and because of the climate crisis, people wanted to contribute by ditching their petrol guzzler. It's also a bit of a "flex".
I actually don't agree with this because I find Tesla's so unsexy, I would never buy one. What I think he did do though, is bring a fairly reliable electric car into production, which was pretty cool, and because of the climate crisis, people wanted to contribute by ditching their petrol guzzler. It's also a bit of a "flex".
> He gave us reusable rockets.
The Space Shuttle would like a word.
The Space Shuttle would like a word.
The space shuttle is a reusable upper stage. The shuttle successfully massively increased the cost of the upper stage by making it reusable falling incredibly short of it's initial design goals.
The initial design goals was to build a space cargo plane understandable and acceptable to taxpayers and is capable of capturing a Soviet spy satellite with a mockup left in the orbit all in just one orbit and divert to any standard 747 runway and may be operated by both NASA and USAF.
The Shuttle did fulfill something like half of those, just those were pointless goals. But it wasn't reusability alone that made Shuttle a technical failure.
The Shuttle did fulfill something like half of those, just those were pointless goals. But it wasn't reusability alone that made Shuttle a technical failure.
The Shuttle also reused the SRBs which are the first stage. Only the fuel tank was single-use. The Falcon 9 is a (optionally!) reusable first stage but the second stage is discarded.
It’s also a massive stretch to describe the shuttle as “reusable” when the cost to refurbish the orbiter between flights was comparable to the cost of an expendable vehicle.
It’s not a stretch at all. That’s the definition of reusable. It might not be economical but that’s a whole other metric. Dismissing a first-of-its-kind state-of-the-art vehicle from the 1970s for not meeting the standards of 50 years in the future isn’t going to lead you to any insightful conclusions.
Amazing that people are so willing to dismiss economics to be technically correct. Hilariously, that kind of thinking is why we no longer use the shuttle.
It’s not just that it didn’t meet the standards of today; it didn’t even meet the cost-efficiency goals it was originally intended to.
It met the capability requirements though. Including reusability.
I’m not going to continue to engage because you don’t seem to be engaging in good faith here.
If you can't engage constructively then that is probably for the best. But you should reevaluate your assessment because you have come to an incorrect conclusion.
I have engaged constructively this whole time, and you've downvoted every comment of mine you could. (HN doesn't allow you to downvote direct replies to your own comments, and those are the only comments of mine that aren't downvoted, so it's easy to tell.) That indicates bad faith.
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The Space Shuttle is only partially reusable, cost a $billion per launch, has long been retired, and has a poor safety record, having lost its crew twice. It was cool, but didn't really fulfill its promise.
The Shuttle in original form can fly on a "regular AF mission" and bring back a Soviet Hubble and land "diverted" straight into Area 51. That's the point. The thing is all built around that purpose.
That sort of mission is mostly speculation. Nabbing a Soviet spy satellite would probably be suicide, they could have easily had scuttling charges onboard that would destroy both the satellite and the shuttle.
What is known is that it was designed to go to a polar orbit, where many spy satellites are, deploy a satellite and return to the launch site after a single orbit. It's that "single orbit" part that particularly necessitates the large cross-range capability, since 90 minutes later the launch site will about 1500 miles to the east of where it was. If landing after a single launch weren't necessary, they could just orbit for a day and wait for the landing sight to come around again. Deploying a satellite in a single orbit would be an incredible feat, but capturing one in a single orbit is just too far-fetched.
The idea of doing this was apparently to launch a US spy satellite quickly without giving the Soviets much time to track the exact orbital parameters the satellite was being deployed into. TBQH it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, unless the spy satellites themselves are presumed to be stealthy to Soviet radars. Maybe that was the case. I can see why the Soviets thought it was a nuclear bomber. Anyway, the Shuttle never actually went to polar orbit at all, so in this sense you could say the Shuttle never fulfilled its purpose.
What is known is that it was designed to go to a polar orbit, where many spy satellites are, deploy a satellite and return to the launch site after a single orbit. It's that "single orbit" part that particularly necessitates the large cross-range capability, since 90 minutes later the launch site will about 1500 miles to the east of where it was. If landing after a single launch weren't necessary, they could just orbit for a day and wait for the landing sight to come around again. Deploying a satellite in a single orbit would be an incredible feat, but capturing one in a single orbit is just too far-fetched.
The idea of doing this was apparently to launch a US spy satellite quickly without giving the Soviets much time to track the exact orbital parameters the satellite was being deployed into. TBQH it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, unless the spy satellites themselves are presumed to be stealthy to Soviet radars. Maybe that was the case. I can see why the Soviets thought it was a nuclear bomber. Anyway, the Shuttle never actually went to polar orbit at all, so in this sense you could say the Shuttle never fulfilled its purpose.
Falcon 9 is also only partially reusable. The claim is that Musk gave us reusable rockets with no qualifier on economics or safety. By that standard the Shuttle was first.
> He made electric cars sexy. They were decidedly unsexy before he bought Tesla.
What Musk did was show the oil addicted automakers that EV's are both practical to manufacture and own. Using the word sexy to describe machinery and inanimate objects in general is just weird and I consider it the peak of marketoid speak.
What Musk did was show the oil addicted automakers that EV's are both practical to manufacture and own. Using the word sexy to describe machinery and inanimate objects in general is just weird and I consider it the peak of marketoid speak.
I wouldn't mind the $8 per month for a platform I use frequently if I get some nice benefits in usage and this enhances the quality of the platform. It is a bit naive to think such a service could be obtained for free.
However, beyond the general development Twitter has taken since Musk took over and especially how the premium memberships were rolled out - the conflation of paying for the account with being verified has killed that as an option for me. Nowadays the blue mark rather is an anti-pattern to many. This is what you get when you sell "reputation".
However, beyond the general development Twitter has taken since Musk took over and especially how the premium memberships were rolled out - the conflation of paying for the account with being verified has killed that as an option for me. Nowadays the blue mark rather is an anti-pattern to many. This is what you get when you sell "reputation".
He did revolutionize the space launch services industry. And jump started the transition to electric cars.
Doesn’t seem to know anything about tech though. And he’s burned his reputation to the ground this last year.
Doesn’t seem to know anything about tech though. And he’s burned his reputation to the ground this last year.
Did he do those things? Or did he just slap his name and brand on other people's work in those areas?
Of course he did. He put his own money and reputation on the line for both businesses.
There's a reason he was lauded before this Twitter/X debacle.
There's a reason he was lauded before this Twitter/X debacle.
> Of course he did. He put his own money and reputation on the line for both businesses.
This describes an investor, not a genius founder/engineer. Also, IIRC his reputation was pretty low key before he got involved in Tesla. Not sure how meaningful "putting his reputation on the line" was at the time.
The backlash against Musk was also already growing long before Twitter. Between constantly over-promising and under-delivering regarding Tesla, wacky ideas like the hyper loop, and his social media antics (pedo guy, taking Tesla private for $420) his image was already taking quite a hit.
This describes an investor, not a genius founder/engineer. Also, IIRC his reputation was pretty low key before he got involved in Tesla. Not sure how meaningful "putting his reputation on the line" was at the time.
The backlash against Musk was also already growing long before Twitter. Between constantly over-promising and under-delivering regarding Tesla, wacky ideas like the hyper loop, and his social media antics (pedo guy, taking Tesla private for $420) his image was already taking quite a hit.
> his social media antics (pedo guy,
I didn't know this one and just read more about it. This is so absurd.
I didn't know this one and just read more about it. This is so absurd.
If you think he's just an investor then you are grossly ignorant into the roles Elon has at his companies - he is the epitome of hands on. You don't will multiple, entirely new industries into existence by sitting on ass throwing piles of money at random people.
Good grief.
He is an investor and marketer who wants to be a seen as a genius techie, which he clearly isn't. Hence his fake titles such as "Tesla Founder" (he wasn't) or "SpaceX Chief Technology Officer" (he isn't) or "Technoking" (I'm sorry?)
Lauded by the usual investor-propaganda machine selling CEOs as gods.
Well look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Totally different skill sets but they were complimentary, with Jobs largely taking Wozniak’s work and packaging it up in a form that sells.
“Slapping a name on other people’s work” is something leaders do. They also typically are the ones who gather those people together and create the environment in which they can do their best work.
…that said, yes, I think Musk is an idiot.
“Slapping a name on other people’s work” is something leaders do. They also typically are the ones who gather those people together and create the environment in which they can do their best work.
…that said, yes, I think Musk is an idiot.
A combination of both.
There’s an episode of the podcast On With Kara Swisher where she goes into detail about who he was and how he went off the rails. The date is 2022-11-14. I found it really helpful to square this circle.
I’m not as familiar with Tesla, but I’ve been following SpaceX pretty closely since around 2014. He’s not in the trenches doing CFD to optimize cooling on the latest iteration of the raptor engine, and who knows whether reusability was originally his idea, but he knows his shit. When you hear him talk about rockets, he sounds very competent, unlike when he talks about software. And I’ve never heard any actual rocket scientists say Elon doesn’t know shit about rockets.
(He does sometimes move fast and ignore established wisdom though, as with the concrete pad that got obliterated during the last launch. But sometimes that’s how you sidestep decades of cruft)
I do wish Gwynne Shotwell were more of a household name. She’s the one running SpaceX while Elon is off Eloning.
There’s an episode of the podcast On With Kara Swisher where she goes into detail about who he was and how he went off the rails. The date is 2022-11-14. I found it really helpful to square this circle.
I’m not as familiar with Tesla, but I’ve been following SpaceX pretty closely since around 2014. He’s not in the trenches doing CFD to optimize cooling on the latest iteration of the raptor engine, and who knows whether reusability was originally his idea, but he knows his shit. When you hear him talk about rockets, he sounds very competent, unlike when he talks about software. And I’ve never heard any actual rocket scientists say Elon doesn’t know shit about rockets.
(He does sometimes move fast and ignore established wisdom though, as with the concrete pad that got obliterated during the last launch. But sometimes that’s how you sidestep decades of cruft)
I do wish Gwynne Shotwell were more of a household name. She’s the one running SpaceX while Elon is off Eloning.
Depends on your definition of "doing those things". He led the companies that achieved those things. Tesla's case is more complicated than SpaceX's but in both cases he was at the top in a crucial moment.
> expects people to pay £100 a year for a social media site in the midst of a Cost of Living crisis.
Twitter blue is an optional premium service as far as I know.
Twitter blue is an optional premium service as far as I know.
Twitter is getting increasingly hard to use without paying for it. Tweet read limits, DM limits, and now the inbox filter for your DMs got silently auto-changed to "only verified accounts can DM you".
And no matter how good your reply to someone is quality-wise - a bunch of bluecheck dumbasses will be prioritized. Like every viral tweet has an absurd amount of blue-checked far-right, braindead, scammer and spammer replies below. Musk ruined Twitter by making it "pay to play".
If I were to run Twitter, I'd have offered actual verification against a reasonable price to cover the cost of validation, say 100$, years ago. On top of that, some paid features (e.g. long text publishing, uploads > 2 minutes) for those who don't pass the "notability" threshold.
And no matter how good your reply to someone is quality-wise - a bunch of bluecheck dumbasses will be prioritized. Like every viral tweet has an absurd amount of blue-checked far-right, braindead, scammer and spammer replies below. Musk ruined Twitter by making it "pay to play".
If I were to run Twitter, I'd have offered actual verification against a reasonable price to cover the cost of validation, say 100$, years ago. On top of that, some paid features (e.g. long text publishing, uploads > 2 minutes) for those who don't pass the "notability" threshold.
I don't have a Twitter account, but I would occasionally read threads, and obviously a lot of content linked to various Twitter posts. After all of these changes to limits and generally making it harder to read Twitter content without being logged in, I simply don't bother clicking on their links anymore.
Nothing of value was lost. I'm only one person in a large Internet, and I'm sure they won't miss the $0.03 of advertising revenue I brought them.
Nothing of value was lost. I'm only one person in a large Internet, and I'm sure they won't miss the $0.03 of advertising revenue I brought them.
> Twitter is getting increasingly hard to use without paying for it
nitter.net works wonderfully!
> DM limits
I've been wanted a way to forbid people to DM me for a long time. Thanks Elon!
nitter.net works wonderfully!
> DM limits
I've been wanted a way to forbid people to DM me for a long time. Thanks Elon!
> I've been wanted a way to forbid people to DM me for a long time. Thanks Elon!
Then you should have been happy in like, 2018? when they added that.
You could restrict DMs to people you followed for a long time. The only thing Musk did was add, and then force on for users, "only followers and people who have paid me eight bucks a month can DM you".
"Thanks Elon", indeed.
Then you should have been happy in like, 2018? when they added that.
You could restrict DMs to people you followed for a long time. The only thing Musk did was add, and then force on for users, "only followers and people who have paid me eight bucks a month can DM you".
"Thanks Elon", indeed.
Currently if you try to DM most people, you'll get the message:
"Get verified to message this user. Only verified users can send Direct Message requests to people that don’t follow them. Sign up for Twitter Blue to continue."
I wouldn't exactly call DMs a premium service.
"Get verified to message this user. Only verified users can send Direct Message requests to people that don’t follow them. Sign up for Twitter Blue to continue."
I wouldn't exactly call DMs a premium service.
But it's what he's relying on to try to arrest the free-fall. He doesn't expect everyone to pay £100/year, but he expects a certain number to do so.
IMO, the cost of living crisis was one impediment, but the other, more significant one was the politicisation of it all. If he'd stayed neutral, and offered reliable, useful functionality behind that subscription, I would gladly have paid £5-10/month for the service. As it happens, I will almost certainly never subscribe to Twitter/𝕏 now.
IMO, the cost of living crisis was one impediment, but the other, more significant one was the politicisation of it all. If he'd stayed neutral, and offered reliable, useful functionality behind that subscription, I would gladly have paid £5-10/month for the service. As it happens, I will almost certainly never subscribe to Twitter/𝕏 now.
> try to arrest the free-fall
Important to remember that he is the one who pushed the Twitter car over the cliff into financial free-fall with his leveraged buyout.
Important to remember that he is the one who pushed the Twitter car over the cliff into financial free-fall with his leveraged buyout.
> more significant one was the politicisation of it all. If he'd stayed neutral
It's documented that twitter before Musk was working with the US democratic party.
Saying certain things that the far-left disagreed with could also result in a ban.
However it's easy to see how moving Twitter to the centre, appears to be political move right from the perspective of the Left.
It's documented that twitter before Musk was working with the US democratic party.
Saying certain things that the far-left disagreed with could also result in a ban.
However it's easy to see how moving Twitter to the centre, appears to be political move right from the perspective of the Left.
Well, I was offering my opinion of why Twitter is failing from a business perspective, not from a moral or political one. You could well argue that the political bias is now open, and that such an outcome is a good thing. But from a business point of view, I maintain that it is bad for the company — overt politicisation is attractive to some, of course, but for a mass-market platform like Twitter/X, alienating approximately half of your potential audience is just bad business.
<< Elon expects people to pay £100 a year for a social media site in the midst of a Cost of Living crisis.
Honestly, this may be one of the good things he did. The entire population has gotten way too comfortable with free and it would be ideal if we could get away from this model.
Honestly, this may be one of the good things he did. The entire population has gotten way too comfortable with free and it would be ideal if we could get away from this model.
If I had a dollar for everyone that say this, I would have a lot more than the $20/year I am getting from my only two customers on my mastodon instance.
Took me few minutes to find this one[1]. Looks like the pricing was $50/yr for full feature, with free plan for up to 40 following. Over 110k users at some point. Shut down in 2017.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net
Should HN limits the ability to comments only to paying visitors?
Is HN funded by ads? Is there a paid version of it?
HN is a sort of ad. This place was made as a recruitment funnel for a VC firm.
Also there are occasionally overt ads for companies funded by said VC firm inserted into the list on the front page. You can recognize these because they have the comment sections disabled.
Also there are occasionally overt ads for companies funded by said VC firm inserted into the list on the front page. You can recognize these because they have the comment sections disabled.
None of the YC companies pay for the job listings. So no, HN by itself is not a business, so it makes no sense to debate whether it "ad-funded" or not.
The fact that there is someone with deep pockets that see this whole network as an opportunity for building their branding does not mean that they look at a balance sheet, or find "advertisers" in case their fund makes an expected loss, or anything like that.
The fact that there is someone with deep pockets that see this whole network as an opportunity for building their branding does not mean that they look at a balance sheet, or find "advertisers" in case their fund makes an expected loss, or anything like that.
HN is funded as an ad.
I understand what you are trying to say, but it makes absolutely no sense and it's terrible word-thinking.
Let me repeat. HN, by itself, is not a business. It is pointless to talk about its "business model", "funding", "revenue" or whether is breaks even or not. HN is not a core part of YC.
Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are at its core social media networks. They wouldn't exist as businesses if they are not expecting to get any type of revenue based on their social media offering. There is no way to compare any of them with HN.
Let me repeat. HN, by itself, is not a business. It is pointless to talk about its "business model", "funding", "revenue" or whether is breaks even or not. HN is not a core part of YC.
Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are at its core social media networks. They wouldn't exist as businesses if they are not expecting to get any type of revenue based on their social media offering. There is no way to compare any of them with HN.
> "HN, by itself, is not a business"
Who said HN is a business? I never said that, you seem to be reading between lines, words I didn't write. To reiterate, you asked if HN is funded by ads. I responded that HN is an ad (an ad, not a business), and furthermore often contains overt ads. And I never said anything about Twitter/Facebook/Reddit at all.
Anyway, if you want to argue with the version of me that exists in your imagination, you obviously don't need the real me here for it. So peace out.
Who said HN is a business? I never said that, you seem to be reading between lines, words I didn't write. To reiterate, you asked if HN is funded by ads. I responded that HN is an ad (an ad, not a business), and furthermore often contains overt ads. And I never said anything about Twitter/Facebook/Reddit at all.
Anyway, if you want to argue with the version of me that exists in your imagination, you obviously don't need the real me here for it. So peace out.
> I responded that HN is an ad
And that is a ridiculous statement.
> And I never said anything about Twitter/Facebook/Reddit at all.
Then you interjected without any relation to the context of the conversation, and instead made this flawed and unrelated argument about "HN as an ad".
And that is a ridiculous statement.
> And I never said anything about Twitter/Facebook/Reddit at all.
Then you interjected without any relation to the context of the conversation, and instead made this flawed and unrelated argument about "HN as an ad".
While I agree that the free model is unsustainable, there are better ways than charging £10/mo for one social media site. A lot of people are struggling at the moment.
Twitter isn’t exactly a mandatory good.
What would you suggest? Genuinely curious
Much of the Fediverse operates under a “pay what you can” model, and it seems plenty sustainable to me.
It's not. None of the donation-based instances are in the black, if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators. Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because it became too big for its own sake, the admin couldn't handle anymore then shuts it down.
Much like any tech company, hardware and operational costs are a small fraction of the total expenses.
Much like any tech company, hardware and operational costs are a small fraction of the total expenses.
> if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators
It is not possible to factor that “cost” in. They're volunteers: they're donating their time, and their time has no market value. Electricity, however, does.
> Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because
Every other month there is a big website going offline. A big social group disbanding. This is the normal way of things: human social structures don't endure like friendships do.
It is not possible to factor that “cost” in. They're volunteers: they're donating their time, and their time has no market value. Electricity, however, does.
> Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because
Every other month there is a big website going offline. A big social group disbanding. This is the normal way of things: human social structures don't endure like friendships do.
All of that is fine and good if we were talking about servers that were made for 100-200 people. This is not the case. When we are talking about servers that are house as many people as a large village, we are way past the realm of "community".
> human social structures don't endure like friendships do
IOW, the donation-based instances are not sustainable. If you want to have a service that you can rely on, you will need to resort to a professional service.
> human social structures don't endure like friendships do
IOW, the donation-based instances are not sustainable. If you want to have a service that you can rely on, you will need to resort to a professional service.
Nothing is indefinitely sustainable, and businesses are no exception. When the people involved don't want to do it any more, you have the same problem, whether it's volunteers volunteering, or professionals professionaling.
what buisness ventures does he have in the UK? I havent heard about that
Yes, but HE has always loved the name X for a brand. He also wanted it for PayPal. He put it in SpaceX. And if he loves X, everybody else surely does too, so he's a genius for rebranding Twitter to X. I'm sure that's roughly his line of thought.
He even named his child “X Æ A-12”
> From an extremely valuable list of verified users
Was it extremely valuable? I know a lot of people (myself included) viewed blue checkmarks as a "company PR account/mass-media journalist/celebrity account maintained by SMM" sign. The most interesting people I followed on Twitter were not verified.
Was it extremely valuable? I know a lot of people (myself included) viewed blue checkmarks as a "company PR account/mass-media journalist/celebrity account maintained by SMM" sign. The most interesting people I followed on Twitter were not verified.
A verified account managed by PR/SMM is probably better than a scam account of the same person offering you to get rich with this one weird trick.
A verified account of a newspaper is probably better than a fake one, spreading false news about the war in Ukraine, for example.
Managed by PR or not, a verified account stood for the person behind this account, and guarantees this is their (proxy or direct) opinion or a real fact about upcoming event, or information about a past event. Right now a verified account means nothing.
A verified account of a newspaper is probably better than a fake one, spreading false news about the war in Ukraine, for example.
Managed by PR or not, a verified account stood for the person behind this account, and guarantees this is their (proxy or direct) opinion or a real fact about upcoming event, or information about a past event. Right now a verified account means nothing.
Obligatory mention of r/RealTwitterAccounts. The content at the time of the enshittification of verified accounts have been fantastically funny!
But you are absolutely right, that trust was very important.
But you are absolutely right, that trust was very important.
Yes it was extremely valuable; the easiest way to tell is that shortly after Twitter leadership got rid of all legacy verified accounts, they had to frantically add some back. And even then the company lost about 2/3 of its value.
Including adding back dead people murdered by the same people who funded the Twitter buyout. The level of self-awareness surrounding Musk is astonishingly absent.
Yes because on a Twitter style platform it is those core influencers that are important to the growth and health of the overall network. It is not the random guy with 100 followers, no qualifications, life experience or expertise.
And the point of the original verification system was to make sure you can trust what that person is saying especially in volatile situations e.g. during a crisis where Twitter's role was so influential and important.
And the point of the original verification system was to make sure you can trust what that person is saying especially in volatile situations e.g. during a crisis where Twitter's role was so influential and important.
I feel like you (and the person above) are missing the whole point of Twitter for many people. I'm not interested in influencers at all, I'm interested in the random guys which often have a lot of interesting life experiences or expertise (shoutout to @foone, for example). And in crisis, video and witnesses from people on the ground are more valuable than second-hand opinionated media rewritings.
People use Twitter in vastly different ways, so it's difficult for each of us to appreciate the uses that others put it to. Even in your case, though, the flaw now is that you don't know if 'verified' accounts are bots, paid actors, etc.
You still don’t want a fake Russian Government announcing nuclear war on Twitter, do you? Of course non-verified accounts had value, but you also want to know if a supposedly official account is the real deal.
> You still don’t want a fake Russian Government announcing nuclear war on Twitter, do you?
Ugh, have you seen Telegram posts by the real Dmitry Medvedev (ex-President, ex-PM, now chairman of the Security Council)? I guess the line between real and parody is pretty thin here.
Besides, anyone falling for the nuclear war announcement on Twitter deserved that. Social medias aren't the trustable channel despite any verifications. What if the real account got hacked?
Ugh, have you seen Telegram posts by the real Dmitry Medvedev (ex-President, ex-PM, now chairman of the Security Council)? I guess the line between real and parody is pretty thin here.
Besides, anyone falling for the nuclear war announcement on Twitter deserved that. Social medias aren't the trustable channel despite any verifications. What if the real account got hacked?
Banks aren’t trustable organisations despite any verifications. What if your information got hacked?
I believe what you just did is called “moving the goalposts”.
I believe what you just did is called “moving the goalposts”.
> And the point of the original verification system was to make sure you can trust what that person is saying especially in volatile situations e.g. during a crisis where Twitter's role was so influential and important.
So the elites who we should trust as opposed to commoners that we shouldn’t
Yeah no thanks…
So the elites who we should trust as opposed to commoners that we shouldn’t
Yeah no thanks…
It was to prevent impersonation (a problem that plagues the current version of Twitter).
That is not what the original commenter said, hence my response.
No, it was elitist and alienating, and people hated them until Elon was in charge, and then we were taught to love them because a bunch of blue check journalists with no followers and no likes instantly turned into journalists with no followers, no likes and no blue checks and lost the delusion that they were important. Then they wrote articles about it.
Imagine a bunch of nominal liberals advocating for royalty, and you have the blue check whiners.
Imagine a bunch of nominal liberals advocating for royalty, and you have the blue check whiners.
"Royalty". Right. Now you have impersonation accounts of everybody under the sun selling you shitcoins and convincing low-information people that they're real because they paid eight bucks.
This is the angry-for-the-weirdest-reasons thing I will read today, and it is 9:10 AM. Coupled with your post elsewhere in the thread that somehow justifies this as paying to be "part of the conversation", and it only computes as "'tis cope".
This is the angry-for-the-weirdest-reasons thing I will read today, and it is 9:10 AM. Coupled with your post elsewhere in the thread that somehow justifies this as paying to be "part of the conversation", and it only computes as "'tis cope".
He's trying to relive his glory days as a Paypal executive.
During 90 every other company had name that ended with X in my part of the world.
Probably not coincidence that they are called generation-x.
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture is the first novel by Douglas Coupland, published by St. Martin's Press in 1991.[1] The novel, which popularized the term Generation X, is a framed narrative in which a group of youths exchange heartfelt stories about themselves and fantastical stories of their creation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X:_Tales_for_an_Acc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X:_Tales_for_an_Acc...
Is he not aware thise times are long gone?
Right? Why even buy the company if you’re going to throw away the branding? I’m pretty sure he could have built his own version for a fraction of the 44 billion he spent albeit without the user base, but at least the new user base is there by choice.
I suppose idlewords is already saving coffee money, so he can buy Twitter for a few hundred dollars in a year or so. ;-)
It doesn't matter. Now that you can't even see tweets without having an account, the platform is dead.
>There is absolutely no reason to rename Twitter
For him there is. Twitter at $44b cash was not a business decision, it's something he arrived at through a level of reality-deflecting hubris and vindictiveness that remains unmatched by anyone since.
Remember how he appealed to Trump to return to the site, and Trump ignored him and stuck to Truth Social? He then tried to back his rival DeSantis with a campaign launch on Twitter, which failed miserably.
It's not 2016 anymore, Twitter's lost its pull as a political kingmaker and/or disinformation platform. That was the one thing Musk could realistically have expected his acquisition to still be able to deliver. Now that users and advertisers are fleeing and news sites are using Twitter sources less, he may as well bury the site, as it's outlived its usefulness to him.
For him there is. Twitter at $44b cash was not a business decision, it's something he arrived at through a level of reality-deflecting hubris and vindictiveness that remains unmatched by anyone since.
Remember how he appealed to Trump to return to the site, and Trump ignored him and stuck to Truth Social? He then tried to back his rival DeSantis with a campaign launch on Twitter, which failed miserably.
It's not 2016 anymore, Twitter's lost its pull as a political kingmaker and/or disinformation platform. That was the one thing Musk could realistically have expected his acquisition to still be able to deliver. Now that users and advertisers are fleeing and news sites are using Twitter sources less, he may as well bury the site, as it's outlived its usefulness to him.
Maybe it was never about money and more about discourses? Anyone paying attention has noticed the vibe switch since he acquired it.
>This man is burning anything that had any value at Twitter
Good, never liked these massive social media conglomerates. Give me back my forums.
Good, never liked these massive social media conglomerates. Give me back my forums.
> From an extremely valuable list of verified users
I've got to say, the verified list was not very valuable
I've got to say, the verified list was not very valuable
[deleted]
>This man is burning anything that had any value at Twitter.
Good.
Good.
coldtea(5)
If you didn’t share their political biases and don’t like government interference, the name has a very bad reputation.
Twitter wasn't ever close to making money - its IP wasn't even that valuable - hence the several clones that have popped up since Musk's purchase.
This is a straw man - like many other of the comments here. Full of emotion, but vapid in real substance.
This is a straw man - like many other of the comments here. Full of emotion, but vapid in real substance.
Minus the FTC settlement payout, they actually were close to profitable.
It's not some obviously horrible decision to change a name that "isn't even that stained."
I've turned the corner on this. I think he's turning twitter into a place where blue checks publicly talk to other blue checks, and people willing to pay a recurring fee to try to be included in that conversation can try to get their attention. What it's going to be is a massacre of reply guys (who are going to lose visibility) and sockpuppets (whose new/unused accounts will be useless.)
I'm honestly interested in that. I don't even post on twitter, I read, so I'm not giving the perspective of an active twitter participant, but tbh 99% of non-blue-check twitter participants only cost twitter money, are dumb and their accounts should be nuked from orbit. Their only purpose was to make the room feel crowded, and thus to attract more broke users. Not that most of blue check twitter isn't terrible, but that's the terrible that people are actively looking for. Terrible with a fanbase.
So, in the future, you should be paying for twitter or have an account at least a year or two old in order to harass journalists, politicians, and people you watch on television. I could see that being appealing to almost everybody.
I've turned the corner on this. I think he's turning twitter into a place where blue checks publicly talk to other blue checks, and people willing to pay a recurring fee to try to be included in that conversation can try to get their attention. What it's going to be is a massacre of reply guys (who are going to lose visibility) and sockpuppets (whose new/unused accounts will be useless.)
I'm honestly interested in that. I don't even post on twitter, I read, so I'm not giving the perspective of an active twitter participant, but tbh 99% of non-blue-check twitter participants only cost twitter money, are dumb and their accounts should be nuked from orbit. Their only purpose was to make the room feel crowded, and thus to attract more broke users. Not that most of blue check twitter isn't terrible, but that's the terrible that people are actively looking for. Terrible with a fanbase.
So, in the future, you should be paying for twitter or have an account at least a year or two old in order to harass journalists, politicians, and people you watch on television. I could see that being appealing to almost everybody.
I'm having difficulty understanding this comment in relation to one you made elsewhere in the subthread, where you said people who liked the previous verified systems were elitists.
Here you are advocating a literal pay for play, and you're identifying certain classes of users as being "worthless" and advocating "nuking them from orbit."
That seems way more radically elitist than wanting to know if something is a parody account or not? Help me understand here?
Here you are advocating a literal pay for play, and you're identifying certain classes of users as being "worthless" and advocating "nuking them from orbit."
That seems way more radically elitist than wanting to know if something is a parody account or not? Help me understand here?
The human brain is capable of incredible gymnastics, ain’t it
Not the OP, but I wouldn’t say an ability to pay $10 per month classifies someone as an ‘elite’. The old checkmark was much, much harder to get.
Well, the check just served a different purpose, it was to distinguish parody and troll accounts from authentic ones. I think it's role as status symbol is exaggerated.
But charging in pursuit of removing "worthless" users from the platform - you see what I'm saying there right? That's literally constructing an underclass, deciding they are unwashed and unacceptable in refined company, and then charging money to keep them out.
It's the business model of a country club. Maybe it's a cheap country club, that's a difference of degree.
I've paid similar amounts of money to join closed forums before and found them to be enjoyable and relatively free of trolls. I'm not opposed to it in principle. What I was asking about was the contradiction.
But charging in pursuit of removing "worthless" users from the platform - you see what I'm saying there right? That's literally constructing an underclass, deciding they are unwashed and unacceptable in refined company, and then charging money to keep them out.
It's the business model of a country club. Maybe it's a cheap country club, that's a difference of degree.
I've paid similar amounts of money to join closed forums before and found them to be enjoyable and relatively free of trolls. I'm not opposed to it in principle. What I was asking about was the contradiction.
In my opinion the healthiest approach is to not care. Life’s too short.
Almost everything else is more important than some rich brain parasite’s midlife crisis dressed up as 5-d chess. The brain parasite feeds on attention whether positive or negative.
Almost everything else is more important than some rich brain parasite’s midlife crisis dressed up as 5-d chess. The brain parasite feeds on attention whether positive or negative.
For myself at least, Twitter has been instrumental in my career, hobbies and friendships. But now, seeing it flounder, and having people shard off to mastadon, bsky, and siloed instances of [insert next federative platform], makes me so very sad. It feels like I’ve lost a key part of my social “surface area”. Things change, I know. What hurts though is that this didn’t need to happen. He ruined something that was, within margins, doing ~alright. It had massive public and social value for many individuals and institutions. With time, of course, we’ll forget he butchered it to death, but for now.. I’m pissed off at this childish fool and all those who enabled him.
I wonder how alike that is to how people felt when their local bowling alleys, pool halls, etc became less populated and closed down.
I can assure you that, in middle America, pool halls and bowling alleys are still hoppin' nightlife.
On that note, even here in SF the Fillmore Pool Hall is a very fun place to spend some time, and BYO B or pizza is cheap. One thing I miss about life in upstate NY was hitting the old-school bowling alley with score displays that looked like the screens from Alien, though.
Look, Twitter's death sentence was signed when Musk bought it. Profit was always <<< interest payments of the money he borrowed for the acquisition. Twitter will die and this is a last hope to turn it into something else that might be more profitable to ensure it stays afloat for a bit longer.
I just don't really understand why nobody is angry at the old Twitter board for signing the deal in the first place. Yes, Musk was trolling and yes, they have apparently an obligation towards their shareholders to get a good deal for the invested money. But still, the investors in Twitter valued money first and "Twitter's role as global message board" had a lower priority.
I just don't really understand why nobody is angry at the old Twitter board for signing the deal in the first place. Yes, Musk was trolling and yes, they have apparently an obligation towards their shareholders to get a good deal for the invested money. But still, the investors in Twitter valued money first and "Twitter's role as global message board" had a lower priority.
> I just don't really understand why nobody is angry at the old Twitter board for signing the deal in the first place.
Because when some idiot billionaire gives you a premium on an already overinflated stock you sign that deal or you get sued into oblivion by the institutional investors who will use their giant pile of money to bury you for letting the deal of the decade get away.
Because when some idiot billionaire gives you a premium on an already overinflated stock you sign that deal or you get sued into oblivion by the institutional investors who will use their giant pile of money to bury you for letting the deal of the decade get away.
Social platforms come and go. Back then, people gained "views" and "followers" on IRC and blogs. Some pages I follow on FB are dying out because their viewers stop coming on FB and donating. Twitter is next, then it will be Instagram...
Pages on FB are dying because Meta been milking it's content creators for decade. Your content of Facebook is only have reach if you pay for it.
I felt the same when irc was killed (for the people I talked with anyway) by twitter.
Things change. You'll get over it.
Things change. You'll get over it.
Oh I know I'll get over it, as with all things. Still in that grieving place tho :)
I never really thought of it this way. Twitter is a big part of how I stay connected to a certain valuable Circle of friends. It'd be a big loss for me if it went away or became something else.
Why are you angry at this specific individual, and not the system which enables him? I don't think you can celebrate private ownership and hierarchy of command on one hand and despise when it goes wrong without blaming the unnecessary concepts of private ownership and hierarchy of command.
If we only get angry at this one guy, we usher in the next set of his replacements
I’m sorry but that seems like a very fragile system to me - waiting and hoping the next commanders will have a sounder mind and heart, or expecting their wisdom to be beyond our comprehension
If we only get angry at this one guy, we usher in the next set of his replacements
I’m sorry but that seems like a very fragile system to me - waiting and hoping the next commanders will have a sounder mind and heart, or expecting their wisdom to be beyond our comprehension
> unnecessary concepts of private ownership and hierarchy of command
Claiming that these things are “unnecessary concepts” is a significantly more extreme position than you make it seem. What are the alternatives that actually work?
Claiming that these things are “unnecessary concepts” is a significantly more extreme position than you make it seem. What are the alternatives that actually work?
see the entire field of anarchism for instance, Francis Ford Coppola even has a new movie coming out that draws directly from the works of David Graeber and Wengrow who have written on your kind of anarchy101 level question. I recommend trying wengrow and graeber’s Dawn of Everything or their academic papers. Understood it’s extreme to you. The writing’s there if you have the want to see it.
“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”
However besides just sharing that Graeber and Wengrow have documented realities in human history that explored answers to your question (and post discovery of agriculture, and scaled beyond dunbar's number), I'll also share this alternative response from Graeber's earlier works that predate a lot of the really exciting anthro and archaeological discoveries in recent years (the cutting edge research covered in their last book and papers):
“Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin.”
“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”
However besides just sharing that Graeber and Wengrow have documented realities in human history that explored answers to your question (and post discovery of agriculture, and scaled beyond dunbar's number), I'll also share this alternative response from Graeber's earlier works that predate a lot of the really exciting anthro and archaeological discoveries in recent years (the cutting edge research covered in their last book and papers):
“Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin.”
Cool theorizing; but just one example of a current society that has flourished using no private ownership, please?
No current societies are anarchist no. See ya
Typical!
So you have zero evidence (aka much stronger true believer) of what you say working and you want to restructure the world based on fairy tales spun by the likes of David Graeber?
See ya.
So you have zero evidence (aka much stronger true believer) of what you say working and you want to restructure the world based on fairy tales spun by the likes of David Graeber?
See ya.
Twitter in a system without private ownership: you stay up late in your attic with a flashlight, writing your tweets on a smuggled typewriter. The next day you hand them over to a high-ranking colleague at work who has access to the copier, whom (you hope) you can trust with your life.
Come now, thats unfair and unrealistic. Likely, you get thrown in a gulag for not possessing the license to tweet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union
Yep, this would never happen in a system without private ownership.
As such a system would never give rise to Twitter in the first place (hence problem solved).
Or such a system will forever reside in the Platonic ideal universe forever avoiding any real-world flaws or criticism.
As such a system would never give rise to Twitter in the first place (hence problem solved).
Or such a system will forever reside in the Platonic ideal universe forever avoiding any real-world flaws or criticism.
citation needed
maybe you can disclaimer your post that you have the perspective that “By the time we exhaust Earth, we will be a space faring species.” You have a true believer's faith in the current thing
maybe you can disclaimer your post that you have the perspective that “By the time we exhaust Earth, we will be a space faring species.” You have a true believer's faith in the current thing
May be place a disclaimer first you don’t believe in real world evidence?
We are all true believers. I believe in a system that has real-world evidence of working and has some flaws that can be fixed over time.
You are a true believer in a system that has scan real-world evidence of working (but a lot of cool armchair theories) and you believe in throwing an entire system in favor of yours.
Btw, good on you for looking up my post history, you did more evidence-finding work than David Graeber ever did ;)
We are all true believers. I believe in a system that has real-world evidence of working and has some flaws that can be fixed over time.
You are a true believer in a system that has scan real-world evidence of working (but a lot of cool armchair theories) and you believe in throwing an entire system in favor of yours.
Btw, good on you for looking up my post history, you did more evidence-finding work than David Graeber ever did ;)
Not at all, you don’t understand the anarchist position if you say that
> He ruined something that was, within margins, doing ~alright
The company lost an estimated 2 billions by the time Musk bought it, with about 200 million lost per year. It also managed to break GDPR laws, and have some of the largest data breaches.
I understand that some people got value from the platform, but a quick death might be the best for everyone involved.
The company lost an estimated 2 billions by the time Musk bought it, with about 200 million lost per year. It also managed to break GDPR laws, and have some of the largest data breaches.
I understand that some people got value from the platform, but a quick death might be the best for everyone involved.
rayiner(2)
Sure it's not worth getting really upset about (unless you were employed at Twitter, or had your work/life significantly impacted by the changes) but it's gonna be hard not to feel something about what's going on there, and to express that both here and on Twit... sorry X.
Fair. But I've already given up on news, politics, and pop culture. Billionaires playing 5D checkers was my last source of mindless entertainment!
I'm pretty sure it's just 2D checkers and they're not even using half the board.
Isn’t that all of the above?
[deleted]
Elon was not forced to buy the company. He voluntarily bought the company.
It seems like Elon Musk has a vision of creating a platform business model that encompasses all his business endeavors and more.
I don’t like Twitter, nor do I like Elon Musk, but it seems clear to me that he has a strategic plan. I doubt he gives two shits about what Twitter is or was - when he bought Twitter he acquired a lot of talent, and a place to start to launch his platform - of which he envisions the world being beholden to, and he will be the king of that castle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he will have some kind of X crypto, X digital wallets, X online shops, he’ll probably even have his own X-onion sites too, for all the people who want his X branded LSD and MDMA.
I don’t like Twitter, nor do I like Elon Musk, but it seems clear to me that he has a strategic plan. I doubt he gives two shits about what Twitter is or was - when he bought Twitter he acquired a lot of talent, and a place to start to launch his platform - of which he envisions the world being beholden to, and he will be the king of that castle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he will have some kind of X crypto, X digital wallets, X online shops, he’ll probably even have his own X-onion sites too, for all the people who want his X branded LSD and MDMA.
He did acquire a lot of talent. Then he fired the majority of it and slagged off/alienated the rest, losing most of the institutional knowledge gained over years. He then systematically torched any external goodwill with both advertisers and users, before torpedoing the brand identity which had cut through to non-tech culture.
At some point, you have to just admit that he might not be playing 5D Chess, but 1D Connect Four, and he's still losing.
At some point, you have to just admit that he might not be playing 5D Chess, but 1D Connect Four, and he's still losing.
Wouldn't 1D connect four be a guaranteed draw?
If you assume that it's simply linear, then depending on length you could certainly lose if sufficiently incompetent. Of course, then 1D Connect Four would be effectively a tape, and thus a Turing machine capable of encoding 5D Chess... I'll admit the simile doesn't stand much in the way of stress!
I was thinking connect four with only one column. But if you do only 1 row, it is indeed winnable. In fact, in 2D connect four, that is one of my favorite strategies with a new player - try to get two pugs next to each other on the bottom row with space on both sides
> it seems clear to me that he has a strategic plan
I highly doubt that because he originally didn't want to buy the thing in the first place. He's just making one hail Mary pass after the next to try to get it to turn a profit and failing so his last card - the one he always seems to play at some point - is to set it up for acquisition by one of his other companies to bail himself out.
That may work, or it won't, in which case Twitter (sorry, 'x') may well end up taking the rest of his empire with it.
I highly doubt that because he originally didn't want to buy the thing in the first place. He's just making one hail Mary pass after the next to try to get it to turn a profit and failing so his last card - the one he always seems to play at some point - is to set it up for acquisition by one of his other companies to bail himself out.
That may work, or it won't, in which case Twitter (sorry, 'x') may well end up taking the rest of his empire with it.
There's so much Reddit-tier Musk-hate in this thread. I don't really understand it.
He WANTS the attention and being controversial, it worked with him in other companies and he’s trying to apply the same for twitter, you have side that are a die-hard fans that doesn’t see a problem to implant his chip in their minds yet they refused a medical injection under the claim it had a nanochip, on the other side, you have people hate his guts for ruining their safe space discussion platform. My personal take, he is a con and he knows what he’s doing, so let it be, it might shake the industry to something better (say ATproto or activitypub or something else) as usually these events are what drive innovation, or it might destroy the industry marking the end of such technological progress, who knows, grab your popcorn and enjoy the (shit)show!
The Twitter Files have demonstrated that political operatives have used and abused Twitter in order to force the removal of content deemed inappropriate (such as the story about the Biden family laptop prior to the 2020 election). Before and since Musk's takeover, the corporate press have decried Musk as "dangerous" or "racist-aligned", because they now lack the opportunity to kill inconvenient stories about various political agendae. I have supported Musk as a more conscienscious and pro-human CEO than the previous leadership, though I have zero interest in his Neurolink project and find it dystopian.
There are legitimate reasons to dislike the man but it's so obvious that the mob is just grumpy that Musk allowed criticisms of the Democratic party line to exist on Twitter.
Why not? I've found I've been using Twitter more ever since Elon bought it. He's made some good improvements. It's popular to hate Elon but I think he's trying to make Twitter better than he found it.
How exactly does changing a logo (in one, messy looking place not to mention - not anywhere else yet) lead even in the slightest to "making twitter better than he found it"?
This is a straw man. I was not equating changing the logo to Elon making things better at Twitter. My argument for changing the logo is "why not" with my observation that Elon has made Twitter better since he bought it - therefore the hypothesis is that this could make Twitter better.
I don't think a brand change can make anything better or worse. It's just a lick of paint. Sure, the changes that come along with a brand change may change things for the better - but I'm sure we can all agree with that involving actualy changes to the product, aside from literal branding-only (and not even all of it).
Why not? Maybe, just maybe, if you're re-launching a brand it's best to do so when there's actually something to change aside from (one of the) logos and (one of the) copyright marks. It's like if Reddit bought HN, said "We're going to change this into a platform similar to Reddit", and simply changed the logo from Y -> Snoo without any of the other changes or promised features ready to go.
While the change isn't set-in-stone BAD for users, I don't see how it's good or useful at all conversely.
Why not? Maybe, just maybe, if you're re-launching a brand it's best to do so when there's actually something to change aside from (one of the) logos and (one of the) copyright marks. It's like if Reddit bought HN, said "We're going to change this into a platform similar to Reddit", and simply changed the logo from Y -> Snoo without any of the other changes or promised features ready to go.
While the change isn't set-in-stone BAD for users, I don't see how it's good or useful at all conversely.
Which of the changes he's made do you consider improvements?
I've also been using Twitter more since he bought it. I've been enjoying the promotion of long form videos, long form post, revenue sharing, paid accounts and at least an attempt at being more politically centrist.
Has anything Elon-doomers have said with regard to Twitter ever materialized? I still remember when people were sure it’d blow up if it didn’t have a constant supply of thousands of engineers doing… “stuff”. Are y’all really that naïve about how little most people in tech actually do?
Similarly here, are y’all really that naïve to think the branding matters at all compared to the user base?
Similarly here, are y’all really that naïve to think the branding matters at all compared to the user base?
The naive people are the ones who still believe anything Elon says or that he had any plan when firing those people
Like when he said he’d change it to X and did? And the plan that involved firing the majority of the company and proceeding to develop faster than ever before? K.
Very interesting no one had an issue with twitter when they were mass censoring (even the sitting president of the united states!), got hacked by a 17 year old to have all types of celebrities and politicians tweet a bitcoin scam, were chock full of scam bots, etc.
Twitter today is freer and on the path towards improvement, much like the original twitter. Who remembers the Iran revolution and the "stop or i'll tweet" motto?
Twitter today is freer and on the path towards improvement, much like the original twitter. Who remembers the Iran revolution and the "stop or i'll tweet" motto?
Yeah, it's so free the word CIS is considered hate speech. It's so free you can't see tweets without logging in. It's so free Elon gave insider information to hand selected journalists to build a misleading narrative. Maximum freedom for sure.
We all know why certain people seem to like Musk, they just won't admit it because they know the reasons make them look bad.
Also, there are still scams, still fake accounts, still tons of bots, etc lol.
We all know why certain people seem to like Musk, they just won't admit it because they know the reasons make them look bad.
Also, there are still scams, still fake accounts, still tons of bots, etc lol.
I do wish Elon fulfilled his promise of 'free speech absolutism', but unfortunately it's not possible with advertising today. The problem is we have no choice here given the censorship of other social media companies so anything is better than what we had before.
It's almost like there is a bottom line and laws and stuff that require sites to moderate content. Elon will either follow suit or he'll pay out a ton of money and go broke taking Twitter/X down with him. Twitter is really no different than Facebook or any other social media site, the censorship still occurs and by and large along the same lines. The primary difference is that Elon is fine with the extreme right voices not the extreme left. But there is still a boot on the throat.
Flight trackers are not allowed on Twitter. Why? That's clearly free speech, and it's not political in nature at all. Elon just doesn't like it.
Censored in Türkiye because like every other platform he will crumble to government pressures.
He's doing the same shit that he tried to call out in the "Twitter Files", the ONLY difference is which views he supportive of compared to say Zuck.
And overall it's fine with me. A platform built around free speech absolutism is doomed to fail. No one wants to be associated with the most extreme voices, unfettered and in some cases even promoted. It's just more embarrassing when Elon says he wants to establish true free speech values, then his platform doesn't represent those values, and he tries to lie to your face telling you it is.
Flight trackers are not allowed on Twitter. Why? That's clearly free speech, and it's not political in nature at all. Elon just doesn't like it.
Censored in Türkiye because like every other platform he will crumble to government pressures.
He's doing the same shit that he tried to call out in the "Twitter Files", the ONLY difference is which views he supportive of compared to say Zuck.
And overall it's fine with me. A platform built around free speech absolutism is doomed to fail. No one wants to be associated with the most extreme voices, unfettered and in some cases even promoted. It's just more embarrassing when Elon says he wants to establish true free speech values, then his platform doesn't represent those values, and he tries to lie to your face telling you it is.
There are no censorship laws in America. Under Elon's twitter, no sitting president of the united states will get banned. That alone is enough of a change. Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with. The reality is new twitter has vastly expanded the amount of accepted speech, which is never a bad thing.
The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk with NON PUBLIC information beginning to appear there (people actually following cars and reporting). Not saying I agree with it, but in those circumstances I'd imagine most social networks would have done the same.
Turkey thing is not a choice of his. Not all countries have free speech like America, either they comply or get banned. The real test is censoring in free countries like Facebook, Instagram, old Twitter, etc have been doing.
The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk with NON PUBLIC information beginning to appear there (people actually following cars and reporting). Not saying I agree with it, but in those circumstances I'd imagine most social networks would have done the same.
Turkey thing is not a choice of his. Not all countries have free speech like America, either they comply or get banned. The real test is censoring in free countries like Facebook, Instagram, old Twitter, etc have been doing.
> There are no censorship laws in America.
Yes and no. There are libel and slander laws, and there is definitely content that has to be moderated, such as illegal content. Which, if we're being strict on the idea of free speech absolutism, then complying with the laws is still censorship. Which is sort of the issue with the entire idea of "free speech absolutism" in general.
> Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with.
The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.
> The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk
You understood wrong. There is no risk, period. The flight trackers aggregated public data which literally anyone can go look at. And they didn't validate whether the plane being tracked had anyone on it, and they didn't follow the people on-board around telling you their destinations once they landed. There was no real risk, full stop. Musk and other people with private jets have many ways to remove themselves from those trackers and simply chose not to do it.
> Turkey thing is not a choice of his.
Weird, now it's not a choice when he decides to censor stuff, but it is a choice when he decides to not moderate people using other slurs AT individuals. Is Musk located in Türkiye? No. Is the Corp offices for the company located there? No. Do they have employees there? No. Türkiye has no power over Musk, yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base. Just like Zuck does with FB and Dorsey did with Twitter before that. Musk could have said eff you to Türkiye because he truly believes in free speech, but he didn't because he doesn't.
[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841?s=20
Yes and no. There are libel and slander laws, and there is definitely content that has to be moderated, such as illegal content. Which, if we're being strict on the idea of free speech absolutism, then complying with the laws is still censorship. Which is sort of the issue with the entire idea of "free speech absolutism" in general.
> Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with.
The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.
> The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk
You understood wrong. There is no risk, period. The flight trackers aggregated public data which literally anyone can go look at. And they didn't validate whether the plane being tracked had anyone on it, and they didn't follow the people on-board around telling you their destinations once they landed. There was no real risk, full stop. Musk and other people with private jets have many ways to remove themselves from those trackers and simply chose not to do it.
> Turkey thing is not a choice of his.
Weird, now it's not a choice when he decides to censor stuff, but it is a choice when he decides to not moderate people using other slurs AT individuals. Is Musk located in Türkiye? No. Is the Corp offices for the company located there? No. Do they have employees there? No. Türkiye has no power over Musk, yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base. Just like Zuck does with FB and Dorsey did with Twitter before that. Musk could have said eff you to Türkiye because he truly believes in free speech, but he didn't because he doesn't.
[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841?s=20
That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech. No one of any significance on the right who advocates for free speech believes in that and it's just a cheap trick / wordsplay.
>The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.
CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.
>yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base.
Again, he has no choice here. Either shut twitter down or follow the countries laws. The choices tech giants make in authoritarian countries is pretty meaningless. It's the choices they make in free countries that count and shows their true colors.
>The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.
CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.
>yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base.
Again, he has no choice here. Either shut twitter down or follow the countries laws. The choices tech giants make in authoritarian countries is pretty meaningless. It's the choices they make in free countries that count and shows their true colors.
A lot of words to say that you are fine with curtailed speech, and that Elon's Twitter/X is not doing anything unique in regards to speech. Which is fine, the product needs to be for someone I guess. But don't pretend that Twitter is a safe haven for speech when it's not. It's just another social media site where moderation is done at the whim of those in control of the platform.
> That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech.
I am not the one that chooses to call myself a "free speech absolutist" and I am not the one that is claiming that Twitter is a place for free speech. If we're only looking at what is considered free speech in the US then Twitter had completely free speech before Elon took over. My usage of illegal content was in response to the claim that there were no laws around censorship in the US. Clearly there is, and you agree; Illegal content does need to be censored. I am fine with that, but is a "free speech absolutist"? If so, they aren't an absolutist.
I wasn't making a claim on whether or not that was reasonable content to take action on.
> CIS IS a slur.
No, it's not. It might be able to be used as a slur but that is true for most adjectives. You feeling like it is a slur says a lot more about you than it does about people who use that word. And this is just another example of where someones personal perspective is influencing the moderation on Twitter/X. You agree with Elon that its a slur, which is fine I guess. Elon says thats going to get banned, and that's not a free speech issue for some reason. But when people bring up the usage of the N-word or anti-Semitic language, Elon is oddly quiet. Again, I guess that is fine, it's his platform, but clearly slurs aren't wholesale banned, so then how is that free speech? Oh, right, it's not. It's the exact same as Facebook or Reddit or any other website. As if Elon isn't doing anything unique but selling you on the idea that he is.
> That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech.
I am not the one that chooses to call myself a "free speech absolutist" and I am not the one that is claiming that Twitter is a place for free speech. If we're only looking at what is considered free speech in the US then Twitter had completely free speech before Elon took over. My usage of illegal content was in response to the claim that there were no laws around censorship in the US. Clearly there is, and you agree; Illegal content does need to be censored. I am fine with that, but is a "free speech absolutist"? If so, they aren't an absolutist.
I wasn't making a claim on whether or not that was reasonable content to take action on.
> CIS IS a slur.
No, it's not. It might be able to be used as a slur but that is true for most adjectives. You feeling like it is a slur says a lot more about you than it does about people who use that word. And this is just another example of where someones personal perspective is influencing the moderation on Twitter/X. You agree with Elon that its a slur, which is fine I guess. Elon says thats going to get banned, and that's not a free speech issue for some reason. But when people bring up the usage of the N-word or anti-Semitic language, Elon is oddly quiet. Again, I guess that is fine, it's his platform, but clearly slurs aren't wholesale banned, so then how is that free speech? Oh, right, it's not. It's the exact same as Facebook or Reddit or any other website. As if Elon isn't doing anything unique but selling you on the idea that he is.
> CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.
Do you then also consider "hetero" to be a slur?
Do you then also consider "hetero" to be a slur?
I've had an issue with Twitter for years. Don't know another platform where getting angry and finding political extremists was as easy, before Musk. Musk made it worse by validating those people's gigantic ego with the 8 dollar blue svg.
I hope this is Elon Musk's alt account, because the actual people who get on their knees and lap up whatever koolaid puddle he dribbles onto the side of a building just make sad.
Hahahah, good one.
This, though. This one makes me angry and disappointed.
Twitter has had such a solid brand for so long. It's accomplished things most marketers only dream of: getting a verb like "Tweet" into the standard lexicon is like the pinnacle of branding. Even with all of the issues, "Twitter" and its "Tweets" have been at the core of international discourse for a decade now.
Throwing all of that away so Elon can use a domain he's sat on since '99 seems exceedingly foolish.