Elon has decided not to join our board • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#471

Post by bigbizisverywyz » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11

It’s funny that the first paragraph of the letter says they believed it was best for Elon to join the board. Then the second paragraph says that Elon declined to join the board and they believe it was also for the best.

I personally can't see how it would be best for either party.

Elon I would imagine is way too busy with his other concerns to be distracted by a social media company, even though at the moment it does seem to carry an oversized amount of influence.

And Elon's brand is probably too randomly 'firecracker' for a company that's probably already attracting scrutiny from governments across the world due to the above mentioned outsized influence it has on discourse and opinion.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#472

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

overthemoon wrote: post #442

core-utility wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had a market, but simultaneously didn't if that makes any sense. The world didn't need another Twitter clone, it already had Parler and Gettr. Social networks are difficult to get users onto because people want to go where their "friends" are, so you're not just convincing one user individually. Getting wide enough adoption to where users actually use the platform regularly is difficult.

I think this is right. In addition, IMO ultimately it feels hollow if you can't piss anyone off. Twitter makes it possible to search for the living avatar of whatever you hate the most so you can tweet invective at them until your head explodes. It feels good, even for a moment, to tell your enemies what's what. If you're on a platform with only MAGA people, what's the point? I signed up out of curiosity after it lau…

[deleted]

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#473

Post by vincentmarle » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #155

Reading between the lines and the PR speak a little bit: 1. Parag is covering his own ass and making clear that the initial announcement was always contingent on a few things and not a done deal. 2. He is heavily implying that being a fiduciary of the company and having to act in its best interests (including, I imagine, not randomly criticizing it in public or promising non-existent features) was the deal breaker fo…

This tweet explains it best: https://twitter.com/sarthakgh/status/1513493127729844229

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#474

Post by bena » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #29

Is it ironic that a text image is used by Twitter to bypass character limits on a post? This has to be a usability nightmare for differently abled people.

Twitter is a lot like HTML in that how it is used is so far removed from how it was designed to be used that barring radical redesigns in the protocol itself, the vast majority of the ways people use it is getting around the inherent limitations of the system.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#475

Post by nicce » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #453

throwaway4good wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Elon didn't accept Twitter's conditions for joining the board. For Twitter this is serious; Elon could destroy Twitter. Sell it again, and create (or buy) an alternative. Just like Trump he has a personal brand big enough to jumpstart a social network, and unlike Trump (it seems) he could probably build it.

I don't think the failure of Gettr or Truth Social or Gab, or any of these other networks is down to technical chops that a Musk-backed dev team would have that a Trump-backed dev team wouldn't. I think it's more down to the users. Gab/Gettr is attractive for the alt-right because you can say anything you like[0], Truth Social is attractive for Trump fans because it's backed by Trump himself. A hypothetical Elon Musk…

This is the current social network in nutshell. Almost anyone has technical capabilities to make them, but you need to find users. Someone with influnce can pull specific kind of users. It is becoming like a cult. Like ycombinator is its one kind of cult.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#476

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #361

coolso wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jesus christ is he immature This seems to be the #1 complaint about him. Honestly, so what? Since when is Twitter serious business? To take it a step further... why does life have to always be serious business? There's plenty enough of that as it is. I think it's telling that people are up in arms and furious that Elon Musk might... bring back a little free speech and equal moderation to Twitter? I mean the threat…

> This seems to be the #1 complaint about him. Honestly, so what? Since when is Twitter serious business? His Twitter account is actually listed as a source of material information in a 2013 10-K Tesla SEC filing -- so his Twitter account in particular is serious business. He paid a $20m fine to the SEC for making a fake announcement in 2018 that he'd take Tesla private at $FUNNY_NUMBER[1] and has been sued by severa…

[deleted]

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#477

Post by giraffe_lady » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #467

giraffe_lady wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got fined a few tens of millions of dollars a while back for tweeting a market-manipulating weed joke. Literally, this is not an exaggeration at all. Then iirc the SEC put a restriction where his tweets about his companies had to be like, nominally vetted by an officer of the company or something, I don't remember the details. Anyway he basically just refused, but also afaik hasn't tweeted concrete financial lies…

I really think it works better if you define the "fine" in terms of percent of net wealth. 1 basis point, or 0.01%

If you want! That's the least interesting detail of the whole story to me so I didn't remember it or feel like looking it up. Thank you though.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#478

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

vincentmarle wrote: post #473

paxys wrote: post #155

Reading between the lines and the PR speak a little bit: 1. Parag is covering his own ass and making clear that the initial announcement was always contingent on a few things and not a done deal. 2. He is heavily implying that being a fiduciary of the company and having to act in its best interests (including, I imagine, not randomly criticizing it in public or promising non-existent features) was the deal breaker fo…

This tweet explains it best: https://twitter.com/sarthakgh/status/1513493127729844229

That's... a tweet containing an image of Elon Musk's "liked tweets" page containing a tweet. Since tweets are 280 characters at most and Twitter takes a few seconds to load because they don't have static pages, please just copy / paste the contents of said tweet, it's better for accessibility.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#479

Post by rchaud » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #453

throwaway4good wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Elon didn't accept Twitter's conditions for joining the board. For Twitter this is serious; Elon could destroy Twitter. Sell it again, and create (or buy) an alternative. Just like Trump he has a personal brand big enough to jumpstart a social network, and unlike Trump (it seems) he could probably build it.

I don't think the failure of Gettr or Truth Social or Gab, or any of these other networks is down to technical chops that a Musk-backed dev team would have that a Trump-backed dev team wouldn't. I think it's more down to the users. Gab/Gettr is attractive for the alt-right because you can say anything you like[0], Truth Social is attractive for Trump fans because it's backed by Trump himself. A hypothetical Elon Musk…

Truth Social doesn't seem to be that popular. Trump himself hasn't 'truthed' on there in over a month.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#480

Post by rchaud » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

yreg wrote: post #378

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is decent alt text on the image, but I can’t speak to how well Twitter works with a screen reader in order to access it.

Is this done automatically by Twitter? Can the user set their own alt?

Yes, users can set their own alt text for Images.