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Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

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Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#721

Post by jackmott42 »

gw98 wrote: post #567
abxytg wrote: post #481

Or -- he's stupid.

I suspect this is the real problem. Stupid people with money can look like they are clever because the layer of people immediately underneath them actually wields the clue stick. Stupid people with no money look stupid because they can't afford the layer of clever people underneath them. Clever people are either abstracting the liability via stupid person in the layer above them or don't need that kind of shit in the…

It would be a remarkable bit of luck that Elon stumbled into both Tesla and SpaceX, took on the role of lead rocket designer at spaceX, built both companies into unlikely leaders in their industry with powerful people trying to crush them all the way, while being a total idiot.

A similar but more charitable theory is that Elon is very good at leading a company to build actual hardware that has to solve hard physics problems. At twitter the primary challenge is managing people, and he is autistic and has no idea how to do this. He has no idea how normal people experience or use twitter, no idea how his tweets are felt by people, no idea how his employees feel about him etc.

all of these are things that don't matter when building a rocket or a car, while understanding people and politics is the ONLY thing that matters at twitter.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#722

Post by photochemsyn »

misiti3780 wrote: post #563
autospeaker22 wrote: post #549

I keep thinking it'd be much cheaper for Elon to have paid to build an entirely new Twitter that has the features he's looking for. Let's say Elon had set aside a budget to hire some of the best developers he's ever worked with or heard of, and lets give them an imaginary salary of 1.5 million total comp per year, at about 10 devs for easy math. And let's say another 500k for bennies. So our operating expense for top…

All of the people (or most of the people) that matter would not have left Twitter for Elon's new company. Tons of people have tried this. Remember Dalton Caldwell's App.net. That didn't even get off the ground and it had a ton of YC press. Network affects are real.

Top comment on app.net shutdown notice on HN ( Jan2017):

> "So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twitterholic, Donald Trump came and bludgeoned everyone with his bombastic prose, and now App.net is shutting down. And after all this, Twitter still does not have a viable business model."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13387723

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#723

Post by edwnj »

alxlaz wrote: post #485
edwnj wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference is you served (or are serving) during peacetime. This is wartime.. Twitter is in a shit load of trouble and unlike Meta & Snap which are crashing like a shitcoin.. Elon bought Twitter at 2x-3x what its actually worth. Unlike the past decade, where these companies had easy access to funny money during a tech bull market.. now we are entering a uuge recession.. Twitter (or any company for that matter) which…

Seeing someone who served in the Navy being told that their peacetime service is very different from the war that Twitter is currently experiencing is... I'm not even sure how to react to that. Lots of execs like to stretch those military metaphors -- they're all in the trenches, all hands on deck, take no prisoners and all that -- but I think you may have stretched this one way past its breaking point.

You're twisting my words. Peacetime is different to wartime is a general statement that has nothing to do with his service.

Military metaphors are common in business for a reason. Modern business management inherited a lot of the military after WW2. To this day, you'll see people with Special Ops history consulting businesses (Echelon Front)

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#724

Post by RavingGoat »

boatsie wrote: post #271
slg wrote: post #208

Let's say you run a company and you want to reduce staff. Let's also say you want to make an unpopular decision (or multiple unpopular decisions) that you know will drive a certain percentage of your staff to leave the company. Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure…

I think you have it backwards. This is how you accomplish a 75% reduction while only having to lay off (and pay severance for) 50%! Musk again playing 4d chess.

You confusing 4d chess with Candyland.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#725

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

danans wrote: post #301
slg wrote: post #208

Let's say you run a company and you want to reduce staff. Let's also say you want to make an unpopular decision (or multiple unpopular decisions) that you know will drive a certain percentage of your staff to leave the company. Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure…

> Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure all teams are properly staffed. He's got huge debt and declining revenue - both of his own making - so he doesn't have time for employees to self-select based on minor incentives. He has to strip down the car fast while someho…

> He's got huge debt and declining revenue - both of his own making

While I think he has done a huge amount to scare away advertisers, I expect the ad industry as a whole is going to be seeing reduced profits for the next couple of years.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#726

Post by fallingknife »

joshstrange wrote: post #706
gw98 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is the real problem. Stupid people with money can look like they are clever because the layer of people immediately underneath them actually wields the clue stick. Stupid people with no money look stupid because they can't afford the layer of clever people underneath them. Clever people are either abstracting the liability via stupid person in the layer above them or don't need that kind of shit in the…

Yep, it's a whole class of equating X thing with being "virtuous" (or similar). Your height, your sex, your weight, your hairline, your income/savings, etc. It's uncomfortable to talk about or admit but people regularly take controllable (or uncontrollable) traits and assign value to them even though it doesn't have any actual bearing. "Oh that billionaire did something that seems odd/crazy to me? Well he must know s…

> most people would succeed if put into that position (from birth, which is why this is near-impossible to prove).

It's actually very easy to disprove. There are 22 million millionaires in the US. There are 720 billionaires. That gives you a 0.003% chance of going from millionaire tier to billionaire.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#727

Post by bilvar »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #574
notacop31337 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made this comment to a friend recently that I don't think enough people are considering that he might actually be mad enough to have spent $44B to destroy a toxic business.

> destroy a toxic business Twitter is more toxic under musk..

It's been barely a week he's at the helm and you came to that conclusion? I'm indifferent about Musk, but that's absurd.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#728

Post by [deleted] »

chson wrote: post #417
ok_dad wrote: post #357

Everytime a new Commanding Officer (CO) showed up when I was in the Navy we tried to bet which type it was: 1) The kind who investigated the goings-on in the ship, interviewed the officers and chiefs, and learned how the ship was being run, then made small changes over time to optimize the operations based on what they learned. Sometimes big changes in one specific area, if it was required (like fixing the ship's cry…

and generally acted like they owned the place To be fair, he actually does own the place.

[deleted]

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#729

Post by bilvar »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #599
poszlem wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stupid is people thinking that someone who successfully rules over some of the most influential companies in the world is stupid. Reminds me of all those people who claim that Trump or Putin[1] are "stupid" where in reality they just mean "I don't like them". [1] You can be a murderous dictator and not stupid, I would actually wager a guess that those people tend to actually be cleverer than average. Some appl…

Putin's and Musk's massive ego and narcissism will be their downfall. By invading Ukraine, Putin has achieved the exact opposite he wanted to achieve. The West is now more united than ever and more Russia border countries are going to join NATO. On top of that he has destroyed Russian economy. Tell me how that's not stupid? I don't even have to go into Musk's actions. He massively overpaid for Twitter and to service…

When you arrive at the point that you need to draw parallels between Putin and Musk, you seriously need to stop watching the news.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#730

Post by anothernewdude »

poszlem wrote: post #517
abxytg wrote: post #481

Or -- he's stupid.

What's stupid is people thinking that someone who successfully rules over some of the most influential companies in the world is stupid. Reminds me of all those people who claim that Trump or Putin[1] are "stupid" where in reality they just mean "I don't like them". [1] You can be a murderous dictator and not stupid, I would actually wager a guess that those people tend to actually be cleverer than average. Some appl…

I've read his leaked messages. He is stupid.
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