So? Why so much discussion about this? Are we going to discuss this again when he's back on Twitter?
He owns Hacker News
Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
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Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? Mass random firings of employees in multiple incompetent waves, blocking and expelling journalists and activists, re-enabling known hate-speech accounts, walking out of press conferences when questioned, spreading QAnon adjacent conspiracy theories... none of this annoyed Paul Graham enough to leave.. and in fact he defended the guy... But blocking links to Mastodon? That makes him leave? Like, uh, fine, but..…
> re-enabling known hate-speech accounts “Hate speech” is left-wing code for “someone with an opposing point of view”. Having those accounts unbanned, if nothing else, is a healthy sign. What this thread is about though (banning outbound links to other platforms), not so much. That plain reeks of desperation.
"Deathcon 3 on jews" is more valuable speech than links to facebook profiles, gotcha.
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire. Elon Musk is billionaire reactionary distilled into its purest form. I mean the guy is literally spending 100% of his time reacting to things he doesn't personally like.
i know the brain poison social media gives us all… it’s wild to see
Yep. Along with Musk and Kanye. Those are cases where the poison has fully penetrated. How many of our elites are less noticeably but still significantly impaired though? It's a frightening thought.
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#204Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in the replies to this tweet he insists[1] "Elon is a smart guy" in spite of all the evidence to the contrary [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
Elon could both be smart and making huge mistakes. It happens all the time.
Elon's behavior, opinions, and points of view suggest otherwise. His only notable quality is his wealth.
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in the replies to this tweet he insists[1] "Elon is a smart guy" in spite of all the evidence to the contrary [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
Elon could both be smart and making huge mistakes. It happens all the time.
I think they are laying the groundwork to allow creators to monetize their tweets and additional content. As it stands a lot of creators are monetizing their content off platform (patreon, substack, youtube, onlyfans, etc.) and the goal is to lock them and their content into twitter.
I think it's a good idea as content is king, but they should have rolled this out after they had established an ability to monetize. Once people leave the platform it will be tough to get them back unless they offer a very lucrative comission split with creators.
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
For sure. Given that Musk was fired from [deleted, see note 1] and PayPal, you'd think they might have had more questions. But people look at failure much more carefully than they look at success. I think the next wave of interesting questions is around the extent to which Musk contributed the apparent successes, SpaceX and Tesla. We won't know for a long time, as a lot of the people in the know have a strong incenti…
Musk is a celebrity. Celebrities start successful companies all the time. Is Rihanna a brilliant business woman for starting a successful beauty line? Is she a business genius , which is what Musk gets labeled so often? Maybe she really is, but I don't see her get that label, I think her value add is very clearly "she is famous, people will buy shit that she puts her name on". What they have in common is that they ha…
Is her beauty line worth more than (top three classic beauty supply companies)?
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#208Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.". It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). [1] https://twi…
And in the replies to this tweet he insists[1] "Elon is a smart guy" in spite of all the evidence to the contrary [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
Elon is undoubtedly smart. It also seems like maybe he's on a mental health episode or just got so rich he decided he's done with building companies and just wants to be an asshole out of spite. Who knows? But he's accomplished plenty of things that suggest he's not an idiot.
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#209I think the preferred approach if you’re outraged about Twitter management, is speak out about it on Twitter, as opposed to quit in protest. Fight the fight if it’s worth it.
Your solution is to try and convince Elon?
Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now
#210Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.". It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). [1] https://twi…
It's interesting how VCs suddenly seem to believe "tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff", now that they can't just show up at a bank and get literal buckloads of other people's money with no justification or due diligence, but were all in on "tech startups must continually grow at any cost" just a few months ago. Once again, society will be left holding the rich sociopaths' bags and dealing with the ex…
I think the way Twitter is faring is actually proof to the contrary, you can't lay off half your staff and expect the machine to just keep chugging along. You either design it from day #1 to be run with a very tight crew or it becomes a much larger machine with a different kind of profile.
Compare Instagram with Twitter.