Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#591

Post by speakfreely » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #579

speakfreely wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organizing the efforts of large teams of smart people is one of the most high value activities you can do in our society. Edit: not saying that's happening at Twitter, but it has demonstrably occurred at Tesla and SpaceX.

However, it seemed that Elon's mind was more with manipulating Bitcoin rates, and then buying and changing Twitter the last few years. Tesla and SpaceX must be run by other people, which investors and Elon conveniently keep out of the picture.

Elon is certainly laser-focused on self-promotion, no doubt. I suspect most of the value he will deliver at those companies is in the past, but that doesn't detract from it.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#592

Post by krick » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

barathr wrote: post #91

For those wondering about how to sign up to mastodon and what server to pick: It's like picking an email server. They all have their differences, but generally they are interoperable. You can read users from anywhere, and follow from anywhere. Better yet, it's fairly easy to move your account from one server to another if you don't like it. Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers (ones that have thous…

But is there something, like, serving as a bridge to Twitter and stuff? I'm really uneducated in this stuff, I don't have an account neither on Twitter, nor on Mastodon, and I don't really understand, what people do on Twitter. For me, the only reason I ever wanted to join Twitter (but not strongly enough for me to type in my phone number) is being subscribed to all these celebrities like Musk, Kanye West or whoever is the most popular ATM, just to cut out one link in the chain and seeing that stuff before it appears in the news anyway.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#593

Post by xupybd » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

I'm impressed that one of your tweets could generate almost 600 comments in 1 hour. This should be an interesting stress test of HN. Often when something generates this level of interaction performance suffers.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#594

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #297

bluedino wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is her beauty line worth more than (top three classic beauty supply companies)?

Rihanna’s underwear company Savage X Fenty was estimated to be worth $3 billion earlier this year, which is roughly the same as the market cap of Victoria’s Secret. Probably that estimate would be lower now, given the market downturn. But clearly she’s well on her way to building up a competitor to the established brands.

[deleted]

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#595

Post by rvba » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #272

pavlov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk seems to be speedrunning into Howard Hughes status. He has so much wealth that, like Hughes, he could alienate every business contact and still spend the rest of his life making leftfield investments and watching movies naked in a dark hotel room. (Well, replace watching movies with tweeting, I suppose.)

This to me feels like the right analogy. It’s both possible that Musk is a genius and that he’s cracked as many geniuses do. His embarrassment in no way erases his accomplishments of the past decade and warrant a “he was never smart”. But his downright pathetic demeanor the past few months do eclipse and ruin what could’ve been an incredible legacy.

There are press articles that say that Musk showed his friends the benefits of MDMA, Mushrooms, psychedelics, marijuana.

I dont know if he does drugs, but sure he seems to behave strange.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#596

Post by 0xFEEDC0DE » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

People dramatically exiting twitter is childish to me. Why do you need validation for using social media? Also people having fake outrage over twitter drama and smear merchant journalists who push terms of service boundaries on purpose is equally childish. Grow up.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#597

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #297

bluedino wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is her beauty line worth more than (top three classic beauty supply companies)?

Rihanna’s underwear company Savage X Fenty was estimated to be worth $3 billion earlier this year, which is roughly the same as the market cap of Victoria’s Secret. Probably that estimate would be lower now, given the market downturn. But clearly she’s well on her way to building up a competitor to the established brands.

[deleted]

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#598

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #432

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Fair enough. I don't think he will be able to salvage this and I've deleted my account to reduce the temptation to return. A reputation is not like a piece of software that you fix and then re-run as though it never broke in the first place. Elon has utterly wrecked his reputation over the last couple of months (and probably longer than that) and it is getting worse, not better. Edit: I guess Paul won't be going back…

> A reputation is not like a piece of software that you fix and then re-run as though it never broke in the first place

In a way it is, but it differs from software in that fixing it involves more than reverting the action by which you broke it.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#599

Post by _cenw » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

SpaceX has talented people working there despite Elon, not because of him.

They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. They put up with it because they only have so many opportunities to work on space.

Twitter has people dependent on their H-1B and very few true believers that are unfit to serve in their role. Ella Irwin has apparently personally ghost banned ("Hide Reply" but with lying to the user about being hidden) any mention of libsoftiktok - a stochastic terror organization just itching for a lynching of queer people - made anywhere close to TwitterSafety recently.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#600

Post by bryanlarsen » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #507

bryanlarsen wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All we can really compare Musk to is to Bezos. Bezos basically destroyed Blue Origin in 2017 after they blew up a test stand. This is the sort of thing that happens when you're developing rockets. You just have to accept it and move on. It'll cost you millions and many months, but if you want to develop rockets... After the test stand incident Bezos fired the CEO, brought in an incompetent one and brought in a "no mi…

"Bezos basically destroyed Blue Origin in 2017" This sort-of implies that BO was functional prior to that incident. BO was founded in 2000. By 2017, they had existed for 17 years without reaching the orbit. (Which SpaceX managed in 6 years, Astra managed in 17 years, RocketLab in 12 years). It seems to me that BO is just continuing to be an expensive failure, which, unlike all the other failed space startups, keeps d…

For the first part of its existence Blue Origin was basically a think tank. For a while its only employee was a science fiction author. Neal Stephenson is great, but he's not a rocket designer. As a think tank it was highly successful -- they successfully identified VTVL reusability as the future of space independently from SpaceX and similarly chose methalox. By 2017 Blue Origin was basically about a decade old as a "real" company. And progress was reasonable. New Shepherd was real and successful and looked like it could launch humans at any time. New Glenn was ambitious and BE-4 looked close.

Expecting them to reach orbit as quickly as SpaceX or Rocket Lab is unfair since SpaceX & Rocket Lab had an orbital rocket as their first product, and Blue Origin didn't.

It's unfair to compare everybody to SpaceX -- their success is exceptional. Pre-2017 Blue Origin wasn't as functional as SpaceX but I wouldn't call them dysfunctional. Post-2017 Blue Origin is dysfunctional.

This is all based on heresay, so take from it what you will.