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Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

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Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#751

Post by thereare5lights »

secos wrote: post #453
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…

> Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media. This argument made sense a month ago. Unfortunately he really hasn't shown any improvement since then that would lead me to agree with you on that point. It's now a situation where he has to either find enough new people who agree with whatever his approach is or /win people back/ - both of those are quite…

This.

Continuing to give him the benefit of the doubt just reeks of

> I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg.

And yes, I know that was a joke but obviously the unconscious bias is quite strong, stronger than a lot of these investors want to admit.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#752

Post by boudin »

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…

If the same techniques would have been applied to Tesla and SpaceX the result would be different. I guess there must be quite a few people much smarter than Musk behind the success of those companies.

Calling abusive and intolerant behaviour "eccentric" is really weak.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#753

Post by jacquesm »

davidgerard wrote: post #630
secos wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media. This argument made sense a month ago. Unfortunately he really hasn't shown any improvement since then that would lead me to agree with you on that point. It's now a situation where he has to either find enough new people who agree with whatever his approach is or /win people back/ - both of those are quite…

looking forward to the Morgan Stanley era of Twitter ownership really, the first job is to put an adult in charge

That moment may be much closer than we think.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#754

Post by roland35 »

rbanffy wrote: post #529
roland35 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but saying "he is a smart guy" is a bit ridiculous at this point. A "smart guy" certainly may not know everything about running a social network, but he _would_ listen to the advice from those around them. Being smart also means understanding what you don't know and not surround yourself with sycophants.

> but he _would_ listen to the advice from those around them. At this point, I'm assuming he is surrounded by people too eager to please him. > Being smart also means understanding what you don't know and not surround yourself with sycophants. The inescapable conclusion is that Elon is not as smart as he thinks. Whether he can learn is open to debate and will become evident shortly.

I have no inside info of Twitter besides being an interested bystander, but it seems like he's flat out ignored advice (and later fired the advice givers) at multiple points since taking over. I'm sure anyone left is only still around by being a yesman.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#755

Post by mcv »

_cenw wrote: post #599
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. E…

> 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.

I heard that too. Is it just a rumour or do we know this is true?

And if it's true at SpaceX, is it also true at Tesla?

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#756

Post by profmonocle »

mccorrinall wrote: post #739
waprin wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said, good analogy. There’s the immediate issues of the policy. But there’s the bigger issue of the thought process that led to the policy. One of Elons central criticism of old Twitter management was unfair content moderation policy. And almost immediately he enacts a far worse content policy than anything old management did, in a brazen display of hypocrisy. Even if he reverses course on this one issue, he’s d…

> banning of links to Mastodon I’d like to point out that this is what everyone says is happening, but actually that’s not what’s happening. Twitter allows linking to other social networks as long as that’s not the only thing you do. Twitter is suspending accounts which were made sorely for linking to another network. (The mastodon account was only used for promoting mastodon’s alternative social network). Here is a…

If you try to post a link to a mastodon profile, it will fail. Old links will bring up a "this site may be harmful" interstitial. Most large instances seem affected.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#759

Post by magicloop »

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 think pg is one of the best placed people to critique the situation because he knows what a start-up is and how to do one, he's in the same tier of society (top tier wealth), and he knows what is takes to run a social network.

The "it is going to be hardcore from here" email the CEO sent to Tesla employees 'worked', but the same email to Twitter employees resulted in significant resignations. I think the CEO was shocked and this underlies pg's point.

Given that it was a forced buy, the game was always that of a corporate raider approach - go in, make the unpleasant but needed decisions, and then sell out as soon as the value uptick became realisable. pg applauded the cut to staff IIRC.

CEO should have taken a leaf out of Rupert Murdoch's book - as the owner don't write the headlines - let the editor do that. Being behind the scenes to just make the most considered accurate business decisions was the right way.

If instead you are out in front of the public, you're emotional side will kick in due to the slings-and-arrows coming from the audience. Hence the wrong decisions will be made.

You can't wear both the hats of 'eccentric' Corporate Jester and Corporate Raider at the same time. The Dave Chapelle boo-ing incident just underlies this.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#760

Post by moultano »

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…

You were just suspended though, so at least in the short term it's out of your hands.
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