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Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

nytimes.com

471–480 of 1001 posts

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#471
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As chief, her job is, amongst others, making sure that type of thing doesn’t happen. Outcomes suggests she failed at that. Hopefully the next chief will be better.

She was was never the chief, only the chief's main administrator.

"Assistant to the regional manager". [1]

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA9kQuWkU7I

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between a 3rd party twitter bot and grok. And it’s not a “bad release”, it’s been like this ever since it launched. Funny how ChatGPT is vanilla and grok somehow has a new racist thing to say every other week.

> Funny how ChatGPT is vanilla and grok somehow has a new racist thing to say every other week To be fair, 'exposing' ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini as racist will get you a lot fewer clicks. Musk claims Grok to be less filtered in general than other LLMs. This is what less filtered looks like. LLMs are not human; if you get one to say racist things it's probably because you were trying to make it say racist things. If…

>This is what less filtered looks like

It's so "less filtered" that they had to add a requirement in the system prompt to talk about white genocide

This idea that "less filtered" LLMs will be "naturally" very racist is something that a lot of racists really really want to be true because they want to believe their racist views are backed by data.

They are not.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there is some blame for not standing up to Musk and leading better. That seems in the same category as saying there's some blame on her for not working harder on basketball in her youth and so never becoming a WNBA Finals MVP. (Narrator: Um, no, she's not nearly tall enough ....)

I'm just not sure her complete lack of power to stand up to Musk is a defense. If a controversial rich guy offers you a CEO job that consists entirely of laundering his reputation by pretending his decisions are your own, you have a social responsibility not to take it. I'd be more sympathetic if she were some random person who couldn't otherwise dream of an executive level pay package, but she was the head of ads at…

> If a controversial rich guy offers you a CEO job that consists entirely of laundering his reputation by pretending his decisions are your own, you have a social responsibility not to take it.

I don't think you become the CEO of any major company by believing that "social responsibility" exists. Doesn't the job pretty much select for the type of person who thinks the world owes them $20+ million a year?

With that said - it's dumb to blame the puppet for the acts of the ventriloquist.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#474

One time they let her speak publicly it turned out to be a disaster. She never had any say and worst part is she was not even a good fall guy, it was clear who’s pulling the strings. The most immaterial and inconsequential hire ever. I love all the replies on Twitter thanking her but during her time the valuation dropped 80% and they were suing advertisers for not advertising. Remarkably inept.

It's weird that you say both she had no material power and also seem to imply the valuation drop and lawsuits were due to her ineptitude? Anyway she volunteered to be a puppet for a man who is clearly off the rails and her legacy will forever be stained.

What legacy?

She's not a well known public figure. She ran the ad department at NBC. Is now very rich and at age 61, close enough to retirement age.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both things can be true: Valuation did drop during her tenure, AND she was not to blame. Therefore the praise is weird, because she seemingly neither helped nor hurt the business.

> she was not to blame. Fall guys bear some of the blame in the fall. My long-held [0] personal theory - borne out by everything Musk has done, and by who bought Twitter - is that it was bought to curb the possibility of large positive social movements along the lines of OWS or BLM. Enabling that can entail being useless at your supposed job, while doing your actual job (which deserves some amount of blame, from a nu…

Thing is, she failed at being the fall person. It's clear to everyone who was calling the shots, so ironically she was ineffective as the fall person.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#476
post #370

In her farewell tweet: > Groundbreaking innovations like community notes This existed on Twitter before Musk bought Twitter, and was likely borrowed from community wiki section on Stack Overflow at a minimum, if not from earlier sites. Not an X innovation.

Don't worry, nobody still on Twitter has ever cared about what actually happens in reality

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#477

When I saw this news, my first thought was that she lasted about 1 year and 11 months longer than I expected after the first few weeks. I know Twitter had many terrible aspects, but I do miss the world voice old Twitter provided for quotes that could be engaged with in an "everyone is here" kind of feeling that doesn't exist on any other platforms right now.

Of course I hate what Elon has done to Twitter but you're feeling previously that everyone was there was an illusion brought on by massive propaganda and manipulation of the conversation. The same thing has happened to Reddit now, well it feels more inclusive and open it's actually an incredibly controlled enclosed system that only allows one specific viewpoint. Now of course to the people inside that bubble it feels…

It's literally impossible to post anything on any interesting subreddit right now, your post will just repeatedly get deleted.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reputational damage was taking the money to profit from and aid the megalomania. She'll never be taken seriously by serious people or have a substantive job again. But she'll do fine, her loyalty will probably get her similar opportunity with similar people.

Shes 62 she can just retire and live on a beach for the next 30 or so years.

> Shes 62 she can just retire and live on a beach for the next 30 or so years.

As Rust Kohle said in "True Detective": "People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time..."

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She _accepted_ the job, though. If we're assuming it was obvious to everyone that it was an impossible job, then her accepting it shows a certain lack of judgement, surely.

"I accepted a difficult position with the expectation that I would make a significant impact on the company's future. Now, looking back, I'm pleased with what I was able to accomplish. I look forward to more challenging engagements." At least, that's how I would spin it. But I'd probably have AI massage the text a bit ;-)

> But I'd probably have AI massage the text a bit ;-)

Just not Grok specifically. Wouldn't want it "massaging the text" with ethnic jokes.

Re: Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Funny how ChatGPT is vanilla and grok somehow has a new racist thing to say every other week To be fair, 'exposing' ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini as racist will get you a lot fewer clicks. Musk claims Grok to be less filtered in general than other LLMs. This is what less filtered looks like. LLMs are not human; if you get one to say racist things it's probably because you were trying to make it say racist things. If…

>This is what less filtered looks like It's so "less filtered" that they had to add a requirement in the system prompt to talk about white genocide This idea that "less filtered" LLMs will be "naturally" very racist is something that a lot of racists really really want to be true because they want to believe their racist views are backed by data. They are not.

I asked MS Copilot, "Did the Grok team add a requirement in the system prompt to talk about white genocide?"

Answer: "I can't help with that."

This is not helping your case.

Gemini had a better response: "xAI later stated that this behavior was due to an 'unauthorized modification' by a 'rogue employee'."

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