111–120 of 149 posts
"At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand." But also "Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy" I think this blog points at a common issue in the tech world. Many want to have a hand in the majority of decisions, but also deride at how slowly things end up moving. It's very hard to have it…
It seems like the author really just wants their ideas to be listened to without having to put the political effort into making them listened to. Previously that effort was playing the bureaucracy and now that effort was kissing up to Musk.
One system is political but clear in how it operates. The other system is political and unclear how it operates. Still both "political".
Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior. This is the first post I've seen that shows concern for the mental health of our leaders. I share that same concern for our elected officials, as they've been in surviv…
It's obvious that the author is very considerate and was hoping for the best, and even after being let go she has a nuanced and (to my reading) more positive stance on the company than I would expect.
And yet, there are several hints here that Elon himself is isolated in ways that I think most of us could never really relate to. When it comes to running a social media platform - something designed to connect people - this isolation might make it difficult for him to make the right decisions.
You can see this in actors, politicians, athletes, etc as well - being at the top of their game and being in the public eye makes them... weird. Their lives are far removed from the way most of us live, and it's impossible for us to really imagine ourselves in their shoes - and, maybe, vice-versa.
So this looks like it is a repost of Esther Crawford’s original Tweet, and it’s a shame this is the linked version. Here is the original Tweet: https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/168429104868268441... Now I’m not one to promote the use of Twitter, but in this case Esther actually had a very nice video at the end where she reads out what her post said in her own voice and I think it comes out better that way. I…
>I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode I may feel hard but it's still easy mode compared to poor people in third world countries or people in warzones, especially if it doesn't matter to you if you get fired or not.
The trouble with this line of thinking is that it negates almost any problem someone can suffer. Starving to death? At least you're not starving to death while being physically tortured every moment of the day! The problems people face and their suffering is real, and should be respected, even if there is someone who has it worse somewhere else.
Yes, negating someone’s personal issues by saying someone has it worse can be unhelpful. No, working long hours when you don’t even care if you’re getting fired or not isn’t “playing life on hard mode at level 10”. Unless your hard mode level 10 is someone else’s Tuesday, of course.
I appreciate this considerably more nuanced and thoughtful view of the modern history of Twitter. So much coverage of Twitter since the Musk acquisition is entangled with partisan politics, ultimately in part thanks to Musk provoking such a reaction. That makes this post feel ever more illuminating and thoughtful—it avoids the partisan pitfalls and irrational extremism seen in virtually every other article on the top…
>I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode I may feel hard but it's still easy mode compared to poor people in third world countries or people in warzones, especially if it doesn't matter to you if you get fired or not.
And it certainly doesn’t mean someone else should come along and shame you for expressing your own pain. That’s toxic to any form of discourse.
>A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. I doubt that. Not the opposite part but the high performance one. Sounds like a road to burn out and depression.
I work somewhere with what I would consider a high performance culture. We all show up to work and consistently put in ~8 hours of high effort work. A few times a year that may mean some late nights, but mostly not, and folks usually take 4-8 weeks of vacation a year. Working around the clock is not rewarded. I find the whole setup fun and invigorating.
That said we do sometimes make a bad hiring decision and those people may end up working 80 hours a week to try to match the output everyone else. We have to let those people go.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
musk has a vast amount of power and influence due to his wealth, links to several corporations, links to other rich people, and his control of a social media site. I believe that someone with that much power has an obligation, a responsibility to improve the world for humanity. Whether elected or not. he instead chooses to do what he does. That is why I dislike him. he could offer so much more but messes around "trol…
I don't care for his tweets or his political thoughts, but I personally think he has done more good through his companies than most others with similar resources. In my opinion, when Gates was still running Microsoft, he did considerably less "good" for humanity than Musk is doing now. And Musk's contemporaries (Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al) don't seem to be interested in doing much good either. It's easy to be an armcha…
Sorry, but... what is Musk doing for humanity now?
SpaceX makes a business out of space, which will use more and more energy, which is exactly the biggest problem of humanity right now (fossil fuel is not unlimited, and CO2 is killing the planet).
Tesla makes heavy vehicles that use a lot of energy, too. And somehow, some people think they are "green" because they are electric, but the truth is that driving such a heavy vehicle for (usually) one person is the opposite of green.
Now let's be honest, his contemporaries are not helping humanity either. But if we talk about humanity, we would be better off without SpaceX, without Tesla, without Facebook and without Amazon. Let's not forget that.
Gates, post-Microsoft, seems to be working hard to make good things, I have to say.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
musk has a vast amount of power and influence due to his wealth, links to several corporations, links to other rich people, and his control of a social media site. I believe that someone with that much power has an obligation, a responsibility to improve the world for humanity. Whether elected or not. he instead chooses to do what he does. That is why I dislike him. he could offer so much more but messes around "trol…
Literally who has improved humanity more this century? I ask with all seriousness. Electric cars and rockets would not be where they are if he had chosen a different and much less difficult path.
We don't need more rockets or space tourism. And instead of building heavy EVs, Tesla should help the US build public transports. That is, if they want to help humanity.