Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#301

Post by rossdavidh » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

SilverBirch wrote: post #276

rayiner wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m missing some inside baseball, but what exactly is wrong here? Dorsey created Frankenstein and has regrets. I don’t see what’s childish about that.

It's about the context, Dorsey has basically been an absent CEO for the last 5 years. All the reporting is basically that he wasn't engaged, didn't make decisions, and in the end he didn't really step down from Twitter, he was forced out by activist investor buying up shares and pushing him out. It's not like he didn't have an opportunity to address the issues at Twitter, it's that he went off and worked at a differe…

Not all (or even most) CEOs have the same amount of power as, say, Mark Zuckerberg at Meta. Most CEOs cannot take the company in the direction of an entirely different business model without the Board of Directors agreeing. Dorsey was booted out as Twitter CEO once before, in 2008, and then brought back in an attempt to fix things, after he had already started Square.

It appears, not only from this text but many other comments he's made, that he found the board to be just as difficult to work with. I think he's spot on here, identifying the root cause of the problem, and a realistic appraisal of the chances of changing the existing company.

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#302

Post by bamboozled » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #96

mavhc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thought you could return a rocket from space and have it land vertically

And then, he returned a rocket from space and had it land vertically. Heck he's doing it consistently, and even synchronized on occasion. Musk is a flawed dude, but the physics behind space-x aren't his weak point.

He did none of that single-handedly though. Thousands, maybe millions of ours of man hours went into making all that happen. What spurred my original comment was that when I hear him talk, I think he does fail to acknowledge the people around him a little to conveniently. I don't care, I just don't think it's a good quality and I think longer term, it will probably lead to him having lower performing teams and people around him.

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#303

Post by bamboozled » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

veltas wrote: post #77

bamboozled wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else find this conversation awkward / cringe worthy? "Hey genius billionaire, what's up?" "Oh hey other genius billionaire..." "Let's do some shit because you know, the morons on the board didn't get it, I just didn't get my way so I left to do bitcoinz", "Off to dinner, later bro, let's solve all the problems tomorrow"... "Cool bro, I'll try buy the company and forfeit at the last minute when I realize I…

This is how a lot of people talk, you're just focusing on the billionaire part.

Right, whens the last time you purchased a company for billions of dollars off the cuff ?

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#304

Post by imjonse » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #153

imjonse wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like every other billionaire who once they have one foot in the grave rediscover themselves as philanthropists... Or like most US presidents discovering the war on drugs is a scam and the military-industrial-entertainment complex is out of control only after they leave office...

I don't think that's old age. a young president could serve a single term, lose re-election and still be under 40. In their post-presidency they have the freedom of not pandering in order to be re-elected so they can speak freely. But this is independent of their age/mortality.

I did not imply anything about age. And there was no president under 42 so far, and one that finishes a term before 40 would be a stretch since 35 is the minimum age limit for being elected POTUS.

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#305

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #290

Trufa wrote: post #30

Unlike everyone else here apparently, I find his attitude pretty positive. You all act as if you would have know what twitter would become from the beginning and you would have done better, I've been in infinitesimally smaller projects with pressures that have nothing to do with building Twitter and still I thought like I was losing control of the direction the product was going.

I honestly don't understand the negativity in this thread. That batch of messages in isolation are really promising.

My initial reaction was indeed very positive ( I take open protocol over corporate-owned fiefdom any day ). Then the obvious question came why this was released and how. Is it PR campaign ( Dorsey - and Musk especially - were being hit in press a lot lately ) and this is just one way to help their image?

I don't know. I would like to hope it is more than just image clean up.

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#306

Post by goldenManatee » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #280

SilverBirch wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about the context, Dorsey has basically been an absent CEO for the last 5 years. All the reporting is basically that he wasn't engaged, didn't make decisions, and in the end he didn't really step down from Twitter, he was forced out by activist investor buying up shares and pushing him out. It's not like he didn't have an opportunity to address the issues at Twitter, it's that he went off and worked at a differe…

There's also the fact that he's on the board of directors of Twitter while he's sending these text messages conspiring against the shareholders he represents!

That’s going to be a battle of cash poured into PR teams. While competitive, I am layman and do not see that it rises to the level of conspiracy. You can’t exactly call a non-monetizing protocol the competitive beast that a publicly traded, global behemoth like Twitter is.

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#307

Post by bushbaba » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

skerit wrote: post #59

Dorsey has said in the past (tweeted even) that he wanted to turn Twitter into a federated protocol. It was 1 random message, and then never brought up again. Interesting that he's still thinking about that.

See bluesky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#308

Post by hardnose » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #18

I have to admit this is a bit surprising from Musk. I was pretty firmly of the theory that his real motive re Twitter was basically narcissism, and I'm still not sure that's wrong. I note he's not agreeing strongly with Dorsey, with the strongest phrase being "I'd like to help if I can". And I still think he would be better off using any money he might have spent buying Twitter on funding a handful of open source com…

>I was pretty firmly of the theory that his real motive re Twitter was basically narcissism, and I'm still not sure that's wrong.

Why is it so hard to believe that Musk genuinely believes in exactly the version of "freedom of speech" that everyone in his generation grew up with, that served as the impetus for much of the internet's creation, etc.?

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#309

Post by rchaud » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

malshe wrote: post #292

SilverBirch wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Elephant in the room is that Musk is pretty much the perfect example of what makes Twitter terrible, and Dorsey had more than enough opportunity to fix it because he was literally in charge of the company for years and did nothing. All the shit Musk is throwing at Twitter now is stuff Dorsey was responsible for.

Aptly put. Dorsey was goofing off for years as Twitter’s CEO and now suddenly he is the guy who cares about Twitter. I remember people compared him to Steve Jobs when Dorsey returned to Twitter because Jobs at one point managed Pixar and Apple. What misplaced faith!

Did the timing coincide with Dorsey changing his look into that of a Buddhist boheme?

Re: Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022

#310

Post by EricDeb » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

muglug wrote: post #245

Schroedingersat wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the bit where you inherit an apartheid emerald fortune.

I think Elon is a shit person, and deserves tons of scrutiny, but this line of attack is not really true. It's hard to square the idea that he inherited all that money with his life in Canada as a student, where by all accounts he was living with a lot of debt, paycheck to paycheck.

I think it's fair to say he was well off enough that he knew he had a nice fallback if he took some risk. He may not have actually been getting checks from his parents but I'm sure he had a nice inheritance coming.