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Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

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Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#431

Post by dendrite9 »

jacquesm wrote: post #262
consumer451 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire My theory is that humans are just not evolved for billionaire levels of wealth disparity. It's not a criticism, it just appears to be a fact. Honest question: are there any "in touch" billionaires? Maybe Mark Cuban in some ways for example?

Mark Cuban is not the example that I would reach for. He's been an asshole since before Yahoo! threw too much money at him. I know a few, but they're modest people and that's why I will not name them here, I will name one that is deceased, René Sommer, if you want to know more about him, I wrote about him here: https://jacquesmattheij.com/in-memoriam-rene-sommer/

I've taken to skimming through the Elon/twitter threads curious to see if there's anything actually new. I'm glad I saw your post and clicked the link, that was a very pleasant story to read.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#432

Post by jacquesm »

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 to Twitter because his account just got suspended...

See for yourself: https://twitter.com/paulg/

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#433

Post by dredmorbius »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #101

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165

Title: "Promotion of alternative social platforms policy"

Context: This is specifically linked in pg's tweet.

(Which should be reasonably obvious, though several comments to this thread suggest otherwise.)

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#434

Post by neilv »

Regarding behavior of Twitter's current leadership, the personality of recent years...

When people who seem intelligent and sensible achieve success, and then start to have a kind of jerk-y metamorphosis, I wonder whether it's not just that their voice is amplified or no longer suppressed, nor that "power corrupts", but... whether and how much drugs are involved.

Imagine a stereotypical young Wall Street bro of decades past, who starts doing cocaine. If their personality changes, I might wonder how much it was the money, and how much it was the echo chamber in their new social scene, but one really can't ignore the coke (where at least temporary personality change is basically on the label as an effect).

With some people, I also wonder about the awful effects of sleep deprivation. But usually first about drugs.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#435

Post by PartiallyTyped »

ren_engineer wrote: post #404
rc_mob wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

do morons get accepted into Stanford's STEM PhD programs? You can hate Musk for his personality and maybe say he has mental health issues but to say he's stupid seems strange

If this is to be believed [1], what you describe:

> do morons get accepted into Stanford's STEM PhD programs

is a lie perpetuated by Musk and co. [1] contains links to court documents.

According to the court documents, not only does he not have a physics or other technical degree, he obtained a bachelor in Econ in 1997, not a physics degree in 1995.

The scan of the diploma does not specify department, has no year date, and is a bachelor of arts.

[1] https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/159330754193247436...

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#436

Post by naet »

insanitybit wrote: post #176
wpietri wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. Given that Musk was fired from [deleted, see note 1] and PayPal, you'd think they might have had more questions. But people look at failure much more carefully than they look at success. I think the next wave of interesting questions is around the extent to which Musk contributed the apparent successes, SpaceX and Tesla. We won't know for a long time, as a lot of the people in the know have a strong incenti…

Musk is a celebrity. Celebrities start successful companies all the time. Is Rihanna a brilliant business woman for starting a successful beauty line? Is she a business genius , which is what Musk gets labeled so often? Maybe she really is, but I don't see her get that label, I think her value add is very clearly "she is famous, people will buy shit that she puts her name on". What they have in common is that they ha…

Many celebrities end up burning out or spending all their money, start failed businesses, etc.

Rihanna imo is very savvy and the Fenty brand was a very successful business, involving a couple pivots from fashion to more lingerie and beauty. The big Savage x Fenty musical production event every year is a smart move that leverages her music industry connections and draws lots of interest and new customers.

Arguably she is doing better than Musk atm, given that he started life with a huge capital advantage and is likely losing big on Twitter right now (as well as tanking his public image).

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#437

Post by rglullis »

dopidopHN wrote: post #347
rglullis wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers. Until they get overloaded, and face the same issues as the "first tier" ones... I know that what I am about to say is out of personal interest, but I really wish people took the analogy to email servers more seriously and started looking at commercial providers. I'm offering Mastodon services for about $0.50/user/month [0], and I have the infra to host 20-30k…

I created my twitter account when sending tweet via text was still a thing. Never really used it, so I'm not the right demographic. But I do think your approach is the right one. I hope you succeed a breaking even and generate a margin for your time.

Thank you for your kind words. If Twitter/Mastodon is not what you need, perhaps I could interest you in my hosted XMPP and Matrix offerings?

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#438

Post by [deleted] »

krisoft wrote: post #375
tlogan wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better. Not everybody believed that he will succeeded but it seems like majority belived that he will at least try hard. Like improve app to purchase things (one click checkout), integrate with real time news, some free speech, sports, … so many ideas

> Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better. I mean. I still think he is trying to do that. Is he succeeding? I don’t think so. If it all hits the ground and twitter is no more a going concern will he claim that was his plan all along? Probably. Doesn’t mean it is true. Even on the day he offered to buy twitter he was offering more money than the stock was worth. That is onl…

[deleted]

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#439

Post by eikenberry »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #379
eikenberry wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met PG at a book signing and he was quite pleasant. I asked about when Arc would be released (this was a while back) and he laughed and joked about it. Really nice guy. Do you really think twitter equates to meeting someone?

GP is calling pg dumb, not mean - your anecdote is compatible.

You cannot be both pleasant and dumb. Dumb people are inherently annoying.
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