Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 1001 posts

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#651

Post by grecy »

maxerickson wrote: post #390
julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems likely enough really.

Looking at all musk has achieved so far - despite (or because of?) boards of experts adamant it couldn’t be done - I think it’s immensely clear a plan is something he clearly has and works very hard towards.

Obviously many people will disagree with his plan, though I’m 100% certain he has one, and will make it happen.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#652

Post by MarkSweep »

_fat_santa wrote: post #312
cutenewt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be more in the other direction. He really hates the bots, so he'll probably close up the API. Until bots gets solved, no developer should expect the API to open up.

The problem isn't the bots, the problem is the lack of differentiation between bots and real accounts. I say open up the API and let people make whatever bots they wish, but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next to your username on the feed.

They added this a year ago:

https://blog.twitter.com/common-thread/en/topics/stories/202...

I have not seen many obvious bot accounts using it, even the “good” ones.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#653

Post by cudgy »

sbf501 wrote: post #549
julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

We know one thing: half of the $44B was loans that will cost Twitter around $1B per year, so it has to make some kind of profit. Otherwise who will pay?

Fyi Profit is after expenses. Twitter can make 0 profit and still pay the loans.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#654

Post by throwaway821909 »

concinds wrote: post #307
julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

Most people are focused on censorship/content issues, but I really think the X.com "mega app" vision is the most significant part of this. It'll be hard to gain a foothold in those markets, and there'll be antitrust challenges, but it really fits perfectly with the rest of Musk's vision: X.com Maps could tie in with Teslas, X.com Carhailing could tie-in with (future) full self-driving; Twitter could be expanded to be…

There's a cluster of things around transport and then... also Twitter? I get that in the end you want to do everything but what makes microblogging a more important day 1 feature than food delivery or gaming or online dating. It's like if Amazon did just book delivery and online photo storage.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#655

Post by JasserInicide »

esoterica wrote: post #575
fleddr wrote: post #547

Random thoughts. 1. I think any effort to figure out rational motives for this buy are in vain. It seems things just pop into his head and if considered a fun challenge, then why not? A child-like YOLO attitude. 2. Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its cultural relevance. It is the town square for the elite (politicians, celebrities, experts). There isn't really anywhere else to go. An exodus…

> 3. Brain drain. I expect the exact opposite. This is the part where Musk thrives and also where he's at his cruelest. He will remove slackers and non-performers without mercy and surround himself with class A players only. Next he'll overload them with near impossible targets and you can't bullshit yourself out of it. You deliver or you're out. I would expect him to run this for a year or so and accomplish more tha…

Musk is famous for paying meager wages relative to other companies in exchange for being able to say "I worked at Tesla". And those are on public companies where you have to keep up with the quarterly earnings rat race. Normally you'd expect to see better wages in a private company, but given that it's Musk who knows.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#656

Post by themagician »

GMoromisato wrote: post #582

My predictions: 1. Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. It will be just like self-driving, which seems straightforward, but which actually has thousands of edge cases which are hard to solve with a single general system. Nevertheless, he will persist, because that's what he does. 2. Current Twitter makes a profit on advertising, which means Twitter needs to encou…

He doesn't have to completely fix Twitter. All he has to do is make Twitter Ads actually produce a decent ROI for the average customer.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#657

Post by tomohawk »

dub wrote: post #571
fleddr wrote: post #547

Random thoughts. 1. I think any effort to figure out rational motives for this buy are in vain. It seems things just pop into his head and if considered a fun challenge, then why not? A child-like YOLO attitude. 2. Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its cultural relevance. It is the town square for the elite (politicians, celebrities, experts). There isn't really anywhere else to go. An exodus…

Class A players don't work for controlling managers who overload them with near impossible targets. Class A players have plenty of options in tech, and have no need to tolerate having their skills called into question or disrespected by pointy-haired middle managers. When Bill Coughran was asked how he was able to successfully manage so many famously high performers (engineers like Jeff Dean), Bill explained how that…

Class A players especially don't like working with slackers and non-performers. If Elon cracks the whip and gets the bozos out of the performers way, they'll love him for it.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#658

Post by freejazz »

nmilo wrote: post #407

> Musk hasn’t said all that much since the takeover on Twitter, but he has replied to a couple of users who have complained about platform censorship in the past. One is a user called “catturd2” who claims he’s shadowbanned and who tweets COVID misinformation among other things. The other is Canada Proud, a right-wing propagandist group that also spreads COVID misinfo and focuses on attacking Canadian PM Justin Trude…

What about it is nasty? It doesn't say he endorsed those posters, it literally just says he interacted with him. I think the point is that he is interacting with these kinds of posters instead of, like doing something useful or relevant, or like anything else at all? I can see why you'd think it'd be nasty if you have an incredibly partisan view that has to sort everything into either being for or against something.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#660

Post by [deleted] »

ausbah wrote: post #621

I think the only big take away is Musk said too much stuff and is now left holding a culturally relevant, but monetarily flailing company. My expectation is he will do whatever it takes to be successful; cut staff, add more ads and paid features, etc. I believe he will also do certain things under the verneer of "free speech", but will eventually do a 180 because it will hurt the bottom line of the company.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN