Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#791

Post by ReptileMan » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:23 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #789

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…

I've been in companies where 1/5th of engineer was laid off. The state of company infra and the product dropped significantly and it took a long time to approach recovery, where they hired the same amount of staff back. I can't imagine how dysfunctional twitter would be with %75 of staff gone, I don't even know if it will continue running as a business after that.

There is a lot of cruft without touching the engineering department. And there are always those two guys in every team that when they call sick - productivity of the team increases.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#792

Post by ohmyzee » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

nus07 wrote: post #762

Does Elon Musk want to become the Rupert Murdoch of the digital era and become king maker ?

He who controls the memes....

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#793

Post by jonas21 » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

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.

That's certainly possible. But which of the following would you think is most likely to succeed?

(a) a company trying to build electric cars at a time when there was zero consumer demand for them and the battery technology was nowhere near good enough

(b) a company trying to launch things into space when the vast majority of nations in the world were unable to do so and even NASA seemed like it had lost its way

(c) a popular social media app with 400M users and maybe some issues with product direction

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#794

Post by randoglando » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

kjksf wrote: post #684

JasserInicide wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. Yeah I think he's going to intensely focus on Twitter for ~6 months, not change much, get bored, and then move onto something else.

The way he got bored running Tesla and SpaceX for ~20 years? I really don't get where this meme of "impulsive, erratic, hotheaded Musk" comes from given he demonstrated ability to stick with a business in the toughest of times. Tesla was literally days away from bankruptcy at one time and Musk made it work. After first 3 failed launches he was about to run out of money and yet he financed another launch, which worked…

> I really don't get where this meme of "impulsive, erratic, hotheaded Musk" comes from

The same guy who tweeted "Funding secured". His tweets about starting boring company, and buying twitter. His email exchanges that are now public. He is VERY impulsive and erratic (maybe not hotheaded).

All his tweets on Bitcoin:

https://www.rockwelltrading.com/articles/coffee-with-markus/...

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#795

Post by sbf501 » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #653

sbf501 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they made $1B profit before counting the loan, they would spend that profit on the loan. Effectively the same concept: they need to revenue to clear operating expenses PLUS a $1B loan payment.

In 2020 twitter had a net loss of $1.14B. The loans will kill twitter.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/twitter-announces-f...

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#796

Post by dymk » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #790

thinkingemote wrote: post #248

They need to re-free up the API. Early adopters and hackers really did some great work using the API until they walled-gardened it and rate limited it to make it unusable. They need to do this for goodwill at the very least, but I think it will spark the fire to make it popular with techies again. Based on the recently published discovery chats we will probably see: * High def video * Focus on music publication * The…

I think the ship has sailed on the API. It was a different time, and the people that used Twitter's API to do fun things didn't just give up...they migrated to mastodon and discord. I don't think the golden years of twitter are coming back.

Like 5 people "migrated" to Mastodon, and Discord isn't a comparable product

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#797

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:28 AM UTC

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #787

matttb wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an account and every time I hit that signup/in wall I just close the page rather than sign into my account

On Android I use Fritter. You can even follow people and get notification without an account. Great for following news and feed type accounts that are only on Twitter. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.jonjomckay.fritter/

Thanks, I'll check it out!

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#798

Post by archon810 » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:30 AM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #791

novok wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in companies where 1/5th of engineer was laid off. The state of company infra and the product dropped significantly and it took a long time to approach recovery, where they hired the same amount of staff back. I can't imagine how dysfunctional twitter would be with %75 of staff gone, I don't even know if it will continue running as a business after that.

There is a lot of cruft without touching the engineering department. And there are always those two guys in every team that when they call sick - productivity of the team increases.

The question is, who will decide who to fire? And how many of the wrong people to fire will get fired in the process?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#799

Post by skissane » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:30 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #789

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…

I've been in companies where 1/5th of engineer was laid off. The state of company infra and the product dropped significantly and it took a long time to approach recovery, where they hired the same amount of staff back. I can't imagine how dysfunctional twitter would be with %75 of staff gone, I don't even know if it will continue running as a business after that.

Will Musk actually cut 75%? Musk tends to do a lot of “thinking out loud” - so even if he really spoke that number, he won’t hold himself to it.

Whatever the actual figure is, it is unlikely to be the same figure across all departments - likely some departments will be cut much more than others. Probably engineering will experience significantly less cuts than marketing, PR, HR, government relations, business development, etc. Even in engineering, some cuts may be due to things like adjusting the manager:IC ratio.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#800

Post by kgwxd » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:31 AM UTC

chroma wrote: post #626

munificent wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of us has run into situations where choosing to be honest has materially cost us. You accidentally scratch a parked car on your way out. Do you stop and leave a note with contact info or not? The richer you are, the more leverage you have and larger the material cost for these situations. A fellow rich friend gives you a little insider info that a stock you hold is about to crater. Do you sell some? In othe…

If anything I'd say it's the opposite. A random person can get away with cons and scams for a long time. Whenever they get caught, they can just set up shop somewhere else. They can change their name (or simply lie to others about their name). Famous people can't do that. If you're famous, you can commit one scam before your reputation is ruined. Even if the story manages to avoid the news, people talk and word sprea…

Then why can't I go to any news site without seeing a fresh new story of some rich/famous person getting caught red-handed being terrible and then gaining popularity from it?