It's so delicious to see what you call the "shouting class" and those I call "suffering from persistent protest disorder" yelp about Elon's takeover. I predict an endless slew of op-eds from various coddled interest groups in the NYT bemoaning this. It's even funnier to see the hypercompensated employees throw a shit fit and threaten to leave. Twitter should just show them the door if they're so dissatisfied and hire some of the talented people knocking on its doors. Netflix should have done the same to the morons who organized the Chapelle walkout. Putting actual professional consequences to acting out at work will disincentivize being a protestor, which should turn down the cultural temperature.
I don't know how involved Elon would be with the day-to-day, but as arguably one of the most successful CEOs in the history of humanity, finding and hiring new talent is probably one of his greatest strengths and incidentally the thing Twitter struggles the most with.
If he takes it private, then introduces "you must prove you're not a bot" - while private so that you don't have to care about the stock drop due to lack of engagement, then brings it back, it can be at least like LinkedIn where you know your real name will be attached to your crazy rants.
Really? My LinkedIn feed is pretty bland stuff. Promotions, new jobs, people hiring and bragging about their accomplishments, a few work memes...really, it's the antidote to Twitter and Facebook.
But I do get suprised what people will sometimes say there, even when potential employers and/or business partners are watching. Occasional blatant racist stuff, weird posts promoting religion, etc.
Way of saying I do think the bots go away, which is good. But I do not expect the level of crazy to go down much... lots of evidence (e.g. FB) where people will be unhinged regardless.
Yes, my own LinkedIn feed is pretty bland as well, but then every now and then you see someone popping off as if they’re in a Facebook or Nextdoor group. (Probably not a good idea I’d you’re thinking of changing jobs.)
Facebook is pretty heavily real name and ID and people say all sorts of nutty things in front of family, friends, etc. Should really help cut down the bots, though.
1) I hope the nazis aren't allowed to come back under the banner of free speech and make the replies to any Jewish person of any note revert to a firehose of anti-semitism.
2) I don't think it's 100% fair to assume that Musk loves liberal democracy instead of authoritarian government based solely on his decision to send Starlink to Ukraine. We (US taxpayers) are paying him millions of dollars to do so and it's giving the system a ton of good press.
But overall, "meh". If Musk turns Twitter into the next Gab or a US targeted Weibo I'll shrug my shoulders, move on, and probably be personally happier for it.
"The problems with Twitter are so deep and so difficult that only total control by a single individual has a realistic chance of solving them."
"If anyone can figure out how to change the quote-tweet function so as to preserve engagement and discussion while not biasing the platform toward the formation of cancel-mobs, it’s probably Elon."
Hey Noah, this post feels a fair deal too sycophantic to me. I think there are lots of things about Musk that are great: he's built the great hardware/manufacturing business of all time, is brilliant in engineering, and he cares a lot about free speech + democracy.
But I think both the quotes above go way too far. Problems that are deep-rooted do not necessarily need dictatorial leadership. Facebook has that, and has even bigger problems. Meanwhile, I'm unconvinced that Musk has an advantage when it comes to fixing problems that stem from people and society, rather than physics.
Bezos' comment is very apt. Tesla took large loans for the site and to build its chinese factory and has to hit aggressive revenue targets to avoid appropriation, which given how the chinese government dictates to entire industries could happen unilaterally. Additionally, he is under their good graces if he hopes to repatriate any revenues from its chinese subsidiary.
Also the starlink shipments to Ukraine are just the latest in a long line of promises rattled off to insert himself into the limelight of the crisis du jour which he rarely delivers. Such as, powering Puerto Rico with batteries, water filtration for Flint, Cpap machine 'ventilators' for covid, the Thai coffin cave extractor. It's all sideshow.
The man is a horrible manager, a thin skinned narcissist, and is basically a walking, reddit meme spewing disaster.
i'd guess he'll do it like reddit where it's just thousands of nerdmods figuring out ways to make it better (if it is broken.) really, my only complaint is everyone constantly reporting everyone else to get them banned
I cordially invite the lunatics whining about Musk's buyout of Twitter because WhAt AbOuT tHe HaRrAsMeNt AnD tHe MaRgInAlIzEd GrOuPs to put their money where their mouths are. The constant rejoinder has been "if you don't like it, make your own." So now make your own site for those with woke poisoning/persistent protest disorder/causehead leanings. You can take the neocons with you.
Probably will solve some problems and make others significantly worse (including some things that aren't currently significant problems). The fun is having little resolution beyond that, even given the few suggestions he's made (that may or may not be serious). And not knowing what he'll do when being the boss of Twitter stops being fun for him. Wondering if he'll let Trump back in but make him jump through some sort of ego-harming hoops, which Trump will get mad at.
The very 2022 aspect is that Elon's very likely NOT trying to turn it into a vehicle to boost sales for Elon Musk companies (which would have been the traditional concern). He's just doing his Bruce Wayne/Lex Luthor schtick.
I know you recently wrote a post about optimism (it was great) but feel you might be taking optimism as a deliberate strategy a little far in your confidence in Elon Musk's willingness to buck China. It's Tesla's second-largest market and a huge supplier of Tesla's batteries. And, China has already noted the leverage it has: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1518750779410366464?s=20&t=nhu_hapd8dkciU4cB0TIQA All that being said, I hope you're right.
I don't think Twitter will be a disaster under Musk, any more than it currently is, but I also don't think Musk has stated any concrete changes he wants to make besides "more free speech" and "less cancel culture." And 95% of the time, what a pundit actually means by "less cancel culture" is "people I agree with shouldn't be cancelled." (The exceptions to this pattern are mostly lawyers and organizations who specifically focus on free speech.)
So I'd like some actual justification for being optimistic about Musk's direction beyond "he tweeted that he was against cancel culture a few times." Everyone and their grandma will say they're against cancel culture in a vacuum, the real test is if they actually stick to that principle when someone they *don't like* is being cancelled.
(Does Musk have a coherent, universal definition of cancel culture that he could operationalize now that he's in charge? Even getting that far is a hard problem!)
I'm pretttttttty skeptical of this idea that "Musk will solve all these problems". Has he been known for problem-solving in the past? Tesla wasn't his idea or company, and of the ideas he _has_ had, starlink is *ok*, the boring company is kind of a flop, and hyperloop is literally nothing. So that's 1/3 barely above water.
Ha, that's an excellent point. My solution to twitter's problems is "not even once", but I'm not sure that would fly. I said this on slowboring, but the real problem is that there's no halfway approach to content moderation. You can't classify, by law, which types of posts are ok or not*, since it's so context-dependent, so each company kind of has to make up its own rules. Musk is saying "I can do the rules better", but can he? I doubt it.
*obviously there are some bright lines that can't be crossed, but the statement "I'm gonna kill you" means so many different things depending on context that even something so ostensibly clear can't really be judged effectively by a person or especially a machine.
"Tesla wasn't his idea or company" - but it was a fairly tiny startup with how many? six? employees when he took over.
Growing a car (well, any!) company from 6 to 100 000 employees is fairly impressive. I certainly do not personally know anybody who did this, and I know several enterpreneurs.
I don't think that's right. He didn't take over until 2008. I can't find exact employee numbers, but I highly doubt they only had 6 people 5 years after launch and 1 year from their first product release.
No doubt what he has done is impressive, but it's a different kind of impressive than what Noah is claiming his skills to be.
I can't find the data either, but it is my impression that Musk took over precisely because despite having some technical successes, they were in a very bad shape and close to collapse.
Right. I see him as more of a Steve Jobs figure than a Bill Gates* or someone else who _actually_ invented the tech that made the company famous. Like Jobs, he took someone's idea and turned it into a _product_.
*Yes, I know the story of Xerox and all that. But DOS/Windows, for all that it copied other OSes, is unique in its own right in a way that Gates and Paul Allen deserve credit for.
I got to say, it’s a little odd to graft one’s (totally legitimate!) criticism of QTs, dunks, brigading and trolling onto Elon Musk and think he’d share it, let alone propose any kind of steps to reform it. He’s beloved by those exact groups because that’s exactly how he uses Twitter, his whole daily vocabulary is derived from the same subcultures of edgelords, trolls, messageboard users, etc! Whether you agree or disagree with his take on the site, it’s pretty clear this is what he thinks the good part of Twitter is!
Isn’t it pathetic that a democracy like ours has to turn to a strong man to solve our problems? And social observers like Noah fall all over themselves and gush about how great it is. This is pure decadence.
Corporations are not governments. They are not democratic; they have always relied on strongmen. Maybe co-determination would fix that, I don't know! But as of now, corporations are little dictatorships.
That said, the idea of a public (or rather user-owned) town square feels intriguing and perhaps a future model to look into. Natural monopolies like Twitter can be improved, but as a steady state the incentive structure is better managed in a co-op format, I suspect.
It's so delicious to see what you call the "shouting class" and those I call "suffering from persistent protest disorder" yelp about Elon's takeover. I predict an endless slew of op-eds from various coddled interest groups in the NYT bemoaning this. It's even funnier to see the hypercompensated employees throw a shit fit and threaten to leave. Twitter should just show them the door if they're so dissatisfied and hire some of the talented people knocking on its doors. Netflix should have done the same to the morons who organized the Chapelle walkout. Putting actual professional consequences to acting out at work will disincentivize being a protestor, which should turn down the cultural temperature.
A hit dog will holler
https://imgur.com/a/MH1Iv2A
I was right:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/editorials/twitter-elon-musk.html
Elon make fun of people I don't like. I like Elon. More memes pls.
I don't know how involved Elon would be with the day-to-day, but as arguably one of the most successful CEOs in the history of humanity, finding and hiring new talent is probably one of his greatest strengths and incidentally the thing Twitter struggles the most with.
If he takes it private, then introduces "you must prove you're not a bot" - while private so that you don't have to care about the stock drop due to lack of engagement, then brings it back, it can be at least like LinkedIn where you know your real name will be attached to your crazy rants.
:: logs onto LinkedIn, sees feed ::
Oh shit, we're fucked.
>:: logs onto LinkedIn, sees feed ::
Really? My LinkedIn feed is pretty bland stuff. Promotions, new jobs, people hiring and bragging about their accomplishments, a few work memes...really, it's the antidote to Twitter and Facebook.
Above is somewhat in jest :)
But I do get suprised what people will sometimes say there, even when potential employers and/or business partners are watching. Occasional blatant racist stuff, weird posts promoting religion, etc.
Way of saying I do think the bots go away, which is good. But I do not expect the level of crazy to go down much... lots of evidence (e.g. FB) where people will be unhinged regardless.
Yes, my own LinkedIn feed is pretty bland as well, but then every now and then you see someone popping off as if they’re in a Facebook or Nextdoor group. (Probably not a good idea I’d you’re thinking of changing jobs.)
Facebook is pretty heavily real name and ID and people say all sorts of nutty things in front of family, friends, etc. Should really help cut down the bots, though.
I think my reactions to this are basically:
1) I hope the nazis aren't allowed to come back under the banner of free speech and make the replies to any Jewish person of any note revert to a firehose of anti-semitism.
2) I don't think it's 100% fair to assume that Musk loves liberal democracy instead of authoritarian government based solely on his decision to send Starlink to Ukraine. We (US taxpayers) are paying him millions of dollars to do so and it's giving the system a ton of good press.
But overall, "meh". If Musk turns Twitter into the next Gab or a US targeted Weibo I'll shrug my shoulders, move on, and probably be personally happier for it.
Yes, I think if he did that it would cause an exodus from the platform. I believe he will not do that!
"The problems with Twitter are so deep and so difficult that only total control by a single individual has a realistic chance of solving them."
"If anyone can figure out how to change the quote-tweet function so as to preserve engagement and discussion while not biasing the platform toward the formation of cancel-mobs, it’s probably Elon."
Hey Noah, this post feels a fair deal too sycophantic to me. I think there are lots of things about Musk that are great: he's built the great hardware/manufacturing business of all time, is brilliant in engineering, and he cares a lot about free speech + democracy.
But I think both the quotes above go way too far. Problems that are deep-rooted do not necessarily need dictatorial leadership. Facebook has that, and has even bigger problems. Meanwhile, I'm unconvinced that Musk has an advantage when it comes to fixing problems that stem from people and society, rather than physics.
As for concerns people might have, I think you've strawmanned it a little — I'd be interested in your considered thoughts on Yishan's (ex CEO Reddit) thread: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=19
(I work in executive search, so feel I have some level of expertise when it comes to hiring CEOs and Board members!)
Holly cow are you uninformed about Elon Musk!
Bezos' comment is very apt. Tesla took large loans for the site and to build its chinese factory and has to hit aggressive revenue targets to avoid appropriation, which given how the chinese government dictates to entire industries could happen unilaterally. Additionally, he is under their good graces if he hopes to repatriate any revenues from its chinese subsidiary.
Also the starlink shipments to Ukraine are just the latest in a long line of promises rattled off to insert himself into the limelight of the crisis du jour which he rarely delivers. Such as, powering Puerto Rico with batteries, water filtration for Flint, Cpap machine 'ventilators' for covid, the Thai coffin cave extractor. It's all sideshow.
The man is a horrible manager, a thin skinned narcissist, and is basically a walking, reddit meme spewing disaster.
i'd guess he'll do it like reddit where it's just thousands of nerdmods figuring out ways to make it better (if it is broken.) really, my only complaint is everyone constantly reporting everyone else to get them banned
That's probably the optimal solution tbh
I cordially invite the lunatics whining about Musk's buyout of Twitter because WhAt AbOuT tHe HaRrAsMeNt AnD tHe MaRgInAlIzEd GrOuPs to put their money where their mouths are. The constant rejoinder has been "if you don't like it, make your own." So now make your own site for those with woke poisoning/persistent protest disorder/causehead leanings. You can take the neocons with you.
Look at what someone with persistent protest disorder posted in reply:
https://imgur.com/a/2GXTtEz
Nobody needs to hear about your insecurities.
Casey Newton wrote a great article on the business aspect of this, short article worth reading
https://www.platformer.news/p/elon-musk-buys-twitter?r=8ahwm&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Probably will solve some problems and make others significantly worse (including some things that aren't currently significant problems). The fun is having little resolution beyond that, even given the few suggestions he's made (that may or may not be serious). And not knowing what he'll do when being the boss of Twitter stops being fun for him. Wondering if he'll let Trump back in but make him jump through some sort of ego-harming hoops, which Trump will get mad at.
The very 2022 aspect is that Elon's very likely NOT trying to turn it into a vehicle to boost sales for Elon Musk companies (which would have been the traditional concern). He's just doing his Bruce Wayne/Lex Luthor schtick.
I mean that's kinda the norm for investment in media.
Yup. Elon is a weirdo troll but I don't think he can impact Twitter as much as he or we think he can.
I know you recently wrote a post about optimism (it was great) but feel you might be taking optimism as a deliberate strategy a little far in your confidence in Elon Musk's willingness to buck China. It's Tesla's second-largest market and a huge supplier of Tesla's batteries. And, China has already noted the leverage it has: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1518750779410366464?s=20&t=nhu_hapd8dkciU4cB0TIQA All that being said, I hope you're right.
Musk has been very successful building new companies. I'm curious to see how he does with a takeover.
Tesla was a takeover too!
True! I had forgotten that. I do think this is a much different scenario given how much earlier in Tesla was in its lifecycle when Musk acquired it.
I think you’re generally crediting Musk with a lot of deep thinking when a lot of what he does is more simply explained by attention-seeking.
But could still make Twitter better, who knows.
I don't think Twitter will be a disaster under Musk, any more than it currently is, but I also don't think Musk has stated any concrete changes he wants to make besides "more free speech" and "less cancel culture." And 95% of the time, what a pundit actually means by "less cancel culture" is "people I agree with shouldn't be cancelled." (The exceptions to this pattern are mostly lawyers and organizations who specifically focus on free speech.)
So I'd like some actual justification for being optimistic about Musk's direction beyond "he tweeted that he was against cancel culture a few times." Everyone and their grandma will say they're against cancel culture in a vacuum, the real test is if they actually stick to that principle when someone they *don't like* is being cancelled.
(Does Musk have a coherent, universal definition of cancel culture that he could operationalize now that he's in charge? Even getting that far is a hard problem!)
I'm pretttttttty skeptical of this idea that "Musk will solve all these problems". Has he been known for problem-solving in the past? Tesla wasn't his idea or company, and of the ideas he _has_ had, starlink is *ok*, the boring company is kind of a flop, and hyperloop is literally nothing. So that's 1/3 barely above water.
Also, a big question if Twitter's problem is solvable by better technology, which seems to be Musk's preferred answer to hard problems.
Ha, that's an excellent point. My solution to twitter's problems is "not even once", but I'm not sure that would fly. I said this on slowboring, but the real problem is that there's no halfway approach to content moderation. You can't classify, by law, which types of posts are ok or not*, since it's so context-dependent, so each company kind of has to make up its own rules. Musk is saying "I can do the rules better", but can he? I doubt it.
*obviously there are some bright lines that can't be crossed, but the statement "I'm gonna kill you" means so many different things depending on context that even something so ostensibly clear can't really be judged effectively by a person or especially a machine.
"Tesla wasn't his idea or company" - but it was a fairly tiny startup with how many? six? employees when he took over.
Growing a car (well, any!) company from 6 to 100 000 employees is fairly impressive. I certainly do not personally know anybody who did this, and I know several enterpreneurs.
I don't think that's right. He didn't take over until 2008. I can't find exact employee numbers, but I highly doubt they only had 6 people 5 years after launch and 1 year from their first product release.
No doubt what he has done is impressive, but it's a different kind of impressive than what Noah is claiming his skills to be.
I can't find the data either, but it is my impression that Musk took over precisely because despite having some technical successes, they were in a very bad shape and close to collapse.
Right. I see him as more of a Steve Jobs figure than a Bill Gates* or someone else who _actually_ invented the tech that made the company famous. Like Jobs, he took someone's idea and turned it into a _product_.
*Yes, I know the story of Xerox and all that. But DOS/Windows, for all that it copied other OSes, is unique in its own right in a way that Gates and Paul Allen deserve credit for.
I got to say, it’s a little odd to graft one’s (totally legitimate!) criticism of QTs, dunks, brigading and trolling onto Elon Musk and think he’d share it, let alone propose any kind of steps to reform it. He’s beloved by those exact groups because that’s exactly how he uses Twitter, his whole daily vocabulary is derived from the same subcultures of edgelords, trolls, messageboard users, etc! Whether you agree or disagree with his take on the site, it’s pretty clear this is what he thinks the good part of Twitter is!
Isn’t it pathetic that a democracy like ours has to turn to a strong man to solve our problems? And social observers like Noah fall all over themselves and gush about how great it is. This is pure decadence.
Corporations are not governments. They are not democratic; they have always relied on strongmen. Maybe co-determination would fix that, I don't know! But as of now, corporations are little dictatorships.
That said, the idea of a public (or rather user-owned) town square feels intriguing and perhaps a future model to look into. Natural monopolies like Twitter can be improved, but as a steady state the incentive structure is better managed in a co-op format, I suspect.
To be honest, I think the only other real alternative was nationalization. There's a reason public squares are public!