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I feel for the employees of Twitter. Years with a part time CEO whose time was dedicated elsewhere… now they’ll have a new part time owner whose time will be de

I feel for the employees of Twitter. Years with a part time CEO whose time was dedicated elsewhere… now they’ll have a new part time owner whose time will be dedicated elsewhere and has a propensity to do weird things for the online lulz.

mardifoufs 5y ago
An owner is not a always the CEO. If anything he will make sure that the CEO that will actually focus on twitter. Also, If they didn't feel bad about creating value for Saudi royalty shareholders they probably won't feel bad about doing random stuff for the lulz
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Should they feel bad for creating value for Saudi royalty?
  - onychomys 5y ago
    Yes, in general you should feel bad if your job makes it easier for murderous despots to murder and be despotic.
    - JaimeThompson 5y ago
      It didn't seem to bother Musk when they invested in Tesla. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-arabia-invests-2b-in-tesla-report https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-arabia-invests-2b-...
      - onychomys 5y ago
        He should feel bad too. He doesn't, because even the cool billionaires are somewhat sociopathic, but he should.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      Living in America entails your daily expenses and significant portions of your tax money go to China and other dystopian dictatorships around the world. It's implausible to live ethically - like the meme of personal recycling, the problem is corporations and regulatory capture. Citizens don't make a dent.
      - onychomys 5y ago
        True, but just because I'm typing this on a machine made in Chinese sweatshops doesn't mean that I have to spend my days actively making their government more money. We can solve problems a little bit at a time even if bigger problems exist elsewhere, after all.
        robbedpeter 5y ago
        Right, but at some point it's like trying to keep back the tide with a pushbroom. If you're Elon, maybe you can get a big enough broom, or build a sea wall, but a million individuals with brooms are just going to be wasting their energy. The effort has to go towards corporate regulations and culture change. Ending slavery within the US took a civil war and we're still decades away (at least) from fixing the legislative echoes and civil rights issues. Influencing China to end their own slavery and civil rights abuses isn't feasible at an individual level, except through correcting the allowed business behaviors and relationships by imposing laws and changing the culture. America is incentivizing human rights abuses under its current system. We have an obligation to correct our behavior at the nation state level. Voting with wallets is no better than brooms on a beach. We need to vote for representatives that will fix the issue through international trade regulation.
  - SXX 5y ago
    Yeah certainly why should they? After all Saudi's regime only does mass executions on it's own territory and only rarely kill opposition inside it's own embassy.
    - JaimeThompson 5y ago
      Because it didn't bother Musk when they invested in Tesla, it's only now he calls them out.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  [dead]
- Laremere 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if he gave himself the CEO title, but actually had a president take on almost all normal CEO duties. Eg, as far as I can tell with SpaceX from interviews and such, Gwynne Shotwell really runs SpaceX. Elon jumps between whatever he thinks needs his attention most at the moment, rooting out problems. As for what he'll do with Twitter.... I don't think anyone really knows how it will turn out. He's proven to be pretty self obsessed (canceling critic's Tesla orders), so maybe he'll use his power to knock down stuff he personally doesn't like (his private jet tracker). Or maybe his talk about free speech is real and he has good ideas on how to actually make social media a benefit to society. I think in his companies' software has been his weakest area (still thinking cameras are enough to do full self driving, which I think out of any project has most failed to materialize his promises?), so maybe he won't understand how to mold a fully software based company. However, maybe he'll just want Twitter to work the way he thinks Twitter should work as a user, knock down a bunch of unnecessary BS (eg the insistent push towards algorithm timeline) and force his hand on features people really want (eg, the ability to edit Tweets.)
chii 5y ago
which means the employees aren't monitored closely by upper management then? I don't see why it's "bad". The only thing i can think of being bad is micromanagement, and inadequate compensation. I dont know how twitter compensates their employees, but i'm sure it's not inadequate.
- Dobbs 5y ago
  I've was at a company that had an absentee CEO. One who would swoop in every few months and make strong declarations about direction, product, and so on; but was otherwise never there. It was a nightmare. We suffered constantly from his eccentrics, it constantly hurt our product, and destroyed morale and the ability to feel like you had no power over your work.
panick21_ 5y ago
If he can could manage SpaceX and Tesla around 2017 when shit was going down, this isn't that crazy.
- Rzor 5y ago
  I think you are underestimating the legendary level of importance that Gwynne Shotwell has on SpaceX success.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Its legendary because everybody who hates Musk has spend the last 5 years attributing all success of SpaceX to Shotwell in order to keep claiming that Musk is useless. She is certainty great, but Musk still has to (and wants to) spend a huge amount of time working on SpaceX.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
That’s what the money is for.
shafyy 5y ago
Musk for sure will hire a CEO, I can't imagine that he will spend more than a few hours a week a month on Twitter (once the deal has closed and he hired a new management).
- smt88 5y ago
  He already spends hours a week just posting on Twitter (and reading it, liking posts, etc.) I think he's obsessed with his growing celebrity and Twitter is his megaphone.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Using it for hours a week sounds to me like he’s a fairly normal person, at least with regard to social media use. (20 years ago I’d have said the same about watching “hours” of TV each week).
    - smt88 5y ago
      > Using it for hours a week sounds to me like he’s a fairly normal person, at least with regard to social media use. What does that have to do with my comment? I was just saying that he won't be hands-off as CEO of Twitter because he isn't hands-off even as a user. Also, if using Twitter that much were "normal" then Twitter wouldn't be struggling as much as it is. Even if it were normal, Musk is not a "normal" user (he gets armies of worshippers responding to every tweet) and he is the CEO of at least two other large companies, in addition to being a father of 7 children. He shouldn't even have time to eat or sleep, let alone troll people on Twitter on a regular basis.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        Oh ok — I thought you were saying his pattern of usage of the platform indicated narcissism, and I was disagreeing with that. That you’re saying here “he gets armies of worshippers responding to every tweet” still gives me this impression about what you’re trying to communicate, FWIW. > Also, if using Twitter that much were "normal" then Twitter wouldn't be struggling as much as it is. I think they’re struggling financially (if you can call a multi billion dollar profit “struggling”) because the money people make from advertising on Twitter isn’t that related to how much any given person uses it, as they’re mostly competing with each other for a fixed quantity of disposable income. (Number of users seems too large to count as a struggle, not sure what else you might mean). (That’s my guess, at least).
jdrc 5y ago
Having aloof bosses is now bad?
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  Having an aloof CEO not running the company absolutely is bad. Case in point: Twitter.
sudhirj 5y ago
Obligatory reminder that SpaceX has its own CEO, think the other companies do too. Think Musk actually staffs the orgs pretty well other than Tesla the other companies seem like they’d do fine without him, but him pushing seems to help.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  Ah, no, Gwynne Shotwell is the COO.
ykevinator2 5y ago
cambaceres 5y ago
I'm sure many of them are excited to get a chance to work for him.
trixie_ 5y ago
Those employees that have stock options are about to get rich.

mardifoufs 5y ago

An owner is not a always the CEO. If anything he will make sure that the CEO that will actually focus on twitter. Also, If they didn't feel bad about creating value for Saudi royalty shareholders they probably won't feel bad about doing random stuff for the lulz

JaimeThompson 5y ago
Should they feel bad for creating value for Saudi royalty?
- onychomys 5y ago
  Yes, in general you should feel bad if your job makes it easier for murderous despots to murder and be despotic.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    It didn't seem to bother Musk when they invested in Tesla. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-arabia-invests-2b-in-tesla-report https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-arabia-invests-2b-...
    - onychomys 5y ago
      He should feel bad too. He doesn't, because even the cool billionaires are somewhat sociopathic, but he should.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Living in America entails your daily expenses and significant portions of your tax money go to China and other dystopian dictatorships around the world. It's implausible to live ethically - like the meme of personal recycling, the problem is corporations and regulatory capture. Citizens don't make a dent.
    - onychomys 5y ago
      True, but just because I'm typing this on a machine made in Chinese sweatshops doesn't mean that I have to spend my days actively making their government more money. We can solve problems a little bit at a time even if bigger problems exist elsewhere, after all.
      - robbedpeter 5y ago
        Right, but at some point it's like trying to keep back the tide with a pushbroom. If you're Elon, maybe you can get a big enough broom, or build a sea wall, but a million individuals with brooms are just going to be wasting their energy. The effort has to go towards corporate regulations and culture change. Ending slavery within the US took a civil war and we're still decades away (at least) from fixing the legislative echoes and civil rights issues. Influencing China to end their own slavery and civil rights abuses isn't feasible at an individual level, except through correcting the allowed business behaviors and relationships by imposing laws and changing the culture. America is incentivizing human rights abuses under its current system. We have an obligation to correct our behavior at the nation state level. Voting with wallets is no better than brooms on a beach. We need to vote for representatives that will fix the issue through international trade regulation.
- SXX 5y ago
  Yeah certainly why should they? After all Saudi's regime only does mass executions on it's own territory and only rarely kill opposition inside it's own embassy.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    Because it didn't bother Musk when they invested in Tesla, it's only now he calls them out.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
[dead]
Laremere 5y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if he gave himself the CEO title, but actually had a president take on almost all normal CEO duties. Eg, as far as I can tell with SpaceX from interviews and such, Gwynne Shotwell really runs SpaceX. Elon jumps between whatever he thinks needs his attention most at the moment, rooting out problems. As for what he'll do with Twitter.... I don't think anyone really knows how it will turn out. He's proven to be pretty self obsessed (canceling critic's Tesla orders), so maybe he'll use his power to knock down stuff he personally doesn't like (his private jet tracker). Or maybe his talk about free speech is real and he has good ideas on how to actually make social media a benefit to society. I think in his companies' software has been his weakest area (still thinking cameras are enough to do full self driving, which I think out of any project has most failed to materialize his promises?), so maybe he won't understand how to mold a fully software based company. However, maybe he'll just want Twitter to work the way he thinks Twitter should work as a user, knock down a bunch of unnecessary BS (eg the insistent push towards algorithm timeline) and force his hand on features people really want (eg, the ability to edit Tweets.)

chii 5y ago

which means the employees aren't monitored closely by upper management then? I don't see why it's "bad". The only thing i can think of being bad is micromanagement, and inadequate compensation. I dont know how twitter compensates their employees, but i'm sure it's not inadequate.

Dobbs 5y ago
I've was at a company that had an absentee CEO. One who would swoop in every few months and make strong declarations about direction, product, and so on; but was otherwise never there. It was a nightmare. We suffered constantly from his eccentrics, it constantly hurt our product, and destroyed morale and the ability to feel like you had no power over your work.

panick21_ 5y ago

If he can could manage SpaceX and Tesla around 2017 when shit was going down, this isn't that crazy.

Rzor 5y ago
I think you are underestimating the legendary level of importance that Gwynne Shotwell has on SpaceX success.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Its legendary because everybody who hates Musk has spend the last 5 years attributing all success of SpaceX to Shotwell in order to keep claiming that Musk is useless. She is certainty great, but Musk still has to (and wants to) spend a huge amount of time working on SpaceX.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

That’s what the money is for.

shafyy 5y ago

Musk for sure will hire a CEO, I can't imagine that he will spend more than a few hours a week a month on Twitter (once the deal has closed and he hired a new management).

smt88 5y ago
He already spends hours a week just posting on Twitter (and reading it, liking posts, etc.) I think he's obsessed with his growing celebrity and Twitter is his megaphone.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Using it for hours a week sounds to me like he’s a fairly normal person, at least with regard to social media use. (20 years ago I’d have said the same about watching “hours” of TV each week).
  - smt88 5y ago
    > Using it for hours a week sounds to me like he’s a fairly normal person, at least with regard to social media use. What does that have to do with my comment? I was just saying that he won't be hands-off as CEO of Twitter because he isn't hands-off even as a user. Also, if using Twitter that much were "normal" then Twitter wouldn't be struggling as much as it is. Even if it were normal, Musk is not a "normal" user (he gets armies of worshippers responding to every tweet) and he is the CEO of at least two other large companies, in addition to being a father of 7 children. He shouldn't even have time to eat or sleep, let alone troll people on Twitter on a regular basis.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Oh ok — I thought you were saying his pattern of usage of the platform indicated narcissism, and I was disagreeing with that. That you’re saying here “he gets armies of worshippers responding to every tweet” still gives me this impression about what you’re trying to communicate, FWIW. > Also, if using Twitter that much were "normal" then Twitter wouldn't be struggling as much as it is. I think they’re struggling financially (if you can call a multi billion dollar profit “struggling”) because the money people make from advertising on Twitter isn’t that related to how much any given person uses it, as they’re mostly competing with each other for a fixed quantity of disposable income. (Number of users seems too large to count as a struggle, not sure what else you might mean). (That’s my guess, at least).

jdrc 5y ago

Having aloof bosses is now bad?

CydeWeys 5y ago
Having an aloof CEO not running the company absolutely is bad. Case in point: Twitter.

sudhirj 5y ago

Obligatory reminder that SpaceX has its own CEO, think the other companies do too. Think Musk actually staffs the orgs pretty well other than Tesla the other companies seem like they’d do fine without him, but him pushing seems to help.

sudhirj 5y ago
Ah, no, Gwynne Shotwell is the COO.

ykevinator2 5y ago

cambaceres 5y ago

I'm sure many of them are excited to get a chance to work for him.

trixie_ 5y ago

Those employees that have stock options are about to get rich.