5 ms·

I met Mudge once in my career early on (I was at VA Linux systems circa 1999ish) and I found him intense, an apex intellect, but absolutely affable and self-awa

by zeruch 4y ago

I met Mudge once in my career early on (I was at VA Linux systems circa 1999ish) and I found him intense, an apex intellect, but absolutely affable and self-aware. He never struck me then, or in any interview or write up since, that he's impulsive, or prone to taking actions like what he's done to Twitter, in a cavalier way. He saw something bad and thinks something should be done to address it. He likely made that decision because the culture at Twitter is as bolloxed as he states (maybe worse), and that it's one thing to fire a guy, but to do so to hide damning truths, and expect that person to just accept their fate AND let you get away with it without a cost is in this day and age, a farcical hope. Your "Mudge knows the implications of "whistleblowing". He has been a security consultant and even testified to Congress. He's not some noob that doesn't understand security or how systems work together to provide services like disclosure to FTC. The idea that Twitter PR can pooh-pooh away his concerns is shockingly stupid." is spot-on.

gonehome 4y ago
Yeah - comparing mudge's history with the email the Twitter CEO sent to internal employees and the situation seems crazy? Always hard to know from the outside, but this paired with Jack leaving seemingly frustrated with the board looks really bad. I know people have thought Twitter was mismanaged for a while, but seems like it's a lot worse than I thought it was (and the CEO seems more vindictively bad than I would have guessed). Plus the total lack of principles around speech and just doing whatever Russia, India, or KSA wants? Including hiring foreign agents? Also covering up bad security issues in reporting? It'll be interesting to see what happens from here as more comes out. The internal Twitter email: https://twitter.com/austen/status/1562150058727919616?s=21&t=DlN4DzvIMUMG89rFsK9t4A https://twitter.com/austen/status/1562150058727919616?s=21&t...
- zeruch 4y ago
  Yeah, I think we're in lockstep here. I'm no fan of Musk (he's truly worked very hard to be the most provacatively pustulent punkass of tech) but that doesn't mean that Twitter leadership is any better. Just not as well PR'd. Dorsey himself was mostly an imbecile who drank too much of his own Kool Aid. Twitter has for years been the standard bearer for the most opaque, and incoherent content management; from user feedback to bots, just a village with only idiots. It was eventually going to catch up to them, the question now is to whom does the bulk of the suffering land on, not whether it lands or not.
  - gonehome 4y ago
    I’m a huge musk fan, but I still think his trying to get out of the Twitter deal is lame buyer's remorse and his arguments are weak. I see it as mostly unrelated to this mudge issue.
    - raarts 4y ago
      Musk posted a meme explaining why he pulled out. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849
      - gonehome 4y ago
        Yeah - but that's dumb bullshit. He can't legally pull out because of that. He waived all of that to force Twitter to agree to the deal (because it'd be basically impossible for the board to reject it). This made sense at the time, because the board was looking for ways to weasel out of it because (imo) they politically don't like Musk. Then the market crashed and suddenly he was overpaying a ton for Twitter, then he complains about bots (this isn't new information from when he made the deal). Whether or not the bots thing is true isn't even relevant based on the deal he put forward. I think he earnestly wanted to buy Twitter for principled reasons around speech which I agree with. He structured the deal in such a way where Twitter's board couldn't reject it (because it was so favorable to shareholders). Then when the market tanked the deal way overpriced Twitter, but he had already committed to it so he's trying everything to get out of it. I suspect he actually believes the things he's arguing (he's always seemed pretty earnest to me), I just think he's wrong in this case and it's mostly driven by motivated reasoning. That doesn't mean Twitter isn't a disaster, just that they're in the right with regard to him having to close the deal.
        hammock 4y ago
        >I think he earnestly wanted to buy Twitter for principled reasons around speech which I agree with. He structured the deal in such a way where Twitter's board couldn't reject it (because it was so favorable to shareholders). Then when the market tanked the deal way overpriced Twitter, but he had already committed to it so he's trying everything to get out of it. That's not how business valuations work (it's how speculation works). If Twitter was fairly valued by Elon Musk before the crash then it would be fairly valued now - the fundamentals of the business haven't changed.
- oska 4y ago
  > Plus the total lack of principles around speech and just doing whatever Russia, India, or KSA wants? Twitter is most definitely not doing whatever Russia wants. It's markedly hostile to Russia and frequently removes "pro-Russia" acocunts, which speaks to your initial point, that it has a total lack of principles around speech.

by zeruch 4y ago

gonehome 4y ago

Yeah - comparing mudge's history with the email the Twitter CEO sent to internal employees and the situation seems crazy? Always hard to know from the outside, but this paired with Jack leaving seemingly frustrated with the board looks really bad. I know people have thought Twitter was mismanaged for a while, but seems like it's a lot worse than I thought it was (and the CEO seems more vindictively bad than I would have guessed). Plus the total lack of principles around speech and just doing whatever Russia, India, or KSA wants? Including hiring foreign agents? Also covering up bad security issues in reporting? It'll be interesting to see what happens from here as more comes out. The internal Twitter email: https://twitter.com/austen/status/1562150058727919616?s=21&t=DlN4DzvIMUMG89rFsK9t4A https://twitter.com/austen/status/1562150058727919616?s=21&t...

zeruch 4y ago
Yeah, I think we're in lockstep here. I'm no fan of Musk (he's truly worked very hard to be the most provacatively pustulent punkass of tech) but that doesn't mean that Twitter leadership is any better. Just not as well PR'd. Dorsey himself was mostly an imbecile who drank too much of his own Kool Aid. Twitter has for years been the standard bearer for the most opaque, and incoherent content management; from user feedback to bots, just a village with only idiots. It was eventually going to catch up to them, the question now is to whom does the bulk of the suffering land on, not whether it lands or not.
- gonehome 4y ago
  I’m a huge musk fan, but I still think his trying to get out of the Twitter deal is lame buyer's remorse and his arguments are weak. I see it as mostly unrelated to this mudge issue.
  - raarts 4y ago
    Musk posted a meme explaining why he pulled out. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849
    - gonehome 4y ago
      Yeah - but that's dumb bullshit. He can't legally pull out because of that. He waived all of that to force Twitter to agree to the deal (because it'd be basically impossible for the board to reject it). This made sense at the time, because the board was looking for ways to weasel out of it because (imo) they politically don't like Musk. Then the market crashed and suddenly he was overpaying a ton for Twitter, then he complains about bots (this isn't new information from when he made the deal). Whether or not the bots thing is true isn't even relevant based on the deal he put forward. I think he earnestly wanted to buy Twitter for principled reasons around speech which I agree with. He structured the deal in such a way where Twitter's board couldn't reject it (because it was so favorable to shareholders). Then when the market tanked the deal way overpriced Twitter, but he had already committed to it so he's trying everything to get out of it. I suspect he actually believes the things he's arguing (he's always seemed pretty earnest to me), I just think he's wrong in this case and it's mostly driven by motivated reasoning. That doesn't mean Twitter isn't a disaster, just that they're in the right with regard to him having to close the deal.
      - hammock 4y ago
        >I think he earnestly wanted to buy Twitter for principled reasons around speech which I agree with. He structured the deal in such a way where Twitter's board couldn't reject it (because it was so favorable to shareholders). Then when the market tanked the deal way overpriced Twitter, but he had already committed to it so he's trying everything to get out of it. That's not how business valuations work (it's how speculation works). If Twitter was fairly valued by Elon Musk before the crash then it would be fairly valued now - the fundamentals of the business haven't changed.
oska 4y ago
> Plus the total lack of principles around speech and just doing whatever Russia, India, or KSA wants? Twitter is most definitely not doing whatever Russia wants. It's markedly hostile to Russia and frequently removes "pro-Russia" acocunts, which speaks to your initial point, that it has a total lack of principles around speech.