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It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company

It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture. The excitement for this new move seems not just low here but overwhelmingly negative. “It can’t be done” is the overall sentiment. Really? Or are we just the people saying an electric car company can’t be done, a private rocketry company can’t be done, etc etc. This one of the most successful people who has ever lived on this planet. And yet HN doesn’t seem to see any advantage to him leading twitter in a new direction, a company that overwhelmingly could be agreed before had no real direction and wasn’t making any progress anywhere. But somehow a pretty smart billionaire taking it over doesn’t trigger any outpouring of sympathy and excitement but of disdain and condescension. Really? What happened ? When did we become so calcified against change? Also; For anyone who says “twitter/facebook gave us trump” well, no. The unleashing of mass cognitive warfare as a consequence of the availability of micro targeting in these platforms gave you Trump/Bolsonaro/Meloni. For all the details on that, read “Mindfuck” by Christopher Wylie and “Targeted” by Brittany Kaiser.

chasd00 4y ago
i've said it before, there's much easier money to be made than better against Musk. When presenting a big idea he's pretty much been laughed out of every room he's ever walked into. Then, much to everyone's dismay, he does it. I'm withholding judgment for a few years...
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I too enjoy commuting to work using my city's hyperloop while charging my self-driving cybertruck with my solar roof. An objective assessment of Musk's batting average requires considering the big ideas that flop, never materialize, or fall far short of what was promised. Once you do that, Twitter seems like it could go either way from here. That's not even considering how split his attention must be at this point.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  I don't think he has presented any big idea regarding Twitter. In case I missed it, I'd be happy to learn what his big idea for Twitter is. By all impressions, he was dragged kicking and screaming into finalizing the deal - that doesn't exactly inspire confidence that he has bold ideas he'd like to try.
  - tristanz 4y ago
    https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-everything-app/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-every...
- vehemenz 4y ago
  To be fair, he hasn't delivered on most of his promises, and it's the trade-off for taking risks. On the other hand, with that amount of wealth, the average intelligent person probably feels that they could do better, and I'm not sure they'd be completely wrong.
  - politician 4y ago
    Tesla is a battery company, not a car company. GM, Ford, Toyota, and all of the other automakers will be buying batteries from Tesla gigafactories, not the other way around. The bluster around FSD is a smoke screen. I believe that it's just R&D for vehicles operating off planet, like the robots. SpaceX delivers boost to orbit at a cost that beats every other major player. Clearly, he's done nothing. /rolls-eyes
kahrl 4y ago
What happened? The "pretty smart billionaire" started calling anyone who slighted him a pedophile. The "pretty smart billionaire" continues to commit fraud with false promises over at Tesla. The "pretty smart billionaire" seems to have a disdain for his lowly peasant employees.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  Whi else did he call a pedophile? I know of only one person. Do you have any proof of fraud? If so, you should turn it into the SEC. Musk is not known to give hugs. So what?
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    Musk already settled with the SEC over his securities fraud: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226 Not sure what reporting it again would do. Edit: I'm guessing GP was referring to the continued potentially fraudulent FSD promises - there was a lot of HN discussion on that yesterday I think.
    - Thrymr 4y ago
      There's also the minor matter of the $258 billion Doge lawsuit.
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
There is still animus between musk and certain groups of thought. Certain people always see the negative and worst case scenario. Others see opportunities with various levels of risk aversion. Clearly Musk is in the latter camp. I said earlier that twitter has been hemorrhaging money to tune of nearly 2 billion over the last 2.5 years. While possible, its likely that Musk can't possibly do worse than the former leadership. Obviously it is a gamble, but what isn't a gamble? And what do such men gain without nothing ventured?
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Clearly Musk is in the latter camp. Is he actually thought? If so, why did he try to maneuver out of the deal right up until it was clear he would not be able to?
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    I'd imagine Twitter withholding data would make any potential buyer have doubts. He also could have been trying for a better price, which any buyer is foolish not to at least try. Or he wanted to box them into a deal with a take-away, forcing twitter to publicly state intentions to complete the deal. All of this, (yours & mine), are still purely speculative.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    Because the tech market crashed right after his pledge and it makes no good financial sense to go through with a deal that includes a massive loss from the outset unless you're absolutely compelled to. I don't see the causal connection people are drawing between this and his motivations and his vision for twitter, it's purely a financial logical decision to try to renegotiate or cancel the deal given the current market conditions.
SilverBirch 4y ago
Firstly, I don't think it's a hive mind. All of the threads I've read through have been absolutely split between people who broadly think he's over-estimating himelf/underestimating the problem and people who think everyone else is over-estimating the problem and under-estimating him. I think the crux of it for me, is that whilst Musk comes at this fresh, he's not proposing fresh solutions. He has repeatedly suggested things that people have already tried, and then pivoted away from - realising the mistakes. It's very difficult to see this news today and not say "Oh, ok, so you're going to replicate Facebook's oversight board?" I agree with you, he's acheived a lot. At the end of the day though 2+2=4 no matter who you are, and if we're shooting for 5, I might hope Elon can produce 5, but if I hope he's going to produce 5, and his big idea is 2+2, then I'm going to be skeptical. it's not that I think he's an idiot, it's that he's proposing things that are well trodden paths.
- foobarian 4y ago
  The minute he takes the company private his job there is done. Everything else will follow from the new incentive structure.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    I think you need to be more specific than that. Before twitter was private, it was run by a group of people who were generally pro free speech but who had experience to know the real conseuences of inaction, and therefore had put in a framework to ensure that they could stay advertiser friendly. Musk has declared he also wants to be advertiser friendly, but also has big business interests in national defence, and in China. Surely, if anything he's more prone to being influenced than the previous team.
foobarian 4y ago
You know why? Because we want to get off this rock... and anything that takes EM's focus off of SpaceX is bad :-)
incomingpain 4y ago
>It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture. It has been interesting to read it today. Fundamentally elon has simply called for politically neutral content moderation. I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? This is to solve the ongoing problem of censorship. Yet the people see the above as a nightmare scenario. So what exactly are we missing? Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? I don't think these people are upset about this. I suspect it's not a nightmare scenario if the republicans getting the ability to speak back results in landslide elections in their favour. Like we are potentially seeing now in midterm polling. What if that's not the case. What if this is indeed a nightmare scenario? What exactly is the unsaid explanation? I don't see the cause for concern let alone it being a nightmare scenario.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? … Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare. I'm not american and just an outside observer. I believe the republicans/trump would not agree with your assessment. There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side. Here's a left-wing viewpoint on the 'second american civil war': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War Which certainly agrees with you. Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election and she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again: https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/1583496354734538756 https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/15834963547345387... Lets not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict_voting_following_the_2020_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict... 425 bills in 49 states the republicans pretty much universally didn't believe a free election occurred; so they want to restrict the vote and prevent people from voting for the democrats. More importantly the election in mere days will indicate to politicians exactly what the populous believes. When the democrats win midterms easily, it will be the people telling the republicans they aren't popular and democrats genuinely represent the will of the people. Do we even need to consider what the people are saying in the unlikely event republicans win midterms?
augustuspolius 4y ago
It's not that we decided that Elon will fail. It's that there is no agreement on what success looks like. More freedom of speech for some means more abuse and bigotry for others. Both 4chan (no moderation) and HN (moderation) have succeeded by some metric and have a loyal audience. Twitter tried to satisfy too many parties for too long and now is facing a backlash from everyone. If Elon decides to prioritize one of the parties - the other groups will protest. And vice versa.

chasd00 4y ago

i've said it before, there's much easier money to be made than better against Musk. When presenting a big idea he's pretty much been laughed out of every room he's ever walked into. Then, much to everyone's dismay, he does it. I'm withholding judgment for a few years...

AlexandrB 4y ago
I too enjoy commuting to work using my city's hyperloop while charging my self-driving cybertruck with my solar roof. An objective assessment of Musk's batting average requires considering the big ideas that flop, never materialize, or fall far short of what was promised. Once you do that, Twitter seems like it could go either way from here. That's not even considering how split his attention must be at this point.
sangnoir 4y ago
I don't think he has presented any big idea regarding Twitter. In case I missed it, I'd be happy to learn what his big idea for Twitter is. By all impressions, he was dragged kicking and screaming into finalizing the deal - that doesn't exactly inspire confidence that he has bold ideas he'd like to try.
- tristanz 4y ago
  https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-everything-app/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-elon-musks-x-the-every...
vehemenz 4y ago
To be fair, he hasn't delivered on most of his promises, and it's the trade-off for taking risks. On the other hand, with that amount of wealth, the average intelligent person probably feels that they could do better, and I'm not sure they'd be completely wrong.
- politician 4y ago
  Tesla is a battery company, not a car company. GM, Ford, Toyota, and all of the other automakers will be buying batteries from Tesla gigafactories, not the other way around. The bluster around FSD is a smoke screen. I believe that it's just R&D for vehicles operating off planet, like the robots. SpaceX delivers boost to orbit at a cost that beats every other major player. Clearly, he's done nothing. /rolls-eyes

kahrl 4y ago

What happened? The "pretty smart billionaire" started calling anyone who slighted him a pedophile. The "pretty smart billionaire" continues to commit fraud with false promises over at Tesla. The "pretty smart billionaire" seems to have a disdain for his lowly peasant employees.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Whi else did he call a pedophile? I know of only one person. Do you have any proof of fraud? If so, you should turn it into the SEC. Musk is not known to give hugs. So what?
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Musk already settled with the SEC over his securities fraud: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226 Not sure what reporting it again would do. Edit: I'm guessing GP was referring to the continued potentially fraudulent FSD promises - there was a lot of HN discussion on that yesterday I think.
  - Thrymr 4y ago
    There's also the minor matter of the $258 billion Doge lawsuit.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

There is still animus between musk and certain groups of thought. Certain people always see the negative and worst case scenario. Others see opportunities with various levels of risk aversion. Clearly Musk is in the latter camp. I said earlier that twitter has been hemorrhaging money to tune of nearly 2 billion over the last 2.5 years. While possible, its likely that Musk can't possibly do worse than the former leadership. Obviously it is a gamble, but what isn't a gamble? And what do such men gain without nothing ventured?

AlexandrB 4y ago
> Clearly Musk is in the latter camp. Is he actually thought? If so, why did he try to maneuver out of the deal right up until it was clear he would not be able to?
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  I'd imagine Twitter withholding data would make any potential buyer have doubts. He also could have been trying for a better price, which any buyer is foolish not to at least try. Or he wanted to box them into a deal with a take-away, forcing twitter to publicly state intentions to complete the deal. All of this, (yours & mine), are still purely speculative.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  Because the tech market crashed right after his pledge and it makes no good financial sense to go through with a deal that includes a massive loss from the outset unless you're absolutely compelled to. I don't see the causal connection people are drawing between this and his motivations and his vision for twitter, it's purely a financial logical decision to try to renegotiate or cancel the deal given the current market conditions.

SilverBirch 4y ago

Firstly, I don't think it's a hive mind. All of the threads I've read through have been absolutely split between people who broadly think he's over-estimating himelf/underestimating the problem and people who think everyone else is over-estimating the problem and under-estimating him. I think the crux of it for me, is that whilst Musk comes at this fresh, he's not proposing fresh solutions. He has repeatedly suggested things that people have already tried, and then pivoted away from - realising the mistakes. It's very difficult to see this news today and not say "Oh, ok, so you're going to replicate Facebook's oversight board?" I agree with you, he's acheived a lot. At the end of the day though 2+2=4 no matter who you are, and if we're shooting for 5, I might hope Elon can produce 5, but if I hope he's going to produce 5, and his big idea is 2+2, then I'm going to be skeptical. it's not that I think he's an idiot, it's that he's proposing things that are well trodden paths.

foobarian 4y ago
The minute he takes the company private his job there is done. Everything else will follow from the new incentive structure.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  I think you need to be more specific than that. Before twitter was private, it was run by a group of people who were generally pro free speech but who had experience to know the real conseuences of inaction, and therefore had put in a framework to ensure that they could stay advertiser friendly. Musk has declared he also wants to be advertiser friendly, but also has big business interests in national defence, and in China. Surely, if anything he's more prone to being influenced than the previous team.

foobarian 4y ago

You know why? Because we want to get off this rock... and anything that takes EM's focus off of SpaceX is bad :-)

incomingpain 4y ago

>It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture. It has been interesting to read it today. Fundamentally elon has simply called for politically neutral content moderation. I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? This is to solve the ongoing problem of censorship. Yet the people see the above as a nightmare scenario. So what exactly are we missing? Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? I don't think these people are upset about this. I suspect it's not a nightmare scenario if the republicans getting the ability to speak back results in landslide elections in their favour. Like we are potentially seeing now in midterm polling. What if that's not the case. What if this is indeed a nightmare scenario? What exactly is the unsaid explanation? I don't see the cause for concern let alone it being a nightmare scenario.

ModernMech 4y ago
> I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? … Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare. I'm not american and just an outside observer. I believe the republicans/trump would not agree with your assessment. There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side. Here's a left-wing viewpoint on the 'second american civil war': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War Which certainly agrees with you. Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election and she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again: https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/1583496354734538756 https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/15834963547345387... Lets not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict_voting_following_the_2020_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict... 425 bills in 49 states the republicans pretty much universally didn't believe a free election occurred; so they want to restrict the vote and prevent people from voting for the democrats. More importantly the election in mere days will indicate to politicians exactly what the populous believes. When the democrats win midterms easily, it will be the people telling the republicans they aren't popular and democrats genuinely represent the will of the people. Do we even need to consider what the people are saying in the unlikely event republicans win midterms?

augustuspolius 4y ago

It's not that we decided that Elon will fail. It's that there is no agreement on what success looks like. More freedom of speech for some means more abuse and bigotry for others. Both 4chan (no moderation) and HN (moderation) have succeeded by some metric and have a loyal audience. Twitter tried to satisfy too many parties for too long and now is facing a backlash from everyone. If Elon decides to prioritize one of the parties - the other groups will protest. And vice versa.