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I don't see anything in Elon Musk's past operation of businesses as CEO that suggests to me he's going to have a better sense of how to run a social network tha

I don't see anything in Elon Musk's past operation of businesses as CEO that suggests to me he's going to have a better sense of how to run a social network than the previous operators. I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.

Retric 4y ago
The most likely result seems to be he sells it within 5 years after making zero meaningful changes and taking a massive loss. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad result.
- dvt 4y ago
  I don't think he'd sell. At this point, I think it's more of a "crown jewel" for him—like the tech nerd equivalent of owning a baseball or a basketball team.
  - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
    I guess so, maybe? Though I can barely think of a less interesting tech-y thing to own than something like Twitter when you already own SpaceX and Tesla. In terms of Tech-y-ness, Twitter is a spectacular downgrade.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      Space and car companies are highly dependent on the government, so maybe less a tech jewel than a political one.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Twitter is to Musk what the Washington Post was to Bezos.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    Twitter will owe > 1B/year in interest. If it doesn’t start making money, it either goes bankrupt or Elon bails it out.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    This would be the most expensive trophy ever purchased in the history of man.
    - 55555 4y ago
      NEOM
- bigtones 4y ago
  He will definitely make a lot of changes to the user experience of Twitter, and add a lot of features. He has already outlined some of the features he wants to add around billing and commerce, similar to super apps in China like Wechat. He has been thinking about this for a long time under the X banner.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I fully expect the logo and UI to change, but he isn’t going to suddenly prevent people from following people, sending / reading tweets or do anything else that would drive most users away because that would just be setting billions of dollars on fire.
- api 4y ago
  If he manages to resell it at a gain, he will have flipped the bird.
blagie 4y ago
Ho boy was Twitter mismanaged up to now. I think that's why he bought it.
- Xelynega 4y ago
  Mismanaged according to who, him? He bought it because he forced the stock price down with the announcement and was forced into buying it.
  - wyclif 4y ago
    "Forced into buying it" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he never wanted to buy Twitter, when in fact he did want to buy it for less money because he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.)
    - saghm 4y ago
      > he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.) "He knew the valuation was too high" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he successfully proved those claims, when in fact he failed to present compelling enough evidence in court when he tried to use legal action to back out.
      - wyclif 4y ago
        Oops! Turns out Wachtell & Turner and the previous Twitter board hid evidence of fraudulent metrics. This could easily turn into legal popcorn time: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824
    - riffraff 4y ago
      He set the price, than backpedaled not because he discovered new information, which he did not, but because the market slumped. We know this because he decided not to go to court to prove that Twitter had hidden information.
coldtea 4y ago
He has to surpass a very very low bar...
- marricks 4y ago
  The adage “there’s no way to please everyone” is the embodiment of that job.
misiti3780 4y ago
i've typed this 1000 times. this is a win/win either elon musk is the business genius a lot of people think he is (I think he is this) and he turns Twitter around and it's awesome. else twitter fails and doesnt exist. net positive for the world and net negative for Elon, also good for humanity .
- majormajor 4y ago
  Big room for middle ground in there of "Elon is good at some things, bad at others, Twitter muddles around as a net negative for the world." I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Musk's ~15 recent years of experiences with mechanical/aerospace/production-engineering businesses is gonna translate perfectly to whatever Twitter is supposed to be.
  - nprateem 4y ago
    Musk's MO is in creating new markets in ambitious new areas. I see no evidence of his ability in turning round failing old companies with old, below-par products. Maybe being forced to buy it (it's probably already halved in value at least) will make him think twice before gobbing off in future though.
bhawks 4y ago
Twitter is basically an internet scale public bathroom wall with everyone scrawling short hot takes onto the walls. The best case scenario has always been that it shut down and I hope we are one day closer to that eventuality. It is ironic and laughable that Elons post to advertisers is done with screenshots of text. After 20+ years of mainstream networked computing this is what passes as a state of art platform and user experience to communicate to n audience. The bulk of the problems Twitter faces today are amplified and directly inflicted by the essential design of the product. Tl/Dr; nothing of value was lost.
- instagraham 4y ago
  What's wrong with screenshots of text? They're easily readable. The white background makes things stand out more than just posting text on stock Twitter. It's one reason Insta story posts and even slides have text. Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design. If users like a format or medium, you can offer it to them even if your platform is capable of greater things.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Mostly the fact that they completely ignore accessibility. In fact, if Twitter did want to improve the user experience, automatic OCR of such text and generation of the corresponding alt tag would be a practical improvement. In fact, general recognition of the content of an image and auto generation of an ALT tag would be a significant improvement. ... But that require them to do actual machine learning as opposed to being the internet's bathroom stall wall.
    - xbfjvusb6 4y ago
      OCR is a solved problem. It's like one call to tesseract and you're done. The fact they haven't done this just shows how inept their employees are.
      - snovv_crash 4y ago
JimDabell 4y ago
He uses Twitter a lot. The previous CEO barely uses it. That alone gives him a massive advantage.
- riffraff 4y ago
  But is his usage reflective of the majority of the users? It's like saying that if you own a Lamborghini you can be a great manager at Lada. Yeah maybe it helps a little but the vast majority of your decisions is still going to be determined by analysis on your users, not your experience.
ergocoder 4y ago
Many Twitter employees think Elon Musk can do better, especially with bolder decisions on obvious things. Source: several friends working there. 1. Spams and bots are rampant. Now I understand it's hard, but eliminating the obvious ones is not hard. A verified account impersonating people and selling crypto is just insane. 2. I used to ask for verification and get this. Twitter doesn't agree with verifying myself. What is this idiotic policy? I am myself. 3. People should allow to tweet as long as it's not illegal, especially from high profile accounts. Moderation might not go away, but it should be minimal. My opinion is that, if twitter enables widespread verification where a lot more people can be verified, twitter's convo will get 10x better (e.g. now they can rank replies, people will act more reasonably).

Retric 4y ago

The most likely result seems to be he sells it within 5 years after making zero meaningful changes and taking a massive loss. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad result.

dvt 4y ago
I don't think he'd sell. At this point, I think it's more of a "crown jewel" for him—like the tech nerd equivalent of owning a baseball or a basketball team.
- im_down_w_otp 4y ago
  I guess so, maybe? Though I can barely think of a less interesting tech-y thing to own than something like Twitter when you already own SpaceX and Tesla. In terms of Tech-y-ness, Twitter is a spectacular downgrade.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    Space and car companies are highly dependent on the government, so maybe less a tech jewel than a political one.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Twitter is to Musk what the Washington Post was to Bezos.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  Twitter will owe > 1B/year in interest. If it doesn’t start making money, it either goes bankrupt or Elon bails it out.
- themitigating 4y ago
  This would be the most expensive trophy ever purchased in the history of man.
  - 55555 4y ago
    NEOM
bigtones 4y ago
He will definitely make a lot of changes to the user experience of Twitter, and add a lot of features. He has already outlined some of the features he wants to add around billing and commerce, similar to super apps in China like Wechat. He has been thinking about this for a long time under the X banner.
- Retric 4y ago
  I fully expect the logo and UI to change, but he isn’t going to suddenly prevent people from following people, sending / reading tweets or do anything else that would drive most users away because that would just be setting billions of dollars on fire.
api 4y ago
If he manages to resell it at a gain, he will have flipped the bird.

blagie 4y ago

Ho boy was Twitter mismanaged up to now. I think that's why he bought it.

Xelynega 4y ago
Mismanaged according to who, him? He bought it because he forced the stock price down with the announcement and was forced into buying it.
- wyclif 4y ago
  "Forced into buying it" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he never wanted to buy Twitter, when in fact he did want to buy it for less money because he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.)
  - saghm 4y ago
    > he knew the valuation was too high (because of bot farms, managerial bloat, &c.) "He knew the valuation was too high" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he successfully proved those claims, when in fact he failed to present compelling enough evidence in court when he tried to use legal action to back out.
    - wyclif 4y ago
      Oops! Turns out Wachtell & Turner and the previous Twitter board hid evidence of fraudulent metrics. This could easily turn into legal popcorn time: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586885887341645824
  - riffraff 4y ago
    He set the price, than backpedaled not because he discovered new information, which he did not, but because the market slumped. We know this because he decided not to go to court to prove that Twitter had hidden information.

coldtea 4y ago

He has to surpass a very very low bar...

marricks 4y ago
The adage “there’s no way to please everyone” is the embodiment of that job.

misiti3780 4y ago

i've typed this 1000 times. this is a win/win either elon musk is the business genius a lot of people think he is (I think he is this) and he turns Twitter around and it's awesome. else twitter fails and doesnt exist. net positive for the world and net negative for Elon, also good for humanity .

majormajor 4y ago
Big room for middle ground in there of "Elon is good at some things, bad at others, Twitter muddles around as a net negative for the world." I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Musk's ~15 recent years of experiences with mechanical/aerospace/production-engineering businesses is gonna translate perfectly to whatever Twitter is supposed to be.
- nprateem 4y ago
  Musk's MO is in creating new markets in ambitious new areas. I see no evidence of his ability in turning round failing old companies with old, below-par products. Maybe being forced to buy it (it's probably already halved in value at least) will make him think twice before gobbing off in future though.

bhawks 4y ago

Twitter is basically an internet scale public bathroom wall with everyone scrawling short hot takes onto the walls. The best case scenario has always been that it shut down and I hope we are one day closer to that eventuality. It is ironic and laughable that Elons post to advertisers is done with screenshots of text. After 20+ years of mainstream networked computing this is what passes as a state of art platform and user experience to communicate to n audience. The bulk of the problems Twitter faces today are amplified and directly inflicted by the essential design of the product. Tl/Dr; nothing of value was lost.

instagraham 4y ago
What's wrong with screenshots of text? They're easily readable. The white background makes things stand out more than just posting text on stock Twitter. It's one reason Insta story posts and even slides have text. Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design. If users like a format or medium, you can offer it to them even if your platform is capable of greater things.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Mostly the fact that they completely ignore accessibility. In fact, if Twitter did want to improve the user experience, automatic OCR of such text and generation of the corresponding alt tag would be a practical improvement. In fact, general recognition of the content of an image and auto generation of an ALT tag would be a significant improvement. ... But that require them to do actual machine learning as opposed to being the internet's bathroom stall wall.
  - xbfjvusb6 4y ago
    OCR is a solved problem. It's like one call to tesseract and you're done. The fact they haven't done this just shows how inept their employees are.
    - snovv_crash 4y ago

JimDabell 4y ago

He uses Twitter a lot. The previous CEO barely uses it. That alone gives him a massive advantage.

riffraff 4y ago
But is his usage reflective of the majority of the users? It's like saying that if you own a Lamborghini you can be a great manager at Lada. Yeah maybe it helps a little but the vast majority of your decisions is still going to be determined by analysis on your users, not your experience.

ergocoder 4y ago

Many Twitter employees think Elon Musk can do better, especially with bolder decisions on obvious things. Source: several friends working there. 1. Spams and bots are rampant. Now I understand it's hard, but eliminating the obvious ones is not hard. A verified account impersonating people and selling crypto is just insane. 2. I used to ask for verification and get this. Twitter doesn't agree with verifying myself. What is this idiotic policy? I am myself. 3. People should allow to tweet as long as it's not illegal, especially from high profile accounts. Moderation might not go away, but it should be minimal. My opinion is that, if twitter enables widespread verification where a lot more people can be verified, twitter's convo will get 10x better (e.g. now they can rank replies, people will act more reasonably).