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The author quit Twitter primarily because the entire accessibility team was sacked. Understandable... if you know nothing about Elon Musk. I am not a fanboy in

by tomcam 4y ago

The author quit Twitter primarily because the entire accessibility team was sacked. Understandable... if you know nothing about Elon Musk. I am not a fanboy in the least. But one thing he obviously does frequently is fix broken shit, then try again if that fails. He does these things in public and listens to feedback. He clearly keeps a sense of humor about things, which rattles a lot of people understandably. I know nothing about the accessibility team there, but for all we know he has a better team lined up. The author and I both agree the reverse may also be true. Could be they get replaced by something worse. To assume Elon has simply discarded the issue of accessibility altogether is to me the least likely assumption.

almost 4y ago
I think you might in fact be a fanboy. Which is fine, fanboy all you like if it makes you happy! Maybe he does have people lined up to replace all the people he just fired. Maybe he really was able to ascertain who was essential and who was dead weight within days of taking over. Maybe against all appearances his actions are actually helping retain the best people at Twitter. Maybe having a public strop and suggesting he might publicly “shame” advertisers will have them falling over themselves to come back and spend their ad dollars with him. Maybe he really cares about “free speech” for speech that is not his own or that he disagrees with. Maybe.
- tomcam 4y ago
  A most interesting comment. Lots of words, no falsifiable assertions. Just a steaming pile of innuendo.
  - almost 4y ago
    If you say so
beachy 4y ago
> To assume Elon has simply discarded the issue of accessibility altogether is to me the least likely assumption. Yep indeed, it could be that Musk doesn't really know who does what at Twitter, nor which teams are effective or not. Maybe noone does. In that case the best path forward could well be to blow up everything, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the lights on, then rebuild on top of the scorched earth. In fact this approach might even attract some more hungry and gung ho warrior types who are attracted by musk's style, and could be better suited to bringing about his vision than the existing team.
- low_tech_love 4y ago
  That sounds very good as an approach for building a product, but for managing a communication platform, I’m not sure. The problem is that there is a kind of overgeneralized understanding (built out of prejudice, imho) that moderators are a bunch of left-wing power-thirsty bigots. However, moderating is a hard problem, one that has not (and never will have) any well-defined final solution. There will always be variance and noise in moderation, and people will always complain; it’s a trade-off.
blowski 4y ago
My impression is that he has a unique way of building “Brand Elon” which seems to work because of the times we’re in. He enters like a bull in a china shop, destroying everything regardless of quality or value. He then hands over day-to-day running to a team of competent people to build it back up as something new, but leveraging the original brand. Elon Musk then gets the credit because of legendary stories of all his hard work. His social media presence causes competent people to underestimate him as a joke, not realising he’s playing by different rules to most businesses. On the other hand, it causes his personal army of fanboys to overestimate him as some kind of business genius. Really, he’s just a social media celebrity in an age when people give huge financial value to that status.
- low_tech_love 4y ago
  I personally wouldn’t underestimate his courage and hard work as an engineering leader; he did reach places that were very hard to reach with this approach. The problem is that social media is not (solely) an engineering problem.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Interesting take. I guess the upcoming Walter Isaacson biography on Musk will reveal.
croes 4y ago
>But one thing he obviously does frequently is fix broken shit, then try again if that fails. This works in small starting companies not in a Behemoth like Twitter. And I doubt he fixed so much. The traffic problems he claimed to fix with the Boring Company are nowhere near fixed, same with FSD.
- Thlom 4y ago
  From an engineering standpoint traffic is really easy to fix. Just build more roads with as much “flow” as possible (tunnels). But it doesn’t work because traffic is a human problem, not a technical problem.
  - low_tech_love 4y ago
    And that is exactly why I think this acquisition will fail. He is a great engineer…
    - croes 4y ago
      Is he? Many of his ideas seems to come from sort if Sci-Fi that doesn't work in the real world.
  - croes 4y ago
    Sometimes less is more https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox
- tomcam 4y ago
  > And I doubt he fixed so much. Do you think manufacturing cars and rockets happens without a lot of course correction, pun intended?
  - croes 4y ago
    That are things he broke by his previous decisions. Fixing traffic or social media is a whole different level. It's like fixing full autonomous driving. Still didn't happen and he is fixing it quite some time. Social media is even harder.

by tomcam 4y ago

almost 4y ago

I think you might in fact be a fanboy. Which is fine, fanboy all you like if it makes you happy! Maybe he does have people lined up to replace all the people he just fired. Maybe he really was able to ascertain who was essential and who was dead weight within days of taking over. Maybe against all appearances his actions are actually helping retain the best people at Twitter. Maybe having a public strop and suggesting he might publicly “shame” advertisers will have them falling over themselves to come back and spend their ad dollars with him. Maybe he really cares about “free speech” for speech that is not his own or that he disagrees with. Maybe.

tomcam 4y ago
A most interesting comment. Lots of words, no falsifiable assertions. Just a steaming pile of innuendo.
- almost 4y ago
  If you say so

beachy 4y ago

> To assume Elon has simply discarded the issue of accessibility altogether is to me the least likely assumption. Yep indeed, it could be that Musk doesn't really know who does what at Twitter, nor which teams are effective or not. Maybe noone does. In that case the best path forward could well be to blow up everything, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the lights on, then rebuild on top of the scorched earth. In fact this approach might even attract some more hungry and gung ho warrior types who are attracted by musk's style, and could be better suited to bringing about his vision than the existing team.

low_tech_love 4y ago
That sounds very good as an approach for building a product, but for managing a communication platform, I’m not sure. The problem is that there is a kind of overgeneralized understanding (built out of prejudice, imho) that moderators are a bunch of left-wing power-thirsty bigots. However, moderating is a hard problem, one that has not (and never will have) any well-defined final solution. There will always be variance and noise in moderation, and people will always complain; it’s a trade-off.

blowski 4y ago

My impression is that he has a unique way of building “Brand Elon” which seems to work because of the times we’re in. He enters like a bull in a china shop, destroying everything regardless of quality or value. He then hands over day-to-day running to a team of competent people to build it back up as something new, but leveraging the original brand. Elon Musk then gets the credit because of legendary stories of all his hard work. His social media presence causes competent people to underestimate him as a joke, not realising he’s playing by different rules to most businesses. On the other hand, it causes his personal army of fanboys to overestimate him as some kind of business genius. Really, he’s just a social media celebrity in an age when people give huge financial value to that status.

low_tech_love 4y ago
I personally wouldn’t underestimate his courage and hard work as an engineering leader; he did reach places that were very hard to reach with this approach. The problem is that social media is not (solely) an engineering problem.
andsoitis 4y ago
Interesting take. I guess the upcoming Walter Isaacson biography on Musk will reveal.

croes 4y ago

>But one thing he obviously does frequently is fix broken shit, then try again if that fails. This works in small starting companies not in a Behemoth like Twitter. And I doubt he fixed so much. The traffic problems he claimed to fix with the Boring Company are nowhere near fixed, same with FSD.

Thlom 4y ago
From an engineering standpoint traffic is really easy to fix. Just build more roads with as much “flow” as possible (tunnels). But it doesn’t work because traffic is a human problem, not a technical problem.
- low_tech_love 4y ago
  And that is exactly why I think this acquisition will fail. He is a great engineer…
  - croes 4y ago
    Is he? Many of his ideas seems to come from sort if Sci-Fi that doesn't work in the real world.
- croes 4y ago
  Sometimes less is more https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox
tomcam 4y ago
> And I doubt he fixed so much. Do you think manufacturing cars and rockets happens without a lot of course correction, pun intended?
- croes 4y ago
  That are things he broke by his previous decisions. Fixing traffic or social media is a whole different level. It's like fixing full autonomous driving. Still didn't happen and he is fixing it quite some time. Social media is even harder.