5 ms·

Narratives

64 points by simonpure 4y ago

andsoitis 4y ago
> Musk’s Twitter experience — thought to be an asset, including by yours truly — isn’t really relevant to the actual day-to-day reality of the site as experience by Twitter’s actual users. You can never build a product that's perfect for everyone. If you don't use it yourself, there could be many obvious deficiencies that you never prioritize fixing/improving. On the other hand, if you think your personal use cases are representative of most users, you risk building something that doesn't reach its potential of being useful to most.
- pavlov 4y ago
  The weird thing about Musk’s plans for Twitter is that he’s focusing on things where his own experience is at a maximum distance from an ordinary user’s experience. He thinks reply spam bots are the #1 problem, but that’s because he has millions of followers and a cryptocurrency cult attracted to his name. He wants to add payments, but he’s literally the richest man in the world — he doesn’t even need to pay for anything himself. At Tesla he followed the Steve Jobs model of building something he himself wants to use, then selling the same product to everyone else with minimum variations. This works for a car where the ideal experience is fundamentally the same to everyone (and a phone and a tablet, in Jobs’s case). But the billionaire’s Twitter experience is nothing like mine, which is nothing like that of a 13-year-old girl, and so on. This kind of product development needs empathy, not just a vision of what you’d want to use yourself.
alphabetting 4y ago
When that narrative was likely wrong — that crypto is the foundation of a new technological revolution, for example — then the output that resulted was wrong Refreshing to see writers take accountability like this.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Talking about narratives and Elon Musk, I think that the man has been given a pass by too many people for too long. He has been strangely avoiding scrutiny on many of his grandiose promises and I believe that Tesla stock (and thus most of his fortune) is built on hype.
- programmarchy 4y ago
  Getting people hyped on green technology has a ton of value.
  - stephc_int13 4y ago
    I think this is a large part of why he is getting a pass.
  - browningstreet 4y ago
    It's been a while since that was his primary storyline w/r/t Tesla.
    - programmarchy 4y ago
      Was it ever the main storyline? Clean energy isn't sexy compared to the low rumble of a gas-powered V8. Heck, even "safe" cars aren't sexy. "My car has the highest NHTSA rating, m'lady!" But fast cars are sexy, and so are high-tech self-driving cars. So of course that's the storyline used to build hype. The promise of FSD is an acceptable "noble lie" to drive adoption of green tech.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      I think he does a lot of stuff wrong, but between home and grid batteries, solar roof tiles, superchargers, virtual power plants, the cars and the semi, I'd they're doing okay on the 'getting people excited about green tech' score. If anything, I wish he'd spend a bit more of his time and energy on that kind of thing.
- kjksf 4y ago
  Tesla is the largest maker of EV cars in the world. Last quarter they were more profitable that GM, Ford and Toyota. They are growing car production and revenues 50%, on average, for over a decade. Profits even faster. On a PEG ratio Tesla stock is undervalue compared to companies that are growing profits much less than Tesla's 100% YoY growth last quarter (companies like Amazon). Tell me more about "hype".
zen21 4y ago
“That does leave open the question of Musk, and the way he seemed to meme Tesla into existence, while building a rocket ship on the side…” Meme Tesla into existence? He bought in to an already existing electric car company and then managed it very well in ways that had already been demonstrated by Apple. The idea that he ‘memed’ it into existence seems like utter gibberish.
- haakonhr 4y ago
  The writer isn't disputing that Tesla didn't exist before, but just pointing out the fact that issuing shares actually lead to increased valuations. The argument that it has to do with the fact that Tesla turned into something more than "just" a car company.
  - zen21 4y ago
    Sorry, that doesn’t explain anything. Issuing shares often increases valuations, and Tesla is more than just a car company because they have invested in electric drivetrains, battery technology, and self-driving, as well as other product and manufacturing improvements. “Memed it into existence” is still gibberish.
    - haakonhr 4y ago
      Do they though? It depends on your definition of often I guess and it has definitely been happening more in recent years. I'm unable to find data, but in my experience I can only remember seeing this in sexy companies like Tesla where there are a lot of retail investors. It makes little sense that issuing a lot of new stock leads to a significantly higher market cap (unless there was uncertainty whether a company would be able to raise money at all). I don't think "memed into existence" is gibberish; just hyperbole.
tiffanyh 4y ago
Off topic: I stopped a long time ago paying for Ben Thompson newsletter. He writes a lot of words that sound smart but ultimately don’t impart much actual content or information. This post is a stereotypical example. I don’t understand why so many folks praise his “analysis” on topics.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Who or what do you read instead for coverage on the same topics?
  - chipotle_coyote 4y ago
    While I’ve just started reading it, Casey Newton’s “Platformer” newsletter seems like genuinely informed coverage of the tech industry. Stratechery is focused more on the business side, so they’re not identical, but I do think Thompson can be a little more blinded by his own biases—his analyses are often of the “clearly, [thing X] happened because of [theme I keep returning to],” and as entertaining as his articles are, they’re starting to feel a bit like cork boards covered with index cards and colored twine, where all the links are to things he’s written previously. (Disclosure: I’m a Stratechery subscriber over the last few years considering dropping down to a membership only for the twice-weekly Dithering podcast.)
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      Casey’s is interesting, good at the stories pre-occupying users more than investors. Glad he’s having a big moment right now with Twitter. His coverage of Basecamp last year was good. What I find with Thompson is that his big public stories have the problems you describe, but the paid content is succinct and pulling in the best parts of news stories. I’d almost rather have the option to skip the big stories and receive everything else. I also like the interviews, though recently I’ve been amused by how often the same guest appears on Nilay Patel’s podcast in the same week. (They are as well and discussed it on each other’s podcasts together.) I’m quick to skip ads, so the listening experience is similar. My perhaps uncharitable guess is that the user who started this discussion doesn’t have any need of analysis in their job, or isn’t busy enough to benefit from a paid news filter. But I’m still hoping to hear from them.
tomcam 4y ago
> I should have taken the time to think more critically about Musk’s vision…which doesn’t appear to exist. OP has no credibility. Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat. Done right it could be his most successful company by far. (I didn’t say “will” I said “could”)
- mcphage 4y ago
  > Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat. Musk has given a lot of reasons as to why he bought Twitter; I can't think of anything that indicates an "X app" is the real explanation. And his handling of Twitter after the purchase doesn't make me think he's trying to turn Twitter into something even bigger.

64 points by simonpure 4y ago

> Musk’s Twitter experience — thought to be an asset, including by yours truly — isn’t really relevant to the actual day-to-day reality of the site as experience by Twitter’s actual users. You can never build a product that's perfect for everyone. If you don't use it yourself, there could be many obvious deficiencies that you never prioritize fixing/improving. On the other hand, if you think your personal use cases are representative of most users, you risk building something that doesn't reach its potential of being useful to most.

pavlov 4y ago
The weird thing about Musk’s plans for Twitter is that he’s focusing on things where his own experience is at a maximum distance from an ordinary user’s experience. He thinks reply spam bots are the #1 problem, but that’s because he has millions of followers and a cryptocurrency cult attracted to his name. He wants to add payments, but he’s literally the richest man in the world — he doesn’t even need to pay for anything himself. At Tesla he followed the Steve Jobs model of building something he himself wants to use, then selling the same product to everyone else with minimum variations. This works for a car where the ideal experience is fundamentally the same to everyone (and a phone and a tablet, in Jobs’s case). But the billionaire’s Twitter experience is nothing like mine, which is nothing like that of a 13-year-old girl, and so on. This kind of product development needs empathy, not just a vision of what you’d want to use yourself.

alphabetting 4y ago

When that narrative was likely wrong — that crypto is the foundation of a new technological revolution, for example — then the output that resulted was wrong Refreshing to see writers take accountability like this.

stephc_int13 4y ago

Talking about narratives and Elon Musk, I think that the man has been given a pass by too many people for too long. He has been strangely avoiding scrutiny on many of his grandiose promises and I believe that Tesla stock (and thus most of his fortune) is built on hype.

programmarchy 4y ago
Getting people hyped on green technology has a ton of value.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  I think this is a large part of why he is getting a pass.
- browningstreet 4y ago
  It's been a while since that was his primary storyline w/r/t Tesla.
  - programmarchy 4y ago
    Was it ever the main storyline? Clean energy isn't sexy compared to the low rumble of a gas-powered V8. Heck, even "safe" cars aren't sexy. "My car has the highest NHTSA rating, m'lady!" But fast cars are sexy, and so are high-tech self-driving cars. So of course that's the storyline used to build hype. The promise of FSD is an acceptable "noble lie" to drive adoption of green tech.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I think he does a lot of stuff wrong, but between home and grid batteries, solar roof tiles, superchargers, virtual power plants, the cars and the semi, I'd they're doing okay on the 'getting people excited about green tech' score. If anything, I wish he'd spend a bit more of his time and energy on that kind of thing.
kjksf 4y ago
Tesla is the largest maker of EV cars in the world. Last quarter they were more profitable that GM, Ford and Toyota. They are growing car production and revenues 50%, on average, for over a decade. Profits even faster. On a PEG ratio Tesla stock is undervalue compared to companies that are growing profits much less than Tesla's 100% YoY growth last quarter (companies like Amazon). Tell me more about "hype".

zen21 4y ago

“That does leave open the question of Musk, and the way he seemed to meme Tesla into existence, while building a rocket ship on the side…” Meme Tesla into existence? He bought in to an already existing electric car company and then managed it very well in ways that had already been demonstrated by Apple. The idea that he ‘memed’ it into existence seems like utter gibberish.

haakonhr 4y ago
The writer isn't disputing that Tesla didn't exist before, but just pointing out the fact that issuing shares actually lead to increased valuations. The argument that it has to do with the fact that Tesla turned into something more than "just" a car company.
- zen21 4y ago
  Sorry, that doesn’t explain anything. Issuing shares often increases valuations, and Tesla is more than just a car company because they have invested in electric drivetrains, battery technology, and self-driving, as well as other product and manufacturing improvements. “Memed it into existence” is still gibberish.
  - haakonhr 4y ago
    Do they though? It depends on your definition of often I guess and it has definitely been happening more in recent years. I'm unable to find data, but in my experience I can only remember seeing this in sexy companies like Tesla where there are a lot of retail investors. It makes little sense that issuing a lot of new stock leads to a significantly higher market cap (unless there was uncertainty whether a company would be able to raise money at all). I don't think "memed into existence" is gibberish; just hyperbole.

tiffanyh 4y ago

Off topic: I stopped a long time ago paying for Ben Thompson newsletter. He writes a lot of words that sound smart but ultimately don’t impart much actual content or information. This post is a stereotypical example. I don’t understand why so many folks praise his “analysis” on topics.

1123581321 4y ago
Who or what do you read instead for coverage on the same topics?
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  While I’ve just started reading it, Casey Newton’s “Platformer” newsletter seems like genuinely informed coverage of the tech industry. Stratechery is focused more on the business side, so they’re not identical, but I do think Thompson can be a little more blinded by his own biases—his analyses are often of the “clearly, [thing X] happened because of [theme I keep returning to],” and as entertaining as his articles are, they’re starting to feel a bit like cork boards covered with index cards and colored twine, where all the links are to things he’s written previously. (Disclosure: I’m a Stratechery subscriber over the last few years considering dropping down to a membership only for the twice-weekly Dithering podcast.)
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    Casey’s is interesting, good at the stories pre-occupying users more than investors. Glad he’s having a big moment right now with Twitter. His coverage of Basecamp last year was good. What I find with Thompson is that his big public stories have the problems you describe, but the paid content is succinct and pulling in the best parts of news stories. I’d almost rather have the option to skip the big stories and receive everything else. I also like the interviews, though recently I’ve been amused by how often the same guest appears on Nilay Patel’s podcast in the same week. (They are as well and discussed it on each other’s podcasts together.) I’m quick to skip ads, so the listening experience is similar. My perhaps uncharitable guess is that the user who started this discussion doesn’t have any need of analysis in their job, or isn’t busy enough to benefit from a paid news filter. But I’m still hoping to hear from them.

tomcam 4y ago

> I should have taken the time to think more critically about Musk’s vision…which doesn’t appear to exist. OP has no credibility. Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat. Done right it could be his most successful company by far. (I didn’t say “will” I said “could”)

mcphage 4y ago
> Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat. Musk has given a lot of reasons as to why he bought Twitter; I can't think of anything that indicates an "X app" is the real explanation. And his handling of Twitter after the purchase doesn't make me think he's trying to turn Twitter into something even bigger.