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> Thinking that by having engineers go "hardcore" you're automatically going to have a better product is like if a pizza delivery company decided to invest in b

> Thinking that by having engineers go "hardcore" you're automatically going to have a better product is like if a pizza delivery company decided to invest in better cars because people criticized their pizzas. Bingo. Hard-core engineering has been the lynchpin of Tesla and SpaceX's success -- they literally won via designing and manufacturing superior physical things. It makes sense that EM would blunder by attempting to reproduce that type of success at Twitter. And it will be a blunder, unless: (a) he plans to build one or more new products (or drastically change the nature of the existing product), and (b) those new or drastically changed products will somehow "win" in a big way that Twitter isn't winning now. But at least to me, (a) doesn't seem likely and (b) seems even less likely.

threatofrain 4y ago
On (a) Musk has announced that he's going to go full steam on Vine. We'll see if he can take on TikTok.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  I think this is a really interesting move, that, if Elon hadn't fucked things up so badly, could actually have a chance of making the acquisition work. I think that TikTok is a political issue and the government would like to (and IMO should) kill it because of the Chinese issue, but won't because they fear the user backlash. If Vine could gain enough of a user base to be a credible fallback option, then banning TikTok from the US market would be politically feasible, and Vine would be worth a fortune.
  - 121789 4y ago
    I do not think twitter has the ML capabilities you need to built a TT competitor, and they aren’t just competing with TT anymore. YouTube, IG, and FB are already getting pretty close. Elon would have to something pretty different than just copying them
kidme5 4y ago
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  I assume he wants to destroy it for political reasons. https://fortune.com/2022/10/04/twitter-texts-released-court-case-reveal-elon-musk-ex-wife-talulah-riley-asked-him-fight-wokeism/ https://fortune.com/2022/10/04/twitter-texts-released-court-...
- mcv 4y ago
  So he did it to win Republican favour for a weapons program, by squandering everybody else's favour? That doesn't sound like a winning strategy.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    He also spent 44 billion on it, which he had, instead of using said 44 billion to lobby politicians of both parties and invest directly into whatever he wanted to do with the weapons program money. Sounds like a really solid strategy to me.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Lobbying is surprisingly cheap. The entire pharma industry spends $5B/year, while the entire fossil fuel industry spends $2B/year[0]. Both have achieved a large degree of control over government decisions affecting them. Elon could have had his weapons program for $1B. He could have dominated defense spending for a decade for $25B. I don’t think the ROI of this $44B of very indirect investment will compare. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends-most-lobbying-antm-so/ https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends...
      - kidme5 4y ago
        Keep in mind he actually spent around half that. There were significant loans and other investments contributing. He needs more than lobbying, he needs to sway an election. But there were obviously other reasons as well, he probably thinks a hive mind is cool to own and he could finally build his everything app X, etc.. it's just the orbital weapons program is near the top of that list as he thinks it's necessary to save humanity from itself. From free-wheeling philosophy discussions, he seems to think this SkyNet system is actually a kind of Roko's Basilisk.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BerislavLopac 4y ago
I can't speak about SpaceX, but there is really nothing superior about Tesla's engineering.
- varjag 4y ago
  Some of this is due to hindsight. Tesla S absolutely rocked when the pinnacle of competition was Nissan Leaf.
  - root_axis 4y ago
    It still absolutely rocks if acceleration speed is your most important metric (which I personally find quite compelling), but in pretty much every other aspect they're janky cars compared to similar vehicles in the same price range and even some cheaper ones. Very fun to drive though.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      THIS. "Extremely powerful & fast, fun to drive, and the company making 'em is run by an alpha macho guy who also builds space rockets"...yeah, that has huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males - who would not want to be seen in a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, etc.
      - eastendguy 4y ago
        So, what other car (that I can buy now) gives me the same range?
        cjrp 4y ago
        Tesla Model 3 - 374 miles BMW i4 - 365 miles Ford Mustang Mach-E - 379 miles BMW iX - 380 miles Mercedes EQE - 384 miles
        bell-cot 4y ago
bookaway 4y ago
>It makes sense that EM would blunder by attempting to reproduce that type of success at Twitter. And it will be a blunder, unless... But he actually did change the narrative today. Yesterday, he had to make Twitter better. Now, if Twitter doesn't crash and the World Cup goes by without a hitch, it's going to be the biggest win ever for him, is it not? EDIT: fixed tone.
safog 4y ago
(a) seems very likely to me. Didn't he already speak about making Twitter a "super-app"? super-apps are a bit new to the American audience but in China / India they are surprisingly commonplace. I won't be surprised if he churns through a bunch of different ideas: Subscriptions, Deals with news companies, short form videos + creator tools, different kinds of ad experiences, the edit button, better spam filtering etc. There's a lot of potential things Twitter could be doing if they didn't limit themselves to their core product. I don't think (b) is unlikely. Their current product is already highly valuable. You don't need their short form video product to succeed in a way TikTok did but there's enough of an audience to capture there to improve the company's valuation.
- class4behavior 4y ago
  Twitter's cost was based on its market value. Expanding the portfolio, however, isn't as expensive, especially not when your new boss has all the money. That combined with its pull factors is why some people bet on Twitter coming around eventually. On the other hand, exactly that development towards super-apps makes it even more important that we push for decentralization. Not to mention that the US is already reigned by mono- and oligopolies in many markets, it is also a privacy disaster. Many nations, especially in Asia, have little awareness of the concept of privacy. and thus its consequences, so it isn't surprising such offers took off so swiftly there.
- Yhippa 4y ago
  You are correct, he did mention (a) as his intent in buying Twitter. Makes me think that he acquired Twitter for the users and wants to introduce those super-app features ASAP.
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    My bet is he bought it for the political power controlling it brings. It was cheap, if it works for that, at any loss rate.
- bart_spoon 4y ago
  He has. But doesn’t the concept of a super app fly in direct opposition with some of his stated goals and issues regarding Twitter? He has ranted about bloat, both in terms of features, engineering, and employment at Twitter, and all his seemingly disastrous moves since taking over have been aimed at reducing bloat. And yet creating a “super app” sounds like it will be adding back in bloat orders of magnitude larger than whatever currently exists at Twitter. I’m not sure anything Elon says about the current or future state of Twitter has any credibility. It seems like the company is now being directed via stream of consciousness at this point.
moron4hire 4y ago
Can we stop parroting the term "hardcore engineering"? It makes never-ending crunch sound virtuous, rather than dumb. "Dumbcore engineering".
- TimTheTinker 4y ago
  When I use the term "hard-core engineering", I'm not referring to how "hard" people work. I'm referring to how advanced the required engineering is to accomplish a goal.
Gravityloss 4y ago
SpaceX did some good standard mainstream solutions. Sometimes success is not about some exotic innovation but doing your normal job well. A standard lox kerosene gas generator rocket engine. Flat aluminum panel construction. Only the interstage is composite. Started small with Falcon 1. The Merlin engine had heritage from NASA's FASTRAC program. If you look at Ariane V, Atlas V or Delta IV, they all have some peculiarities and operational warts. Large solid rockets, Russian engine, hydrogen. In some sense, Falcon 9 is the most "ordinary" of the launchers available now.

threatofrain 4y ago

On (a) Musk has announced that he's going to go full steam on Vine. We'll see if he can take on TikTok.

fallingknife 4y ago
I think this is a really interesting move, that, if Elon hadn't fucked things up so badly, could actually have a chance of making the acquisition work. I think that TikTok is a political issue and the government would like to (and IMO should) kill it because of the Chinese issue, but won't because they fear the user backlash. If Vine could gain enough of a user base to be a credible fallback option, then banning TikTok from the US market would be politically feasible, and Vine would be worth a fortune.
- 121789 4y ago
  I do not think twitter has the ML capabilities you need to built a TT competitor, and they aren’t just competing with TT anymore. YouTube, IG, and FB are already getting pretty close. Elon would have to something pretty different than just copying them

kidme5 4y ago

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
I assume he wants to destroy it for political reasons. https://fortune.com/2022/10/04/twitter-texts-released-court-case-reveal-elon-musk-ex-wife-talulah-riley-asked-him-fight-wokeism/ https://fortune.com/2022/10/04/twitter-texts-released-court-...
mcv 4y ago
So he did it to win Republican favour for a weapons program, by squandering everybody else's favour? That doesn't sound like a winning strategy.
- hef19898 4y ago
  He also spent 44 billion on it, which he had, instead of using said 44 billion to lobby politicians of both parties and invest directly into whatever he wanted to do with the weapons program money. Sounds like a really solid strategy to me.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Lobbying is surprisingly cheap. The entire pharma industry spends $5B/year, while the entire fossil fuel industry spends $2B/year[0]. Both have achieved a large degree of control over government decisions affecting them. Elon could have had his weapons program for $1B. He could have dominated defense spending for a decade for $25B. I don’t think the ROI of this $44B of very indirect investment will compare. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends-most-lobbying-antm-so/ https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends...
    - kidme5 4y ago
      Keep in mind he actually spent around half that. There were significant loans and other investments contributing. He needs more than lobbying, he needs to sway an election. But there were obviously other reasons as well, he probably thinks a hive mind is cool to own and he could finally build his everything app X, etc.. it's just the orbital weapons program is near the top of that list as he thinks it's necessary to save humanity from itself. From free-wheeling philosophy discussions, he seems to think this SkyNet system is actually a kind of Roko's Basilisk.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BerislavLopac 4y ago

I can't speak about SpaceX, but there is really nothing superior about Tesla's engineering.

varjag 4y ago
Some of this is due to hindsight. Tesla S absolutely rocked when the pinnacle of competition was Nissan Leaf.
- root_axis 4y ago
  It still absolutely rocks if acceleration speed is your most important metric (which I personally find quite compelling), but in pretty much every other aspect they're janky cars compared to similar vehicles in the same price range and even some cheaper ones. Very fun to drive though.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    THIS. "Extremely powerful & fast, fun to drive, and the company making 'em is run by an alpha macho guy who also builds space rockets"...yeah, that has huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males - who would not want to be seen in a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, etc.
    - eastendguy 4y ago
      So, what other car (that I can buy now) gives me the same range?
      - cjrp 4y ago
        Tesla Model 3 - 374 miles BMW i4 - 365 miles Ford Mustang Mach-E - 379 miles BMW iX - 380 miles Mercedes EQE - 384 miles
        bell-cot 4y ago

bookaway 4y ago

>It makes sense that EM would blunder by attempting to reproduce that type of success at Twitter. And it will be a blunder, unless... But he actually did change the narrative today. Yesterday, he had to make Twitter better. Now, if Twitter doesn't crash and the World Cup goes by without a hitch, it's going to be the biggest win ever for him, is it not? EDIT: fixed tone.

safog 4y ago

(a) seems very likely to me. Didn't he already speak about making Twitter a "super-app"? super-apps are a bit new to the American audience but in China / India they are surprisingly commonplace. I won't be surprised if he churns through a bunch of different ideas: Subscriptions, Deals with news companies, short form videos + creator tools, different kinds of ad experiences, the edit button, better spam filtering etc. There's a lot of potential things Twitter could be doing if they didn't limit themselves to their core product. I don't think (b) is unlikely. Their current product is already highly valuable. You don't need their short form video product to succeed in a way TikTok did but there's enough of an audience to capture there to improve the company's valuation.

class4behavior 4y ago
Twitter's cost was based on its market value. Expanding the portfolio, however, isn't as expensive, especially not when your new boss has all the money. That combined with its pull factors is why some people bet on Twitter coming around eventually. On the other hand, exactly that development towards super-apps makes it even more important that we push for decentralization. Not to mention that the US is already reigned by mono- and oligopolies in many markets, it is also a privacy disaster. Many nations, especially in Asia, have little awareness of the concept of privacy. and thus its consequences, so it isn't surprising such offers took off so swiftly there.
Yhippa 4y ago
You are correct, he did mention (a) as his intent in buying Twitter. Makes me think that he acquired Twitter for the users and wants to introduce those super-app features ASAP.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  My bet is he bought it for the political power controlling it brings. It was cheap, if it works for that, at any loss rate.
bart_spoon 4y ago
He has. But doesn’t the concept of a super app fly in direct opposition with some of his stated goals and issues regarding Twitter? He has ranted about bloat, both in terms of features, engineering, and employment at Twitter, and all his seemingly disastrous moves since taking over have been aimed at reducing bloat. And yet creating a “super app” sounds like it will be adding back in bloat orders of magnitude larger than whatever currently exists at Twitter. I’m not sure anything Elon says about the current or future state of Twitter has any credibility. It seems like the company is now being directed via stream of consciousness at this point.

moron4hire 4y ago

Can we stop parroting the term "hardcore engineering"? It makes never-ending crunch sound virtuous, rather than dumb. "Dumbcore engineering".

TimTheTinker 4y ago
When I use the term "hard-core engineering", I'm not referring to how "hard" people work. I'm referring to how advanced the required engineering is to accomplish a goal.

Gravityloss 4y ago

SpaceX did some good standard mainstream solutions. Sometimes success is not about some exotic innovation but doing your normal job well. A standard lox kerosene gas generator rocket engine. Flat aluminum panel construction. Only the interstage is composite. Started small with Falcon 1. The Merlin engine had heritage from NASA's FASTRAC program. If you look at Ariane V, Atlas V or Delta IV, they all have some peculiarities and operational warts. Large solid rockets, Russian engine, hydrogen. In some sense, Falcon 9 is the most "ordinary" of the launchers available now.