4 ms·

I may be naive, but I think that Elon was able to run SpaceX and Tesla this way because they both were companies with optimistic visions and by far the best (if

by cowpig 4y ago

I may be naive, but I think that Elon was able to run SpaceX and Tesla this way because they both were companies with optimistic visions and by far the best (if not only) option for people who wanted to effect change in those respective industries. Twitter is not the same. What is the idealistic vision of Twitter right now? The whole "free speech" absolutism thing is thinly veiled political pandering. What is Twitter doing that's special which would make me want to work under significantly worse conditions than the myriad of other software jobs out there?

rr808 4y ago
I think this is it, good people will sacrifice a lot to work very hard on rockets or cool cars. Selling ads on social media not so much.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  Let's say you are an engineer at SpaceX who thinks Starship is a stainless steel Spruce Goose. Won't work. Waaay under-engineered. Space internet always fails. Etc. What would you do? Work for Boeing, with their management? A capricious boss and working on a fool's errand can look pretty good in comparison with typical defense aerospace alternatives. Tesla is a profitable public company that can offer serious upside to employees. Even if you think Tesla is overvalued, it is at least a conventional bet on whether it will continue to be overvalued.
- m_fayer 4y ago
  Agreed. While it's possible with some straining and twisting to make the case that Twitter represents an idealistic change for a better future, it doesn't take any straining at all to see the incredible potential of electrified transport and easy access to space. Also, with some straining and twisting, it's possible to make a case for Twitter changing the future (and present) for the worse. That's much harder to do with the other companies.
- m_fayer 4y ago
  It says a lot about Musk that he mistook people's desire to work hard for the cool projects he's behind for a desire to work hard for him.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  It's this in a nutshell. I made extremely sophisticated backends for biomedical software. For medical imaging software. And for molecular imaging software. I was very aware that the graphics, biophysics, and mathematics work I was doing at those companies was important. I was on site often collaborating in cross-functional teams at NIH, Carnegie-Mellon, Cleveland Clinic and Sloan Kettering among others. And there was always a core of people on those teams who often wouldn't go home in some situations. Now, when I had enough exits, and I got into making graphics and physics backends for video games? Well, sorry, I was just very aware that I was doing something with a lower level of importance. Dressing it up as pushing the boundaries of what some political opportunist wants to call "free speech" would still not have moved the needle for me. If I were at Twitter, I'd be in the camp of "I'm not going to work 18 hours a day on your political campaign as though it's critical to mankind's continuance big guy." However, that's just a data point of 1. Others might feel different.
yhersk0vitz 4y ago
> The whole "free speech" absolutism thing is thinly veiled political pandering. I disagree. There were clearly political biases at play when it came to censoring/removing people from Twitter. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on that should be a huge issue.
- valeness 4y ago
  No, but people have taken it upon themselves to make bigotry a political identity so the removal of hate speech feels like political censorship...
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    Of course the definition of hate speech is political, just like the definition of harm.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Most jobs have political biases, but not all CEOs act like megalomaniac toddlers.
- knowaveragejoe 4y ago
  Anyone who thinks the far right is being censored on twitter hasn't been paying attention.
- arlcode 4y ago
  The hard challenge of social media is how to keep the barbarians at bay. People in general want to socialize and even put their opinion out their. What they don't want is to get death threats or be insulted for any minor opinion (or just for random stuff). If it's a free for all the ugliest elements (which are currently moderated away on all major social media platforms) of society will scream the loudest and at all times and that turns off many people. Advertisers don't want their brands associated with that and if I'm to pay 8€ a month I would expect that I am given tools to deal with that (without needing to flag a neverending streams of tweets). If I'm making a business out of creating content there (or just want have a peaceful environment) I expect that I can also create a pleasant environment for my customers / friends / family. My money, my house rules. This is not a trivial problem at all and I don't think Elon Musk is equipped to handle it well. If you ask me he is too thin skinned and caught up in his own greatness. The way he memes and engages with employees and (political) opponents in general does not bode well. It's fair to ask users to pay instead of relying on advertisement but then you cannot (algorithmically and by default) force them to endure a waterfall of shit.
seydor 4y ago
A different take is that rocketry engineers and automobile engineers were not as spoiled as electrical engineers
- jasonjmcghee 4y ago
  "s/electrical/software"? I think software engineers have many more opportunities so they don't need to settle. Calling them spoiled implies that they should be working 16 hours a day 6 days a week.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  There's been a software engineering labor shortage that's existed since the late aughts. The industry has made limited attempts to ameliorate this condition and instead decided it was just easier to pay people more and offer them perks. It's how the labor market works. There are alternative approaches, such as communism, that have explored alternative approaches to this labor phenomenon. But if you're a capitalist, you're making a school-boy error lamenting about employees being "spoiled". Markets are a thing. Nobody moralizes about a certain grade of steel having a fixed price per unit quantity.
gonehome 4y ago
I think there is an idealistic vision behind Twitter that’s poorly articulated - Jack Dorsey definitely had one. There’s something to a platform with strong speech protections that tries to give publication access to everyone in the world. Compare the coverage of FTX on Twitter vs. legacy media - most of it is happening on Twitter and at higher quality. Legacy media outlets are being duped by Rahul Ligma repeatedly. I think there’s something there that a visionary leader could rally people behind, the company has just largely not had one so far with any kind of power to do it.
Workaccount2 4y ago
I think part of the issue is that people that would be most motivated to work at twitter, those looking to really effect change through their job there, are mostly political ideologues.
nvln 4y ago
I think I can make this statement with a good degree of certainty: Building the best version of twitter right now will have infinitely more impact on the world than Tesla or SpaceX. The social/political/legal/engineering problems associated with a large scale messaging platform are also mind-bending challenges that when solved well can definitely make the world a more positive place. But the optics of SpaceX, Tesla or Starlink do make them feel like more optimistic visions of future. Perhaps the problem is that the solutions for better Twitter are not technological/engineering problems with controllable/engineerable outcomes. (Just found the comparison super interesting - not agreeing or disagreeing with the comment.)
- boardwaalk 4y ago
  Yeah, I agree with this. Building an actually “wholesome”, “positive” and “opposite of divisive” social media would be an enormous good. The problem is that no one has a good reason to believe it can be done because it has not yet been. At least with rockets and cars, the physics are there to back you up. You also have the problem of it being Elon, and… does anyone think he’d be the guy to choose to fix a social problem? Certainly I would not be and I am also on the spectrum. Then you have the evidence that, he’s fcking firing or burning all these Twitter employees, many of which likely did* want to make an legit good (defined by the above) social media service, regardless of whether they were “woke” or not (avoiding that charged language). If I rewound a bit and he did get more sleep/get better advice & advisors/took things a little slower and tried to integrate with the company or at least communicate a coherent vision, I could see this having gone differently. It did not…
adamc 4y ago
I don't disagree, but I think it's also a question of imposing a culture. Twitter didn't have that culture, and Musk came in and acted in a very adversarial manner. None of those people came to Twitter to work for Musk under those circumstances, so it isn't too surprising that many would choose to leave. The cultures of large organizations don't change on a dime, and it takes thought and careful guidance to get them to change at all. Buying a company is not like building one from scratch.

by cowpig 4y ago

rr808 4y ago

I think this is it, good people will sacrifice a lot to work very hard on rockets or cool cars. Selling ads on social media not so much.

Zigurd 4y ago
Let's say you are an engineer at SpaceX who thinks Starship is a stainless steel Spruce Goose. Won't work. Waaay under-engineered. Space internet always fails. Etc. What would you do? Work for Boeing, with their management? A capricious boss and working on a fool's errand can look pretty good in comparison with typical defense aerospace alternatives. Tesla is a profitable public company that can offer serious upside to employees. Even if you think Tesla is overvalued, it is at least a conventional bet on whether it will continue to be overvalued.
m_fayer 4y ago
Agreed. While it's possible with some straining and twisting to make the case that Twitter represents an idealistic change for a better future, it doesn't take any straining at all to see the incredible potential of electrified transport and easy access to space. Also, with some straining and twisting, it's possible to make a case for Twitter changing the future (and present) for the worse. That's much harder to do with the other companies.
m_fayer 4y ago
It says a lot about Musk that he mistook people's desire to work hard for the cool projects he's behind for a desire to work hard for him.
bilbo0s 4y ago
It's this in a nutshell. I made extremely sophisticated backends for biomedical software. For medical imaging software. And for molecular imaging software. I was very aware that the graphics, biophysics, and mathematics work I was doing at those companies was important. I was on site often collaborating in cross-functional teams at NIH, Carnegie-Mellon, Cleveland Clinic and Sloan Kettering among others. And there was always a core of people on those teams who often wouldn't go home in some situations. Now, when I had enough exits, and I got into making graphics and physics backends for video games? Well, sorry, I was just very aware that I was doing something with a lower level of importance. Dressing it up as pushing the boundaries of what some political opportunist wants to call "free speech" would still not have moved the needle for me. If I were at Twitter, I'd be in the camp of "I'm not going to work 18 hours a day on your political campaign as though it's critical to mankind's continuance big guy." However, that's just a data point of 1. Others might feel different.

yhersk0vitz 4y ago

> The whole "free speech" absolutism thing is thinly veiled political pandering. I disagree. There were clearly political biases at play when it came to censoring/removing people from Twitter. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on that should be a huge issue.

valeness 4y ago
No, but people have taken it upon themselves to make bigotry a political identity so the removal of hate speech feels like political censorship...
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  Of course the definition of hate speech is political, just like the definition of harm.
encryptluks2 4y ago
Most jobs have political biases, but not all CEOs act like megalomaniac toddlers.
knowaveragejoe 4y ago
Anyone who thinks the far right is being censored on twitter hasn't been paying attention.
arlcode 4y ago
The hard challenge of social media is how to keep the barbarians at bay. People in general want to socialize and even put their opinion out their. What they don't want is to get death threats or be insulted for any minor opinion (or just for random stuff). If it's a free for all the ugliest elements (which are currently moderated away on all major social media platforms) of society will scream the loudest and at all times and that turns off many people. Advertisers don't want their brands associated with that and if I'm to pay 8€ a month I would expect that I am given tools to deal with that (without needing to flag a neverending streams of tweets). If I'm making a business out of creating content there (or just want have a peaceful environment) I expect that I can also create a pleasant environment for my customers / friends / family. My money, my house rules. This is not a trivial problem at all and I don't think Elon Musk is equipped to handle it well. If you ask me he is too thin skinned and caught up in his own greatness. The way he memes and engages with employees and (political) opponents in general does not bode well. It's fair to ask users to pay instead of relying on advertisement but then you cannot (algorithmically and by default) force them to endure a waterfall of shit.

seydor 4y ago

A different take is that rocketry engineers and automobile engineers were not as spoiled as electrical engineers

jasonjmcghee 4y ago
"s/electrical/software"? I think software engineers have many more opportunities so they don't need to settle. Calling them spoiled implies that they should be working 16 hours a day 6 days a week.
spamizbad 4y ago
There's been a software engineering labor shortage that's existed since the late aughts. The industry has made limited attempts to ameliorate this condition and instead decided it was just easier to pay people more and offer them perks. It's how the labor market works. There are alternative approaches, such as communism, that have explored alternative approaches to this labor phenomenon. But if you're a capitalist, you're making a school-boy error lamenting about employees being "spoiled". Markets are a thing. Nobody moralizes about a certain grade of steel having a fixed price per unit quantity.

gonehome 4y ago

I think there is an idealistic vision behind Twitter that’s poorly articulated - Jack Dorsey definitely had one. There’s something to a platform with strong speech protections that tries to give publication access to everyone in the world. Compare the coverage of FTX on Twitter vs. legacy media - most of it is happening on Twitter and at higher quality. Legacy media outlets are being duped by Rahul Ligma repeatedly. I think there’s something there that a visionary leader could rally people behind, the company has just largely not had one so far with any kind of power to do it.

Workaccount2 4y ago

I think part of the issue is that people that would be most motivated to work at twitter, those looking to really effect change through their job there, are mostly political ideologues.

nvln 4y ago

I think I can make this statement with a good degree of certainty: Building the best version of twitter right now will have infinitely more impact on the world than Tesla or SpaceX. The social/political/legal/engineering problems associated with a large scale messaging platform are also mind-bending challenges that when solved well can definitely make the world a more positive place. But the optics of SpaceX, Tesla or Starlink do make them feel like more optimistic visions of future. Perhaps the problem is that the solutions for better Twitter are not technological/engineering problems with controllable/engineerable outcomes. (Just found the comparison super interesting - not agreeing or disagreeing with the comment.)

boardwaalk 4y ago
Yeah, I agree with this. Building an actually “wholesome”, “positive” and “opposite of divisive” social media would be an enormous good. The problem is that no one has a good reason to believe it can be done because it has not yet been. At least with rockets and cars, the physics are there to back you up. You also have the problem of it being Elon, and… does anyone think he’d be the guy to choose to fix a social problem? Certainly I would not be and I am also on the spectrum. Then you have the evidence that, he’s fcking firing or burning all these Twitter employees, many of which likely did* want to make an legit good (defined by the above) social media service, regardless of whether they were “woke” or not (avoiding that charged language). If I rewound a bit and he did get more sleep/get better advice & advisors/took things a little slower and tried to integrate with the company or at least communicate a coherent vision, I could see this having gone differently. It did not…

adamc 4y ago

I don't disagree, but I think it's also a question of imposing a culture. Twitter didn't have that culture, and Musk came in and acted in a very adversarial manner. None of those people came to Twitter to work for Musk under those circumstances, so it isn't too surprising that many would choose to leave. The cultures of large organizations don't change on a dime, and it takes thought and careful guidance to get them to change at all. Buying a company is not like building one from scratch.