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Twitter is now blocking Matt Taibbi from search results
- ramphastidae 4y agoBased on blunder after blunder since taking over, it has become so obvious that Elon isn’t qualified to run a company. So how has Tesla and SpaceX succeeded?
- podunkPDX 4y agoApparently those businesses have positions that could be charitably called “Elon handlers,” to keep him from doing to them what he has done to Twitter.
- grayhatter 4y agoLuck? I think you're under the mistaken assumption success is directly tied to competency. It's not. The only advantage being skilled gives you is a slightly better ability to know where to look for luck. And possibly the ability to make fewer mistakes once you find said luck.
- Waterluvian 4y agoMoney and dubious ethics are probably the strongest sources of business success.
- anecdotal1 4y agoSpaceX is doing great because of Shotwell. Musk isn't calling the shots AIUI
- toomuchtodo 4y agoJB recently joined Tesla’s board. I’d like to see him assume the CEO role, and roll Redwood Materials up into Tesla. Let Tom Zhu run Tesla vehicles while JB maximizes the energy business (which is currently supply constrained and has a two year backlog) as described in Tesla’s recent Master Plan Part 3. Elon can go do Elon things as a minority shareholder (13% ownership remaining). https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lays-out-five-proposals-annual-proxy-filing-2023-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... https://cnevpost.com/2023/04/07/tom-zhu-becomes-1-of-4-key-execs-at-tesla/ https://cnevpost.com/2023/04/07/tom-zhu-becomes-1-of-4-key-e... https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf
- usea 4y agoCompanies usually succeed due to the efforts of laborers, not managers or owners. Often, companies succeed despite management.
- seizethecheese 4y agoIf you replace “usually” with “sometimes” and “often” with “occasionally” this might be a reasonable comment.
- appleiigs 4y agoIs Elon the only CEO to have laborers, engineers?
- ethanbond 4y agoIMO a company whose goals can be defined as “make object of X weight achieve Y speed at below Z dollars” is very, very different from a software product company. The goals are quite hard to define and you have an infinite number of levers theoretically available to you, and those levers interact with each other in unpredictable ways. Especially true of a social network which can both nullify big changes like an immune response, and can reach tipping points and experience big behavior shifts due to apparently small product changes. He’s just way, way out of his wheelhouse with Twitter and doesn’t have the humility or trusted advisors required to see it.
- rurp 4y agoHe's a great promoter. His companies have raised piles of money, far more than similar companies could based on fundmentals. He's also able to get skilled employees to work harder for less money than they would at most shops, which is extremely valuable in a young company. None of this means he's a genius or a technical wizard, but he's good at selling himself as those as well and many folks bought it. It seems like the success has gone to his head to some degree and his exposure has shot up in recent years, which has not been doing his reputation any favors, to say the least.
- smotched 4y agoCan we stop spreading these before any real proof. The twitter blocking substack thing spread like wildfire, but was later proven to be false.
- TobyTheDog123 4y agoHuh? You can easily verify this yourself. https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Amtaibbi&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Amtaibbi&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Acnn&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Acnn&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/mtaibbi https://twitter.com/mtaibbi Edit: Additionally, the Substack thing was at least partially true - I saw it myself on a few links. Some worked, some didn't, so perhaps it was only on tweets after a certain date.
- TheGigaChad 4y ago[dead]
- jerglingu 4y agoThe Substack throttling was not false. It was throttled before the decision was reversed
- nimih 4y agoThis takes twelve keystrokes and 3 mouse clicks to verify (including the click to take you to twitter in the first place). Certainly within the capacity of even the most incurious HN readers.
- cratermoon 4y agoTaibbi meets the face-eating leopards up close.
- halfjoking 4y agoTaibbi has been consistent with people who support free speech. I don’t understand the “you get what you deserve” mentality, when there is nothing he could have done differently to help expose government censorship. You call out government being fascist censors, and you call out power-trip billionaires when they do it too. It’s not like stupidly playing with leopards and having your face eaten. It’s more like being a journalist in a war zone, reporting war crimes from both sides, then being treated like a criminal by both.
- selfportrait 4y agoThere’s nothing he could have done differently? Really, nothing at all? I’m of the opinion that he could have done everything differently.
- sdfghswe 4y ago> I don’t understand the “you get what you deserve” mentality, when there is nothing he could have done differently to help expose government censorship. Taibbi did a half-baked job at his reporting. He took one side of the story and regurgitated it, making him a useful idiot. People speculate that he did this for access. Of course, the other side (Twitter's new owners) did it because they're using him for their own narrative, and when they can't use him they screw him over just like they screwed everyone else before. So, leopards ate his face. "I didn't know leopards would eat my face, says woman who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party"
- TobyTheDog123 4y agoYeah, I'm willing to admit I was wrong to be an Elon defender. I think I was under the false impression (that another commenter mentioned) that success was tied to competency. Between the API changes, the Blue-to-appear-in-For-You, and this Matt Taibbi stuff, I don't see how people will be able to excuse his blunders much longer.
- gilleain 4y agoHonestly I find the question of Elon's competence fascinating. One point of view is that he's just a con-artist, a marketer of his own genius, and other people do the actual work. Another view is that he is really a genius, who has built a number of successful companies and is one of the wealthiest people in the world. I feel that it's likely that both are partially true - he did play some important role in building up these companies, but greatly over-estimates his own abilities and understanding. Without a mind-reader, however, we might never truly know.
- EricDeb 4y agoI think he's definitely a marketing genius and unfortunately that's a huge part of business success.
- chitowneats 4y ago[dead]
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y agoI interned at Tesla twice on the capital expenditure team. First time was during the "March to 2500", where we were going from proto production on the model 3, to full ramp up on the first line. We worked 12 hour days, but we missed that target, for a number of reasons. Mainly the GA line was this complex layer of conveyor belts with mezzanines and lifts. We couldn't get all the parts to a compact GA 3 line like envisioned. Elon came in guns blazing. He told everyone to rip out the conveyors, lifts and equipment and build a new, completely manual GA line 'GA 3.5' in the back lot in a tent and we have two weeks to do it. IT WAS ALL HANDS ON DECK. Senior level, to interns. I was working a saw to cut through conveyors and drag them outside next to the VP of Engineering, solar. Elon was patrolling around, helping where ever needed.... for a month. He slept on a little cot in a the 'mars' room. Everything seemed crazy at first, and incredibly destructive... Although alot of Tesla employees are bonafide Elon fan boys, but I though the whole thing was absolutely bonkers. When Elon was walking around and saw a group standing around, he asked why they weren't cutting. They reply'd that they didn't have the torque tools to remove the motor and were waiting on someone to bring them. Elon proceeded to gather everyone around, put on glasses and cut directly through the $30k motor. He then gave alittle speech about how it is costing to company $4m a day to not be at run rate. The speed and efectiveness of our ability to build 3.5 was of the utmost importance. It fired everyone up and we worked our asses off to get foundation, sprung structure, and GA 3.5 up in the time period. We pushed all our suppliers very hard and we picked ones that could deliver on our timelines. I've never had a conversation with Elon, but i have been in plenty of rooms where he has spoken to employees. I would say what makes him great is his technical prowess, his ability to focus on what matters, and inspire confidence in those who work for him. I can't support his actions with twitter, but he's always been a loose cannon.
- ccvannorman 4y ago"Free speech absolutist", indeed.
- TobyTheDog123 4y agoAdditionally & related, searching for "Substack" will exclusively return results for "newsletter" https://twitter.com/search?q=%22substack%22&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=%22substack%22&src=typed_query
- ThorsBane 4y agoElon Musk needs to give a very good explanation for this, and it had better involve an actual bug or serious platform engineering issue leading to a massive renewed hiring push to build Twitter 2.0 instead of this bullshit. There are so many innovative ideas that aren’t being moved on because the existing leadership there is sitting on its hands for some reason. Twitter 2.0 would be a really cool product.
- selfportrait 4y agoIt’s incredible there are still people like you who refuse to accept reality. Bug? Engineering issue? Have you considered that your leader is just a fraud and a hypocrite?
- ThorsBane 4y agoDon't assume so much about someone off of so little available information.
- speedylight 4y agoConsidering the timing it wouldn’t be very plausible explanation.
- ThorsBane 4y agoCould be. Lots of disgruntled employees, way fewer engineers, etc. What would Occam's Razor suggest? That the CEO of the company told them, in broad daylight, to make this conspiratorial change at this time? Or that it's an error?
- rurp 4y ago> That the CEO of the company told them, in broad daylight, to make this conspiratorial change at this time? Yes? I mean, he has acted out of spite and whimsy on countless other issues since buying Twitter. Occam's Razor suggests that he keeps showing us who he is and we should understand that, not construct theories about some miraculously timed bug.
- throwaway5959 4y ago[flagged]
- rubyn00bie 4y agoFor anyone who is wondering Elon's real genius is not engineering, or technology, it is getting financing and funding. Raising money is incredibly fucking difficult, and Elon is empirically fucking GREAT at it. I just wish everyone would stop assuming that makes him great at everything. I personally chalk up the worship of the rich to the fact most people have never met someone who is filty fucking rich... you would likely be depressed how fucking dumb most of them are.
- appleiigs 4y agoReally? Google, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, NASA, all the auto, power, and telecom companies have money. None of them were able to build better space craft, satellite internet, electric cars, charging stations than Elon was able to do. Your really think it's just money?
- scarface74 4y agoHave any of them tried?
- procinct 4y agoBlue Origin? Virgin Galactic?
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y agoCareful... you can't praise his engineering prowess otherwise you're an "Elon Defender".
- aaomidi 4y agoDo we think that the CEO is behind the work of the thousands of engineers that made stuff possible? Luck of who got what jobs, and how much authority they had plays a huuuuge role.
- rubyn00bie 4y agoThe people solving hard problems when it comes to building spaceships or electric cars have had limited options when it comes to getting a paycheck to solve them. Elons ability to raise capital and fund ventures in these spaces is going to attract brilliant people. If anything everything you listed further illustrates my point, Elon exceeds in capital intensive industries. When the barrier to entry is low, he’s not so good looks at Twitter. I think genius in one place is good enough to be considered exceptional and achieve exceptional things. I don’t see why he must also be a genius in everything else… why must it be more than the money?
- dagorenouf 4y agoElon musk’s behavior seems crazy only when you believe his goal is to win by building the best product for its users. But I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to do right now. Instead, he understands that the main asset of twitter is owning peoples network and relationships. If we had a simple way to migrate all our relationships elsewhere all at once, everyone would have jumped ship already. So the biggest threat to him is other social platforms that try to replicate / copy the social graph of twitter. That’s what substack is doing behind the scenes for years with their newsletter product, and now they announced a direct competitor to twitter. This is an existential threat to twitter, so musk sets out to destroy them. Not because it’s best for its users, but because it will make sure they never get a good enough alternative to leave. And in the end, people will stay on twitter because the core value isn’t the ux or who the CEO is. The value is that they invested years into relationships and network effects, and don’t want to lose them. I don’t think musk is crazy, although he is brutal, sociopathic and ruthless. I think he’s simply making power moves to keep his advantage. Similar to how Jobs set out to destroy Adobe by removing Flash from iPhones. How Apple set to hurt Facebook by removing ad tracking. Or how Amazon shamelessly copies successful marketplace sellers to get more profits. Ruthless power moves, not ideal for users, but not craziness.
- aaomidi 4y agoIt’s a failure of our political and economic system for not penalizing this behavior. A lot of this can fit under existing anti-competitive laws.
- bmarquez 4y ago> So the biggest threat to him is other social platforms that try to replicate / copy the social graph of twitter. > And in the end, people will stay on twitter because the core value isn’t the ux or who the CEO is. The value is that they invested years into relationships and network effects, and don’t want to lose them. Absolutely true, which is why people are also stuck using Facebook and Instagram. Can't export those social graphs to other apps, as much as I and others would like to divest from Meta products completely. Twitter is taking a page from their competitors, for worse.
- sonofhans 4y ago
- cryptodan 4y agoThis is false he is searchable. I just searched for him, and found him.
- MallocVoidstar 4y agoYou can search for his account and find him, but the search "from:mtaibbi", which should show you all his tweets, gives 0 results. That's the claim being made and it's true.
- Chinjut 4y agoThe claim is that no posts by Matt Taibi show up on Twitter search. And that is true. No posts made by Matt Taibbi can be found via Twitter search. Yes, his profile comes up and you can click through to it. But his posts themselves are not indexed by search in the usual way. If you want to find a post Taibbi made months ago, for example, good luck doing so.