6 ms·

Twitter New CEO

43 points by eecc 3y ago

jacooper 3y ago
Wait, Elon as CTO? I though that this couldn't get worse but somehow it does.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  He was already de facto CTO, given his experience with requiring employees to print out code and firing them from it.
- d23 3y ago
  And head of product. You know, because of his razor sharp social media product sense.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Elon is focusing more narrowly on the things he is least qualified at, so as to maximize his ability to destroy the firm.
  - sonotathrowaway 3y ago
    What’s the point of buying a company and running it into the ground if you can’t cosplay as an engineer
minimaxir 3y ago
The fact that Elon didn't also announce who the CEO will be is very telling. Given his sense of humor I bet he hired an AI to be CEO.
- kwertyoowiyop 3y ago
  Meet . . . ‘Elona’!
- mindcrime 3y ago
  I saw one article that quoted him as saying 'she' will be starting... my first thought was that it will be Grimes. Doing something like that seems totally in-keeping with Musk's style.
  - lastofthemojito 3y ago
    My first thought was Shivon Zilis. Elon seems to like to keep his inner circle tight.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    > I saw one article that quoted him as saying 'she' will be starting... The tweet reads: > Excited to announce that I’ve a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
- eecc 3y ago
  Wasn’t there a child protection activist, somewhat related to the Trump-sphere, that used to court him during the first months of his tenure? I hope he hasn’t taken that bait…
- BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
  I think one of the Twitter execs is the CEO. This entire exercise is to allow him to distance himself from the dumpster he set on fire. It's not him kidding. Also his "humor", stolen memes aside, 9/10 times only used to mask unexpected turn of events behind the scenes (such as being sued about something he said, or something turning out really, really wrong).
  - retox 3y ago
    Stolen memes? What an odd concept.
    - BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
      Normal people would retweet someone's content or quote it, unless they want to change it in some way that requires posting it as their own. Or moving it to a media where it can't be directly shared with attribution. That's what normal people do. This is, in fact, why when Musk posts a meme, that tweet gets thousand of retweets. Ever thought about how if "stolen meme" was an odd concept, then the retweet count would be 0?
      - anonymousab 3y ago
        It's an odd concept by just the traditional definition of the term; being copied and redistributed (regardless of attribution) en mass is just the way that memes propagate to begin with. Zooming in on both the twitter use case, and how most users of those platforms see meme ~= funny image or OC, a stolen meme is more akin to stealing a joke. So "stolen memes" is a phrase that makes zero sense for the broader definition of the word meme, but makes complete sense for the more specific definition.
- flykespice 3y ago
  His sense of humour is so cringe, he is trying so hard to be in touch with Gen Z humour.
rvz 3y ago
So looking back over the past 6 months of Twitter under Elon Musk, it is safe to say that after all the outrage and senseless screeching over the layoffs, Twitter has still survived with its ~220M+ daily active users (DAU) and there was little to no 'migration' or even a sign of Twitter completely collapsing as that was incorrectly predicted. [0] [1] How the media has fooled almost everyone here and has taken advantage of basic human psychology to sensationalize headlines and distractions to create hysteria to gather clickbait and eyeballs of its readers since they still rely heavily on getting their online news from Twitter. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-ho... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371
- eecc 3y ago
  I did notice an increase in UI glitches. I guess the codebase is just as flaky as it has ever been, but they used to canary their changes so gradually that 99% problems were caught at that stage
- clipsy 3y ago
  > Twitter has still survived with its ~220M+ daily active users (DAU) The same figure Elon claimed was mostly bots?
- sschueller 3y ago
  The Twitter android app sometimes manages to freeze my entire phone. It never did this pre Elon and no other app even ones that crash manage to freeze the entire phone.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
  What the media said is irrelevant. Those who have experience with such projects predicted very accurately what will happen. 1) The basic service will mostly stay up one way or another. Because otherwise all is lost. 2) Many auxiliary services will start degrading or going away. For example, yesterday search autocomplete was disabled after it started autocompleting everything in obscene ways. 3) We'll experience more frequent outages and glitches (and we do). 4) His velocity will grind to a halt. Meaning, he can't ship new features at depth, only superficial crap, and things that were started long before he bought the company. He's also deeply in red right now, after losing over half his ad revenue and the 600k or so blue checkmark subscribers are netting him about 1% of what he lost in ads.
d23 3y ago
Going to predict he’s completely unable to not meddle in the decisions of the CEO, and either the CEO is as erratic as he is and is fine with it or she is not and is no longer in the role within a short amount of time.
weinzierl 3y ago
Why did he write "X/Twitter"?
- denysvitali 3y ago
  Because X is now the legal entity behind Twitter, and Twitter is the product now, AFAIK
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    The copyright notice on Twitter now points to X too.
lapcat 3y ago
> My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops. What else is there? Sounds like the new CEO may be a figurehead just to satisfy his previous "promise" to step down.
- Dudelander 3y ago
  Human resources, finance, sales, marketing, legal, customer service...
  - lapcat 3y ago
    Twitter is a tech company. Would you feel like the CEO of a tech company if you weren't overseeing the tech and software? Will Musk answer or defer to the CEO with regard to product decisions? I suspect not... I think the idea that people had, especially Tesla stockholders, is that Musk would kind of step back from Twitter and re-focus on Tesla.
    - Dudelander 3y ago
      I don't know, I'm not really sure how many subscriptions they've sold. If you listen to his detractors, it's barely anything. If you listen to him directly, it saved Twitter. If the numbers are disappointing but significant, it might make sense to mothball tech and product. Basically treat it as a dying MMO. Long term this is not a winning strategy, but it might be the best way to minimize losses.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > I think the idea that people had, especially Tesla stockholders, is that Musk would kind of step back from Twitter and re-focus on Tesla. You mean just because he said that, explicitly, under oath, in the Tesla shareholder lawsuit that overlapped with the Twitter purchase?
techcurmudgeon 3y ago
[dead]
lolc 3y ago
So the CTO reports to the CEO who reports to the chairman. Who is the CTO. That circle just about guarantees that the fireworks will continue.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > So the CTO reports to the CEO who reports to the chairman. Who is the CTO. Also, the chairman reports to the board who report to the single shareholder (the corporate parent of X Corp which is X Holdings Corp) which reports ultimately to X Holding Corps shareholders which are…the same person as the CTO and Chairman of X Corp.

Twitter New CEO

43 points by eecc 3y ago

jacooper 3y ago

Wait, Elon as CTO? I though that this couldn't get worse but somehow it does.

minimaxir 3y ago
He was already de facto CTO, given his experience with requiring employees to print out code and firing them from it.
d23 3y ago
And head of product. You know, because of his razor sharp social media product sense.
dragonwriter 3y ago
Elon is focusing more narrowly on the things he is least qualified at, so as to maximize his ability to destroy the firm.
- sonotathrowaway 3y ago
  What’s the point of buying a company and running it into the ground if you can’t cosplay as an engineer

minimaxir 3y ago

The fact that Elon didn't also announce who the CEO will be is very telling. Given his sense of humor I bet he hired an AI to be CEO.

kwertyoowiyop 3y ago
Meet . . . ‘Elona’!
mindcrime 3y ago
I saw one article that quoted him as saying 'she' will be starting... my first thought was that it will be Grimes. Doing something like that seems totally in-keeping with Musk's style.
- lastofthemojito 3y ago
  My first thought was Shivon Zilis. Elon seems to like to keep his inner circle tight.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  > I saw one article that quoted him as saying 'she' will be starting... The tweet reads: > Excited to announce that I’ve a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
eecc 3y ago
Wasn’t there a child protection activist, somewhat related to the Trump-sphere, that used to court him during the first months of his tenure? I hope he hasn’t taken that bait…
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
I think one of the Twitter execs is the CEO. This entire exercise is to allow him to distance himself from the dumpster he set on fire. It's not him kidding. Also his "humor", stolen memes aside, 9/10 times only used to mask unexpected turn of events behind the scenes (such as being sued about something he said, or something turning out really, really wrong).
- retox 3y ago
  Stolen memes? What an odd concept.
  - BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
    Normal people would retweet someone's content or quote it, unless they want to change it in some way that requires posting it as their own. Or moving it to a media where it can't be directly shared with attribution. That's what normal people do. This is, in fact, why when Musk posts a meme, that tweet gets thousand of retweets. Ever thought about how if "stolen meme" was an odd concept, then the retweet count would be 0?
    - anonymousab 3y ago
      It's an odd concept by just the traditional definition of the term; being copied and redistributed (regardless of attribution) en mass is just the way that memes propagate to begin with. Zooming in on both the twitter use case, and how most users of those platforms see meme ~= funny image or OC, a stolen meme is more akin to stealing a joke. So "stolen memes" is a phrase that makes zero sense for the broader definition of the word meme, but makes complete sense for the more specific definition.
flykespice 3y ago
His sense of humour is so cringe, he is trying so hard to be in touch with Gen Z humour.

rvz 3y ago

So looking back over the past 6 months of Twitter under Elon Musk, it is safe to say that after all the outrage and senseless screeching over the layoffs, Twitter has still survived with its ~220M+ daily active users (DAU) and there was little to no 'migration' or even a sign of Twitter completely collapsing as that was incorrectly predicted. [0] [1] How the media has fooled almost everyone here and has taken advantage of basic human psychology to sensationalize headlines and distractions to create hysteria to gather clickbait and eyeballs of its readers since they still rely heavily on getting their online news from Twitter. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-ho... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371

eecc 3y ago
I did notice an increase in UI glitches. I guess the codebase is just as flaky as it has ever been, but they used to canary their changes so gradually that 99% problems were caught at that stage
clipsy 3y ago
> Twitter has still survived with its ~220M+ daily active users (DAU) The same figure Elon claimed was mostly bots?
sschueller 3y ago
The Twitter android app sometimes manages to freeze my entire phone. It never did this pre Elon and no other app even ones that crash manage to freeze the entire phone.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
What the media said is irrelevant. Those who have experience with such projects predicted very accurately what will happen. 1) The basic service will mostly stay up one way or another. Because otherwise all is lost. 2) Many auxiliary services will start degrading or going away. For example, yesterday search autocomplete was disabled after it started autocompleting everything in obscene ways. 3) We'll experience more frequent outages and glitches (and we do). 4) His velocity will grind to a halt. Meaning, he can't ship new features at depth, only superficial crap, and things that were started long before he bought the company. He's also deeply in red right now, after losing over half his ad revenue and the 600k or so blue checkmark subscribers are netting him about 1% of what he lost in ads.

d23 3y ago

Going to predict he’s completely unable to not meddle in the decisions of the CEO, and either the CEO is as erratic as he is and is fine with it or she is not and is no longer in the role within a short amount of time.

weinzierl 3y ago

Why did he write "X/Twitter"?

denysvitali 3y ago
Because X is now the legal entity behind Twitter, and Twitter is the product now, AFAIK
- minimaxir 3y ago
  The copyright notice on Twitter now points to X too.

lapcat 3y ago

> My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops. What else is there? Sounds like the new CEO may be a figurehead just to satisfy his previous "promise" to step down.

Dudelander 3y ago
Human resources, finance, sales, marketing, legal, customer service...
- lapcat 3y ago
  Twitter is a tech company. Would you feel like the CEO of a tech company if you weren't overseeing the tech and software? Will Musk answer or defer to the CEO with regard to product decisions? I suspect not... I think the idea that people had, especially Tesla stockholders, is that Musk would kind of step back from Twitter and re-focus on Tesla.
  - Dudelander 3y ago
    I don't know, I'm not really sure how many subscriptions they've sold. If you listen to his detractors, it's barely anything. If you listen to him directly, it saved Twitter. If the numbers are disappointing but significant, it might make sense to mothball tech and product. Basically treat it as a dying MMO. Long term this is not a winning strategy, but it might be the best way to minimize losses.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > I think the idea that people had, especially Tesla stockholders, is that Musk would kind of step back from Twitter and re-focus on Tesla. You mean just because he said that, explicitly, under oath, in the Tesla shareholder lawsuit that overlapped with the Twitter purchase?

techcurmudgeon 3y ago

[dead]

lolc 3y ago

So the CTO reports to the CEO who reports to the chairman. Who is the CTO. That circle just about guarantees that the fireworks will continue.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> So the CTO reports to the CEO who reports to the chairman. Who is the CTO. Also, the chairman reports to the board who report to the single shareholder (the corporate parent of X Corp which is X Holdings Corp) which reports ultimately to X Holding Corps shareholders which are…the same person as the CTO and Chairman of X Corp.