5 ms·

I initially thought buying twitter was about converting massively overvalued TSLA stock into only somewhat overvalued TWTR stock. I now think I was wrong.

dotcoma 3y ago
That was my thinking, too. What do you think now ?
- rob74 3y ago
  My (very personal and unsubstantiated) opinion is that his thinking was something along the lines of "You say I can't buy Twitter for 44 billion $ and then drive it into the ground?! Ha! Watch this!"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- simbolit 3y ago
  He is even stupider and has even less impulse control than I thought.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    If he was stupid, he wouldn't have so much success with both Tesla and SpaceX. Compare Jeff Bezos, who was highly successful with Amazon but not with Blue Origin. Which suggests that his success with Amazon was significantly due to luck. There are very few people who manage to create two world class companies.
    - gloryjulio 3y ago
      He can be good in certain sectors and stupid in others. If his goal is to make money with Twitter he definitely failed at it
    - jona-f 3y ago
      I think you're confusing wealth, luck and general privilege with intelligence. Sure, intelligence depends a lot on your viewpoint and some people, especially in economics, take general success as an important factor. Not me though, anyone taking this hyperloop nonsense seriously can't be very intelligent from my point of view. Maybe you could call Musk charismatic, but then he's rather atypically charismatic, cause his rethoric isn't exactly smooth. He stutters, mumbles and keeps repeating the same weird points like "interplanetary species". As if we need another hostile planet while we turn our own planet to desert. Don't get me wrong, i think exploration is great fun, but the way he's claiming it a necessity is just delusional.
    - dools 3y ago
      There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful. Elon was in the right place at the right time with his first big exit, which compounds to create additional opportunity, but you're right: that's no guarantee of continued success. However, someone at some point is going to be in the right place at the right time successively 3 or maybe even 4 times. That person will become exceedingly rich and everyone will think, as you have, that it must be due to their skill. However, eventually their luck runs out and they're exposed as being just as frail as the rest of us. Elon is no smarter than Jeff.
      - cubefox 3y ago
        > There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful. Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" that someone who was highly successful once will be highly successful again. Because the number of people with one highly successful company is very small, unlike the number of people with zero highly successful companies. (If you throw a die ten times and get a six ten times, that is massive luck, which means that you almost certainly won't manage to do it again.) So when people have one successful company, that may well be partly due to sheer luck, but if so, on their second attempt they almost certainly won't be so lucky. That's exactly what Jeff Bezos shows with Blue Origin. He started earlier than Musk did with SpaceX, had more money, and still is far less successful.
        dools 3y ago
        > Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" It totally is bound to happen to someone. They get the right people involved and find the right contracts and make the right decision, it’s mostly timing.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - lawn 3y ago
      Musk isn't running SpaceX. You can also be lucky several times.
      - cubefox 3y ago
        > Musk isn't running SpaceX. He is, and the success of SpaceX compared to Blue Origin is explained by the difference between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. > You can also be lucky several times. Yes, but that's very improbable.
        lawn 3y ago
        Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable. That one specific person will be very lucky multiple times is indeed improbable, but that someone will be lucky will over time be expected.
        cubefox 3y ago
        > Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable. For all we know she is "running" SpaceX in the sense that she handles most smaller day-to-day decisions, but there is no evidence that she makes the large and important decisions about Starship and Starlink. All the evidence points to Musk making those decisions. It is even doubtful if she is more capable by herself than Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, since she hasn't started a large successful company, unlike Bezos. The situation is probably similar for Linda Yaccarino, the new Twitter CEO. For the big decisions, Musk remains in charge.
  - prox 3y ago
    I wonder if it’s something that happened as years rolled on. He didn’t seem to be very contrarian or even social say over a decade ago. Elon is self described with Aspergers Syndrome. This is from an interview : “Other features of Asperger's syndrome include difficulty interacting with peers, inappropriate social or emotional behavior, and engaging in repetitive routines. Both children and adults with Asperger's syndrome are at an increased risk for depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mood and anxiety disorders, and other mental health disorders.”
    - foobarbecue 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36847066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36847066
gloryjulio 3y ago
Another stupid play is to merge verification with membership. I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification. Maybe he is really being paid by the Saudis to intentionally ruin Twitter to reduce the freedom of speech
- explain 3y ago
  > to reduce the freedom of speech This is giving me "homophobes are actually raging homosexuals" energy.
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    It was a tongue in cheek comment because he didn't choose the obvious profitable and sensible route where lots of the ppl thought the same. Not sure what kind of rationale could arrive at ur conclusion
- nkozyra 3y ago
  > I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification. Because the sell the whole time was to let people roleplay as famous people. And that would have worked a bit more if the actual celebrities didn't immediately respond with "ew, no" The features are ... pretty crummy. Longform tweets nobody wants to read, up to what ... 40 hour videos that nobody will watch. A basic functionality like edit? And now the funniest one: getting paid to tweet, which the biggest accounts on Twitter got joke RPM to entice people to sign up for blue. I feel really bad for anyone who thinks they're going to make their $8 back. He can't get any of this right and he seriously is already talking about becoming a bank or payment system? Good luck.
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  - 3y ago

dotcoma 3y ago

That was my thinking, too. What do you think now ?

rob74 3y ago
My (very personal and unsubstantiated) opinion is that his thinking was something along the lines of "You say I can't buy Twitter for 44 billion $ and then drive it into the ground?! Ha! Watch this!"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
simbolit 3y ago
He is even stupider and has even less impulse control than I thought.
- cubefox 3y ago
  If he was stupid, he wouldn't have so much success with both Tesla and SpaceX. Compare Jeff Bezos, who was highly successful with Amazon but not with Blue Origin. Which suggests that his success with Amazon was significantly due to luck. There are very few people who manage to create two world class companies.
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    He can be good in certain sectors and stupid in others. If his goal is to make money with Twitter he definitely failed at it
  - jona-f 3y ago
    I think you're confusing wealth, luck and general privilege with intelligence. Sure, intelligence depends a lot on your viewpoint and some people, especially in economics, take general success as an important factor. Not me though, anyone taking this hyperloop nonsense seriously can't be very intelligent from my point of view. Maybe you could call Musk charismatic, but then he's rather atypically charismatic, cause his rethoric isn't exactly smooth. He stutters, mumbles and keeps repeating the same weird points like "interplanetary species". As if we need another hostile planet while we turn our own planet to desert. Don't get me wrong, i think exploration is great fun, but the way he's claiming it a necessity is just delusional.
  - dools 3y ago
    There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful. Elon was in the right place at the right time with his first big exit, which compounds to create additional opportunity, but you're right: that's no guarantee of continued success. However, someone at some point is going to be in the right place at the right time successively 3 or maybe even 4 times. That person will become exceedingly rich and everyone will think, as you have, that it must be due to their skill. However, eventually their luck runs out and they're exposed as being just as frail as the rest of us. Elon is no smarter than Jeff.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      > There are like 8b people in the world. With that many people trying so many things, someone is bound to be successful. Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" that someone who was highly successful once will be highly successful again. Because the number of people with one highly successful company is very small, unlike the number of people with zero highly successful companies. (If you throw a die ten times and get a six ten times, that is massive luck, which means that you almost certainly won't manage to do it again.) So when people have one successful company, that may well be partly due to sheer luck, but if so, on their second attempt they almost certainly won't be so lucky. That's exactly what Jeff Bezos shows with Blue Origin. He started earlier than Musk did with SpaceX, had more money, and still is far less successful.
      - dools 3y ago
        > Yes -- once, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. But for creating a highly successful company twice, luck can't be a similarly major explanation, since it isn't "bound to happen" It totally is bound to happen to someone. They get the right people involved and find the right contracts and make the right decision, it’s mostly timing.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - lawn 3y ago
    Musk isn't running SpaceX. You can also be lucky several times.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      > Musk isn't running SpaceX. He is, and the success of SpaceX compared to Blue Origin is explained by the difference between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. > You can also be lucky several times. Yes, but that's very improbable.
      - lawn 3y ago
        Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable. That one specific person will be very lucky multiple times is indeed improbable, but that someone will be lucky will over time be expected.
        cubefox 3y ago
        > Gwynne Shotwell is he one running SpaceX and she's by all accounts very capable. For all we know she is "running" SpaceX in the sense that she handles most smaller day-to-day decisions, but there is no evidence that she makes the large and important decisions about Starship and Starlink. All the evidence points to Musk making those decisions. It is even doubtful if she is more capable by herself than Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, since she hasn't started a large successful company, unlike Bezos. The situation is probably similar for Linda Yaccarino, the new Twitter CEO. For the big decisions, Musk remains in charge.
- prox 3y ago
  I wonder if it’s something that happened as years rolled on. He didn’t seem to be very contrarian or even social say over a decade ago. Elon is self described with Aspergers Syndrome. This is from an interview : “Other features of Asperger's syndrome include difficulty interacting with peers, inappropriate social or emotional behavior, and engaging in repetitive routines. Both children and adults with Asperger's syndrome are at an increased risk for depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mood and anxiety disorders, and other mental health disorders.”
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36847066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36847066

gloryjulio 3y ago

Another stupid play is to merge verification with membership. I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification. Maybe he is really being paid by the Saudis to intentionally ruin Twitter to reduce the freedom of speech

explain 3y ago
> to reduce the freedom of speech This is giving me "homophobes are actually raging homosexuals" energy.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  It was a tongue in cheek comment because he didn't choose the obvious profitable and sensible route where lots of the ppl thought the same. Not sure what kind of rationale could arrive at ur conclusion
nkozyra 3y ago
> I thought he would add a new membership tier along blue check mark to have some extra income. Instead he actually chose the bizarre route and sabotaged the verification. Because the sell the whole time was to let people roleplay as famous people. And that would have worked a bit more if the actual celebrities didn't immediately respond with "ew, no" The features are ... pretty crummy. Longform tweets nobody wants to read, up to what ... 40 hour videos that nobody will watch. A basic functionality like edit? And now the funniest one: getting paid to tweet, which the biggest accounts on Twitter got joke RPM to entice people to sign up for blue. I feel really bad for anyone who thinks they're going to make their $8 back. He can't get any of this right and he seriously is already talking about becoming a bank or payment system? Good luck.
flagrant_taco 3y ago
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- 3y ago