4 ms·

Yeah, but without step 3.

kstrauser 3y ago
I don't get it. I just don't. People use to claim that Musk bought Twitter just to burn it down, but even he doesn't have $43B to light on fire. (An open aside to readers: please don't reply about tax write-offs unless you actually understand how they work.) Does he genuinely, sincerely think things like this will work out well in the long run?
- henry2023 3y ago
  Musk bought Twitter not to burn it down. He was forced to buy it and doesn’t know what to do with it.
  - cma 3y ago
    He commited to buying it then tried to back out with a bunch of false excuses (later admitted in BBC interview). The market had a big drop + the reality of the Apple advertising attribution changes kept hitting. Meta was able to recover from Apple's ad changes decently, turning Twitter into 8chan didn't help their recovery.
- labster 3y ago
  I actually don’t doubt Musk’s sincerity. He’s always been an opinionated user of the platform. I still think he’s under the impression he bought a technology company, not a media company, and has stopped listening to contrary opinions.
  - clipsy 3y ago
    If he thought he was buying a technology company, why did he spend so much time insisting the tech stack was garbage and the engineering staff incompetent? Aside from those, what other reason is there to buy a tech company?
    - labster 3y ago
      He never intended to buy the company, it was just a poorly executed excuse for a TSLA stock sale that got out of hand. There was never a reason to buy Twitter. But once he had it, he’s been concentrating on the technical stack as if that was the biggest problem. Musk spent so much time there because he’s bad at this and focuses on the wrong things, because those are the things he’s good at. I think he is a really good engineering CEO but Twitter’s problems are 90% social.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  I feel like people tie themselves in knots to avoid the obvious conclusion; that he’s in _way_ over his head, and the whole thing is driven by a dangerous combo of incompetence and overconfidence. I’m not totally sure why this is, and it seems to mostly be just a Musk thing; when Yahoo periodically wakes from its slumber to make the Yahoo Finance UI inexplicably worse or whatever, say, no-one attributes that to any evil plot; it’s just Yahoo continuing to be rather bad at running Yahoo. I suppose that some people still think of him as a magical supergenius, but even ignoring the Twitter product fuckups, that’s just really hard to sustain these days.

I don't get it. I just don't. People use to claim that Musk bought Twitter just to burn it down, but even he doesn't have $43B to light on fire. (An open aside to readers: please don't reply about tax write-offs unless you actually understand how they work.) Does he genuinely, sincerely think things like this will work out well in the long run?

henry2023 3y ago
Musk bought Twitter not to burn it down. He was forced to buy it and doesn’t know what to do with it.
- cma 3y ago
  He commited to buying it then tried to back out with a bunch of false excuses (later admitted in BBC interview). The market had a big drop + the reality of the Apple advertising attribution changes kept hitting. Meta was able to recover from Apple's ad changes decently, turning Twitter into 8chan didn't help their recovery.
labster 3y ago
I actually don’t doubt Musk’s sincerity. He’s always been an opinionated user of the platform. I still think he’s under the impression he bought a technology company, not a media company, and has stopped listening to contrary opinions.
- clipsy 3y ago
  If he thought he was buying a technology company, why did he spend so much time insisting the tech stack was garbage and the engineering staff incompetent? Aside from those, what other reason is there to buy a tech company?
  - labster 3y ago
    He never intended to buy the company, it was just a poorly executed excuse for a TSLA stock sale that got out of hand. There was never a reason to buy Twitter. But once he had it, he’s been concentrating on the technical stack as if that was the biggest problem. Musk spent so much time there because he’s bad at this and focuses on the wrong things, because those are the things he’s good at. I think he is a really good engineering CEO but Twitter’s problems are 90% social.
rsynnott 3y ago
I feel like people tie themselves in knots to avoid the obvious conclusion; that he’s in _way_ over his head, and the whole thing is driven by a dangerous combo of incompetence and overconfidence. I’m not totally sure why this is, and it seems to mostly be just a Musk thing; when Yahoo periodically wakes from its slumber to make the Yahoo Finance UI inexplicably worse or whatever, say, no-one attributes that to any evil plot; it’s just Yahoo continuing to be rather bad at running Yahoo. I suppose that some people still think of him as a magical supergenius, but even ignoring the Twitter product fuckups, that’s just really hard to sustain these days.