4 ms·

If you knew VW, it has way more people on payroll doing nothing for huge salaries than Imma-fire-80%-of-people Elon. Love him or hate him, he gets shit done.

ben_w 2y ago
He does get shit done. Sometimes it's good shit, other times it's just shit. That cost-cutting approach worked with turning Tesla from the butt of (quite reasonable at the time) jokes about "Death Watch" because they kept needing more and more investment money, into the success they are today. It utterly failed with Twitter, which has lost most of its revenue and is constantly running into legal issues.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think. It lost revenue since advertisers don't like the platform's freedom of speech, and Elon won't give them control of what's allowed on the platform. Advertisers want control, they don't want free speech. Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter? Advertisers pay not just to how their stuff but to also be able to control the narrative. If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there? Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue.
  - adamredwoods 2y ago
    Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you? But it has nothing to do with "free speech". Try "good speech". Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech". Advertisers have the freedom to do what they want. Elon, on the other hand, has absolute control of the words on his platform.
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      >Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you? If they would have control, people would stop going to Twitter and it would die. Similar fate to the TV mainstream media where they only parrot the opinions of their money overlords, and people are tired of that. That's why they go on to Twitter instead, to look for comments conforming to their own world views rather than what some trillion dollar corporations and out of touch celebrities tell them. Same thing that makes Joe Rogan popular. >Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech". What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with? Elon didn't reduce or increase anything. He just disable the "nanny" moderations, so now on Twitter you're seeing exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech"), instead of what advertisers and the mainstream media would like them to think (probably what you consider "good speech"). That's why people come to Twitter, because it's one the few places left with relatively unmoderated free speech. It's what makes it valuable.
      - adamredwoods 2y ago
        >> exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech") That is a large, opinionated assumption you are making, but be aware we're not discussing "me" but rather advertisers. As for "me" I consider "bad speech" to be enabled by "unmoderated free speech", which Elon freely chose to allow on Twitter. So yes, he chose to increase it. "Free speech" is NOT synonymous with truth or facts. I will stay away from people and places that I consider to use "bad speech". Yes, it's subjective, and that's the point.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        > What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with? What happens if this pseudocode is run, targeting your account? while True: requests.post(api_url, json={"username": "@Cumpiler69", "message": "hello"}) Answer: you can't see any other content because you're jammed with someone else's absolute freedom to speak to you. Signal, noise. Signal keeps you engaged, noise doesn't. What counts as which depends on the person, but you can't function in an environment that allows anything. Thing is, the exact thing that makes social networks useful, that it's the edges not the nodes, means it is very easy to be jammed by actual humans and not just stupid scripts like the one above. Ironically, very simple things like I've just shown you, are also how propaganda works: jam people's perception by overloading them with The Message. And any attempt to be "absolutist" about free speech, if he really was (which he isn't really despite what he says), is just a power vacuum into which those that seek power can project their propaganda. There's no fancy good way out with this, for anyone, much as I'd like there to be. There's no "your side or my side" distinction here, nor would there be if the world were really so parochial as US politics.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think. In a functioning democracy, every platform influences elections. Twitter isn't special in this regard. > Advertisers want control They want things that don't actively damage their brands. That's not the same thing. > Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter? My guess is "seeing downvotes lead to less engagement". But as I've not seen the discussion, that's a guess. > If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there? They could do that before he bought it. > Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue. The actual revenue is not published, but is claimed to be at least $1 billion/year based on the preceeding quarter: """Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's vice president of product, told the Financial Times in late September 2024, that "paid messaging is a bit earlier in the journey, but it's also doing well, and we've passed a $1 billion run rate."""" - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091... That said, nobody's going around saying "gosh what a great investment decision by Zuckerberg, he nailed this one", if they're saying anything at all it's usually along the lines of "huh, is this a monopoly issue?"
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  By your own statement, people said the same things about Tesla in the past which they do about Twitter today. That alone should be pretty strong evidence that it's too soon to tell if his approach with Twitter has failed. Maybe it will fail, maybe not, but either way I think it's too soon to call.
  - pyth0 2y ago
    It's not comparable, and it is certainly not too early to make that judgement about Twitter. I can say that confidently as a longtime read-only user of the platform who has largely been driven off by the incessant bots, boosted bluecheck replies and rampant racism and other toxic content. You can also make this same judgement based on the fact that advertisers and users alike are fleeing the platform.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Not really comparable: People were negative about Tesla owing to a long history of making negligible sales before Musk took over as the third CEO. Twitter was occasionally profitable, and now it has so little income it can't cover the loan he saddled with it even if literally every other cost was entirely eliminated. Now, that doesn't mean that Musk can't change course on Twitter, nor does it mean that he can't just burn money with Twitter for as long as he wants to, but it's still a thing where if I were somehow a shareholder, I'd be trying to sell.
dsco 2y ago
It’s also a result of German unions. It’s practically impossible to fire people in the auto industry, so effectively what we do at VW is we have deadweight organisations where people end up if they are low performers and refuse to leave. The European auto industry is partly a charade to keep people employed.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >It’s also a result of German unions. I expect German politicians to defang the unions soon, similar to what they did with Agenda 2010 [1]. Yeah there will be some strikes and riots, but if the unions are causing an industry to be uncompetitive they're causing more harm than good. It's a shame because while unions are good on paper, over time they seem to default to protecting themselves at the expense of the industry. Similar to communist parties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > protecting themselves at the expense of the industry Don't management and shareholders and finance do that? German car companies are among the most successful in the world - Germany and Japan sit at the pinnacle of car manufacturing.
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      >German car companies are among the most successful in the world Nokia and Blackberry were also the most successful phone companies in the world till about 2007. Then they stopped. Similarly, there's no guarantee German companies can keep their positions for long with increased competition from US and Chinese companies.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        There's never any guarantees, of course, but on the basis of current events, there's no reason to expect a big shift on attitudes towards unions. Certainly the USA isn't going to be a relevant part of the discussion on this, as the only US brand I see enough to even notice here in Berlin is Tesla, and they have an actual factory just outside the city itself. China is a much more likely threat, as they are increasingly "the factory of the world", and their internal cars prices are wildly lower than even the cheapest (new) cars here[0], and their high-end stuff is also really impressive. (It may not surprise you to learn the EU has substantial tariffs on imported cars… but it was a big surprise to people in the UK who voted to leave the EU in the hope of boosting UK economic prospects). Increasing automation is also a bigger threat to unions than US imports, as that allows new firms that may never hire union workers in the first place. [0] https://electrek.co/2024/03/06/byd-launches-cheaper-seagull-ev-9700-price/ https://electrek.co/2024/03/06/byd-launches-cheaper-seagull-...
mmooss 2y ago
> Love him or hate him, he gets shit done. That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. The world besides Musk, before Musk, and after Musk (unless he destroys it) gets plenty of things done. 99% of Silicon Valley did it without him. They get things done for some, and destroy and kill others. If he's so good - or even basically capable as a manager and leader - then like the others he can really get things done, by meeting all the goals and requirements, which includes the rights and welfare of everyone else. And Twitter has worked out very poorly - possibly the most money-losing deal ever?
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  > 99% of Silicon Valley did it without him. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, the entire PayPal Mafia, all of SV's big players did the same things or worse than Musk to create their trillion dollar empires, except more low-key and with less public exposure. They were all ruthless strong men. You don't get to build empires by "being nice". Musk is the hate poster child of SV due to his excessive personality and massive social media exposure, but he's no worse than the other SV giants that don't leave the shadows and stay out of the limelight. >That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. I should have stopped responding to you right here. Comparing a controversial tech entrepreneur to Mussolini is the ultimate -200 IQ exaggeration since comparisons like these denigrates the actual suffering people under Mussolini and other dictators had to endure.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Who did Gates publicly call a pedophile? Who did Zuckerberg incite mass harassment against in order to terrorize them and drive them out of their workplace? Which of those people spread and incite hatred against Jewish people, immigrants, trans people, and endless more? Which of them openly backed a political candidate? Which openly and intentionally lied to their shareholders and the market? In fact none of them did any of that - all these people succeeded, on incredible levels, without doing any of those things Musk does. >> That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. > I should have stopped responding to you right here. Why? Just address it on its merits.

ben_w 2y ago

He does get shit done. Sometimes it's good shit, other times it's just shit. That cost-cutting approach worked with turning Tesla from the butt of (quite reasonable at the time) jokes about "Death Watch" because they kept needing more and more investment money, into the success they are today. It utterly failed with Twitter, which has lost most of its revenue and is constantly running into legal issues.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think. It lost revenue since advertisers don't like the platform's freedom of speech, and Elon won't give them control of what's allowed on the platform. Advertisers want control, they don't want free speech. Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter? Advertisers pay not just to how their stuff but to also be able to control the narrative. If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there? Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue.
- adamredwoods 2y ago
  Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you? But it has nothing to do with "free speech". Try "good speech". Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech". Advertisers have the freedom to do what they want. Elon, on the other hand, has absolute control of the words on his platform.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    >Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you? If they would have control, people would stop going to Twitter and it would die. Similar fate to the TV mainstream media where they only parrot the opinions of their money overlords, and people are tired of that. That's why they go on to Twitter instead, to look for comments conforming to their own world views rather than what some trillion dollar corporations and out of touch celebrities tell them. Same thing that makes Joe Rogan popular. >Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech". What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with? Elon didn't reduce or increase anything. He just disable the "nanny" moderations, so now on Twitter you're seeing exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech"), instead of what advertisers and the mainstream media would like them to think (probably what you consider "good speech"). That's why people come to Twitter, because it's one the few places left with relatively unmoderated free speech. It's what makes it valuable.
    - adamredwoods 2y ago
      >> exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech") That is a large, opinionated assumption you are making, but be aware we're not discussing "me" but rather advertisers. As for "me" I consider "bad speech" to be enabled by "unmoderated free speech", which Elon freely chose to allow on Twitter. So yes, he chose to increase it. "Free speech" is NOT synonymous with truth or facts. I will stay away from people and places that I consider to use "bad speech". Yes, it's subjective, and that's the point.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with? What happens if this pseudocode is run, targeting your account? while True: requests.post(api_url, json={"username": "@Cumpiler69", "message": "hello"}) Answer: you can't see any other content because you're jammed with someone else's absolute freedom to speak to you. Signal, noise. Signal keeps you engaged, noise doesn't. What counts as which depends on the person, but you can't function in an environment that allows anything. Thing is, the exact thing that makes social networks useful, that it's the edges not the nodes, means it is very easy to be jammed by actual humans and not just stupid scripts like the one above. Ironically, very simple things like I've just shown you, are also how propaganda works: jam people's perception by overloading them with The Message. And any attempt to be "absolutist" about free speech, if he really was (which he isn't really despite what he says), is just a power vacuum into which those that seek power can project their propaganda. There's no fancy good way out with this, for anyone, much as I'd like there to be. There's no "your side or my side" distinction here, nor would there be if the world were really so parochial as US politics.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think. In a functioning democracy, every platform influences elections. Twitter isn't special in this regard. > Advertisers want control They want things that don't actively damage their brands. That's not the same thing. > Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter? My guess is "seeing downvotes lead to less engagement". But as I've not seen the discussion, that's a guess. > If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there? They could do that before he bought it. > Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue. The actual revenue is not published, but is claimed to be at least $1 billion/year based on the preceeding quarter: """Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's vice president of product, told the Financial Times in late September 2024, that "paid messaging is a bit earlier in the journey, but it's also doing well, and we've passed a $1 billion run rate."""" - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091... That said, nobody's going around saying "gosh what a great investment decision by Zuckerberg, he nailed this one", if they're saying anything at all it's usually along the lines of "huh, is this a monopoly issue?"
bigstrat2003 2y ago
By your own statement, people said the same things about Tesla in the past which they do about Twitter today. That alone should be pretty strong evidence that it's too soon to tell if his approach with Twitter has failed. Maybe it will fail, maybe not, but either way I think it's too soon to call.
- pyth0 2y ago
  It's not comparable, and it is certainly not too early to make that judgement about Twitter. I can say that confidently as a longtime read-only user of the platform who has largely been driven off by the incessant bots, boosted bluecheck replies and rampant racism and other toxic content. You can also make this same judgement based on the fact that advertisers and users alike are fleeing the platform.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Not really comparable: People were negative about Tesla owing to a long history of making negligible sales before Musk took over as the third CEO. Twitter was occasionally profitable, and now it has so little income it can't cover the loan he saddled with it even if literally every other cost was entirely eliminated. Now, that doesn't mean that Musk can't change course on Twitter, nor does it mean that he can't just burn money with Twitter for as long as he wants to, but it's still a thing where if I were somehow a shareholder, I'd be trying to sell.

dsco 2y ago

It’s also a result of German unions. It’s practically impossible to fire people in the auto industry, so effectively what we do at VW is we have deadweight organisations where people end up if they are low performers and refuse to leave. The European auto industry is partly a charade to keep people employed.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>It’s also a result of German unions. I expect German politicians to defang the unions soon, similar to what they did with Agenda 2010 [1]. Yeah there will be some strikes and riots, but if the unions are causing an industry to be uncompetitive they're causing more harm than good. It's a shame because while unions are good on paper, over time they seem to default to protecting themselves at the expense of the industry. Similar to communist parties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010
- mmooss 2y ago
  > protecting themselves at the expense of the industry Don't management and shareholders and finance do that? German car companies are among the most successful in the world - Germany and Japan sit at the pinnacle of car manufacturing.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    >German car companies are among the most successful in the world Nokia and Blackberry were also the most successful phone companies in the world till about 2007. Then they stopped. Similarly, there's no guarantee German companies can keep their positions for long with increased competition from US and Chinese companies.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      There's never any guarantees, of course, but on the basis of current events, there's no reason to expect a big shift on attitudes towards unions. Certainly the USA isn't going to be a relevant part of the discussion on this, as the only US brand I see enough to even notice here in Berlin is Tesla, and they have an actual factory just outside the city itself. China is a much more likely threat, as they are increasingly "the factory of the world", and their internal cars prices are wildly lower than even the cheapest (new) cars here[0], and their high-end stuff is also really impressive. (It may not surprise you to learn the EU has substantial tariffs on imported cars… but it was a big surprise to people in the UK who voted to leave the EU in the hope of boosting UK economic prospects). Increasing automation is also a bigger threat to unions than US imports, as that allows new firms that may never hire union workers in the first place. [0] https://electrek.co/2024/03/06/byd-launches-cheaper-seagull-ev-9700-price/ https://electrek.co/2024/03/06/byd-launches-cheaper-seagull-...

mmooss 2y ago

> Love him or hate him, he gets shit done. That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. The world besides Musk, before Musk, and after Musk (unless he destroys it) gets plenty of things done. 99% of Silicon Valley did it without him. They get things done for some, and destroy and kill others. If he's so good - or even basically capable as a manager and leader - then like the others he can really get things done, by meeting all the goals and requirements, which includes the rights and welfare of everyone else. And Twitter has worked out very poorly - possibly the most money-losing deal ever?

Cumpiler69 2y ago
> 99% of Silicon Valley did it without him. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, the entire PayPal Mafia, all of SV's big players did the same things or worse than Musk to create their trillion dollar empires, except more low-key and with less public exposure. They were all ruthless strong men. You don't get to build empires by "being nice". Musk is the hate poster child of SV due to his excessive personality and massive social media exposure, but he's no worse than the other SV giants that don't leave the shadows and stay out of the limelight. >That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. I should have stopped responding to you right here. Comparing a controversial tech entrepreneur to Mussolini is the ultimate -200 IQ exaggeration since comparisons like these denigrates the actual suffering people under Mussolini and other dictators had to endure.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Who did Gates publicly call a pedophile? Who did Zuckerberg incite mass harassment against in order to terrorize them and drive them out of their workplace? Which of those people spread and incite hatred against Jewish people, immigrants, trans people, and endless more? Which of them openly backed a political candidate? Which openly and intentionally lied to their shareholders and the market? In fact none of them did any of that - all these people succeeded, on incredible levels, without doing any of those things Musk does. >> That's the strongman argument, also used for people like Mussolini. > I should have stopped responding to you right here. Why? Just address it on its merits.