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you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer and not having non-questionable morals. I can make up different stuff about how a ceo can be amor

by dzonga 2y ago

you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer and not having non-questionable morals. I can make up different stuff about how a ceo can be amoral, and those would still apply to zuck / {{ whoelse }} book meant to be sold at airports for bored people. non-story.

dep_b 2y ago
This is probably true if you look at all big tech companies, but before Windows, MacOS, Oracle Databases or IBM computers did not have the responsibility of dealing with the communication and shaping of world view of billions of people world wide. It's the same as owning a large share of news papers or TV channels. You own the public discourse. If Larry Ellison is a greedy immoral bastard I switch to MS SQL Server, or something open source. When Zuckerberg or Musk became greedy immoral bastards, they started to shape the information fed to the world. You can decide not to buy a Tesla, but you cannot escape the results of brainwashing of other people that vote. Bill Gates had serious trouble for including a free Internet Browser in his Operating System, because he was not able to influence the public discourse. The new internet mass communication companies do. Google never really got into much trouble while their monopoly was stronger.
- alex1138 2y ago
  I know your comment isn't about Elon specifically and I have my own reservations about some of what he does, but it's important to point out (and maybe this depends on what you call "misinformation", it shapes all future discussion) that Twitter absolutely was censoring for partisan reasons (before he bought it; I know some have complained Musk does indeed ban his critics) including silencing covid dissent, real doctors and researchers getting kicked off. Him acquiring it was absolutely necessary to break the deadlock Edit: We do not want our platforms to be owned by someone like Susan Wojcicki who inflated her own importance and who thought mass censorship is ok (Google has really abrogated their responsibility here)
  - pastage 2y ago
    Everything is not partisan it might be political. The Republican vs. Democratic is hurting the US badly you can not continue to make everything ok just because you need the support from whatever extreme views is populist in your party. Most of the things a party does is not extreme but you guys are going insane over there.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    The censorship hasn’t reduced under Elon, who it’s directed at has changed.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    The twittefiles nothingburger?
    - wyclif 2y ago
      Sorry not sorry, but that was no "nothingburger." The fact of the matter was that Twitter under Jack Dorsey had become completely bloated and abusive. You had people working there whose only job was to do things like manipulate pixels in emojis and more seriously, they had created a vast and cancerous DEI bureaucracy.
      - Hikikomori 2y ago
        Guses the government is also that? You're choking on that coolaid.
        wyclif 2y ago
        That the CISA works with the EIP isn't Kool-Aid, it's a fact, no matter how much it upsets the apple cart of established big media narratives. You know what else isn't "Kool-Aid"? The FBI was having monthly and even weekly meetings with Twitter executives to coordinate their efforts. Twitter under Dorsey did this in conjunction with the DHS, the DOJ, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the NSA. In Twitter’s interactions with the FBI, former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth considered the Bureau a proxy for the entire “intelligence community” as a whole; and that the FBI and Twitter have become closely enmeshed. If you don't think that's a problem for freedom of speech and privacy, perhaps you ought to read up on the topic.
- jpadkins 2y ago
  > Bill Gates .. was not able to influence the public discourse. People forget that the MS in MSNBC stands for Microsoft. Bill Gates invested heavily in media and lobbying in the late 90s / early 00s.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer This is nonsense. Plenty of good people are wildly successful. The difference is they aren’t addicted to the role, and so see a future for themselves beyond it. Connecting with that future self, in turn, effects their decisions today—at work, at home, in society. We have a cadre of sociopaths leading our commercial giants. That is a fixable problem. Saying it’s a non-story is just being nihilistic and lazy.
- blitzar 2y ago
  Boards have a lot to answer for, and in theory at least, this is their responsibility. It did not work out that well for the OpenAi board however.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Boards have a lot to answer for, and in theory at least, this is their responsibility Boards have plenty of things they're properly responsible for. CEO sociopathy isn't one of them, especially not if it's the profitable type of assholery. The regulation has to come from outside.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      How do you legally stop extremely ambitious sociopaths from obtaining positions of power?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How do you legally stop extremely ambitious sociopaths from obtaining positions of power? You limit their power. Musk has broken important rules and gotten away with it. Stop doing that. Zuckerberg and Facebook, meanwhile, should have been fined back into the single-digit billionaire category for the terror they’ve unleashed on our children.
wqaatwt 2y ago
Seems like historical founders/CEOs like e.g. Hewlett and Packard were relatively decent people despite being immensely successful. So at least it was possible back in the day (of course after this many years a lot of details were lost and overall standards and expectations were very different back then).
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer This idea is very parochial and American, and it's unfortunate in spreading a wrong idea that gives license for some people to behave as hooligans. There are massive global companies most of us have never heard of, with CEOs who shun publicity and operate in what is really a mild-mannered but highly competent fashion. Power also comes from politeness, tact, diplomacy, and the earned attachment of subordinates we call "respect". They are not constantly immersed in scandal and drama because most of the employees never have much cause to interact negatively. The cult of US Tech leaders is a vile and embarrassing spectacle of vanity, tantrums, acting-out, histrionics and arrogance. It's very poor human behaviour that harms the perception of business in the wider world, and we should not hold it up as normative.

by dzonga 2y ago

dep_b 2y ago

This is probably true if you look at all big tech companies, but before Windows, MacOS, Oracle Databases or IBM computers did not have the responsibility of dealing with the communication and shaping of world view of billions of people world wide. It's the same as owning a large share of news papers or TV channels. You own the public discourse. If Larry Ellison is a greedy immoral bastard I switch to MS SQL Server, or something open source. When Zuckerberg or Musk became greedy immoral bastards, they started to shape the information fed to the world. You can decide not to buy a Tesla, but you cannot escape the results of brainwashing of other people that vote. Bill Gates had serious trouble for including a free Internet Browser in his Operating System, because he was not able to influence the public discourse. The new internet mass communication companies do. Google never really got into much trouble while their monopoly was stronger.

alex1138 2y ago
I know your comment isn't about Elon specifically and I have my own reservations about some of what he does, but it's important to point out (and maybe this depends on what you call "misinformation", it shapes all future discussion) that Twitter absolutely was censoring for partisan reasons (before he bought it; I know some have complained Musk does indeed ban his critics) including silencing covid dissent, real doctors and researchers getting kicked off. Him acquiring it was absolutely necessary to break the deadlock Edit: We do not want our platforms to be owned by someone like Susan Wojcicki who inflated her own importance and who thought mass censorship is ok (Google has really abrogated their responsibility here)
- pastage 2y ago
  Everything is not partisan it might be political. The Republican vs. Democratic is hurting the US badly you can not continue to make everything ok just because you need the support from whatever extreme views is populist in your party. Most of the things a party does is not extreme but you guys are going insane over there.
- skyyler 2y ago
  The censorship hasn’t reduced under Elon, who it’s directed at has changed.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  The twittefiles nothingburger?
  - wyclif 2y ago
    Sorry not sorry, but that was no "nothingburger." The fact of the matter was that Twitter under Jack Dorsey had become completely bloated and abusive. You had people working there whose only job was to do things like manipulate pixels in emojis and more seriously, they had created a vast and cancerous DEI bureaucracy.
    - Hikikomori 2y ago
      Guses the government is also that? You're choking on that coolaid.
      - wyclif 2y ago
        That the CISA works with the EIP isn't Kool-Aid, it's a fact, no matter how much it upsets the apple cart of established big media narratives. You know what else isn't "Kool-Aid"? The FBI was having monthly and even weekly meetings with Twitter executives to coordinate their efforts. Twitter under Dorsey did this in conjunction with the DHS, the DOJ, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the NSA. In Twitter’s interactions with the FBI, former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth considered the Bureau a proxy for the entire “intelligence community” as a whole; and that the FBI and Twitter have become closely enmeshed. If you don't think that's a problem for freedom of speech and privacy, perhaps you ought to read up on the topic.
jpadkins 2y ago
> Bill Gates .. was not able to influence the public discourse. People forget that the MS in MSNBC stands for Microsoft. Bill Gates invested heavily in media and lobbying in the late 90s / early 00s.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer This is nonsense. Plenty of good people are wildly successful. The difference is they aren’t addicted to the role, and so see a future for themselves beyond it. Connecting with that future self, in turn, effects their decisions today—at work, at home, in society. We have a cadre of sociopaths leading our commercial giants. That is a fixable problem. Saying it’s a non-story is just being nihilistic and lazy.

blitzar 2y ago
Boards have a lot to answer for, and in theory at least, this is their responsibility. It did not work out that well for the OpenAi board however.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Boards have a lot to answer for, and in theory at least, this is their responsibility Boards have plenty of things they're properly responsible for. CEO sociopathy isn't one of them, especially not if it's the profitable type of assholery. The regulation has to come from outside.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    How do you legally stop extremely ambitious sociopaths from obtaining positions of power?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > How do you legally stop extremely ambitious sociopaths from obtaining positions of power? You limit their power. Musk has broken important rules and gotten away with it. Stop doing that. Zuckerberg and Facebook, meanwhile, should have been fined back into the single-digit billionaire category for the terror they’ve unleashed on our children.

wqaatwt 2y ago

Seems like historical founders/CEOs like e.g. Hewlett and Packard were relatively decent people despite being immensely successful. So at least it was possible back in the day (of course after this many years a lot of details were lost and overall standards and expectations were very different back then).

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> you don't become a global ceo without being an absolute killer This idea is very parochial and American, and it's unfortunate in spreading a wrong idea that gives license for some people to behave as hooligans. There are massive global companies most of us have never heard of, with CEOs who shun publicity and operate in what is really a mild-mannered but highly competent fashion. Power also comes from politeness, tact, diplomacy, and the earned attachment of subordinates we call "respect". They are not constantly immersed in scandal and drama because most of the employees never have much cause to interact negatively. The cult of US Tech leaders is a vile and embarrassing spectacle of vanity, tantrums, acting-out, histrionics and arrogance. It's very poor human behaviour that harms the perception of business in the wider world, and we should not hold it up as normative.