So we have a need for a new service, a lot of very knowledgeable folks looking for a new gig, and advertisers looking for a better place to spend money. Seems like a good opportunity for someone.
(Edited to add missing
This thread, starting with Twitter’s Load Bearing Mac Mini Scream Test is a fun example…
I think this was also linked in the thread…
That’s the really interesting part of all this to me. Traditional wisdom left o we from the rise of FB/Insta/Twitter/etc is that there is no point trying to copy someone as the incumbency advantages are huge. Nobody is out there with a Twitter clone ready to unveil to the public because no VCs would have funded such a project. All new social media efforts have to be different/unique.
With the decay of FB and Twitter it’s starting to look like there might be a market for a competing social media platform. I’m not crazy enough to try this on my own but I’ll be curious to see who decides to go for broke and launches a competitor.
vyshka
3199
One thing we will never have to worry about at Red Hat. Pretty much any place doing Linux kernel work though allows remote workers just to get access to a larger pool of developers.
This stuff (apparently real) is absurd:
And this!
vyshka
3201
I don’t see how anyone that isn’t chained there by a visa could stick around for this if they have any self-respect. Considering he was scrambling to re-hire folks he fired from the last metric he used about code, I’m sure this will go well.
Even with places like Amazon, Meta, and so on doing layoffs they are still hiring as well. I still get pinged all the time by recruiters for Amazon and Meta.
KevinC
3203
At my work we all have war stories from near the end of our time being owned by Daddy MegaCorp. There was this one “hotshot” in particular that everyone remembers well for what a combination of asshole and incompetent he was, as he laid off half the team, disparaged everyone that was let go and remained, etc. etc. It was toxic enough that we still talk about his tenure a decade later and we do get joy in the fact that he had entire teams back in New York taking lunch and just never coming back to work. He didn’t last too long in his position, it was a total clusterfuck all around.
In any case, this shit from Elon really reminds me of that guy. It’s just that instead of being one dickhead in charge of a group of people, Elon owns the entire company.
vyshka
3204
I’m sure Twitter had a crazy interview process like the other companies like them have tended to have, so the people should have the skills to land somewhere else. I’m too old for that shit :), and luckily haven’t had to go through a process like that in a really long time, with pretty laid back interviews for the Oracle Linux kernel team, and Red Hat as well.
ATTN Hard Corps:
I’m in immediate need of screenshots and bullet points regarding how to install this Diet Coke Button on my desk.
A whole lot of idiots have been posting sentiments like “Once you finish building a skyscraper, you don’t keep the construction workers around.”
cmwolfe
3207
Now I’m imagining that these are the remaining Twitter staff
mprod
3208
This is more a dystopian conspiracy theory of where Twitter could end up but posts of it make sense.
Burn it down and then build it back up like how AM radio in the US is mostly a conservative hangout. I don’t think Elon has this much 4D chessmaster in him
Menzo
3209
Nope, more fever dreams. That may end up what happens, but Musk does not have that plan. No way.
Why would Musk spend $44 billion to turn Twitter into Truth Social when he could have spent $5 million and bought Truth Social?
People really really, really want there to be some big underlying reason that Musk is acting the way he is and doing the things he’s doing. But the most obvious explanation is that he simply has no idea what he’s doing.
There’s no grand plan. There’s no secret 5D chess going on.
We’re watching the living embodiment of the Peter Principle, live.
jsnell
3210
Wow. Just… Wow.
I honestly thought we’d reached the end of the road on gawking at his bizarre management practices, and would be switching to bizarre product decisions. But no, once again he manages to pull out something more outlandish.
Like, at least 3 weeks ago when he asked for the printed out copies of code, there was some plausible reason: half of Twitter was going to be fired and his team needed some way of deciding who. But what can this be about? Is it just testing whether the remaining people really will do absolutely anything he asks? Is he assuming that whoever is left is probably doing so only because they have no options, and thus he has actually run a adverse selection against competence?
Is it really going to be four more hours until the next episode of leaks? I need to know what this meeting will be about right now!
“Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, on October 27th. He had no grand scheme. No strategy. No agreement with higher authorities. Nothing but a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against the bots.”
Thrag
3212
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and they did a lot of cocaine.
Yep. Mind you, I do think think per MEASeybold that Twitter turning into “a grotesque amalgam of PornHub, 8chan, Full Tilt Poker, & The Daily Wire” is exactly what’s going to happen.
But it’s not because Elon is a chessmaster with a grand plan with an explicitly political goal, but because a) he really really wants to own Twitter because he thinks of the brand as a status symbol, worth every penny he paid for that alone, b) he is a tyrant by nature, so he won’t bring in other management or try to get the company in shape so it can be sold to someone else, and c) his idea of truly great social media was formed by being an early 2000s shitposter. An amalgam of PornHub, 8chan, Full Tilt Poker, & The Daily Wire is his idea of paradise.
Absolutely no one so far has been able to finish the sentence, “Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, then did everything he did in the last three weeks because …” with a rational explanation based on increasing profits or growing Twitter into a successful business. There are vastly more sensible ways to achieve those things (all of which start with not firing most of the company at random.)
The only jigsaw piece that fits is, “because it makes him feel like a big, powerful man, and because he can.” So expect plenty of petty, tyrannical acts, a horse to be named as CFO, him to spend countless hours live tweeting how he’s pulling the wings off of flies, etc .etc.
And now this:
Someone (?) is going to decide which tweets are negative / hate tweets and bury them. What could go wrong?
