Musk offers to buy Twitter

[dada_dave]

But, but he's a free speech absolutist! ...

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588330014340452352/

 

[ronntaylor]

I should have been clearer. The diver he called a pedo had no power over Musk. Musk faced some social backslash but that's about it. Arbitrarily silencing or messing with politician accounts he doesn't like, though... it's asking to be regulated.

True. I was just so pissed when he did that. I would have punched his lights out.

 

[Andropov]

In another episode of Musk's megalomaniac frenzy, he's going to fire a significant portion of Twitter's employees over the weekend and push the others to quit (forbidding remote work, creating impossible deadlines...). I'm no manager, but I know most well-functioning software companies rely on a backbone of some irreplaceable people/developers, which can't always be easily identified by management (certainly not over the weekend).
Fire enough of them in a short enough time span, and he might find himself unable to operate his own product: the remaining people will likely know how to perform the regular maintenance the project needs, but knowledge about some workflows that are required to do from time to time may be entirely lost. You can often replace these people, slowly and one by one, but having too many of them fired/quit at once can easily become catastrophic.

 

[fischersd]

In another episode of Musk's megalomaniac frenzy, he's going to fire a significant portion of Twitter's employees over the weekend and push the others to quit (forbidding remote work, creating impossible deadlines...). I'm no manager, but I know most well-functioning software companies rely on a backbone of some irreplaceable people/developers, which can't always be easily identified by management (certainly not over the weekend).
Fire enough of them in a short enough time span, and he might find himself unable to operate his own product: the remaining people will likely know how to perform the regular maintenance the project needs, but knowledge about some workflows that are required to do from time to time may be entirely lost. You can often replace these people, slowly and one by one, but having too many of them fired/quit at once can easily become catastrophic.

Yep - these guys surround themselves with yes men and think that everything that they touches turns to gold - they can do no wrong.

That was actually what killed BlackBerry - Mike and Jim (but mostly Mike as R&D was his) lived in their own echo chambers. People that disagreed with them too passionately were shown the door, so eventually all they had were bobble heads. You couldn't get these guys to perceive reality anymore.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Pretty brutal takedown of Musk and his worshippers

Elon Musk's "blue check" debacle: Whiny incels broke his brain!

For Twitter's angry nerds, the blue check is like a girlfriend — it's infuriating because you can't buy it

www.salon.com

"His ideas on how to run the company seem to be borrowed directly from the worst people on the internet, dudes who spend most of their time toggling between spewing racial slurs into "Call of Duty" and griping on Reddit about how woke bitches won't have sex with them."

 

[Eric]

Yep - these guys surround themselves with yes men and think that everything that they touches turns to gold - they can do no wrong.

That was actually what killed BlackBerry - Mike and Jim (but mostly Mike as R&D was his) lived in their own echo chambers. People that disagreed with them too passionately were shown the door, so eventually all they had were bobble heads. You couldn't get these guys to perceive reality anymore.

Taking advice from those who disagree is smart IMO as long as they're rational because it gives you a feel for the entire situation. Obama used to call in Republicans from time to time and do the same. People like Musk and Trump are just too narcissistic to ever consider anyone else's view.

 

[Andropov]

This is going faster than I expected: https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588538640401018880/

 

[Eric]

This is going faster than I expected: https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588538640401018880/

"we did everything we could to appease the activists." So then allowing hate speech and the spread conspiracy theories and lies did NOT save them from losing sponsors? I refuse to believe it, Elon really gave it his all.

 

[Renzatic]

There's something very American about a man worth $209 billion asking average people for $8 a month.

I wouldn't call Stephen King an average person. The guy has langoliers.

 

[Cmaier]

"we did everything we could to appease the activists." So then allowing hate speech and the spread conspiracy theories and lies did NOT save them from losing sponsors? I refuse to believe it, Elon really gave it his all.

The first thing the dude did is literally post lies about pelosi’s husband. He’s surprised about what kind of message the ad market has received about his intentions?

 

[shadow puppet]

I don't know how long this post will remain up. The entire thread is an interesting read. AOC is reporting the same law in NY.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588359669843513344/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588360876125405185/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588587423302586370/

 

[Eric]

I don't know how long this post will remain up. The entire thread is an interesting read. AOC is reporting the same law in NY.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588359669843513344/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588360876125405185/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1588587423302586370/

Yeah, there's a good chance he'll nuke them. I would grab screenshots of anything you really want to keep just in case.

 

[shadow puppet]

Yeah, there's a good chance he'll nuke them. I would grab screenshots of anything you really want to keep just in case.

Already did even though I don't work for Twitter. But I hope Twitter employees get wind of this law and not sign anything before speaking to an attorney first. Buried in the fine print may be a waiver of their rights under CA/NY and federal law.

 

[Eric]

Let's all shed a tear for Elon, all he wanted to do was allow hate free speech.

 

[Eric]

Welp...

 

[lizkat]

Musk complains of losing $3M a day, says oh I know, cut back on servers and cloud services, save some dough. Right, so he's already made advertisers really risk-averse, now tack in unreliable site performance... that should help.

Musk to gut Twitter infrastructure, cut costs by $1B annually

Reducing servers and cloud services risks outages during peak traffic times.

arstechnica.com

With Twitter losing $3 million per day, Elon Musk has ordered whatever Twitter staff he has left to start making up the difference by cutting Twitter infrastructure costs by $1.5 to $3 million per day. Musk is hoping to save $1 billion in annual costs in what Reuters reported has been dubbed Twitter’s “Deep Cuts Plan,” part of Musk’s ongoing scramble to turn Twitter profits around, seemingly even if it risks platform outages during high-traffic times.

 

[Andropov]

Welp...

View attachment 18864

I also read yesterday that out of about a hundred people in the content moderation team, only 14 still had access to the content moderation tools (delete tweets and suspending accounts basically). Take it with a grain of salt, obviously, but maybe this is Musks super-smart plan: avoid changing content moderation policies, but cripple the team responsible for it so nothing gets moderated in practice.

 

[lizkat]

I also read yesterday that out of about a hundred people in the content moderation team, only 14 still had access to the content moderation tools (delete tweets and suspending accounts basically). Take it with a grain of salt, obviously, but maybe this is Musks super-smart plan: avoid changing content moderation policies, but cripple the team responsible for it so nothing gets moderated in practice.

Well he can't fly that one in EU countries...

 

[Nycturne]

Musk complains of losing $3M a day, says oh I know, cut back on servers and cloud services, save some dough. Right, so he's already made advertisers really risk-averse, now tack in unreliable site performance... that should help.

Musk to gut Twitter infrastructure, cut costs by $1B annually

Reducing servers and cloud services risks outages during peak traffic times.

arstechnica.com

How much of that 3M a day is servicing the debt Musk is directly responsible for adding to the books as part of the buyout? Since that number is suspiciously close to the 1 billion a year that it's estimated to cost to service the new debt.

This makes me think of vulture capitalism, but instead of going after a distressed asset, Musk is creating a distressed asset.

EDIT: Nevermind, I should read the article first before commenting. But since the operating expenses were 1.5B in Q2 2022, how do you cut 1B from that without tanking the service?

 

[lizkat]

EDIT: Nevermind, I should read the article first before commenting.

Heh, regardless of the article content, you have likely pegged another "reason" for Elon's infrastructure-cutting move. I mean the guy is just thrashing, and has been thrashing since he made the offer and THEN started doing a little of what passes for due diligence in his mind.

They say the saddest words in the English language are "if only." Well in Musk's case it's more like "Oh I know... " -- and his legal counsel must flinch every time they hear him launch into another brainstormed solution to a problem he has created.

And that's another thing, he keeps replacing his counsel. Or is it having to replace his counsel...