Musk offers to buy Twitter

[Eric]

I’ve told the story before (poor @Colstan has probably read it many times), but this reminds me so much of the time when morale was low at AMD, and Dirk (then in charge of the Austin design team) flew up to California to tell us that if we didn’t like everything the way it was, we should quit. And most of them did.

What TF did he actually think would happen, on one hand get treated like a dog and overworked... or take 3 months pay and walk.

Bye, Elon.

 

[Cmaier]

What TF did he actually think would happen, on one hand get treated like a dog and overworked... or take 3 months pay and walk.

Bye, Elon.

Telling people they need to work nights and weekends, constantly be in the office, etc., when you’re not a startup and not handing out giant piles of shares, is not a great formula for success in tech.

 

[Hrafn]

I’ve told the story before (poor @Colstan has probably read it many times), but this reminds me so much of the time when morale was low at AMD, and Dirk (then in charge of the Austin design team) flew up to California to tell us that if we didn’t like everything the way it was, we should quit. And most of them did.

I was on a team already using computers to push data from one location to another. We were acquired by a "new, innovative" company rapidly blowing through $$ millions in venture capital, and the CEO came out and told us that in reality he didn't care if their add-on consisted of "people running around with printed copies of the data as long as it appeared to work..."

 

[DT]

Looks like there's a lot of talk about Herbert Diess, former CEO of VW, stepping in as the new CEO of Tesla. That's nothing but good, focus on QA, production, delivery, improving the existing vehicle offerings and maybe slow down on the Musk-isms and let him splash around in the Twitter kiddie pool - assuming there’s any water left after this weekend

 

[Yoused]

Now someone is projecting scrolling insults on the side of Twitter HQ, including the (soon to be) classic, "space Karen".

 

[Cmaier]

I assume this is not real.

 

[Cmaier]

I assume this is also not real.

 

[lizkat]

Whole thing is just ridiculous.

Whatever some people thought about Twitter's prospects as a publicly traded company, few likely thought it could get THIS bad after going private, not even if purchased by Elon Musk. I just never heard of an acquisition where so many potentially fatal internal changes were made in less than a month.

That's without considering the extremely unconventional treatment of advertisers and users alike, never mind the ousters in areas like compliance, security, risk management... moves that have drawn scrutiny from regulators in multiple countries.

 

[Eric]

Now someone is projecting scrolling insults on the side of Twitter HQ, including the (soon to be) classic, "space Karen".

Here's the video

View attachment 19412

I assume this is also not real.

But believable under the circumstances.

 

[Andropov]

I've been on Twitter since 2011 and I had never witnessed so many people in my TL planning for the end of the platform. I don't know if all the doom talking will turn out to be true, but the feeling is there.

It become waaaay worse today. When I wrote this it was still mostly IT people, but now I'm reading plans from people far from the engineering field also plan for the fall of Twitter (artists, for example, and non-tech content creators). It sucks because many of those people had in Twitter one of their main sources of income. And it's clear by now there's no other platform to run to. So far I've seen backup links to about a dozen different platforms (not a single one to Mastodon from non-tech people, btw).

 

[mac_in_tosh]

But Musk is a billionaire so he must be a genius. Just like Trump is a brilliant businessman.

 

[Citysnaps]

But Musk is a billionaire so he must be a genius. Just like Trump is a brilliant businessman.

Still feeling grateful Musk is not a US-born citizen. Did anyone ever check trump's birth status?

 

[Andropov]

But Musk is a billionaire so he must be a genius. Just like Trump is a brilliant businessman.

One of the most surprising things of the last few years has been the number of people that, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, claim that *insert powerful/rich person here* must be secretly very intelligent or they wouldn't be powerful/rich. Every dumb decision has to be a secret plan, every stupid tweet must be part of some carefully crafted strategy we just can't see.

 

[Nycturne]

Whole thing is just ridiculous.

Whatever some people thought about Twitter's prospects as a publicly traded company, few likely thought it could get THIS bad after going private, not even if purchased by Elon Musk. I just never heard of an acquisition where so many potentially fatal internal changes were made in less than a month.

That's without considering the extremely unconventional treatment of advertisers and users alike, never mind the ousters in areas like compliance, security, risk management... moves that have drawn scrutiny from regulators in multiple countries.

A lot of us were expecting a slow decline under the weight of the debt and Elon’s management style. We weren’t expecting Musk to come in and immediately go for the back-breaker with a baseball bat a week into ownership.

I’m even wondering what my next move is, since there are people I follow that I don’t want to lose access to their insight. But odds are things are coasting along at the moment, and I don’t think anyone truly knows when it will collapse under the load anymore. And even if it doesn’t, people have the impression it will. So we’re in the phase where people are making their evacuation plans, which may doom Twitter if Musk somehow doesn’t.

It become waaaay worse today. When I wrote this it was still mostly IT people, but now I'm reading plans from people far from the engineering field also plan for the fall of Twitter (artists, for example, and non-tech content creators). It sucks because many of those people had in Twitter one of their main sources of income. And it's clear by now there's no other platform to run to. So far I've seen backup links to about a dozen different platforms (not a single one to Mastodon from non-tech people, btw).

Agreed. It’s that shift from expecting a lot of weird, or expecting time to see how things play out under Musk, to realizing that Musk seems to have gutted the entire company in terms of talent.

 

[Eric]

I think it's time to start questioning his real motives here, nobody with two successful companies like Space X and Tesla could ever be THIS stupid intentionally. The only way this makes sense is if his goal is to deliberately drive it into the ground and cut his losses.

 

[Alli]

I guess I’ll just go back to reading newspapers and follow a few folks on substacks. And there’s always here.

 

[Eric]

I guess I’ll just go back to reading newspapers and follow a few folks on substacks. And there’s always here.

I've gone back to Google News, it's nice because you really only get the headlines you need without all the zany headlines Twitter has anyway.

 

[shadow puppet]

I'm kind of surprised Twitter is still up. I fully expected to wake up and see it gone.
I know many of you hate Twitter but my family of accounts I follow sure helped get me through Covid lockdown and some tough days.
There doesn't seem to be a good option to move to right now and I find that sad.

 

[lizkat]

A lot of us were expecting a slow decline under the weight of the debt and Elon’s management style. We weren’t expecting Musk to come in and immediately go for the back-breaker with a baseball bat a week into ownership.

I’m even wondering what my next move is, since there are people I follow that I don’t want to lose access to their insight. But odds are things are coasting along at the moment, and I don’t think anyone truly knows when it will collapse under the load anymore. And even if it doesn’t, people have the impression it will. So we’re in the phase where people are making their evacuation plans, which may doom Twitter if Musk somehow doesn’t.

It become waaaay worse today. When I wrote this it was still mostly IT people, but now I'm reading plans from people far from the engineering field also plan for the fall of Twitter (artists, for example, and non-tech content creators). It sucks because many of those people had in Twitter one of their main sources of income. And it's clear by now there's no other platform to run to. So far I've seen backup links to about a dozen different platforms (not a single one to Mastodon from non-tech people, btw).

Yah it's not a simple app download and a set of clicks to set up housekeeping on Mastodon... so that's not going to be a post-Twitter choice for most people and not for agencies of governments either. the latter might go back to or establish for the first time either FB or IG accounts. Individuals who came to prefer Twitter to FB not so much -- people like photographers, textile artists and other craftsmen.

Some of them seem to be looking around at or trying venues like Pinterest or Instagram now, but not liking idea of having to leave a familiar setup and also knowing they'll lose track of communities they were part of or had followed on Twitter.

I do see more and more accounts putting up pinned tweets of their alternate social media setups and urging people to download or otherwise preserve info on their own Twitter lists and etc data.

Agreed. It’s that shift from expecting a lot of weird, or expecting time to see how things play out under Musk, to realizing that Musk seems to have gutted the entire company in terms of talent.

My concern is that people will have walked away who are the knowledge base of unusual situations and how to deal with them (or how NOT to try to deal with them). That's a hidden cost of the sort of wholesale housecleaning that Musk has been doing: the ability of the company to be resilient in the face of unexpected operational stresses has been undermined, but for now the weaknesses are not all evident.

Of course people who have been around long enough to become walking repositories of Twitter's foundational strengths may also be people who figure they are indispensable. As as result, some may have developed an expectation of flex time or assorted other perks that a guy like Musk has not been not inclined to give.

No one's indispensable, but the cost of an abrupt disappearance of a knowledgeable employee can certainly carry an inconvenient hit to a company's functionality now and then.

The problem there is Musk hasn't been around long enough to know who those people are, and he may very well have triggered some of them into a "who gives a F" decision to go ahead and take 3 months severance rather than put up with any more crap from the Chief Cost Cutter.

Other layoffs in the tech industry right now might be what's actually holding Twitter together...

 

[Cmaier]

This is really the Hanukah story all over again, isn’t it? Enough employees to keep Twitter functioning for one night, but miraculously Twitter holds on for eight?