Elon Musk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgc_LRjlbTU

it's time for musk to buy kickstarter, then redirect all the funds towards twitter.. queen takes pawn

"but this money was for Timmy's heart surgery"

"yes, but if we don't take it, you won't have a Twitter to post about it on. think before you talk."

ok I was going to say that pattern would make more sense but Neanderthal has gone a step further and confused both with gofundme

although a kickstarter for heart surgery would be great, you buy a heart replacement that's obviously meant to be cobbled together from Alibaba components but they never figure it out and you receive nothing

not pattern, patreon

lol i should know better, I've donated to kickstarters before. must be bitter that anything I funded never materialized.

"thanks for your support, back to the drawing board"

"Guys, Twitter is a little short on funds to make payroll this month - if anyone is able to chip in, we've got some great schwag and we'll let you zoom into the board meetings!"

patreon is a good fit because it's "I'm uh making content please fund me"
kickstarter is "I'm going to deliver you this thing if it works out. you're a gadget guy, right? ok nevermind your success rate is higher buying random shit on aliexpress"
gofundme is "my house burned down again and also gamgam needs money to get her arm amputated and we have no social safety net"

if Elon buys out patreon then maybe the owners never have to make a pomplamoose song again

Elon is definitely a gadget guy to some extent, though. I bet he'd be into one of those cool Flipper hacking devices but then try to figure out how to put tweets on it

Watching @elonmusk + Co take over Twitter is like watching a business school case study on how to make money on the internet. Amazing that at some level it is so basic. Lesson one: charge your power users what they are willing to pay. 1/3

— Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin) October 31, 2022

Lesson two: Lock up your core customers (advertisers) by going on a listening tour and asking them what works and what doesn't. Make sure to land a few key public commitments. Focus on the head not the long tail.

— Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin) October 31, 2022

Lesson 3: Cut costs dramatically and do it fast and all at once to get it over with. Elevate a few key people (including some veterans) to promote internal cohesion.

Not rocket science. They will succeed because they can do it outside the public shareholder eye.

3/3

— Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin) October 31, 2022

which lesson are we on now

I'm starting to think they're not completely wrong. If the user attrition through the site being a garbage experience doesn't turn off enough people, with the advertisers noting that, they'll weather this and we'll get a different twitter

I mean, what's the alternative right now for quick bits of interesting news and bait tweets, because facebook isn't it and every website tries to send push notifications that are annoying and most local/national news is more obtrusively ad-heavy and has chumboxes 2.0

I think if Elon can attract a few dozen code perverts who understand how to refactor the site to not just keep it performant, but cut costs (with blips and dips in usability and experience), there's the possibility things somehow work. I hope I'm wrong! But the thing he absolutely could not explain, but engineers have, is that large portions of twitter are very bespoke because the technologies to do what they wanted to at scale didn't exist. They're now pretty much solved problems. I significantly doubt he has the leadership skills to push it through, but the idea that the ability to do useful features is hamstrung by: more programmers = more lines of code to do less = increasing technical debt? I could buy it. Which is hilarious when you think that they prioritized layoffs inverse to lines of code

thoughts that are probably better spent on the ilx programming thread but idk

the funniest thing that was mentioned on the twitter spaces discussion that Elon contributed, and was probably a gimme for him because it was known but prior leadership thought of it as annoying to tackle, was sms messages for two factor auth

I guess they were spending 60 million a year to telcos outside the US to send sms two factor messages, and someone at twitter suspected that shady providers were charging them for duplicates or even using bots to bump the number of auth requests. which is an amazing business idea tbh

word is they've lost 70% of their top advertisers and Elon himself said they were losing a shitload of money

I agree there's no real replacement for it but like 50% of the shit happening on Twitter is ABOUT Twitter now and Elon seems determined to fuck things up enough that it's not going to go back to the way it was. I mean it's an app that you're counting on people to be on ALL THE TIME, doesn't take much of a drop in quality of user experience to turn people off

a business school case study on how to make money on the internet.

but has he made any money?

wow I bet frogbs feels embarrassed about linking to that now

honestly I'm still floored he made "tweet views" a thing. it's such a dumb metric - nobody cares how much a tweet was "viewed"! if it has a high number the thing that'll stand out is the comparatively low amounts of likes and RTs which is the thing Twitter users have actually cared about for like 15 years now. the fact that the CEO unilaterally made this happen speaks to how little this dude knows about how people actually use the website he grossly overpaid for. he knows less than I do! I mean up until he bought Twitter I was always willing to accept that maybe this guy sees things I don't but man he really has proven himself to be just as dumb as everyone says he is

i assume he wants advertisers to see that "hey look tweets get so many views!" but surely these metrics exist on the advertising side of things and also i hate to underestimate elon musk (a genius of business)

the fact that the CEO unilaterally made this happen speaks to how little this dude knows about how people actually use the website he grossly overpaid for.

Maybe he wants everyone using Twitter to feel as humiliated as he does.

heh

This is what you wanted people to see? pic.twitter.com/maLcjrM5Cf

— Leander Schaerlaeckens (@LeanderAlphabet) December 23, 2022

Going to try to embed less.

https://i.postimg.cc/V6Pt3YZt/24-F4-C127-E6-F1-430-E-BBE4-75-FEDCE65-EC7.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Hx0MmfFh/AF88582-B-3651-4-ED3-B28-A-529-D8-CE68-FDE.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/rs8rwfkF/DDE46-A34-033-F-4231-B8-D6-9298413-C313-F.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/prqnhKWQ/13-B1-B221-9698-4392-9662-C3119-A4-ED300.jpg

everything is cool

Everything is everything.

uluv2c it

https://i.imgur.com/XzdTLP7.png

jeez, it must be old news but i didn't realize that musk has a trans daughter who changed her name to avoid being associated with him, and that musk blames it all on "full-on communism" in universities

this musk guy seems like he might be a bad father, to boot!!

Nonsense, he's pretty sure how many offspring he's produced.

shows you how brainwashed Elon fanboys are where one of my best friends, who has a trans child and has been vocally supportive of safe spaces, encourages guests of his business to wear a nametag with their pronouns, etc, continues to stan for this guy, only willing to concede that he's an 'asshole'. like the friend is one of the kindest, most inclusive people I know, so it's so jarring for him to stan for this 'one guy'.

their child is probably not amused and I just don't know how much further down this rabbit hole he can go before he just admits "enough". at this point I think it's a refusal to admit he's been wrong for two years than actually caping for Elon anymore. i hope so at least.

just like, the one element of his identity that isn't progressive = supporting this guy

I know it’s kind of a very tangential take, but it’s always kind of bothered me that Telsa the man become kind of the go-to groovy spiritual science guy for people rebelling against the Einstein’s Raspberry dorm room posters of earlier generations.

Became

the tesla board is frantically trying to figure out if they can oust this guy right now, right?

there are undoubtedly other ceos with terrible views out there, but they either don’t speak publicly or they keep to the normal ceo script. this guy’s out here alienating every other human on a daily basis

i imagine the tesla board is stuck? if it dumps elon, then tesla becomes just another car company, and one that isn't even particularly good at making cars

tesla needs musk to go back to being a ~visionary who is saving humanity~ but i think that ship has sailed

I was kind of on a tear last night, but it’s worth noting that the Elon-optimistic person frogs posted tweets from (Jessica Lessin) runs a ridiculously pro-tech/vc publication that positions itself as insider information for SV and investors. she and her husband (a former facebook vp) are apparently friends with the Zuckerbergs

afaict it’s at least $30/month and, while it might have some researched articles, is mostly a circle-jerk. basically the anti-valleywag

xp yeah, they’re probably stuck

here is my elon musk compliment sandwich

AGREED TO MEET WITH SBF ONLY "So long as I don't have to have a laborious blockchain debate"

... fash, abuses employees, liar, seeks to destroy transit, boring/never funny ...

LIKES POLYTOPIA

lol

I know it’s kind of a very tangential take, but it’s always kind of bothered me that Telsa the man become kind of the go-to groovy spiritual science guy for people rebelling against the Einstein’s Raspberry dorm room posters of earlier generations.

― A Kestrel for a Neve (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, December 23, 2022 11:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah apparently the google founders are nikola tesla adherents too its common in those circles, i think they like the tragedy of it, they identify with him, theyre unrecognized unremunerated geniuses, even tho now theyre totally recognized and remunerated they still feel the world doesnt appreciate exactly how brilliant they are, all these guys needless to say are in actuality total edisons

lol https://t.co/pr9u1vFQxi pic.twitter.com/AAAPmgVCAG

— Atrios (@Atrios) December 23, 2022

tbf every one of these dim bulbs is working on their own DEATH BEAM

one thing i *would* try to do if i were part of tesla's board is stop elon from poaching its engineers to go work at twitter, because that's absurd

#OneCompany

i frankly don't understand hero worship.

yeah its odd

carnegies organs tho

So fucking depressing to see actual human beings stanning for a billionaire and they’re not even being paid to do it. In the 19th century were there stans and super fans of Andrew Carnegie or James J Hill?

― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, December 22, 2022 12:12 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

was thinking about this and the answer is yes absolutely, how to win friends and influence people is one of the best selling books of all time, carnegie was if anything more popular than musk

lol just realized dale carnegie is totally unrelated person, apologies, carry on

anyway people probably liked andrew carnegie, people are sickos

one of dale's descendants lives a couple of doors down the street from me.

has he won you as a friend and influenced you