Elon Musk is a nice chap

[eti]

Reply 700!

I couldn't resist.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I'm having more fun with seven oh one!

[MK14]

As I eluded to earlier.  Elon Musk is successfully, conflicting my sense of evaluating the viability of potential business ideas/inventions and people character assessments (hence me putting the ??'s in the title, as I'm just not 100% sure, how things will turn out).

On the one hand, I see many of their proposed business ideas/inventions, as being ill-advised and widely over stated.  Examples are cheap fairs to soon to be available trips to Mars.  Hyperloop travel between, distant places, typically within the US, at low cost, and very fast travel times.
They seem to say (what some think of as) rather significant nonsense, at times.  Many other examples exist (e.g. See the many Thunderf00t videos, debunking Elon related things).

Yet they show various significant signs of success, in some of their ventures (as previously said by me), SpaceX, Tesla Cars and things, such as being the richest man in the world.

But also, the current rumors about twitter.  Are sounding much more like a pack of wild/angry bulls, entering a large shop, full of expensive stands, with extensive highly fragile glassware on weak high stands.  Than an extremely professional, very high quality, brilliant businessman, running a business, they freshly acquired.

I.e. Massive Train Wreck vs A great new era in Twitter.

Yet, they (Elon) seems to have a significant band of (cult like), followers, who don't seem to think Elon can do any wrong.  They also seem to give the impression, that everything Elon touches, turns into valuable Gold (conceptually speaking).

[MK14]

I'm having more fun with seven oh one!

You should of waited, until 7 of 9 came up.

[coppice]

I’ve never understood the appeal or utility of Twitter. With that said, I just read something that is a serious concern, if Twitter were to collapse on short notice, which looks to be a real possibility: if it goes down before some kind of archival contingency plan can be implemented, it would obliterate 16 years worth of primary sources for world history. Is it stupid, IMHO, that so much stuff was on Twitter (and only there!) to begin with? Possibly. But like it or not, it is. And we’d be wise to figure out a way to archive it first.

Note that the Library of Congress, which quite possibly knows a thing or two about archiving, tried and failed to find a way to archive Twitter back in 2018 or so. So it’s not a trivial task.

People have deleted so much material from Twitter, when tweets didn't go well for them, that it in no way forms a historical record, even if it is intact.

It’s not just inflammatory crap; it’s primary sources of many world events. (For example, Malaysia Airlines’ tweet that MH17 had gone down in the Ukraine — their first communication about it.) The fact that it’s an incomplete record doesn’t negate that there’s a lot of important stuff in it.

I'm more concerned about Winston Smith's colleagues beavering away so that key stuff no longer says what it originally did.

[TimFox]

That happened 38 years ago.

[RJSV]

MK14, I'm just getting around to reading folk's thoughts, on Mr. Musk getting 'in there' inside and doing damage, to historic records.  Could go both ways on that concern, but general thoughts:
   An old 'saying':
   "With genius comes...a little madness."
That, I take as an almost direct reference to Vincent VanGogh and all the personal shortcomings he had.
But Elon Musk certainly a character and I'm amused to read that, maybe, being world's richest man, could indicate 'success', but I don't know anything about (what) immediate family resource dynamic influenced.
For example, our current state governor has, um, influential relatives that, a while back, were getting pretty vocal about 'cleaning up the drinking', if (he) wanted to continue up the political ladder.
   ...which teases me with the thought:
   What happens if Elon ANNOUNCES some sort of political ambition...THAT could cause some twitter

[Sal Ammoniac]

   What happens if Elon ANNOUNCES some sort of political ambition...THAT could cause some twitter

Fortunately, as he wasn't born in the US, he can't run for president.

[AVGresponding]

   What happens if Elon ANNOUNCES some sort of political ambition...THAT could cause some twitter

Fortunately, as he wasn't born in the US, he can't run for president.

Indeed, but he could run for Governor, of California, for example.

[coppice]

   What happens if Elon ANNOUNCES some sort of political ambition...THAT could cause some twitter

Fortunately, as he wasn't born in the US, he can't run for president.

Indeed, but he could run for Governor, of California, for example.

That might help with planning approval for his plants.

[SiliconWizard]

That might help stopping the complete California nonsense too, although one can never be sure of that.

[AndyBeez]

This is a reason why Twitter needs Elon Musk.

Twitter’s content moderation tools recently flagged an innocent video of a meteor as ‘intimate content’ and locked out the astronomer who posted it.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/17/astronomer-locked-out-of-twitter-account-over-intimate-meteor-video-17777856/

Imagine how Twitter's moderation team would have reacted to video of a Falcon 9 launch?

On the Borg Theme: Posting Seven of Eleven

[SiliconWizard]

This is a reason why Twitter needs Elon Musk.

Twitter’s content moderation tools recently flagged an innocent video of a meteor as ‘intimate content’ and locked out the astronomer who posted it.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/17/astronomer-locked-out-of-twitter-account-over-intimate-meteor-video-17777856/

Imagine how Twitter's moderation team would have reacted to video of a Falcon 9 launch?

Imagine a not-so-distant future, getting your bank account blocked because a climate compliance algorithm erroneously detects that you have had the carbon footprint of a small country.
 

[Sal Ammoniac]

Latest email from Musk to his Twitter slaves employees:

Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.

Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.

If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:

[Google form link]

Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.

Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.

[Psi]

He's not wrong, there are far to many non-engineering positions at companies that perform engineering as their primary product or service.

Obviously you need some people to do the legal / regulatory / finance side of things etc.., but it often gets so bad as to be ridiculous and wastes money that would be much better spent hiring more engineers or better engineers and making better products or improving the current ones.

Any money not spend making or improving the products in some way is wasted.

[james_s]

They may indeed have far too many employees, but this is a separate issue. "This will mean working long hours at high intensity" That may fly at a startup where employees are motivated by the possibility of becoming wealthy if the company succeeds but Twitter is far from being a startup, none of the ordinary workers are going to become wealthy. I expect there to be a mass exodus, people will agree to his demand but immediately set to work looking for a new job and assuming the economy picks up again Twitter is going to really struggle to recruit and retain talent. I mean what would draw anyone to work there when they can earn comparable or better compensation elsewhere without running themselves ragged? Tesla I can see, they're making revolutionary new technology in cars, SpaceX I can see, they're revolutionizing space travel. Twitter, they're maintaining a website. Woop-de-doo, so are hundreds of other companies. What is the draw?

[vk6zgo]

   What happens if Elon ANNOUNCES some sort of political ambition...THAT could cause some twitter

Fortunately, as he wasn't born in the US, he can't run for president.

Constitutional amendments do happen from time to time.

[SiliconWizard]

Latest email from Musk to his Twitter slaves employees:

Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.

Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.

If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:

[Google form link]

Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.

Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.

This looks pretty harsh but from my experience, this is rather typical of american management in general. Sure it's not always as "obvious", but the method looks pretty common to me. Especially shortly after an acquisition. If anything, it has the benefit of being upfront. What I've otherwise seen after acquisition phases is upper management asking middle management to write lists of employees to keep and employees to eject. Dunno if you prefer this horrible and sneaky method.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Latest email from Musk to his Twitter slaves employees:

Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.

Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.

If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:

[Google form link]

Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.

Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.

This looks pretty harsh but from my experience, this is rather typical of american management in general. Sure it's not always as "obvious", but the method looks pretty common to me. Especially shortly after an acquisition. If anything, it has the benefit of being upfront. What I've otherwise seen after acquisition phases is upper management asking middle management to write lists of employees to keep and employees to eject. Dunno if you prefer this horrible and sneaky method.

Don't forget that Musk has already laid off half the company...

[Bud]

I recall the initial plan was to let go 75%, so all is going according to the plan   

[Black Phoenix]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/twitter-offices-closed-1.6655881

Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to be leaving the beleaguered social media company following an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk that staffers sign up for "long hours at high intensity," — or leave.

Early Wednesday, Musk had emailed Twitter employees, saying: "Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore."

The email asked staff to click "yes" if they wanted to stick around. Those who did not respond by 5 p.m. ET on Thursday would be considered to have quit and given a severance package, the email said.

The company notified employees Thursday evening that it will close its offices and cut badge access until Monday, according to two sources. Security officers have begun kicking employees out of the office, one source said.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Musk continues to pour gasoline on the dumpster fire.

[floobydust]

What software engineer wants to work "extremely hardcore", agree to work “long hours at high intensity”  "Click yes on the link below" to keep your job. 
"only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade."

Sacking half the staff, which leaves the remaining workers frazzled and overworked, and now demand more from them?  People do have families, lives to live...
Excellent destruction of Twitter and it shows his Asperger's syndrome gives him too low of an EQ to tolerate and manage social media. He's gonna get trashed.
They're saying 75% of the staff did not click on the "yes" link and mass resignations are happening...

[Towger]

The doors are locked and it looks like the staff have walked out.

[james_s]

What software engineer wants to work "extremely hardcore", agree to work “long hours at high intensity”  "Click yes on the link below" to keep your job. 
"only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade."

Sacking half the staff, which leaves the remaining workers frazzled and overworked, and now demand more from them?  People do have families, lives to live...
Excellent destruction of Twitter and it shows his Asperger's syndrome gives him too low of an EQ to tolerate and manage social media. He's gonna get trashed.
They're saying 75% of the staff did not click on the "yes" link and mass resignations are happening...

I have Aspergers and I know better than to come in throwing my weight around, sacking half the staff right off the bat and making totally unreasonable demands from the rest. There are probably a handful of people who worship Musk enough that they will stay and enjoy it, but I am betting that at least 90% of the employees that have not already been let go or resigned are updating their resumes and looking for jobs. I think it has already hit the tipping point and cannot recover. There is no possible way he was able to learn how the company works and what everyone he let go does in such a short period of time. I have seen companies acquired before with far more tact that still failed because the new owner didn't understand the company culture and they lost key people, which then made the jobs of everyone remaining much more difficult and crushed morale so the dominoes kept falling.