Elon Musk is a nice chap

[John B]

I invise a Wechat kinda app, and as Dave says, if they add video a lá YouTube then it's done.

That's what I said Musk was planning, a few days ago.
Anyone who thinks he invested $44 billion to just get rid of his money is a fool. That's the GDP of a small country.
You may not like him or what he does, but do you really think he is that much of an idiot?

Social networks are a goldmine these days and Facebook/Meta is dying. Twitter has a giant highway ahead.

And I still don't get the hystery about it all.

I don't think he deliberately spent $44b just to sink it, but I think it was an impulsive purchase after he got ticked off at the way they were censoring things. He tried to back out of buying it but was effectively forced to go through with it. I don't really think he thought things through or understands that particular industry or the customers they serve. The way he has been flailing with the blue check mark debacle suggests he doesn't really know what he's doing and is behaving impulsively.

Facebook is showing no signs of dying, although I kind of wish it would go away. The whole metaverse thing was a flop and is going nowhere but the core service they offer is alive and well.

In the lawsuit between twitter's previous administration and musk, it was revealed through discovery that there were discussions going back some time between players like musk and jack dorsey in regards to changing the direction of twitter, or creating other platforms or protocols that are more resilient against censorship and control. So probably not a fair statement to say it's impulsive.

But I would not put all the eggs into the elon basket. The social media landscape is in dire need of diversification. Elon's purchase is in the very least a burning away of a lot of dead wood and overgrowth. The concern is now there will be a perception that the political bias and meddling is "fixed", and so it's not necessary to use other platforms. Now the meddling will be elons personal whims

[floobydust]

Twitter's only value seems to be it's user base, although that number surely needs some air and bots let out.

It is more entertaining to watch some people in this thread posting that the sky is falling.

So you're holding on to Tesla Motor stock?   You can downhill ski on that chart. They're hiring workers for Cybertruck production, gee a 2019 release and maybe production mid-end 2023. I know there is some technology (SS sheet metal forming) Tesla has to come up with but it's so out to lunch, the reality.

I get a kick out of the Twitter thread saying Mr. Musk's educational credentials are fake, tabloid fodder galore. It's an interesting soap opera.

[james_s]

I've driven a few Tesla cars and they are truly impressive vehicles. I really hate the dashboard arrangement on most of them though, the Model S is the only one that has a proper dash. I'm not a Musk fanboi but he did accomplish something very impressive breaking into the American car market and getting the company to be as successful as it is. Eventually I suspect every other car company will catch up and BEV tech will be mature and cheap, but right now Tesla is still in the lead.

[RJSV]

BEV gonna be cheap, soon ?
Sorry, got to call you out in THAT FALLICY.
NEVER, NEVER, will be 'cheap', that's not how it's (how things), are dialed in....You've got a lot to change, there.

Probably, NEVER, meaning 209 years +.

[wraper]

BEV gonna be cheap, soon ?
Sorry, got to call you out in THAT FALLICY.
NEVER, NEVER, will be 'cheap', that's not how it's (how things), are dialed in....You've got a lot to change, there.

Probably, NEVER, meaning 209 years +.

It's exactly how things work when technology matures and economies of scale kick in. For example early DVD drives cost $1000 and could not even write. 15 years later, they could write and cost $20.

[tom66]

BEV gonna be cheap, soon ?
Sorry, got to call you out in THAT FALLICY.
NEVER, NEVER, will be 'cheap', that's not how it's (how things), are dialed in....You've got a lot to change, there.

Probably, NEVER, meaning 209 years +.

China will make them cheap.  In the UK, a Chinese manufacturer has launched a BEV with a 51kWh battery (~250 mile range) for £26,000 - a lower price than a Ford Focus here.  A normal family hatchback, 200 hp electric motor,  DC fast charging, 7 yr warranty on nearly everything, etc.  Does not seem to be a compromised vehicle.

The problem with the European manufacturers of BEVs is they want to maximise value from their limited battery production.    I'd imagine the American ones are similar.

[TomWinTejas]

Hard to say which is more entertaining, the twit continuously shooting himself in the foot with monumentally bad decisions, the rush of advertisers leaving, the continuing degradation of the systems or watching the lawyers and prosecutors starting to circle an almost dead corpse.

I've already taken Chris Gammell up on a public bet that Twitter won't fail. Happy to do that again. He's betting collapsed within two months. I think my money is very safe.

I was quite surprised when listening to Amp Hour 609 to hear three intelligent engineers all push the idea that Twitter was on the brink of failure.  I don't doubt that there will be some fundamental changes in Twitter's overall look and feel, or that there will be a slight change in the overall demographics, but I highly doubt there will be a collapse.  I also don't think Elon minds those screeching the loudest leaving the platform, I bet he thinks the platform will be better without them.

[coppice]

BEV gonna be cheap, soon ?
Sorry, got to call you out in THAT FALLICY.
NEVER, NEVER, will be 'cheap', that's not how it's (how things), are dialed in....You've got a lot to change, there.

Probably, NEVER, meaning 209 years +.

Technologies usually either stagnate, because significant progress becomes impractical, or you suddenly find the thing discounted by 50% or 75% overnight, because competition has reached a breaking point. Who really knows which camp batteries are in, despite substantial inherent materials costs?

[james_s]

BEV gonna be cheap, soon ?
Sorry, got to call you out in THAT FALLICY.
NEVER, NEVER, will be 'cheap', that's not how it's (how things), are dialed in....You've got a lot to change, there.

Probably, NEVER, meaning 209 years +.

They already are cheap relative to just a handful of years ago. A guy I know had a Meyers NMG, one of the first widely available freeway capable BEVs, it cost around 35k for a single seat goofy little thing. Now for about the same $35k you can get a base Tesla Model 3, a car that is vastly superior in every way to the NMG, and roughly on par with a midrange gasoline powered car. The first Tesla roadster had a base price over $100k, Tesla has been pushing prices downward for quite some time now and they are focused on making them cheaper.

[james_s]

I was quite surprised when listening to Amp Hour 609 to hear three intelligent engineers all push the idea that Twitter was on the brink of failure.  I don't doubt that there will be some fundamental changes in Twitter's overall look and feel, or that there will be a slight change in the overall demographics, but I highly doubt there will be a collapse.  I also don't think Elon minds those screeching the loudest leaving the platform, I bet he thinks the platform will be better without them.

I don't think it's that surprising. I have no connection to Twitter but I work for a company that provides an online hosted software product and so I see from the inside how much engineering effort is required just to keep things going. Stuff breaks and with a highly complex system it takes real expertise to fix it when it does. It can be as simple as a hard drive in some random server in a sea of hundreds of them fills up, or a hardware failure occurs and something doesn't failover correctly or something gets updated and everything breaks. Software engineers are not fungible resources, you can't just pull somebody from some random team and expect them to quickly troubleshoot and fix something they have not worked with before. I don't think it's going to fail suddenly, if you stop maintaining your car it's not going to stop working but over time it will get less and less reliable. With Twitter of course it depends greatly on what advertisers decide to do, Brand Safety is a huge thing that they are very paranoid about, ie the concern that one of their ads will appear associated with content their customers find offensive or distasteful. If there is a perception that the service is full of controversial content that may spook them into staying out. Most companies that advertise on social spread their budget between Facebook/Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and now TikTok is growing, if they pull out of one they'll just put that budget into one of the others. There is no way subscription revenue is going to come close to replacing advertising revenue, if the latter remains low the service will eventually run out of money. Musk can of course spend his own money to keep it afloat but I don't expect that to go on forever.

[Zero999]

Elon buying Twitter is definitely a good thing. He wants to clamp down on child porn, which wasn't being dealt with properly by the previous owners. People can scream all they want about bad people, being able to use bad words, but those who harm children are the lowest of the low. Targeting them should be the number one priority, not censoring politically incorrect speech.

[TimFox]

Today's New York Times has an article that Musk is starting to stiff outside vendors (specifically travel invoices) for bills rung up by previous management, as part of his cost-cutting.

[tom66]

Today's New York Times has an article that Musk is starting to stiff outside vendors (specifically travel invoices) for bills rung up by previous management, as part of his cost-cutting.

A very Trumpian tactic - a man famous for stiffing his own contractors knowing they would not be able to afford to sue with his army of lawyers, but as a result finding it nearly impossible to get contractors when he needed them.

[Bud]

There are contractors that are outright scammers or looking for any possible chance to squeze a buck.

[wraper]

Today's New York Times has an article that Musk is starting to stiff outside vendors (specifically travel invoices) for bills rung up by previous management, as part of his cost-cutting.

A very Trumpian tactic - a man famous for stiffing his own contractors knowing they would not be able to afford to sue with his army of lawyers, but as a result finding it nearly impossible to get contractors when he needed them.

Hiring a bunch of contractors/consultants is the easiest way how to siphon the money out of a company or government institution.

[Perkele]

.

[SiliconWizard]

Those McKinsey guys are very good at that.

[TimFox]

Today's New York Times has an article that Musk is starting to stiff outside vendors (specifically travel invoices) for bills rung up by previous management, as part of his cost-cutting.

A very Trumpian tactic - a man famous for stiffing his own contractors knowing they would not be able to afford to sue with his army of lawyers, but as a result finding it nearly impossible to get contractors when he needed them.

Hiring a bunch of contractors/consultants is the easiest way how to siphon the money out of a company or government institution.

As I wrote, the Times article emphasized that the report was mainly about travel invoices (airlines, hotels, etc.), not consultants.
Of course, he is within his rights to make the minions travel in coach class (while he enjoys first), but unless the travel expense reports are fraudulent, the company must pay them.
When he summoned employees to the company headquarters, there were concerns that payment of travel expenses on personal cards (since the corporate cards were canceled) would be delayed.
"... until morale improves."

[AndyBeez]

A wise sage once wrote

Management consultants are not here to make money for our company, they are here to make money from our company. Which is why the more management consultants we hire, the more employees they say we need to fire.

[TimFox]

The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says it is half empty, and the management consultant says the glass is too big.

[james_s]

Heh

[tooki]

There are contractors that are outright scammers or looking for any possible chance to squeze a buck.

That doesn’t give a client the right to simply renege on existing invoices.

[tooki]

Elon buying Twitter is definitely a good thing. He wants to clamp down on child porn, which wasn't being dealt with properly by the previous owners. People can scream all they want about bad people, being able to use bad words, but those who harm children are the lowest of the low. Targeting them should be the number one priority, not censoring politically incorrect speech.

Clamping down on kiddie porn…. by gutting the content moderation teams? Uh huh.

[wraper]

Elon buying Twitter is definitely a good thing. He wants to clamp down on child porn, which wasn't being dealt with properly by the previous owners. People can scream all they want about bad people, being able to use bad words, but those who harm children are the lowest of the low. Targeting them should be the number one priority, not censoring politically incorrect speech.

Clamping down on kiddie porn…. by gutting the content moderation teams? Uh huh.

In a few weeks he had dealt with it orders of magnitude better than Twitter under the old management. Actually there was a Twitter CP scandal a few months ago (and a few times before) but large advertisers did not care that much. Elon came in and they withdrew before he even started changing anything. Priorities...
https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/twitter-sued-for-allegedly-refusing-to-remove-child-porn/
https://www.opindia.com/2022/10/censor-chief-vijaya-gadde-is-fired-how-twitter-refused-to-take-down-child-porn/

[RJSV]

...all this ' ' 'concern' ' '....makes me wonder, nevermind Musk for a second:
   I wonder, if red Chinese pondered making a bid, for Twitter...before the TikTok thing got going...
Then, maybe comments might say
   "Chinese doing 'Trumpian' things, now..."
(That's sarcasm, in case you don't know me).