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Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company bet
by belligeront 4y ago
Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]:
"It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.".
It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff).
[1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961
- ALittleLight 4y agoWhy is that amazing? When people do what you think is right, or what you think might be right, you agree with them or willing to see where things go. When people do what you think is wrong you disagree or break with them. That seems perfectly reasonable.
- MattGaiser 4y ago> Why is that amazing? PG mocked those who thought we would end up here.
- dnissley 4y agoWhere is "here" exactly?
- pavlov 4y agoEvery promise Musk made about Twitter broken in less than two months?
- wpietri 4y agoAnd the demolition of Elon's image as a tech/business genius. If I'd set out to wreck his reputation, I could not have done half the job Musk has done since he bid for Twitter.
- jacquesm 4y agoThe big question now is how much damage can he do? To the world, not just Twitter.
- ALittleLight 4y agoI'm not sure what the damage is supposed to be, in apart from to Musk and co-investors. There are enough alternatives, including Mastodon - that people will still be able to share short form content if Twitter disintegrates.
- jacquesm 4y agoTwitter has the ability to start revolutions and change the course of the war in Ukraine by manipulating support or a lack thereof. Just imagine the kind of damage that would ensue if for instance all of Twitters DMs became somehow public.
- fragmede 4y agoIf he wanted to? The man has his own ICBMs and a fleet of land-based remote control bombs in Tesla, not to mention access to all archived DMs on Twitter. There's no way he pulls anything off, because we don't live in a comic book, but it's worrisome to realize that such an "eccentric" visibly has that kind of access.
- jacquesm 4y agoHm, the remote controlled bombs angle is one I hadn't clued in to yet. The ICBM one was clear. For both you'd hope that if he tried anything like that his employees would perform a citizens arrest and hand him over to DHS.
- fragmede 4y agoNow you've got me worried that in the comic book villain version of reality, that he had mass drivers installed in the Starlink constellation, and is able to hit rival's private jets, but only if their flight plan gets shared on Twitter for some obscure comic book logical reason.
- shanebellone 4y agoPG confuses me. Sometimes he seems extremely rational but other times he tweets obvious fallacies.
- jacquesm 4y agoI think that spells 'human'.
- shanebellone 4y agoWeird, I thought it spell 'incongruence'.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoThe hubris is what gets me. The sheer audacity that the peons had in suggesting Musk didn't know what he was doing!
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoYet, he has the courage of expressing those opinions without sarcasm, on his own public account, and later own admit to change his mind, while being a very exposed figure. And you use a throwaway.
- topaz0 4y agoWithout sarcasm?
- ip26 4y agoIt’s hubris to question the authority? I thought it was a fundamental American pastime.
- 3327 4y ago
- dehrmann 4y agoThen today, he said > I don't think [Musk] realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cyberphobe 4y agoAnd in the replies to this tweet he insists[1] "Elon is a smart guy" in spite of all the evidence to the contrary [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
- pclmulqdq 4y agoHe can't alienate a big potential investor to future funds.
- philjohn 4y agoThat relies on Elon still having a lot of funds to invest, not a foregone conclusion at this rate.
- sdiacom 4y agoI think that, by leaving Twitter alone, he already has. If we've learned something about Elon so far, from previous episodes of the cursed news cycle we all inhabit, is that he's vindictive and petty to an irrational extent (calling rescue officers who don't agree with him pedophiles, banning journalists who report on the jet account, ...)
- mjmsmith 4y agoTikTok isn't on the list of banned social media links.
- wpietri 4y agoI am not an Elon fan, but I agree Musk is a smart guy. I just don't think smartness on its own is very valuable. Indeed, it can be very dangerous when it lets you think that you know better than everybody else despite them having way more experience in their fields. A classic example is the XKCD cartoon "Physicists": https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ I've met some incredibly smart narcissists, and you know what they use their smarts for? The same sort of continuous ego inflation that less smart narcissists do. Their smartness just makes things worse, because they're less likely to have the sort of comeuppance that leads to a moment of clarity.
- dheera 4y agoI mean, it's a flawed system to begin with. When someone is incapable of building stuff or running a company, we (as a society, collectively) hand them shittons of money to be a VC.
- konschubert 4y agoHe could have seen it earlier but I appreciate that he is able and willing to change his angle.
- morelisp 4y agoDid he change his angle, or is all of it (the initial statement, the leaving, the clarification) just a rich man's self-interest, and no real semantic content? https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
- dnissley 4y agoWhen I disagree with someone, I do not necessarily think they're stupid. That's a needlessly polarizing mindset.
- xcambar 4y agoYou're a rare person, in 2022.
- gernb 4y agoMaybe you could be come one too https://www.amazon.com/Never-Thought-That-Way-Conversations/dp/1637740328 https://www.amazon.com/Never-Thought-That-Way-Conversations/...
- braingenious 4y agoWhat sort of decisions or behavior would lead you to believe that somebody is stupid?
- lost_tourist 4y agoSomeone who claims to hold a basic concept of something as straight forward as "free speech absolutist" and doesn't see the logical incoherence of proceeding to ban reporters and others who publish and aggregate publicly available information (@elonjet).
- braingenious 4y agoI personally agree with this. Further, I think “somebody that spends an extraordinary amount of money to become admin on a forum (one of the worst jobs on earth)” qualifies as “a stupid person” well before “being incredibly, laughably, hilariously inept at being a forum admin” even gets factored into the “How stupid can a person be?” equation.
- docandrew 4y agoJust because somebody does something different than us doesn’t mean they are stupid, how ridiculous and reductive is that? They might just be evil.
- throwaway0asd 4y agoStill nothing compared to the billions so many VCs have lost on crypto this year ignoring those far more obvious red flags. No matter how bad Elon damages Twitter at the very least its actually still generating revenue. I cannot tell what crypto generated.
- ajross 4y agoOK, but to be fair[1], that's what we want, right? Our thought leaders should change their minds when they turn out to have been wrong, and correct. pg is doing good here, and that needs to be celebrated and not mocked. We all get stuff mixed up. [1] And for the record I think pg indeed ignored WAY too many red flags for WAY too long in this particular case.
- BryantD 4y agoAbsolutely. I'm glad to see this. If I was a friend of his, I'd suggest that it's a good chance to think about why he was convinced Elon would do well and adjust as necessary, but it's also quite possible that he doesn't feel like he's obliged to do that self-examination in public. And he's not.
- phlakaton 4y agoIt looks to me like he might still be ignoring those red flags. Like I said elsewhere, PG can be an inspiration and still be wrong about a whole bunch of things.
- wpietri 4y agoFor sure. Given that Musk was fired from [deleted, see note 1] and PayPal, you'd think they might have had more questions. But people look at failure much more carefully than they look at success. I think the next wave of interesting questions is around the extent to which Musk contributed the apparent successes, SpaceX and Tesla. We won't know for a long time, as a lot of the people in the know have a strong incentive to keep quiet. But one possible explanation is that he is good at PR and using hype to raise money, but is not a competent manager without help. Consider, for example, this bit from someone who says they were a SpaceX intern: https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296... I asked a former SpaceX person about that and was told it seemed right, that SpaceX worked because everybody believed in the mission and worked hard at managing Elon so that they could get the actual work done. [1] I incorrectly thought he was fired by the board from Zip2, but they just refused to make him CEO. Thanks to dontknowwhyihn for the correction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042958
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoSpaceX worked because they hired experienced people from ULA and other launch services companies who weren't held back by the fear of risk taking that is endemic in the MIC. They wouldn't have succeed if they just tried to play rocket engineer like Carmack did.
- BryantD 4y agoTo be absolutely fair… do you have a reference for Zip2? I was at AltaVista for the acquisition and while I wasn’t close enough to it to be sure, I know he walked away with a bunch of money.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- abdabab 4y agoWhere did you find that Elon was fired from Zip2 and PayPal?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoRight? Mass random firings of employees in multiple incompetent waves, blocking and expelling journalists and activists, re-enabling known hate-speech accounts, walking out of press conferences when questioned, spreading QAnon adjacent conspiracy theories... none of this annoyed Paul Graham enough to leave.. and in fact he defended the guy... But blocking links to Mastodon? That makes him leave? Like, uh, fine, but... maybe he could have not mocked us for pointing out the dysfunction weeks and weeks ago? Between all the crypto implosions happening and this, wealthy Silicon Valley investor types and their hanger-ons are really having a "moment" these past few months. Sheesh.
- josteink 4y ago> re-enabling known hate-speech accounts “Hate speech” is left-wing code for “someone with an opposing point of view”. Having those accounts unbanned, if nothing else, is a healthy sign. What this thread is about though (banning outbound links to other platforms), not so much. That plain reeks of desperation.
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoNo, it's not code in this case. Many of the accounts he re-enabled were full-on white supremacists. That's not an "opposing point of view" it's beyond the pale of civilized society and we literally fought wars to defeat it last century. And the list of accounts he banned were from a list left-wing/anarchist accounts given to him by known self-proclaimed fascists. If you think that's healthy, you have problems.
- rossjudson 4y agoConversely, "an opposing point of view" is right-wing code used to mask hate speech, when it occurs. Does hate speech exist? Yes. Are we in danger of overusing the term? Yes.
- UncleMeat 4y ago"Deathcon 3 on jews" is more valuable speech than links to facebook profiles, gotcha.
- threeseed 4y agoSome of those people especially the YC alumni need to be upfront about whether they’ve invested in Musk’s Twitter. Because direct questions have been asked without answer. Because otherwise I can not understand the logic behind defending Musk’s reign as CEO. Ignoring the chaotic policy changes what bothers me is the treatment of Twitter’s employees. Nobody should ever have to leave their house because of death threats. And surely Parag/Jack should be ultimately held accountable for what happened at the company under their reign.
- JasserInicide 4y agoObsession with politics is a cancer that infects even the brightest
- matthewdgreen 4y agoObsession with weird/extremist polarizing politics is a cancer. I don't think you're necessarily going to become incompetent just because you decided to get involved in city government. The critical thinking capability that keeps you from wasting time on QAnon and conspiracy theories is the same stuff that lets you accomplish useful things in the world.
- tlogan 4y agoMajority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better. Not everybody believed that he will succeeded but it seems like majority belived that he will at least try hard. Like improve app to purchase things (one click checkout), integrate with real time news, some free speech, sports, … so many ideas
- equalsione 4y agoBut this sounds incredibly like “buy the dip!” The situation with twitter is dire. Nothing indicates that any of the things listed are remotely achievable.
- tpush 4y ago> Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better. Speaking only for myself, but I'd honestly contest that.
- drc500free 4y agoPersonally, I assumed he had multiple overlapping motivations. Prove that he knew tech products better than SV insiders, own a major media platform to push his viewpoint, save a media platform from "woke" people and let people like Trump back on, silence his critics, make money, pretend he really intended to purchase something he didn't actually want to. I'm not sure that even he knows why he does what he does, because so much of it is impulsive and can't be attributed to a coherent plan with specific goals. The only thing that will definitely hold true is that there is an audience of tens of millions of Americans who feel mocked by "the Elites." They will shower adoration on anyone with Elite creds - be it academic, media, or business - who tells them there really is a conspiracy to oppress them and that they're the straight shooter who will go to battle for them. That is a very seductive amount of positive feedback when the other things you're doing aren't home runs.
- threeseed 4y agoThe thing is that Twitter 1.0 had the exact same ideas. Every one of them that Musk has thought of to date. They simply were too slow in implementing them. Some of them eg. payments are due to all of the regulatory challenges that Twitter faces as a top tier social network. Others are just incompetence eg. not doing more with Vine. They needed a better executor. Problem is Musk immediately fired everyone. And has constantly underestimated the complexity of the system. So bit hard to see how they were ever going to do better as Twitter 2.0.
- sdiacom 4y agoIt's interesting how VCs suddenly seem to believe "tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff", now that they can't just show up at a bank and get literal buckloads of other people's money with no justification or due diligence, but were all in on "tech startups must continually grow at any cost" just a few months ago. Once again, society will be left holding the rich sociopaths' bags and dealing with the externalities of their uncontrolled gambling.
- jacquesm 4y agoI think the way Twitter is faring is actually proof to the contrary, you can't lay off half your staff and expect the machine to just keep chugging along. You either design it from day #1 to be run with a very tight crew or it becomes a much larger machine with a different kind of profile. Compare Instagram with Twitter.
- jerlam 4y agoCounterpoint: Netflix, which did a lot of layoffs in the 2000s and as the story goes, redesigned their entire HR process around 'lean'.
- abdabab 4y agoI’m sure Netflix in 2000 had a lot simpler tech stack than Twitter in 2020. However your point is taken.
- fragmede 4y agoI'm not sure. 2000 is pre-AWS which means a lot of easy things were more complicated than they are now. Though Twitter is famously on-prem as well, so maybe they're equivalent?
- abdabab 4y agoMy impression is Twitter handles traffic and complexity in a different magnitude than Netflix in the 2000. Internet usage was significantly smaller back then. On-prem is a good point though. I don’t know a lot about their core infra.
- xupybd 4y agoHe waited for evidence. I think PG made a good call. Based on the weight of Elon's past achievements PG gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then when Elon overstepped he reacted appropriately.
- jacquesm 4y agoThe evidence was in plain sight before Musk took over. He's not the kind of person that should run something like Twitter, it was going to be a disaster.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago> Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.". That is still a valid point tho. The thing is, we're not going to know who is right or wrong until it all plays out. And considering there are billions on the lines and Musk plays fast and loose with the rules, he's probably going to come out of the otherside better for it. > It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). Again it's still a valid point. Tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff, that's why they're ALL doing it. People can be right and still do dumb jackass moves.
- reducesuffering 4y agoAnd then immediately blocks anyone criticizing his asinine take: https://twitter.com/fennecsound/status/1592855964474298368 https://twitter.com/fennecsound/status/1592855964474298368 Called this a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33659020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33659020 "The emperors have no clothes"
- metadat 4y agoAnother well-known notable over-eager divergent opinion blocker is Garry Tan [0]. This is the first time I've seen the finger of accusation point to Paul Graham for excessively blocking. Is it possible the @fennecsound account participated in previous harassment and the target doesn't wish to endure more low-quality interactions? My expectation is: HN folks, being generally sensitive souls, would have spoken up vocally on this site if it were a common ocurrence. I couldn't find any such prior accusations on algolia or web search. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 Edit: Thanks for the reality check replies! Perhaps story submissions and discussions on this matter get flagged and die at a high rate.
- dmitriid 4y agoPaul Graham bans people left and right. He's not nearly notable enough for it to become a phenomenon. He banned me, and I think I've never had an interaction with him. I've seen people I follow mentioning these bans, but most just shrug.
- reducesuffering 4y agoYep, there have been many on HN mentioning they were banned by him, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042395 in this thread
- theCrowing 4y agoTypical Hot Hand Fallacy [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_hand
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoQuite the opposite, I think it shows that what you call a red flag, they analyzed seriously before making a judgment. And now that they have more data, they change their mind about their conclusion. It's the sane thing to do.
- verdenti 4y ago
- baxtr 4y agoStrong Opinions, Weakly Held comes to mind.
- redbell 4y agoPaul's first comment [1] in the referenced tweet says: "Do you think Elon will fail and Twitter will go out of business?" and finished it with: "Bet your reputation on a prediction now".. it's a heavy prediction and a bold statement to bet your reputation on!! 1. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1593199305384685573 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1593199305384685573
- duckfruit 4y agoSocial media promotes a vicious callout culture where everything you say in the past is permanently used against you in the court of public opinion whenever you change your mind. While I did not share PG's opinion at the time I also don't think it was completely unreasonable to think that someone like Musk would be capable of running Twitter judiciously after the acquisition. I appreciate that instead of digging in his heels PG seems to have evolved his judgement after recent developments.
- Barrin92 4y agohe also had a similar take that I've seen from technologists more than a few times "the man runs a rocket company, how hard can running a social media site be?" A lot of tech folks seem to have a mindset of a 60s Soviet technocrat. "We shot a dog into space comrades, let's apply our engineering genius to all the social problems the stupid managers can't solve". Spoiler alert, it is pretty hard to govern hundreds of millions of people
- carlosdp 4y ago> just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). You're right that assuming success at Tesla/SpaceX indicated success at Twitter ended up being wrong. But these "priors" are still very true. Tech companies are bloated, Elon sucking at running a social network doesn't change that fact
- outside1234 4y agoOn the positive side - you have to give it him for realizing his error and facing up to it
- distantsounds 4y agoconsidering how many YC-funded ventures have failed, it's hard to believe he'd be wrong about this, too.