Nothing says evil more than preparing reactive PR to bury your competitors. And the nonchalant way his response sends chills down my spine. These people will suffocate innovation just to win.
CEOs and executives are the closest equivalent of royalty in the United States. Their media coverage is often hagiographic as a result. They are humanized and puffed up in the press to an extent that foreign press would never think to do about business leaders in their own countries.
Inch upon inch of columns are dedicated to their morning habits, favourite TV shows and fashion choices, and other fluff content to make them "relatable" to the average joe/jane. This is especially magnified when it comes to SV execs because they wear hoodies and tshirts instead of bespoke suits.
And that's what leads to reactions like "I can't believe he'd be so callous to users", as if the person in question is a hard working bootstrapper and not a billionaire looking to maximize market share and profit.
As the news coverage of the time pointed out, Facebook did this to Twitter a few months after Twitter themselves did the same thing to Instagram (which was already owned by Facebook at that point) and Tumblr: https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3913082/facebook-has-appa... All of the big social networks were and still are like this.
> And the nonchalant way his response sends chills down my spine.
CEOs of massive companies don't have time to write long and explanatory emails. They put people in charge that they trust, so they can just say one word or sentence and know that it'll get handled.
I am definitely no fan of Zuck but on the subject of Elon Musk, this is the same guy who tried to use his high media profile to call an innocent man a pedophile just because he would follow Musk’s crazy plan.[1]
So that another one off the “CEO billionaire but not a sociopath” list.
I'd suggest you find a better source than The Guardian for news about Elon Musk. They have run a relentless smear campaign against him for years now. Just one more reason to loathe that publication, in my book.
> The apology comes after the spelunker, Vern Unsworth, who was involved in the early days of efforts to save the now-rescued boys’ soccer team, threatened legal action against the billionaire executive over the comment.
> Musk said on Twitter late Tuesday that he had made the claim out of “anger” because Unsworth had criticized his idea to rescue the boys with a “mini-submarine” made out of a SpaceX rocket part.
Inch upon inch of columns are dedicated to their morning habits, favourite TV shows and fashion choices, and other fluff content to make them "relatable" to the average joe/jane. This is especially magnified when it comes to SV execs because they wear hoodies and tshirts instead of bespoke suits.
And that's what leads to reactions like "I can't believe he'd be so callous to users", as if the person in question is a hard working bootstrapper and not a billionaire looking to maximize market share and profit.