[lupire]

Why would anyone take him seriously when he is making a massive embarrassment of himself on his first day on the job (after doing the same for months leading up to the takeover?)

Musk didn't know the bio of the CEO of the company he was buying (who was also former CTO, engineer, Stanford PhD (thesis topic: making decisions under uncertainty), IPhO gold medalist, top tier Indian tech student) and called him a non-technical "manager type" and refused to ask him any technical questions.

I am also excited, because I think Twitter needs to end and Musk is the perfect person to destroy it.

[cercatrova]

Why does Twitter need to end? Have you before and do you currently use Twitter? I've met and talked to a great deal of cool people on there, such as a lot of prominent people in the web dev space, as well as scientists in various fields.

Twitter is just a social network, it can be used for good or for bad, based on who one follows. That people think it needs to end for whatever reason (or maybe they're only used to the bad parts, or have even never used Twitter which is quite a many people in my experience who talk trash about Twitter) is misguided.

[notjoemama]

I agree it shouldn't end, but what I do wish would end is the new media reaching for tweets to pump drama for engagement on their platforms. The economy for attention is just exhausting as an end user, even if I agree with what's being said.

No, I do not need to be informed about X person who said Y thing on Twitter of all places, told to me from talking heads I've never heard of, that want me to be outraged for all the reasons they hate X person or Y statement.

Maybe it's not Twitter's fault, rather people using it as a tool to foment hate on principal. It's certainly not from being well informed via the platform or the news media. Thank God IRL people don't work that way.

[cercatrova]

Why read those news outlets then? I never hear about X person saying Y thing because I don't read general news outlets.

[sangnoir]

> Why does Twitter need to end?

I use Twitter and I think it needs to end - at least in its current form. It has a very low signal-to-noise ratio and doesn't offer the users adequate control over what they see. As an example, you may not want to see (re)tweets on Baseball from the prominent Web Dev space folk you follow, or the off-topic comments by trolls in replies.

> Twitter is just a social network, it can be used for good or for bad, based on who one follows.

...and the people that interact with them. There need to be more receiver-side controls. Blocking tweets by words is a first step, they should have opt-in filter by subject and raise the bar on replies that ride the coat-tails of authors authority.

[exodust]

What you described are good ideas for improvements and new features, not reasons for ending.

[sangnoir]

Much of the toxicity and misinformation on twitter stem from the fact that there are no controls to filter out the garbage on the receiver's end, but there is a perverse incentive dir tweeter not to add these controls because the more tweets they see, the more ad slots Twitter can fill.

[parkingrift]

Why would anyone take him seriously?

Well, maybe because he’s the richest man in the world? Or maybe because he’s the CEO of several of the most valuable public or private companies in the world? Maybe because he practically single handedly willed the electric car industry into existence? Or maybe because he’s revolutionized the rocket industry? Or…or…or…

Elon hasn’t whiffed on any business venture in decades. Nothing but net.

But you wouldn’t think that listening to all the “I am very smart” people on this forum. This guy, one of the most successful people in all of human history, is apparently an idiot and no one should take him seriously. He will surely run Twitter into the ground because… because… because reasons.

These takes are outright comedy. Fine if you don’t like the guy, I surely don’t, but good grief you’d think he was pissing into bottles like Howard Hughes.

[wilsonnb3]

> This guy, one of the most successful people in all of human history, is apparently an idiot and no one should take him seriously

You say “successful” but I assume you mean wealthy.

There are other forms of success that Musk falls woefully short of, such as “not being an asshole”…

[parkingrift]

No I mean business success. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, PayPal, and now Twitter.

Just about no one took Musk seriously with his vision of reusable rockets or electric cars. And yet, here we are.

…with armchair internet warriors saying he’s a joke and sure to run Twitter into the ground.

[HyperSane]

Musk is just constantly revealing himself to be a fool over and over.

[georgeg23]

His real enterprise is a massive DoD program, which requires Republicans to fund. Twitter helps him with that and curry favors.

Mike is the ringleader but he's only useful when Republicans are in power.

So not as foolish as he seems, but it's unclear his ploys will pay off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career

[alostpuppy]

Oh man. I’d never thought of this.

[moralestapia]

>Why would anyone take him seriously [...]

Well, they should, he is their boss now.

[AlexandrB]

I think respect is earned, not an entitlement due to someone's ability to buy a company. There are plenty of bad bosses who should not be taken seriously.

[OccamsMirror]

Whether they respect him or not they should definitely take him seriously.

[dragontamer]

The opposite.

Technology is famous for inverting the classic boss vs lackey relationship. Without an engineer, the boss cannot build what they want. Engineers are your eyes and ears, they're the ones who can tell you if an idea can or can't work... and ultimately are the ones who will build the products.

Twitter engineers are the ones best positioned into knowing what is or isn't possible with Twitter's codebase, for whatever the heck Elon Musk wants to do with the code.

If Elon thinks he can just walk in with a bunch of Tesla engineers and have his trusted Tesla programmers figure things out, he's gonna be in for a surprise. Programming doesn't work like that, it often takes 6+ months for a set of engineers to reach competence with a codebase.

---------

There's a myriad of stories about how "bad bosses tell engineers what to do, instead of listening to them" around here. Why? Because we're largely a set of programmers / hackers on this discussion site. We all know how bad management can be.

What Musk is doing right now? Obviously and clearly bad management. Musk has no trust over the Twitter engineers at all.

[marcusverus]

> Technology is famous for inverting the classic boss vs lackey relationship.

If only Elon Musk knew as much as you do about managing engineers!

[moralestapia]

Rights and obligations go hand in hand. Want to tell your boss what you really think about em? Sure, you can do it any day, just better have some savings and an alternate source of income :).

Disclaimer: Self-employed so I don't have to deal with that.

[marcusverus]

He’s not respected because he can buy twitter. He’s respected because he’s objectively one of the most accomplished businessmen of his generation.

[seattle_spring]

The incoming CEO of the last company I worked for had a similar opinion. Everyone left and he was left floundering.

[wahnfrieden]

“No one should be the boss of anybody” - Elon Musk 2022

[readsadhours]

I can't believe people still respect Parag after what happened with Mudge.

[vlovich123]

I have failed to source this claim after some searching:

> Musk didn't know the bio of the CEO of the company he was buying (who was also former CTO, engineer, Stanford PhD (thesis topic: making decisions under uncertainty), IPhO gold medalist, top tier Indian tech student) and called him a non-technical "manager type" and refused to ask him any technical questions.

Is there some news report you’re referencing or some non public information you’ve been privy to?

[dagmx]

Part of the lawsuit

https://twitter.com/techemails/status/1585804674170355712?s=...

[sjs382]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366381

[godelmachine]

Source?

[earth2mars]

"funding secured" "pedo guy" and this total twitter fiasco where he was forced to pay premium to buy it. These are few examples where he made fool of himself.

Though, people can be super smart and yet so stupid at the same time. It doesn't have to be binary. (Who am I to judge though!)

[godelmachine]

On the “Funding secured” part, I think he has proved in court (Musk vs SEC) that to the best of his knowledge, funding was indeed secured and the Arab sheikhs ditched him later. He shared text messages in the court.

Still needs corroboration.

[exodust]

> "pedo guy"

And after the dust settled, it was just a couple of oddball blokes exchanging insults like children. The diver who started the fight, got greedy and wanted $190 million in damages over the pedo comment. Jury deliberated for less than an hour, and he got nothing.

In the end, the Thai Navy got a free mini sub they said could be used in future rescues. I don't see the Twitter incident with the diver as any final verdict about Musk in general, other than he can get emotional and doesn't hide behind corporate speak. The Diver-guy's initial attack really was the first foolish action in that whole saga.

[tronicdude]

https://tinyurl.com/2p8yds6e

[thepasswordis]

I mean…he does sound like a non engineer manager type.