This. First and foremost, Twitter's product was never its software but its users, and people who remark cynically about this in every other instance ("If you're not paying for the product, you're the product.") seem to have forgotten the maxim when blinded by politics or celebrities. There are plenty of start-up Twitter/FB clones, like Tribel and Gab, but none of them have a large userbase. Twitter's is big and international, despite whatever demographic quirks it may have. Musk bought Twitter for its userbase.
Musk has already said that he more or less intends to turn Twitter into a global WeChat, an all-in-one app that does payment, micro-apps, social media, video, etc. The steps he's taken already, even in the short period he's owned Twitter, point to that. He's already integrating payments by getting people to pay $8 for a blue check, which means payment validation of identity; there's a way to turn your Twitter avatar into an NFT, but only if you attach your crypto wallet—logical next steps are to turn Twitter into a payment platform, get people to order food over it, verify identity and attach online identities to financial records, develop a financial/speech surveillance system, and pretty soon you have WeChat 2.0 but with the NSA lurking in the shadows instead of China's equivalent. He can't get to that point without existing users.
But why did he fight so hard to back out? I just can't understand why someone with a grand vision for Twitter puts in an offer in April and spends the next 6 months and millions on lawyers fighting to get out of the deal.
Except that maybe, just maybe, users won't stay if Twitter suddenly is not Twitter anymore but some kind of WeChat.
Users are what gives it value, but users are here for the app, not for the brand. That's what Metasbook seems to have forgotten when making Instagram look like TikTok. If people want TikTok, they will go to TikTok, not to Instagram.
Back when the Boring Company was new, although I thought it was weird even then, I had enough trust in his business vision to be motivated to guess how it might fit.
Best I got was, experience with tunnel boring machines would be really useful for Marian and Lunar colonies.
Now though? Well, now I think it was always merely the billionaire equivalent of me picking up Blender, modelling half a spaceship before I get bored, quit, and forget I even have Blender installed for another six months.
I mean, I don't think the dumb tunnel under vegas is good evidence of not being a brilliant engineer. He obviously has a very deep understanding of engineering type shit as well as engineering management[0][1]. He's got engineer brain! Engineer brain can make you do a lot of really stupid shit even if you're a great engineer.
That being said I absolutely don't think he's playing 10D chess, he's got a few big Ws and it's gone to his head in a disastrous way. He can be a brilliant engineer/engineering manager and a total fucking idiot at the same time.
To be honest the thing that worries me most about the dumb Las Vegas tunnel, is not that he had a bad idea. I have bad ideas all the time too. But my bad ideas don't turn into dumb tunnels because I have limited resources (he doesn't) and because I have feedback from the harsh reality.
The dumb tunnel makes me think Elon Musk is fully insulated from reality. Nobody around him dared to tell him the tunnel was dumb. And or he didn't listened.
Fast forward today where he decides on a whim that every engineer must stop working remotely and must instead work like crazy to satisfy his ego. And here again the feedback from reality seems minimal on him.
I think and I hope that the good engineers at Twitter are making plans to leave this terrible boss ASAP.
I suspect it's all about his process and he doesn't really have a grand plan but a general strategy. He is really good in few things and as a result he thrives in precarious situations. IMHO, he really believes in Twitters potential in he is trying to find the solution to dig himself out of the pit he jumped in.
Notice how He re-discovers everything that people were saying about running a social media? I think His hands on micromanager approach is good for finding a solution through iteration. Of course, if a solution exists.
It is like going back to the basics and look at the situation with a fresh eye and understand why something doesn't work, create a solution and try again if the solution doesn't work.
> Notice how He re-discovers everything that people were saying about running a social media? I think His hands on micromanager approach is good for finding a solution through iteration.
This works well in a startup whose business position is a kind of blank slate and you have lots of VC money compared to you run rate, but when your existing business relies on established trust in the market, uninformed blind rapid iteration that harms brand position and existing relationships adds additional problem while you are exploring the solution space for the preexisting problem.
The Boring company is how he will build tunnel networks on mars, which has no magnetosphere. I thought everyone knew all his efforts were oriented towards colonizing mars. Why electric cars? There is plenty of lithium on mars but no oil. Etc.
Personally I prefer to have a boss that lives on planet Earth
So if I worked at Twitter and was not on the list of people he thought he needed to fire after reviewing swiftly millions of lines of code, I would make plans to leave ASAP
Then why did he fight for months and months and ostensibly spend millions in legal fees to back out of the deal? I just can't square that with him truly wanting the platform. If he wanted it from the beginning, the acquisition would've been completed in what, May? He made the offer in April.
Musk has already said that he more or less intends to turn Twitter into a global WeChat, an all-in-one app that does payment, micro-apps, social media, video, etc. The steps he's taken already, even in the short period he's owned Twitter, point to that. He's already integrating payments by getting people to pay $8 for a blue check, which means payment validation of identity; there's a way to turn your Twitter avatar into an NFT, but only if you attach your crypto wallet—logical next steps are to turn Twitter into a payment platform, get people to order food over it, verify identity and attach online identities to financial records, develop a financial/speech surveillance system, and pretty soon you have WeChat 2.0 but with the NSA lurking in the shadows instead of China's equivalent. He can't get to that point without existing users.