[belligeront]

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

[wpietri]

For 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...

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

[insanitybit]

Musk is a celebrity. Celebrities start successful companies all the time. Is Rihanna a brilliant business woman for starting a successful beauty line? Is she a business genius, which is what Musk gets labeled so often? Maybe she really is, but I don't see her get that label, I think her value add is very clearly "she is famous, people will buy shit that she puts her name on".

What they have in common is that they have fame and money, and it turns out you can do a lot with that.

[naet]

Many celebrities end up burning out or spending all their money, start failed businesses, etc.

Rihanna imo is very savvy and the Fenty brand was a very successful business, involving a couple pivots from fashion to more lingerie and beauty. The big Savage x Fenty musical production event every year is a smart move that leverages her music industry connections and draws lots of interest and new customers.

Arguably she is doing better than Musk atm, given that he started life with a huge capital advantage and is likely losing big on Twitter right now (as well as tanking his public image).

[jacquesm]

Fame is like a flywheel with a feedback loop. Once famous everything you do makes you more famous, even bad stuff.

Hence celebrities getting married and divorced every three weeks, it keeps them in the news.

[class4behavior]

Musk simply does a lot of the basics right and knows how to talk bullshit, had the assets to start at all, is apathetic to social perception (his narcissistic sociopathic tendency) which makes it easier to go against the flow both in a good and bad way, and has the mental ability to work long hours.

His successes just delivered what the market demanded but established powers did not want to pursue for one reason or another. He knows to outsource actual work to experts and offers them attention which is easier due to his interest in tech/science. Of course, he sees them as tools and he doesn't need to care about labor laws but that's a part of the longer list of his flaws and mistakes.

After Tesla/SpaceX took off, it has been as you described.

[lossolo]

> I think her value add is very clearly "she is famous, people will buy shit that she puts her name on".

Musk example[1] of this, he sold 1 million USD worth of perfume with smell of burnt hair in a few hours.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/oddly-enough/elon-musk-sel...

[tedunangst]

They also start moderately but not wildly successful companies and then leak fake tax returns to look more successful, like Kylie Jenner.

[dnissley]

This feels disingenuous.

Elon Musk was barely more than a nobody when he got involved with Tesla and started SpaceX.

Fenty was founded after Rihanna had scored countless hits and was basically a household name.

[insanitybit]

> Elon Musk was barely more than a nobody when he got involved with Tesla and started SpaceX.

He was extremely wealthy and had a lot of connections from buying his way into other companies. He was not yet a household name/ global celebrity, only one in more niche (but very powerful) circles, that changed soon after.

[dnissley]

But so were hundreds/thousands of other people, most of whom did not go on to found companies rivaling Tesla and SpaceX.

[insanitybit]

How many tried? Lots of people don't actually want to do that. I know lots of very wealthy people who are not at all interested in increasing their wealth or running companies or being famous.

[chess_buster]

He in fact forced the founders of Tesla out of the company to call himself founder.

[koonsolo]

Just look at the guys coming from paypal and see what they did. More than a few household names.

[hammock]

You’ve completely moved the goalposts there

[insanitybit]

I don't see how. I said celebrity and wealth are what they have in common and what they have leveraged. Elon was wealthy before he was famous, he became famous in important circles, and eventually he became globally famous.

[SoftTalker]

Who is "Rihanna" ?

[proamdev123]

Rihanna is one of the most successful musical artists of all time. Her net worth is near or at a billion dollars.

[SoftTalker]

Yeah I was being a little facetious. But not much. I have heard of her, but don't know any of her music nor her fashion brands. I probably have seen her likeness, but I have no mental image of what she looks like. I couldn't tell you the names of any of her songs or the names of her brands.

I know who Musk is, I know what he does, I know about the companies he founded, I know what he looks like. All I know of Rihanna is that she is a pop star.

Celebrity is very contextual.

[fragmede]

> Robyn Fenty, known to the world as Rihanna, launched Fenty Beauty in 2017, she sought to create a cosmetics company that made “women everywhere (feel) included.” A perhaps unintended consequence: The beauty line has helped her enter one of the world’s most exclusive ranks: Billionaire.

> Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion, Forbes estimates—making her the wealthiest female musician in the world and second only to Oprah Winfrey as the richest female entertainer. But it’s not her music that’s made her so wealthy. The bulk of her fortune (an estimated $1.4 billion) comes from the value of Fenty Beauty, of which Forbes can now confirm she owns 50%. Much of the rest lies in her stake in her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, worth an estimated $270 million, and her earnings from her career as a chart-topping musician and actress.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/08/04/fentys-fo...

She is a business mogul in the best sense of the word, just in industries far away from here.

[bluedino]

Is her beauty line worth more than (top three classic beauty supply companies)?

[pavlov]

Rihanna’s underwear company Savage X Fenty was estimated to be worth $3 billion earlier this year, which is roughly the same as the market cap of Victoria’s Secret.

Probably that estimate would be lower now, given the market downturn. But clearly she’s well on her way to building up a competitor to the established brands.

[Kranar]

Don't see any evidence that it's worth 3 billion dollars. All I see is a quote from Rihanna herself saying she thinks her company can raise that much by the time they IPO. Forbes estimates the value of her company at 1 billion on the high end.

And while it's true that VSCO's current market cap is 3 billion, at the time that Rihanna made her comment VSCO's market cap was 5-6 billion. It has dropped significantly in recent months.

[insanitybit]

Can you just make your point?

[onion2k]

Yes. That's what market cap means. I can understand you might disagree with the valuation, but that doesn't change it.

Also, don't forget that Rihanna has something the top three beauty supply companies don't have - a growing brand. That has a massive impact on market cap.

[bluedino]

So her brand has a higher market cap than L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, etc?

[labster]

Does her beauty line rival that of the gods? Because I don’t want another Trojan War starting.

[kevin_thibedeau]

SpaceX 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.

[chiefalchemist]

Musk is a victim of his own success. Even if he isn't solely responsible for the success of Tesla and Space X in his mind enough of it is him.

The problem here is overconfidence / blind spots. Twitter is a different type of business. Musk looks to be doing a Mike Jordan or a Shaq. Basketball isn't baseball, nor is it rapping. Both of them recovered from those bad decisions. Will Musk? Time will tell.

[wpietri]

Yeah, there's a phenomenon called "Acquired Situational Narcissism", where if somebody spends enough time in an environment that's all about them, they start thinking it's all about them.

There's some evidence Musk was like this all along, but it is a lot harder to learn humility when you're doing well.

[bryanlarsen]

All we can really compare Musk to is to Bezos. Bezos basically destroyed Blue Origin in 2017 after they blew up a test stand. This is the sort of thing that happens when you're developing rockets. You just have to accept it and move on. It'll cost you millions and many months, but if you want to develop rockets... After the test stand incident Bezos fired the CEO, brought in an incompetent one and brought in a "no mistakes" type of culture that doesn't get anything done.

In contrast, check out the Tom Mueller interview about Elon Musk and "face shut off". This feature is one of the top reasons why the SpaceX Merlin rocket engine is such a great engine. Mueller thought it would be very hard to get it to work in a large engine and he was right. They blew up hundreds of engines and a bunch of test stands. But Musk was supportive the whole time. That's a big deal, and what you want from a CEO during development.

But "better than Bezos running a rocket company" is a pretty low bar to hurdle.

Tory Bruno at ULA and Peter Beck at Rocket Lab from the outside appear to be outstanding CEO's. But they've been starved for resources for different reasons. What could they have done with the resources that Musk & Bezos brought to their companies?

Rocket Lab in particular is one of the companies that could challenge SpaceX's dominance.

[inglor_cz]

"Bezos basically destroyed Blue Origin in 2017"

This sort-of implies that BO was functional prior to that incident.

BO was founded in 2000. By 2017, they had existed for 17 years without reaching the orbit. (Which SpaceX managed in 6 years, Astra managed in 17 years, RocketLab in 12 years).

It seems to me that BO is just continuing to be an expensive failure, which, unlike all the other failed space startups, keeps dragging itself on, because it can rely on basically unlimited funding.

[bryanlarsen]

For the first part of its existence Blue Origin was basically a think tank. For a while its only employee was a science fiction author. Neal Stephenson is great, but he's not a rocket designer. As a think tank it was highly successful -- they successfully identified VTVL reusability as the future of space independently from SpaceX and similarly chose methalox. By 2017 Blue Origin was basically about a decade old as a "real" company. And progress was reasonable. New Shepherd was real and successful and looked like it could launch humans at any time. New Glenn was ambitious and BE-4 looked close.

Expecting them to reach orbit as quickly as SpaceX or Rocket Lab is unfair since SpaceX & Rocket Lab had an orbital rocket as their first product, and Blue Origin didn't.

It's unfair to compare everybody to SpaceX -- their success is exceptional. Pre-2017 Blue Origin wasn't as functional as SpaceX but I wouldn't call them dysfunctional. Post-2017 Blue Origin is dysfunctional.

This is all based on heresay, so take from it what you will.

[inglor_cz]

Thank you for providing context that I wasn't aware of.

That said, they are backed by Bezos, one of the richest people on the planet, so I think it is fair to expect some real achievements from them.

[bryanlarsen]

Very fair.

It almost seems a dream to a space nerd. A O'Neill protoge with a long term vision of "moving heavy industry into space to enable the Earth to turn into a garden planet" and uninterested in short term profits investing a billion dollars a year to pursue that vision.

They then successfully identified the first two steps along that road. 1: dramatically reduce the price of access to space through reusability. 2: return to the moon for exploration on the path to exploiting its resources to enable the space industry that's the long term goal. 3: LEO space station.

That SpaceX beat them to the first two goals should be cause for celebration and partnership and a move on to the next goal. Instead they've been fighting SpaceX with dirty tricks that luckily have failed.

[BryantD]

To 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.

[dontknowwhyihn]

I worked at Zip2, and am pretty sure Elon was not fired.

[wpietri]

Thanks for the correction! That's my mistake. I remembered it as the board firing him from CEO, as happened at PayPal, but according to Wikipedia, at Zip2 the board only refused to make him CEO.

[richbell]

IIRC some pieces frame Sorkin joining as Elon being "demoted" to CTO; after ousting Sorkin, he tried to become CEO but, as you said, the board shot him down.

[adolph]

In the bigger picture, Elon in SF twittering around while Gwynne runs Boca Chica may be a good thing.

[littlestymaar]

No later than Friday, I was discussing with an acquaintance working for Tesla who compared Musk's leadership here to Trump at the white house: there is an entire team responsible for doing internal damage control after Musk announcements on Twitter. It's a lot of work, and sometimes the entire company just need to cope with the boss's whims (“ok next year there's going to be the Cybertruck thing [which he basically compared to the “not a flamethrower”] but fortunately for 2024 we're working on real cars”).

[pardon_me]

Musk is a fraudster. Someone must compile a timeline of his claims. Just the content that pops up from Thunderf00t on Youtube calling it out is enough for investigations. The only way I see investors going along with it is embarassment, riding the tide and not knowing when it will change. SoftBank style. It's changing now, economic corrections, just a time he's leveraged more than a sane person would value his companies at. lol

Then there's China. Tesla's 25% yearly revenue after being the first US company to launch without being 50% hand-in-hand with a local business. He agreed to teach the locals his methods, and they now sell straight-up copies at half the price. lol

I'm sorry but this whole thing is one big joke.

[abdabab]

Where did you find that Elon was fired from Zip2 and PayPal?

[wpietri]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I was wrong about Zip2; the board just refused to let him become CEO. But at PayPal, the board fired him after 6 months as CEO. That's documented in many places, including here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal

[dnissley]

When I disagree with someone, I do not necessarily think they're stupid. That's a needlessly polarizing mindset.

[talkingtab]

When I think someone is stupid, I don't necessarily disagree with them. That's a needlessly polarizing mindset.

[dnissley]

Also true! Stopped clocks, etc.

[xcambar]

You're a rare person, in 2022.

[gernb]

Maybe you could be come one too

https://www.amazon.com/Never-Thought-That-Way-Conversations/...

[molszanski]

stupid doesn't end a conversation. It starts it. Ok, someone thinking is different (stupid). But how exactly do they think? Why? What drives? Where does the break or wrong start?

[123pie123]

correct - I've learnt different perspectives and expanded my way of thinking

and also learnt many many people do not bother with thinking, and just throw crap out - due to their immediate emotions

[braingenious]

What sort of decisions or behavior would lead you to believe that somebody is stupid?

[themitigating]

I'll bite

- the ability to explain why you think a certain way or did something (i.e. when you ask a child why they threw a glass they'll say "I don't know"

- the speed at which you learn/process new information

- the ability to understand your emotions and the level of control you have over them

- your willing to engage in debate

- how inquisitive you are

[fragmede]

In addition to "I don't know" is "I messed up". Everyone does stupid things occasionally. Stupid people double down on their stupidity once they realize what happened instead of owning up to it.

[brazzledazzle]

There's some nuance there though. Doubling down is (almost) always a stupid move but it isn't always stupid people that do it. It's rooted in insecurity which is independent of intelligence.

[lost_tourist]

Someone 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]

I 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]

Just because somebody does something different than us doesn’t mean they are stupid, how ridiculous and reductive is that?

They might just be evil.

[blowski]

Is it necessary to believe anyone is "stupid" as a personality?

I just disagree with people's opinions on certain things. And if I frequently disagree with someone enough, then I just quietly stop paying any attention to what they say.

[braingenious]

How is judging people’s way of thinking as being a binary between “necessary” and “unnecessary” not just calling people “stupid” or “not stupid” the same thing just using different words?

[cyberphobe]

I don't think people are calling Elon Musk stupid because they disagree with him.

[kyleyeats]

If you don't hate stupid people, how do you know that you're smart?

[aussiesnack]

Perhaps not your intent, but you have hit on the entire social media mindset, distilled.

TV debate long ago decided that every complex human concern can be profitably reduced to a crass binary which can be argued about in front of a camera for the audience's thumbs up or down.

Social media democratised this decerebrate approach. A thumbs up or down from your tribe. Mastodon, Post.news et al only replicate the Twitter model.

It doesn't matter which platform PG, or anyone else, is on. They're all worthless distraction. Fiddling while Rome burns etc.

[kyleyeats]

You can tell who's actually discussing a person's intelligence and who's status-signaling how smurt they are because only one group gets terribly offended when you disagree.

[tlogan]

Majority 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

[threeseed]

The 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.

[tpush]

> 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]

Personally, 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.

[Uninen]

I confess, I was one of those people who believed that he’d try hard to make a positive change. The reality seems to be exactly what the most cynical takes were; it’s all about money and petty personal things. It’s a shame. The wasted potential is enormous.

[krisoft]

> Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better.

I mean. I still think he is trying to do that. Is he succeeding? I don’t think so.

If it all hits the ground and twitter is no more a going concern will he claim that was his plan all along? Probably. Doesn’t mean it is true.

Even on the day he offered to buy twitter he was offering more money than the stock was worth. That is only rational if you believe you have a plan to run it better.

According to reports he is spending a lot of his time managing twitter in quite a hands-on way. Do you think he is not trying to make it better in his own mind?

[lancesells]

> Even on the day he offered to buy twitter he was offering more money than the stock was worth. That is only rational if you believe you have a plan to run it better. > According to reports he is spending a lot of his time managing twitter in quite a hands-on way. Do you think he is not trying to make it better in his own mind?

I think it's a case of the gambler having enough money to buy the casino.

[equalsione]

But this sounds incredibly like “buy the dip!” The situation with twitter is dire. Nothing indicates that any of the things listed are remotely achievable.

[TuringTest]

How can they brag about freedom of expression and then forbid promoting their competitors through their site? [1]

They are well within their rights to do so, but that's the exact opposite of competing purely in the market of ideas.

1. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platfo...

[EarlKing]

...except they don't do that. This is no different than Reddit's own policies on spam and self-promotion. You're expected to use the site for discussion and building community, not directing people elsewhere. If the latter is your goal then you can pay for advertising. What's changed here is that people who previously were given free reign to promote themselves without paying a dime are now being told they need to pay up. I'm finding it hard to sympathize with them.

[TuringTest]

Well I find hard to sympathize with the people saying that horrible abuse will not be moderated because "free speech", yet mentioning the fact that you use other social media apps will get your account banned as "unpaid self-promotion".

It doesn't inspire confidence in that their previous stance was truly motivated by their love of the unrestricted diffusion of ideas.

[EarlKing]

> horrible abuse

Every time someone mentions this I ask for examples, and generally all I ever receive in reply are examples of people disagreeing with them. I begin to think that those who shout about 'abuse' are incensed that those they formerly silenced by bending the rules are now using those rules against them, particularly to voice their legitimate opinions, and they're using their institutional power elsewhere to try to tank Twitter as a result.

In short: I know full well that this has nothing to do with free speech arguments and everything to do with institutional actors being incensed that they can't use Twitter as their own propaganda institution anymore. I won't pretend that Elon is a friend of the proletariat, but I'm also not going to pretend that those opposing him somehow are either. This is a slap fight between two groups of bourgeoisie, and petit bourgeoisie actors are trying to convince everyone else it's some sort of fight for liberty, justice, mom and apple pie. Utter nonsense.

In the end, some of you are going to have to accustom yourselves to the idea that you are not gatekeepers of public forums, the people have interests that do not coincide with your own, and no amount of force or fraud is going to change that. Don't like it? Learn to code, I guess.

[TuringTest]

> Every time someone mentions this I ask for examples, and generally all I ever receive in reply are examples of people disagreeing with them

Then you haven't been watching harassment on trans and other LGBT people, being told to die in horrible ways (I'm sure you can point to other high-profile people getting that kind of threats, but this one gets such abuse merely for existing).

Fully agree that having public forums gatekeeped by centralized actors deciding what you can communicate is worrisome; we should get distributed ways to announce the existence of your personal publications to people that may be interested in its subject - like like the Usenet newsgroups of old (which are still in operation, but are not known to the general public).

[ssnistfajen]

People believed he could make Twitter better based on the assumption that he will implement these changes. I personally thought it'd be great if we could tailor our own recommendation algorithms. Turns out none of those happened and this has been a dumpster fire all along.

[alfiedotwtf]

> Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better.

I was one of them. But slowly we saw him fuck it up, and then double down. Twitter is toast unless Elon is dumped by his investors

[mjmsmith]

See also Donald Trump, 2016.

[threeseed]

Some 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.

[hn_throwaway_99]

The hubris is what gets me. The sheer audacity that the peons had in suggesting Musk didn't know what he was doing!

[BiteCode_dev]

Yet, 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]

Without sarcasm?

[ip26]

It’s hubris to question the authority? I thought it was a fundamental American pastime.

[xupybd]

He 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]

The 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.

[ajross]

OK, 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]

Absolutely. 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]

It 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.

[that_guy_iain]

> 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.

[redbell]

Paul'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

[reducesuffering]

And then immediately blocks anyone criticizing his asinine take: https://twitter.com/fennecsound/status/1592855964474298368

Called this a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33659020

"The emperors have no clothes"

[metadat]

Another 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

Edit: Thanks for the reality check replies! Perhaps story submissions and discussions on this matter get flagged and die at a high rate.

[dmitriid]

Paul 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]

Yep, there have been many on HN mentioning they were banned by him, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042395 in this thread

[theCrowing]

Typical Hot Hand Fallacy [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_hand

[Barrin92]

he 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

[throwaway0asd]

Still 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.

[MandieD]

Several hundred terawatt hours of electricity consumption.

[rchaud]

VCs made plenty of money, they receive pre-mined amounts of whatever token they're investing in, and then dump it on retail once the coin lists on the exchanges.

[JasserInicide]

Obsession with politics is a cancer that infects even the brightest

[matthewdgreen]

Obsession 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.

[cmrdporcupine]

Right? 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.

[diydsp]

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. that doesn't mean he adores the other changes.

[willis936]

None of those things incurred opportunity cost. I don't know who invests in what, but a cynical, logical explanation is on the table.

[908B64B197]

In a free country there's this thing called the first amendment and freedom of speech; because someone doesn't like a certain opinion doesn't make it hate speech.

However, blocking links to a competitor is pretty clear-cut anticompetitive behavior. Imagine AT&T refusing to serve Verizon's websites.

[josteink]

> 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.

[UncleMeat]

"Deathcon 3 on jews" is more valuable speech than links to facebook profiles, gotcha.

[josteink]

Uh. Did you miss the part of my comment which said that link-banning being bad?

Also nice hyperbole you got there.

[UncleMeat]

What hyperbole? We've got a policy that is link-banning while unbanning people who are holding "legally allowed opinions" (nice edit) like Mr. West and other racists.

[josteink]

The edit was a clarification based on your comment which was clearly misunderstanding what I was trying to say. Nothing malicious/nefarious intended.

Also: while Kanye is clearly his own kind of category of crazy, what “other racists”?

I don’t know a single such case.

[bfrog]

That seems to be a real boon for advertising revenue there at twitter. Just what advertisers dream of, their ad next to a post by some antisemitism/racism/lgbt hate.

You just lost a large group of potential customers. Brilliant marketing strategy.

Maybe if you sell flags that go on oversized pickups. About everyone else is a miss in that sort of stupidity.

[cmrdporcupine]

No, 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]

Conversely, "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.

[duckfruit]

Social 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.

[carlosdp]

> 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

[baxtr]

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held comes to mind.

[sdiacom]

It'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.

[agrippanux]

I think we can be honest and admit many large tech companies are bloated and can lay off staff - with the proper planning and care. Taking an axe to an org you just took over is typically not associated with proper planning and care.

[sdiacom]

Of course some tech companies are bloated, and of course some other tech companies must grow further. But the tune about what the tech industry as a whole must do seems to suddenly shift, depending on whether it's pump season or dump season.

[jacquesm]

I 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]

Counterpoint: Netflix, which did a lot of layoffs in the 2000s and as the story goes, redesigned their entire HR process around 'lean'.

[abdabab]

I’m sure Netflix in 2000 had a lot simpler tech stack than Twitter in 2020. However your point is taken.

[fragmede]

I'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]

My 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.

[ALittleLight]

Why 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]

> Why is that amazing?

PG mocked those who thought we would end up here.

[shanebellone]

PG confuses me. Sometimes he seems extremely rational but other times he tweets obvious fallacies.

[jacquesm]

I think that spells 'human'.

[shanebellone]

Weird, I thought it spell 'incongruence'.

[dnissley]

Where is "here" exactly?

[pavlov]

Every promise Musk made about Twitter broken in less than two months?

[wpietri]

And 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]

The big question now is how much damage can he do? To the world, not just Twitter.

[konschubert]

He could have seen it earlier but I appreciate that he is able and willing to change his angle.

[morelisp]

Did 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

[outside1234]

On the positive side - you have to give it him for realizing his error and facing up to it

[BiteCode_dev]

Quite 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.

[dehrmann]

Then today, he said

> I don't think [Musk] realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media

[dheera]

I 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.

[lreeves]

I don't think the investments of what, the 0.1% wealthiest of society is the same as "society collectively" doing anything!

[topaz0]

It is society collectively, by allowing those .1% of people have enough money to be able to fund such things on a whim.

[lreeves]

Allowing is doing a lot of work in this sentence when in North America pretty much all political parties I can vote for (that have a chance of winning) support the status quo in power.

[topaz0]

Very true. That too is a feature of our society.

[distantsounds]

considering how many YC-funded ventures have failed, it's hard to believe he'd be wrong about this, too.

[cyberphobe]

And 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

[KMag]

Elon could both be smart and making huge mistakes. It happens all the time.

[elliekelly]

This is absolutely true. But I think “smart” leadership avoids repeatedly doubling down on their mistakes. You can, very rarely, double down on what looks like a bad bet and come out ahead. I’m not even sure I’d call that smart but it does happen. But it takes a not-smart person to see the losses stacking up over and over and decide to dig in their heels.

Even if you’re absolutely certain your goals and overall strategy are right a smart person would understand that something needs to change in the messaging and/or execution given the overwhelmingly negative feedback.

[ehsankia]

I really don't want to be defending Elon, but I think saying "Elon must be stupid because of how he handled Twitter" is as silly as "Elon had success with Tesla and SpaceX therefore he knows how to run companies". Those two seem like two extremes.

The answer seems more along the lines of, Twitter and its problems are very very different from Tesla/SpaceX, and while Elon may have been good at the latter, he has zero experience with the former.

That being said, not realizing the above I guess makes him partly not-smart, and I assume the shortsightedness was due to the inflated ego caused by his previous two successes.

[elliekelly]

Yes I think it’s probably more accurate to say his problems stem from ego & arrogance rather than stupidity.

[shanebellone]

Elon's behavior, opinions, and points of view suggest otherwise. His only notable quality is his wealth.

[nradov]

For a classic example see former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. By any conventional measure he was very smart, and yet he made a series of catastrophically bad decisions which are still impacting US national security today.

Intelligence is overrated in leaders. Character, humility, principles, and discipline are far more valuable in avoiding huge mistakes.

[flyinglizard]

It really depends on the organization being led. Vision is not something you can easily outsource or task subordinates with. I mean one of the classic leader types would never set himself up to fail in early days SpaceX.

What a startup, a market leader and a government organization need are distinct types of leadership. Sometimes there are prodigies who can do two of these. Musk did.

[throwntoday]

I think they are laying the groundwork to allow creators to monetize their tweets and additional content. As it stands a lot of creators are monetizing their content off platform (patreon, substack, youtube, onlyfans, etc.) and the goal is to lock them and their content into twitter.

I think it's a good idea as content is king, but they should have rolled this out after they had established an ability to monetize. Once people leave the platform it will be tough to get them back unless they offer a very lucrative comission split with creators.

[fundad]

Hoping they can restore brand safety to pull that off.

[cyberphobe]

Yeah it's probably that, not that everyone is fleeing Elon's $44 billion dying platform and he's is trying to stop it in whatever way he can.

[throwntoday]

Do you even use twitter? Activity is the same as it's ever been. I think many people are overstating how many people are "fleeing" because of their personal disdain for Musk.

If they were actually concerned with people fleeing why would they do something which is more likely to make creators leave?

[cyberphobe]

> If they were actually concerned with people fleeing why would they do something which is more likely to make creators leave?

you're asking this in a sub-thread about if Elon is smart or not? I thought the answer was obvious.

[blobster]

Also, people can be both smart and stupid at different times and sometimes even at the same time. It's not a binary thing.

[rc_mob]

Elon is definitely not a smart human. Maybe 25 years ago he did a thing. Ok.

[wardedVibe]

Intelligence is overrated for it's utility in navigating the world.

[cyberphobe]

This is true. Wealth is what matters in this world, not intelligence.

[KMag]

Okay, so what's you over-under for Elon's IQ, or are you making a subtle distinction between intelligent and smart?

[ben_w]

Someone can be both smart and Dunning-Kruger themselves in the face.

I don't know why someone who (self-diagnosed?) as having Asperger's thinks they'd be a good fit for leading a social media company, that feels like having a an amputee selling staircases [0]; but the rocket nerds I follow seem pretty convinced Musk genuinely knows actual rocket science.

[0] as in: it could work, but you'd not expect it by default

[elcritch]

Well its not like Zuckerberg is the epitome of normal "humanness".

[ben_w]

True, though he does seem to have the self awareness to get other people to help him.

[croes]

He could be a dumb guy make much right. It happens all the time.

[Mikeb85]

Elon is undoubtedly smart. It also seems like maybe he's on a mental health episode or just got so rich he decided he's done with building companies and just wants to be an asshole out of spite. Who knows? But he's accomplished plenty of things that suggest he's not an idiot.

[pclmulqdq]

He can't alienate a big potential investor to future funds.

[sdiacom]

I 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, ...)

[philjohn]

That relies on Elon still having a lot of funds to invest, not a foregone conclusion at this rate.

[mjmsmith]

TikTok isn't on the list of banned social media links.

[jacquesm]

He's smart. He's also the last person on the planet that should be in charge of a social media platform.

Smart + deficient in the ethics department is a recipe for disaster.

[wpietri]

I 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/

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.

[class4behavior]

Intelligence is neither a binary nor a one-dimentional concept. Within certain contexts Musk is certainly a smart entrepreneur but I would not call him that without a lot of such qualifiers.