Twitter Trainwreck

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by Onesie

By the way, not trying to be argumentative in the least, I respect you a great deal DETRoadater. Just chatting here. The above might come off wrong because it’s text. Take it as lightly as I’ve written it please! Have a great night all!

No worries at all, man. Like you said, we are all just chatting here. We dont all have to agree with one another. How boring would that be if we did?!

[DrFerry]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

Anyone else fascinated by this future management book chapter in how not to run a company?

- Buy an ad revenue dependent company for more than its worth
- Piss off / freak out all your advertisers
- Fire 1/2 your workers
- Think you have leverage to threaten the remaining ones and lose even more

Best guess is that twitter has fewer than 2k employees left, down from over 7k.

Entire departments are gone. Payroll, communications, etc. Some of those functions like finance and payroll are pretty easy to outsource but still the business disruption has got to be painful.

Musk told everyone that he only wanted "hardcore" workers who were ready to work crazy hours, now with no work from home ability. When you really put the screws to people, the best and brightest are the ones who will jump ship because they can. What you are left with are the mediocre hang-ons who arent marketable and cant easily find a better place to work.

I think this whole thing is a massive miscalculation by Musk. He's proven time and again that he can build successful businesses where people are dedicated to him almost like a cult. But taking over an existing business with an existing culture and trying to bash people into your cult following, no, you cant do that. Cults are carefully grown and cultivated from the ground up, they cant overtake and succeed.

So, anyone else finding this train wreck highly interesting?

Besides getting rid of the bots, and attempting restoration of free speech to the heavily censored platform, I wonder what else Elon is trying to achieve? I'll just leave this here. Takes only a few minutes to watch.
.

[dreamingat30fps]

The guy is the richest man in the world. As far as I know he did not inherit most of his wealth (although I think his family was well off) so that means he is either good at making money or very very lucky or both. Now you can argue about how he made the money and if it's government subsidies or vaporware bs snake oil... but the bottom line is he made it. So who am I to say what he's doing is wrong from a business perspective. It's like a 500lbs guy giving fitness advice to a bodybuilder.

That's not saying it's impossible he fucked up, maybe he did, but I'm betting he's fucked things up before and still managed to be the richest guy in the world so. If he can convince people to pay $12k for vaporware FSD then I'm sure he can probably figure out a way to monetize twitter. If not I'm sure no one will be shedding a tear for his $44 billion loss or for twitter.

[TheWatchGuy]

Originally Posted by minn19

Not taking away what he and his workers have built at Tesla, but what gets lost in this and pisses me off about Musk……….he never admits to the massive government subsidies (billions) that kept him and his businesses going. Also extremely ironic he’s decided to be a Republican, who never would have gone for the tax breaks on his electric cars etc etc.

We don’t know it if has been or hasn’t been realistic or not. He seems never to have tried it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon...ty-2021-12?amp

Elon has been on record stating hes voted democrat the majority of his life. Its only recently hes been on the republican side, and as he puts it, he is more anti whoever is in power than left or right.

He donated over 100k to Obama, he donated millions to dems in 2016, he got in to a twitter spat with Trump while he was in office, he backed Democrat Andrew Lang in the primaries, he even said he voted Hilary and Biden in 2016 and 2020. And really, up until after the 2020 election, most people on the left were on his side. Only recently have views of Dems and Republicans switched on him.

Originally Posted by gatorfast

How so

If you believe my observation is off base then that is your prerogative. But if you havent noticed the positive way that conservatives view Elon vs the negative way that liiberals view him then I suggest perusing the usual political sites like Fox News, Cnn, etc to get a taste. Heck, even in this thread the people who make their politics known on the board are responding in-line to my observation

Now look at those views of them from a few years back. There was a big shift in how each side viewed him recently. And a lot of it came when Musk said he wasnt going to support Dems in the primaries earlier this year and then announced he was buying twitter and letting Trump back on.

He went from a green energy, EV god to pariah because he didnt want to support democrats.

[OkieSnuffBox]

Originally Posted by Onesie

Like I said before, what you’re saying right now doesn’t prove anything. No investment pays off in a week.

I’ll check this thread again next year. Peace out guys, keep saying you know more than big investors. I sure don’t so I’ll wait and chat with you guys next year.

The same investors that caused the 07-08 crisis?

I need to find your flavor of Kool-Aid, it must be better than anything I can find.

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by DrFerry

Besides getting rid of the bots, and attempting restoration of free speech to the heavily censored platform, I wonder what else Elon is trying to achieve? I'll just leave this here. Takes only a few minutes to watch.

That Youtube link popped up this funny parody of an ex-Twitter employee interviewing for a "real" job. LOL. Funny stuff.

[floridaorange]

Originally Posted by Tyga11

I agree for the record. Kids are literally addicted to tiktok. It's as big of a problem as the drug epidemic.

I shake my head with what Meta is promoting with VR. Is the real world that bad? Why do we need an alternate universe to interact.

You mean letting kids choose their reality instead of facing reality presents a problem for developing minds?

[chris719]

Originally Posted by Tyga11

I agree for the record. Kids are literally addicted to tiktok. It’s as big of a problem as the drug epidemic.

Lol, this is some boomer nonsense if I've ever seen it. Comparing TikTok videos to opioids and fentanyl. TikTok won't even be popular in 10 years.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by Onesie

“defending conservative misinformation spreaders like Trump, and even promoting misinformation himself with his recent Pelosi tweet”

Exactly what I meant.

[chris719]

Originally Posted by TheWatchGuy

Now look at those views of them from a few years back. There was a big shift in how each side viewed him recently. And a lot of it came when Musk said he wasnt going to support Dems in the primaries earlier this year and then announced he was buying twitter and letting Trump back on.

He went from a green energy, EV god to pariah because he didnt want to support democrats.

No, this is revisionist history. He started losing support among many when he started behaving erratically and tweeting dumb crap all the time, including getting himself investigated by the SEC multiple times and sued. This started a bit before he became "political".

[NYG]

I'm 100% on-board with Musk in trying to dismantle this cultural plague. Even if Twitter collapses it'll be a victory for society.

Anti-Musk folks are the same people driving around in their cars with masks on....alone.

[minn19]

Originally Posted by NYG

I'm 100% on-board with Musk in trying to dismantle this cultural plague. Even if Twitter collapses it'll be a victory for society.
Anti-Musk folks are the same people driving around in their cars with masks on....alone.

FWIW, I’ve been anti Musk all along. The guy is smart as hell but seems to be a terrible human being overall and getting worse. The guy will stab anybody in the back and flip flop when it suits him. ‘Murica business in a nutshell.

Also, I’m waiting for my daughter alone in my C4S maskless.

Just trying to lighten the mood and needle you a little bit here and the F1 forum.

[NYG]

Originally Posted by minn19

FWIW, I’ve been anti Musk all along. The guy is smart as hell but seems to be a terrible human being overall and getting worse. The guy will stab anybody in the back and flip flop when it suits him. ‘Murica business in a nutshell.

Also, I’m waiting for my daughter alone in my C4S maskless.

You got that Porsche Design COVID air filter?

[minn19]

Originally Posted by NYG

You got that Porsche Design COVID air filter?

Of course, only cost $4000, was on special!

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Exactly what I meant.

Again, those arent my political views they are simply factual events which did indeed happen Not sure how the quote can be taken as some form of opinion/view from me as I merely referenced real life events. I understand you lean a certain way (which is fine!) but there is still a difference between fact and opinion.

[NYG]

Originally Posted by minn19

Of course, only cost $4000, was on special!

7th booster not included!

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by gatorfast

Again, those arent my political views they are simply factual events which did indeed happen Not sure how the quote can be taken as some form of opinion/view from me as I merely referenced real life events. I understand you lean a certain way (which is fine!) but there is still a difference between fact and opinion.

You equated [basically all] conservatives with people that favor the spreading of misinformation, and then went on to say because of Musk’s similar fondness for misinformation, conservatives are quick to defend him. Was that not the point of your posts?

You may consider that to be an “observation” but I’d say it was made through an extremely distorted lens and your bar is far too low to distinguish fact from opinion / insults.

[G35POPPEDMYCHERRY]

lol EBITDA, what a bullshit metric

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

You equated [basically all] conservatives with people that favor the spreading of misinformation, and then went on to say because of Musk’s similar fondness for misinformation, conservatives are quick to defend him. Was that not the point of your posts?

You may consider that to be an “observation” but I’d say it was made through an extremely distorted lens and your bar is far too low to distinguish fact from opinion / insults.

Go back and re-read my posts. I did no such thing in terms of equating all conservatives to misinformation spreaders. But yes, my point was that Musk has recently become a conservative "hero" of sorts based on all the aforementioned events.

The events I singled out, admittedly, do not paint conservatives or Elon in a flattering light which is likely why you and others are taking umbrage. But nonetheless, these things happened and I have not distorted nor twisted anything. If you can point to something I said which is untruthful I am happy to acknowledge and discuss.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by gatorfast

Go back and re-read my posts. I did no such thing in terms of equating all conservatives to misinformation spreaders. But yes, my point was that Musk has recently become a conservative "hero" of sorts based on all the aforementioned events.

The events I singled out, admittedly, do not paint conservatives or Elon in a flattering light which is likely why you and others are taking umbrage. But nonetheless, these things happened and I have not distorted nor twisted anything. If you can point to something I said which is untruthful I am happy to acknowledge and discuss.

Just drop it. Nothing good is going to come from further discussion about your previous posts.

[JMcLellan]

Even if Musk is able to pull this off with Twitter and the outcome is tons of growth, immense wealth for investors, a better social media platform, etc I don't believe his approach is the right thing to do. Getting a great outcome should not be done by leaving a path of destruction along the way. And don't tell me what he is doing is the only way to do it.

But there are normal human beings (I tend to think I'm one of those) and then there are people like Musk who seems to intend to want to run the universe: transportation disrupter, space travel, and now wants to influence/dominate social media communications.....

Maybe there are a bunch of people out there that are simply obsessed with Musk that want to work with him and will do exactly what he wants and that's how me makes all it work.

He is a fascinating person for sure but I would never work at any of his companies.

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by Onesie

You’ll never understand because you are not seeing it and are not willing/looking to see.
Every question you asked was rhetorical and somewhat sarcastic. Especially when you put that “confused” emoji…

What you’re posting is your opinion, not facts. And your opinion is that of one side of the political spectrum, the side that is butthurt Musk took over Twitter. That’s what I meant by “now we know where you stand politically, and that shapes your responses”. Still true.

A difference between fact and opinion is when you can prove it.

Calling someone “misinformation spreader” is loaded enough to know where you stand…

I think this is the pot calling the kettle black here. I posted the confused emoji but I was legitimately confused as what "opinion" I was expressing or what I said that was incorrect. I personally do not care about Twitter or Elon Musk for that matter (though I certainly appreciate he is one of the great minds and entrepreneurs of our time). My original post was simply pointing out the polarization and "my team vs your team" attitude that dominates peoples thoughts now.

As for your highlighted sentence, I 100% agree with you there. Referring to Trump and Elon as "misinformation spreaders" in the context I brought up is 100% factually correct. Using Twitter, Trump spread misinformation on the validity of the 2020 election (among other things) and Elon propagated an unfounded rumor about the attack on Pelosi's husband. This has nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics. These are actual, verifiable events that occurred in real life. Surely you agree no?

Anyway, I know you and the other posters taking exception to what I am saying probably think I am some woke liberal out to get you or something. I assure you that is not the case. But your comment about fact vs opinion I think hit on a bigger problem in the current climate which is that facts are no longer agreed as facts (which is scary). I am not sure why my posts, which were intended to be truthful and respectful, elicited name calling from you, but I can see this conversation has run its course.