tanteThis explains basically everything about Elon Musk's actions. Some of his companies work in spite of him. Twitter just has no immune system against his thing.
https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd
Kenneth@tante Chaos muppet.
Pär Björklund@tante I've said that musks success is that he's been able to hire people that build things faster than he can destroy them
Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦@tante His formula for success has been very simple:
* Find something that has stagnated but is backed by a promising convergence of technologies, something which is "difficult but not impossible", that people really want to happen which has stagnated because companies don't want to risk the difficulty.
* Start a company. Inspire ideologues who want to make it happen. Attract them, get your pick of the best, work them long hours - which they, will because they want to make it happen.
@tante It requires having technical knowledge and understanding, but for the most part relates to Elon's ability to attract ideologues.
Twitter, by contrast, is not full of ideologues. It's not the sort of business that's going to attract ideologues. And he's going to struggle to attract anyone but the Alt-Right with how he's become over the past few years.
So, you know... best of luck?
Richard Gadsden@nafnlaus @tante I think this is fair: people will put up with quite a lot of bullshit from management if they think they are going to make breakthroughs in something important. Like electric cars that save the planet from climate change, or rockets that make space exciting again.
Also, the alternatives in both cases are working for giant corporations that never deliver.
@nafnlaus @tante Boeing or GM or Ford. At least at SpaceX or Tesla you feel like you only have to convince one person to get something done, not hundreds of layers of committees.
But what's the mission at Twitter that's as exciting? Is there a sense at Facebook that you're just a cog in a machine and you'll never get your vision into production?
No sense that Twitter is the only place that can deliver in the way that there is at SpaceX or Tesla.
@nafnlaus @tante In fact, the difference between big car companies - who are rapidly closing on Tesla - and traditional big space companies - who aren't getting anywhere relative to SpaceX - is striking. GM and Ford make electric cars. Boeing hasn't even started designing a rocket that can be landed and reused.
The only competitors to SpaceX are either tiny (RocketLab) or BlueOrigin, which is Bezos's weird project that is just SpaceX but worse managed.
Kev
Sebastian Moser@nafnlaus @tante This is true - but I think it’s important to acknowledge that he’s done that in industries where everybody else has failed. I think there was some method to his madness, early on. (And then he got overconfident.)
Brian Hogg@brianhogg @nafnlaus If he just took advantage of the groundwork that's been laid - why didn't anybody else take advantage of that? Lots of rocket people genuinely thought landing rockets was a pipe dream - and even after SpaceX proved it's possible, nobody is replicating their success, despite incredible amounts of capital investments. (Tesla is similar, but less extreme. Startups have failed despite billions invested, but the incumbents are (luckily) catching up.)
@seb @nafnlaus the thing that was initially interesting — maybe even inspiring — about Musk was his willingness to risk his money on things that rich people wouldn’t tend to. The rockets, affordable electric cars. He took different risks with his money, but if he’d done it five years earlier it might not have worked out.
This post by describes what I mean very nicely: https://doctorow.medium.com/the-true-genius-of-tech-leaders-46d6e3439989
@brianhogg @nafnlaus Totally agree - obviously, timing was crucial (as it is with anything tbh). And it also shows him being somewhat normal - after all, he invested a lot of his own money into ideas that are _way_ out there, instead of going the easy route and starting an internet startup. But then he had to get himself a Twitter account...
@seb @brianhogg I think #Musk is a historically-good example of the harmful effect of Twitter's toxicity. Because his downslide, IMHO, can be directly related to him being unable to cope with the constant abuse that Twitter exposed him to. He has the sort of personality that needs to be loved and appreciated, and he had many fans that did, but #Twitter made sure he was exposed to as many people who hated him as possible. And you can watch him steadily turn more cynical and angry in response.
Pau¹l
Der Giga@tante That tracks with what I read about him actually "managing" anything and I fear it gets darker from a female perspektive and how he needs to be handled around women...
Till Westermayer@tante "The problem of managing Elon"!
Daniel 🏳️🌈 Jilg 
@tante I used to have a boss like that. It was REALLY hard, managing him
Jason Hull@tante I wonder if the “handlers” of a certain FPOTUS can empathize.
Joe Wein@tante he frankly sounds more like another clueless Jared Kushner than the tech genius the Muskovites see him as.
Teritd@tante in other words, musk is the mini trump!
GeregoIf true then this is hilarious
ꙮ ⚗️ pnathan ⚗️ ꙮ@tante this is not unique to elon. ime, lots of teams reinterpret the less reality-aligned directives of management .
its why when a new manager is hired, the team has to, as it were, gently introduce reality to The Boss and help him avoid the Management Bubble.
hard to do that with a arrogant owner.
Grant Jacobs BioinfoTools NZ@tante Nice timing - last night I saw he gets a mention in the new series of Inside Job - https://mastodon.social/@NotJustDNA/109392880720442684
Sarah W@tante are there any photos of the cake? It's an excellent story
Lauren G.@tante I know people personally who have burned out working at his companies. Insane hours, no personal life, lots of stress - all to help Elon obtain his vision. Now a decade later, I think there are a lot more cracks in Elon's mask of genius. He's got nothing more than inherited wealth, charisma, and an unhealthy willingness to risk the happiness of his employees for his own success.
Jens Jäger
@tante
@tante
> Elon was giving [people] the money (and hype) to get into outer space, a mission people cared deeply about.
Competent people are willing to work overtime to do things like putting rockets in space, less so to build a social network full of hate.
Working on putting rockets into space is a perk by itself for some, enduring Twitter get’s you nothing except from the wage - and keeping your visa for a while, which is valid reason and a sad example of exploitation.
Design by Adrian@tante Not at all surprised by any of this.
Paul Taylor@tante I’ve no idea who that is or whether it’s true, but people managing him like that is something I’ve long suspected. Quite funny though.
Legwill@tante straight out of Phoenix Nights! 😂😂😂
Martin Donner@tante jep, seems like the whole musk story and cult of personality has worked this way from the beginning on. many ppl – and media – love and wanna believe in quasi mythical hero and savior stories
to debunk all musk myths there's a whole channel on yt with pt1 here :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FGwDDc-s8
DEBUNKING ELON MUSK Pt1 (1080p)
Sarah Peper 🏳️⚧️🇺🇦Explaining how SpaceX works despite musk
Vivek
Tony thefathippy@tante oh my. 😂😂😂
dave's thought experimentif you look at the replies there are so many stories about people managing incompetent, narcissistic bosses. people write books about it
my question is: for the sake of human life, how do we break the spell