In a typical acquisition this would have taken place under NDA during due diligence, before closing the deal. But Elon waived it.

Now he’s apparently trying to find this shadowy “fifth column” of engineering over the weekend so they could be fired before RSUs vest on Tuesday. It sounds completely ridiculous but isn’t entirely implausible since, after all, we’re talking about the same person who committed $44 billion without due diligence.

The “censorship” aspect is pretty interesting because nobody seems to care about retaining existing users. HN has much stricter moderation than Twitter. Imagine someone buys this site tomorrow, fires dang and lets conspiracy theories run wild. Would you stay? I wouldn’t. And a social site is only as valuable as its users. If the new owner of HN promised he’s going to make this site into a “super-app”, it wouldn’t make any difference — I wouldn’t come back, just as I’m not going back to MySpace or Twitter.

Nobody in Elon-space seems to be bothered that there’s no undo on alienating a social network’s user base. I guess they expect to get a billion new users somehow (who also want to pay for the service since that’s floated as a business model for Twitter). But to me, this whole deal feels like Tumblr joining Yahoo.

Elon has only been there for 24 hours.

It sounds like your not a fan of Elon and nothing he’ll do can change your opinion. Why not hold back the strong judgements and conclusions for at least a few months? Maybe he will surprise you?

See, this is where a car and a social network are fundamentally different.

I own a Tesla. It’s a good car (although I’m unhappy about how much I paid for the FSD package which was nothing of the sort — borderline advertising fraud). Next year I’m probably buying another car, and if Tesla is still the best for the money, I’ll get one regardless of my personal feelings.

But with Twitter it’s not an objective decision. The app doesn’t deliver quantifiable day-to-day value like a car does. Now that I’ve removed Twitter from my life, it’s very unlikely that I’d ever go back.

MySpace did a lot of product changes in 2008 to bring back the users who had defected to FB. Nothing moved the needle. That’s just how it is with these products. I’m surprised Elon pretends to be oblivious to this dynamic.

My 10-year experience with Twitter was one of frustration. I had almost 1,000 followers, I tweeted regularly, tried to be nice and occasionally witty, replied and retweeted mostly useful stuff. Yet I never got any engagement. A few likes on a tweet was the upper limit of interest. Every other social media platform is much better at rewarding regular users like me. But Musk doesn’t seem to want to address this; instead he wants to bring back Trump. Why should I stay?

Hard for me to say. What type of reward are you expecting to get out of Twitter or social media in general? Maybe you are expecting too much or the wrong types of rewards?

If the social product isn’t rewarding to me, that’s entirely their problem, not mine. There’s no other reason to use it.

Jack would constantly email everyone internally that one of their jobs is to provide a Delightful Experience for Twitters users.

Currently when I load up twitter it's a stream of gloating jerks.

I think an internal model in Twitter has concluded the best way to drive engagement in my demographic is enrage me.

Correct I guess?

Why not avoid the algorithmic feed from Twitter and only look at what your chosen followed users are posting? Relying on a third party to provide both breadth of information and inoffensive posts is asking too much.

Just as in real life, not every person you cross paths with is worth your time. Wading into public spaces like Twitter requires some work on the users part to find gems of useful information … relying on the platform to do it for you is likely to never work perfectly.

Someone should have told Elon this before he purchased Twitter

Personally I was willing to believe the Musk Twitter company will be a net benefit

I notice that Musk is spending his time tweeting that it is possible Paul Pelosi was attacked by his gay lover, so it's not looking good.

> I notice that Musk is spending his time tweeting that it is possible Paul Pelosi was attacked by his gay lover, so it's not looking good.

I don't have twitter, and this narrative seems like the work of 4chan (4 the lulz), but it's true he really was hinting at this [0] being the case.

I just hope this cesspool dies already, it seems liek an echo chmaber for the most feeble minded. I was catching up on the all in podcasts (missed 3 weeks worth) and the amount of servile rhetoric for Elon from those 4 is absurdly out of touch with reality given his actions--it's clear he was forced to overpay for something that has little utility in the grand-scheme of things--henc why Dorsey walked away. If this is to be successful, perhaps this tech apocalypse will start the demise of these platform's and will have less relevance from this point onward.

But, I feel that he is doing what he is best at: Marketing. His tactics to bring in ad revenue are the same that cable news has with polemic based click-bait but that sad reality is that he has a legion of simps to dog-whistle to keep it afloat.

0: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11370729/Elon-Musk-...

If Musk would have announced the details of the layoffs within 24 hours of closing the twitter deal, commentators would have said, “So soon after taking over it is be impossible to make an informed decision about how to restructure and who to keep and who to layoff.

If he uses the best means of making an informed decision (use capable engineers he trusts and that are outsiders to twitter) and takes some time to properly consult, commentators say, “It is complete chaos and an information vacuum. He is just driving fear.”

It is right to closely watch people in power. But it doesn’t absolve each of us of the responsibility to hold us to similar standards when commenting. Most commentators come across as being in a hysterical, and not in a judicious frame of mind.

What you outlined were not the only viablw options: Musk had months to do a proper transition after signing the agreement. He chose not to do that, for reasons best known to him.

It should be expected that when you force yourself into a bad situation, and can only make bad decisions, people will observe that you made a bad decision when you inevitably do.

> Nobody in Elon-space seems to be bothered that there’s no undo on alienating a social network’s user base.

Where are they going to go? I don’t see journalists like Nikole Hannah-Jones moving their personal brands to Facebook.

Other publishers, substack, etc. Why would anyone actually need to be on twitter? so they can break up their insight into 280 character bites and post them in 30 post-long threads that only other twitter users will read and eventually be re-digested into something most people will consume? Vine users didn't go anywhere for the longest time, most of them outgrew it by the time TikTok came around. Twitter was a fun experiment but it seems like it's been on its way out. Seems like just about anything that Elon is going to want to do it will result in deflating whatever is left.

> the same person who committed $44 billion without due diligence.

Honestly, I'm not sure what due diligence you think he should have, or could have, negotiated. The code obviously works. The userbase is there. They are public, so a lot of information is known.

> Imagine someone buys this site tomorrow, fires dang and lets conspiracy theories run wild. Would you stay?

Looking at my mute list, the conspiracy theories already run wild here, it just happens in the comments rather than at the top level.

> Given the activist mentality (and possibly hostile to new ownership) of a certain number of developers, it seems perhaps prudent to analyze the code and evaluate the existing developers immediately upon purchase of the company.

Checking the code doesn't make sense, unless you think Twitter is some rinky-dink outfit[1]. If they want to inspect foe activism, they should check the configurations - not code. The engineers only add the knobs and dashboards[1], an entirely different team takes care of operations.

1. Based on what I've gleaned from similar-sized tech companies, or even those 2 orders of magnitude smaller.

Musk has bought Twitter out of activism and is possibly hostile to a certain number of employees.