I have long believed that the one real superpower a human can wield is a titanic ego. You can accomplish insane goals if you fully believe your own bullshit and never give up. Of course, being born wealthy is a huge leg up in what resources are available (obligatory reference to Trump here). The tech billionaires share a basic profile: clever disguised as brilliant, a knack for quickly scanning and retaining facts, utterly ruthless business men, and a massive ego. Competence you can charm, buy or take over if you need to get something done. The ego is the one indispensable thing, it's the difference between being Woz or Jobs. The only thing striking about Musk is that he holds no monopoly or even a significant market share in his businesses. There's no real foundation to the wealth of Musk, and that's the only interesting thing about him. It's literally all an act.
I had to recheck the definitions of psychopath and sociopath before I felt ready to respond.
I'd say he's overdue for a massive, cataclysmic failure to teach him some humility but unfortunately a lot of good people would be hurt in the process. So instead I just hope he eventually wanders off to another version of the simulation. I think there's a lot of other more deserving people who deserve attention.
I'm going to mildly dissent, at least on the point of others offering to invest in Twitter. No dissent on Musk being a moron who thinks he's the first person to ever think of an idea. I've reported to bosses like him and slowly walking them through all our previous work/thinking is fun. Type III fun.
That said:
I think it's clear that Twitter's management is pretty stunningly incompetent. It's not that they're not as lucrative as other social networks; it's that they sat on the product for most of a decade. eg the best way to read threads (is the reading experience a crucial part of the Twitter product? Their management team ain't sure!) is by using other sites like threadreaderapp or nitter. That alone justifies firing half of the product team. For cause. They (finally!!!!) leaned into their strengths and launched audio chat (twitter is the place where interesting or important people talk to the world) and... launched it w/o mod tools so it was immediately used to do a racism. etc. How does this happen at this stage of Twitter? Their mod tools keep getting caught up and autoblocking people when they say the name of a cat breed -- Maine Coon. It's trivial to find other examples.
So: from Andreessen's perspective, his business is making low probability high payout bets. Substituting the people running Twitter for even modestly-competent management will likely improve the company. And since Twitter has a pretty unique position, there's still a chance that good management will unlock something valuable. Is musk guaranteed to produce good management? Obviously not -- nothing like. But still: Twitter should be making billions of dollars, and Musk creates a chance that a high-quality management team takes over. Again, low probability, high value bets.
edit: to be clear: the most likely outcome is Musk first-principles-wanks bedshits everywhere, as he speedruns all the painful moderation learnings that Twitter, Reddit, etc have had over the last 15 years. After he opens the door to Nazi and Nazi-adjacent content, plus our vital need to have Twitter users inform Leslie Jones that she's a baboon, the Twitter audience starts leaving. First slowly, then quickly. As we've repeatedly seen, the value to certain folks (Glemm, lots of Republicans) isn't doing a racism and being vile, it's doing a racism and/or being vile right in liberals' faces. Since liberals generally find that less than amusing, the natural happens. And then it's unpredictable: do people move to blogs? Instagram (my guess)? Some exec at Instagram being comped on growth can't believe his/her luck. Ditto substack and ghost, as all the users fleeing twitter look for a place to associate their name with their public announcements. ie a PR agency for anyone who's famous or interesting.
Edit: plus, Musk wildly benefited at Tesla and the rocket companies by -- at least for a long time -- being the only game in town. Lots of engineers worked at Tesla, imo, despite Musk. Whereas Twitter... most of those employees (except, hopefully, people in the product org) have recruiters dying to talk to them. Being an obnoxious jackass will inspire many to return linkedin outreach and vote with their feet.
An interesting, insightful take. I'd make another point. A common theme in these 21st century 'next big thing' tech bros is a limitless fear of their own mortality. They cannot fathom (or stomach) the idea that the world will continue without their presence. I would not be surprised if they're all trying to clone themselves. In the interim, Musk is jumping from project to project to convince himself that he's still 'got it'. Theil has moved from trying to extend his youth to changing the demographics of the US, and Kushner, happily cushioned by $2B from the Saudis (and no conscience or intellect), recently spouted in interviews about the imminent tech innovations that will 'lead to immortality'. Immature, spoiled sociopaths with too much money and too much fear.
I have long believed that the one real superpower a human can wield is a titanic ego. You can accomplish insane goals if you fully believe your own bullshit and never give up. Of course, being born wealthy is a huge leg up in what resources are available (obligatory reference to Trump here). The tech billionaires share a basic profile: clever disguised as brilliant, a knack for quickly scanning and retaining facts, utterly ruthless business men, and a massive ego. Competence you can charm, buy or take over if you need to get something done. The ego is the one indispensable thing, it's the difference between being Woz or Jobs. The only thing striking about Musk is that he holds no monopoly or even a significant market share in his businesses. There's no real foundation to the wealth of Musk, and that's the only interesting thing about him. It's literally all an act.
I had to recheck the definitions of psychopath and sociopath before I felt ready to respond.
I'd say he's overdue for a massive, cataclysmic failure to teach him some humility but unfortunately a lot of good people would be hurt in the process. So instead I just hope he eventually wanders off to another version of the simulation. I think there's a lot of other more deserving people who deserve attention.
I'm going to mildly dissent, at least on the point of others offering to invest in Twitter. No dissent on Musk being a moron who thinks he's the first person to ever think of an idea. I've reported to bosses like him and slowly walking them through all our previous work/thinking is fun. Type III fun.
That said:
I think it's clear that Twitter's management is pretty stunningly incompetent. It's not that they're not as lucrative as other social networks; it's that they sat on the product for most of a decade. eg the best way to read threads (is the reading experience a crucial part of the Twitter product? Their management team ain't sure!) is by using other sites like threadreaderapp or nitter. That alone justifies firing half of the product team. For cause. They (finally!!!!) leaned into their strengths and launched audio chat (twitter is the place where interesting or important people talk to the world) and... launched it w/o mod tools so it was immediately used to do a racism. etc. How does this happen at this stage of Twitter? Their mod tools keep getting caught up and autoblocking people when they say the name of a cat breed -- Maine Coon. It's trivial to find other examples.
So: from Andreessen's perspective, his business is making low probability high payout bets. Substituting the people running Twitter for even modestly-competent management will likely improve the company. And since Twitter has a pretty unique position, there's still a chance that good management will unlock something valuable. Is musk guaranteed to produce good management? Obviously not -- nothing like. But still: Twitter should be making billions of dollars, and Musk creates a chance that a high-quality management team takes over. Again, low probability, high value bets.
edit: to be clear: the most likely outcome is Musk first-principles-wanks bedshits everywhere, as he speedruns all the painful moderation learnings that Twitter, Reddit, etc have had over the last 15 years. After he opens the door to Nazi and Nazi-adjacent content, plus our vital need to have Twitter users inform Leslie Jones that she's a baboon, the Twitter audience starts leaving. First slowly, then quickly. As we've repeatedly seen, the value to certain folks (Glemm, lots of Republicans) isn't doing a racism and being vile, it's doing a racism and/or being vile right in liberals' faces. Since liberals generally find that less than amusing, the natural happens. And then it's unpredictable: do people move to blogs? Instagram (my guess)? Some exec at Instagram being comped on growth can't believe his/her luck. Ditto substack and ghost, as all the users fleeing twitter look for a place to associate their name with their public announcements. ie a PR agency for anyone who's famous or interesting.
Edit: plus, Musk wildly benefited at Tesla and the rocket companies by -- at least for a long time -- being the only game in town. Lots of engineers worked at Tesla, imo, despite Musk. Whereas Twitter... most of those employees (except, hopefully, people in the product org) have recruiters dying to talk to them. Being an obnoxious jackass will inspire many to return linkedin outreach and vote with their feet.
Man, that Sea of Tranquility book was great! Best book I’ve read all year.
An interesting, insightful take. I'd make another point. A common theme in these 21st century 'next big thing' tech bros is a limitless fear of their own mortality. They cannot fathom (or stomach) the idea that the world will continue without their presence. I would not be surprised if they're all trying to clone themselves. In the interim, Musk is jumping from project to project to convince himself that he's still 'got it'. Theil has moved from trying to extend his youth to changing the demographics of the US, and Kushner, happily cushioned by $2B from the Saudis (and no conscience or intellect), recently spouted in interviews about the imminent tech innovations that will 'lead to immortality'. Immature, spoiled sociopaths with too much money and too much fear.