Will Musk make a "good" modern-day "slave master?"

[Charmonium]

Stay tuned.

Note: I understand that the very concept of slavery is pretty much anathema to polite discussion, but it still has its modern parallels such as when employers take grossly unfair advantage of their employees.

 

[deadlyapp]

He's been a slave master for years now, twitter doesn't change that, just makes it more publicized. I'm not condoning what he's doing, but these tech companies are grossly oversized and have created their own monster different than any other industry. What will be most interesting is if other companies follow suit to rein in their costs at the expense of their employees.

 

[jpiniero]

Amazon and the Big 4 Accounting companies would like a word.

 

[Charmonium]

Amazon and the Big 4 Accounting companies would like a word.

So, I'm going to hazard a guess and say that they're looking for advanced slave master training.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Musk seems like a no BS get it done kind of person, but expects you to basically dedicate your life to the job like he does. I imagine it feels like an honour to work for him at first but that probably wears off pretty quick since he will expect a lot from you. Jeff Bezos is very similar too but he's a bit more "traditional" in that he's sitting in an Ivory tower on Bay st so to speak, while Elon will actually show up on the production line and on the actual work site and is more involved and knows the ins and outs of what's going on. You can talk to him directly and have a conversation with him. That's something I have to respect since it's rare to see that from someone that is high up at a company.

People give him shit for what he's doing at Twitter but almost any buyer would be doing that. This is very typical of any company that gets bought out. First thing they do is identify inefficiencies and clean house. He's doing it more aggressively than most would, but at the end this is what would happen nonetheless. The buyer just incured a lot of debt and needs to maximize that investment. Twitter's workplace environment was practically like a day care or an inclusive resort or something. Reminds me kind of like the show Silicon Valley where they go all out on making cool hip and trendy offices instead of focusing on productivity. Most companies now days are trying to get as much done with as little as possible and these free meals and coffees etc is just unheard of. We're lucky we're even allowed to have a coffee machine altogether at my work. It's seen as a potential fire hazard since it has a heating element in it. Twitter is still stuck in the early 2000's dotcom boom methodology, and has somehow managed to survive but there's no way that was long term sustainable. The fact that they immediately started losing money because a few advertisers pulled out shows this. They were running on very thin margins and already a slowly sinking ship, like the Titanic hurtling towards an ice burg while a coal fire is burning in the lower deck. Musk is trying to steer it away from the ice burg.

 

[Charmonium]

I hear what you're saying but the problem is that Elon is a cheapskate. I think a good chunk of that 44B was put up by investors who just assumed that he could handle it.

The right way to approach an accident victim with a sucking chest wound is with resources and expertise. But he won't spend the resources and he has far less than the requisite expertise.

For some reason, he thinks that being a dick will motivate peeps. To leave maybe, but not much more.

 

[MrSquished]

Musk seems like a no BS get it done kind of person, but expects you to basically dedicate your life to the job like he does. I imagine it feels like an honour to work for him at first but that probably wears off pretty quick since he will expect a lot from you. Jeff Bezos is very similar too but he's a bit more "traditional" in that he's sitting in an Ivory tower on Bay st so to speak, while Elon will actually show up on the production line and on the actual work site and is more involved and knows the ins and outs of what's going on. You can talk to him directly and have a conversation with him. That's something I have to respect since it's rare to see that from someone that is high up at a company.

People give him shit for what he's doing at Twitter but almost any buyer would be doing that. This is very typical of any company that gets bought out. First thing they do is identify inefficiencies and clean house. He's doing it more aggressively than most would, but at the end this is what would happen nonetheless. The buyer just incured a lot of debt and needs to maximize that investment. Twitter's workplace environment was practically like a day care or an inclusive resort or something. Reminds me kind of like the show Silicon Valley where they go all out on making cool hip and trendy offices instead of focusing on productivity. Most companies now days are trying to get as much done with as little as possible and these free meals and coffees etc is just unheard of. We're lucky we're even allowed to have a coffee machine altogether at my work. It's seen as a potential fire hazard since it has a heating element in it. Twitter is still stuck in the early 2000's dotcom boom methodology, and has somehow managed to survive but there's no way that was long term sustainable. The fact that they immediately started losing money because a few advertisers pulled out shows this. They were running on very thin margins and already a slowly sinking ship, like the Titanic hurtling towards an ice burg while a coal fire is burning in the lower deck. Musk is trying to steer it away from the ice burg.

Your analysis of Twitter is so spot on. I can't wait till Elon takes your advice and just have a couple of guys handling an entire infrastructure that fits in 2000 ft².

Also. I do feel Elon is an No BS guy, even though half the shit he says is BS and also hypocritical. I appreciate your can do attitude about this though.

 

[Charmonium]

Your analysis of Twitter is so spot on. I can't wait till Elon takes your advice and just have a couple of guys handling an entire infrastructure that fits in 2000 ft².

Also. I do feel Elon is an No BS guy, even though half the shit he says is BS and also hypocritical. I appreciate your can do attitude about this though.

I would just like to say that despite my innate cynicism, I really hope he can pull it off.

I don't think the concept of something like twitter will die but I and many, many other observers at the very least have very real existential concerns.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think in the end it will work but it will be rough. Running a website is not really rocket science and he runs a team that literally does rocket science.

If I were him I would have taken more time to learn about the company and the system back end both hardware and software before firing anyone though. There's always these weird oddities in IT infrastructures that only a few people know about or even know the password to. Things are not going to be easy for whoever is left, they'll have to actually troubleshoot stuff, and do work. The ping pong tables are going to get dusty.

 

[MrSquished]

I would just like to say that despite my innate cynicism, I really hope he can pull it off.

I don't think the concept of something like twitter will die but I and many, many other observers at the very least have very real existential concerns.

Actually the concept of Twitter is fine and needs to be tweaked. But musk's Twitter is a horrific interpretation. If you didn't know it before he took over, the complete erratic terribleness he's run it with since and hypocrisy is just the proof and the pudding he is the last guy that can make this into a good product.

Unless you consider a good product something fundamentally hurtful to the society it's built in.

 

[MrSquished]

I think in the end it will work but it will be rough. Running a website is not really rocket science and he runs a team that literally does rocket science.

If I were him I would have taken more time to learn about the company and the system back end both hardware and software before firing anyone though. There's always these weird oddities in IT infrastructures that only a few people know about or even know the password to. Things are not going to be easy for whoever is left, they'll have to actually troubleshoot stuff, and do work. The ping pong tables are going to get dusty.

As you have shown in the P&N thread on Elon you have zero idea how large scale interactive websites work, and when links of engineers and data center numbers are posted to refute your wacky claims you just run away and never respond to facts.

And again comparing social media to rocket building is so fundamentally incorrect and it's easy to see why.

Building physical objects that work within a scientific paradigm do not apply to a product built on people interacting with people.

In fact that's one thing musk is actually terrible at as we've seen, Now that is true colors have come out.

I mean some people are good at it but he clearly is not.

But whatever you think of him comparing building scientifically engineered physical products to a person to person product is just a terrible comparison.

 

[nakedfrog]

People are gonna think Musk is a a furry with that fluffy red tail poking out of his arse.

 

[Coalfax]

Its pretty evident by his management ethic that Twitter will either be a massively hollow shell of its former usefulness or a defunct company in a matter of months. Musk has absolutely no idea how to run the company and his inability to keep the people needed to operate it properly, either by straight out firing them, or their defection based on the erratic actions of a manchild are proof of the outcome. He is blatantly opening the company up to lawsuits as we speak, and the FTC will ream him at some point soon. Regardless, its a platform I personally almost never used and with these most recent bouts of stupidity, deactivated and willl never again use the accent I once had. It will not be missed... probably by anyone except those that were foolish enough to back his buying of the company.

 

[brianmanahan]

Amazon and the Big 4 Accounting companies would like a word.

lol and tech consulting in general

i was averaging 72 hour weeks and did 84 once, with a few go-getters working 100 hour weeks to get promotions

my lead dev pushed his honeymoon back 6 months after his wedding so he could finish a project with that that schedule

 

[MrSquished]

also three months severance probably sounds better to many than staying onboard a company that is not going to last under the totally erratic, hypocritical and bonheaded leadership that Elon has shown already. He is only going to double down. This ain't building a car buddy. Sociopathic narcissists haven't had a good run with social media companies lately - just ask Trump.

 

[nakedfrog]

Its pretty evident by his management ethic that Twitter will either be a massively hollow shell of its former usefulness or a defunct company in a matter of months. Musk has absolutely no idea how to run the company and his inability to keep the people needed to operate it properly, either by straight out firing them, or their defection based on the erratic actions of a manchild are proof of the outcome. He is blatantly opening the company up to lawsuits as we speak, and the FTC will ream him at some point soon. Regardless, its a platform I personally almost never used and with these most recent bouts of stupidity, deactivated and willl never again use the accent I once had. It will not be missed... probably by anyone except those that were foolish enough to back his buying of the company.

Yeah, I only finally created an account in 2020 to enter a contest (I got a prize, too!), and deactivated/deleted my account when this whole sordid affair began.

 

[Charmonium]

Actually the concept of Twitter is fine and needs to be tweaked. But musk's Twitter is a horrific interpretation. If you didn't know it before he took over, the complete erratic terribleness he's run it with since and hypocrisy is just the proof and the pudding he is the last guy that can make this into a good product.

Unless you consider a good product something fundamentally hurtful to the society it's built in.

I always stayed away from twitter because a) it is an obscenely voracious time sink, or can be - which would please the blue birdie a great deal; and b) Lewis Carroll would have pissed himself at being able to including so many truly bizarre rabbit holes into Alice. I like my fantasy but I do require some level of cromulence.

 

[HomerJS]

Musk seems like a no BS get it done kind of person, but expects you to basically dedicate your life to the job like he does. I imagine it feels like an honour to work for him at first but that probably wears off pretty quick since he will expect a lot from you. Jeff Bezos is very similar too but he's a bit more "traditional" in that he's sitting in an Ivory tower on Bay st so to speak, while Elon will actually show up on the production line and on the actual work site and is more involved and knows the ins and outs of what's going on. You can talk to him directly and have a conversation with him. That's something I have to respect since it's rare to see that from someone that is high up at a company.

People give him shit for what he's doing at Twitter but almost any buyer would be doing that. This is very typical of any company that gets bought out. First thing they do is identify inefficiencies and clean house. He's doing it more aggressively than most would, but at the end this is what would happen nonetheless. The buyer just incured a lot of debt and needs to maximize that investment. Twitter's workplace environment was practically like a day care or an inclusive resort or something. Reminds me kind of like the show Silicon Valley where they go all out on making cool hip and trendy offices instead of focusing on productivity. Most companies now days are trying to get as much done with as little as possible and these free meals and coffees etc is just unheard of. We're lucky we're even allowed to have a coffee machine altogether at my work. It's seen as a potential fire hazard since it has a heating element in it. Twitter is still stuck in the early 2000's dotcom boom methodology, and has somehow managed to survive but there's no way that was long term sustainable. The fact that they immediately started losing money because a few advertisers pulled out shows this. They were running on very thin margins and already a slowly sinking ship, like the Titanic hurtling towards an ice burg while a coal fire is burning in the lower deck. Musk is trying to steer it away from the ice burg.

Musk says he wants Twitter to be the home of free speech. This his employees have free speech without concerns over termination?

 

[jpiniero]

Its pretty evident by his management ethic that Twitter will either be a massively hollow shell of its former usefulness or a defunct company in a matter of months. Musk has absolutely no idea how to run the company and his inability to keep the people needed to operate it properly, either by straight out firing them, or their defection based on the erratic actions of a manchild are proof of the outcome. He is blatantly opening the company up to lawsuits as we speak, and the FTC will ream him at some point soon. Regardless, its a platform I personally almost never used and with these most recent bouts of stupidity, deactivated and willl never again use the accent I once had. It will not be missed... probably by anyone except those that were foolish enough to back his buying of the company.

I'm guessing Twitter only really needs a fraction of the employees it has now. Musk is probably trying to get employees to quit rather than leave via layoffs and severance.

 

[Torn Mind]

Pretty sure working at an Amazon warehouse wasn't very fun for workers.

Musk is basically purging white-collars in Silicon Valley.

AKA...I don't give a shit if you can't afford your baby sitter for your one kid while you go out wine tasting and eating at expensive restaurants in San Francisco.

Pretty much any sort of agricultural-based arrangement of society can be deemed conducive to "slavery" and function as a Ponzi scheme.

Slaves were not valuable in being seen as humans but they were valuable "property", meaning their (free beyond keeping them alive) labor was valued highly.

 

[dlerious]

Looks like Musk is better at promising things than delivering.

 

[deadlyapp]

Musk says he wants Twitter to be the home of free speech. This his employees have free speech without concerns over termination?

Free speech isn't equivalent to free speech without repercussions. You're absolutely welcome to be a racist but that's going to have consequences. In this case, talking publicly and openly about how much you hate your boss or the issues within the company is going to get you fired.

 

[nakedfrog]

Sure, but Mr. Hairplugs positioned himself as a free speech absolutist (not that anyone capable of critical thought ever thought he was legitimate in that). Twitter already had the kind of free speech you're talking about before he set it on fire.

 

[Captante]

I find the entire thing amusing personally since I don't give a pimple on a dogs a$$ about Twitter OR that fish-belly white Gollum wanna-be Musk.

 

[deadlyapp]

Sure, but Mr. Hairplugs positioned himself as a free speech absolutist (not that anyone capable of critical thought ever thought he was legitimate in that). Twitter already had the kind of free speech you're talking about before he set it on fire.

I still think you're convoluting it. Twitter has not been a bastion of "free" speech where anything goes - certainly not like 4chan, tumblr, reddit, etc - but have tried to balance free speech with also catering to their advertisers and also not running afoul of the government (where hate speech, inciting violence, etc is generally frowned upon). Musk thinks free speech as a libertarian / absolutist, where the government/business should not dictate what is acceptable/unacceptable - but again that offers no protection against consequences. Whether or not it be someone "canceling" you, being prosecuted for hate speech, or you being fired, those are all mutually independent of free speech.