Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[NoName 16196]

6 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Been more than an hour since he did something monumentally stupid?

I find that hard to believe.

here is why:

looooooong thread but he has been in trial this AM

[Dbeasy 14733]

This has been a fun thread to follow. It’s almost as if some people forget that there is no such thing as failure for a multi-billionaire who plays a game that is always stacked in their favor. He will be fine. Twitter will make money. The workers will be exploited to enable many more billions in his personal wealth. This is America for Christ’s sake. 

[Neonmoon 38126]

2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Twitter will make money.

[Bama Chick 28595]

Been more than an hour since he did something monumentally stupid?
I find that hard to believe.

He barely lasted one Truss.

[MonkeyDoughnut 9944]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean, when you say it that way.....

Also, I really don't get how hard it is for Elon and his fanboys to understand: Twitter is a platform for selling advertising that reaches the audience of people who consume the platform's content.  That's it.  As a business, that's what it is.

In that respect, it's no different than the basic TV network model -- ABC, CBS, HGTV, etc.  Is ABC's "product" the latest season of "The Rookie?"  NOPE.  Its product is the EYES WHO WATCH THE ROOKIE.  It sells those eyes to advertisers -- "buy an ad slot during The Rookie, and your ad will reach our audience of 8 million people in the 25-45 age group."  So, as a business imperative, ABC has to produce content that attracts those eyes that allow it to sell ads.

If ABC's shows suck, and it doesn't get eyes on the screen, it's harder to sell ad time (and hard to charge a premium price.  And along those same lines, if ABC, or HGTV, decides to change the direction of their programming, and air shows like "8 hour special report: how Hillary Clinton lives off the blood of children murdered in pizza parlors," then regular consumer products advertisers like Ford and Hershey aren't going to want their products associated with that.  ABC or HGTV will be stuck selling ads to the My Pillow guy, and they won't be able to charge much for that ad time.

If Twitter loses eyes, it's fucked.  If Twitter offers "content" that is inconsistent with the values/image of potential advertisers, they won't place their ads on that platform, and Twitter is fucked.  These things are known.  They've been known since the earliest days of advertising on radio, for fuck's sake.  Twitter is just a fancier, newer way of doing what radio and TV did: lock consumers ears/eyes onto certain content for a certain window of time, so advertisers can reach them.  That Elon STILL doesn't seem to get that......well, it sure as shit doesn't show that he's smart.

That what Twitter is now, and how sad is that, especially since it was apparently losing millions.  It can certainly be something different and better than that though. 

[Brisketexan 103139]

Just now, MonkeyDoughnut said:

It can certainly be something different and better than that though. 

Cool, cool.

Where's that revenue gonna come from?  His super-brilliant "$8 per user" fee thing ain't gonna get you there.  Not enough people will do it, and even if a metric shit-ton did.....it just doesn't add up to enough.

Can someone turn a staff of engineers into creating something totally new and different that makes money?  Whether it be a site that sells stuffed animals, or whatever different use the market points at.....he didn't need to spend $44 billion on a social engagement site to do that.  He could have sunk $1 billion into launching "Elon'slatestidea.com" and accomplished the same goal.  

It's like saying that someone who just spent $100k on a fancy sportscar, promptly crashing it into the nearest wall at 100 mph and shattering it.....who then sends the pieces back to a warehouse where his team recrafts the raw material and parts into a different car just created something "different and better."  Maybe he did.  But the point remains that he could have just bought the raw materials for a lot less and done the same.  He didn't need to spend $100k on a sportscar only to use it for parts.

[Captainant 26861]

6 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

 

 

He barely lasted one Truss.

 

that's what, two scaramucci's?

[NoName 16196]

9 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

This has been a fun thread to follow. It’s almost as if some people forget that there is no such thing as failure for a multi-billionaire who plays a game that is always stacked in their favor. He will be fine. Twitter will make money. The workers will be exploited to enable many more billions in his personal wealth. This is America for Christ’s sake. 

yeah, that isn't going to happen based on what we know about their year over year debt service (an additional ~$1b in costs) and what they are doing to bring in new revenue.

• subscriptions at $96 / account / year aren't the answer.
• selling blue checks isn't the answer.
• offering twitter blue users half as many ads isn't the answer.
• running off advertisers isn't the answer.
• firing 50% of staff + firing 80% of contractors + crunch on the remaining ones isn't how you add good new features (and isn't the answer)
• shitposting isn't the answer.

 

 

[Brisketexan 103139]

Just now, NoName said:

yeah, that isn't going to happen based on what we know about their year over year debt service (an additional ~$1b in costs) and what they are doing to bring in new revenue.

• subscriptions at $96 / account / year aren't the answer.
• selling blue checks isn't the answer.
• offering twitter blue users half as many ads isn't the answer.
• running off advertisers isn't the answer.
• firing 50% of staff + firing 80% of contractors + crunch on the remaining ones isn't how you add good new features (and isn't the answer)
• shitposting isn't the answer.

 

 

Huh.  That leaves just one thing.  It's the only thing that is a surefire, guaranteed moneymaker.  You'd have to be a soyboy not to realize it.....

CRYPTO!

[Pods 7426]

10 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

 

 

He barely lasted one Truss.

 

What a terrible fucking job. What idiot is going to take that?

Elon wants someone to come in and fix his incomprehensibly stupid fuck-ups and make money for him, while also making sure Elon isn't the butt of even one joke.

He'll still micromanage them to Hell and back.

If they fail, they'll take the blame.

If they succeed, Elon will take the credit.  

[Gene Parmesan 3951]

12 minutes ago, NoName said:

yeah, that isn't going to happen based on what we know about their year over year debt service (an additional ~$1b in costs) and what they are doing to bring in new revenue.

• subscriptions at $96 / account / year aren't the answer.
• selling blue checks isn't the answer.
• offering twitter blue users half as many ads isn't the answer.
• running off advertisers isn't the answer.
• firing 50% of staff + firing 80% of contractors + crunch on the remaining ones isn't how you add good new features (and isn't the answer)
• shitposting isn't the answer.

 

 

How will they make money?  The answer is volume.

[Brisketexan 103139]

10 minutes ago, Pods said:

What a terrible fucking job. What idiot is going to take that?

Elon wants someone to come in and fix his incomprehensibly stupid fuck-ups and make money for him, while also making sure Elon isn't the butt of even one joke.

He'll still micromanage them to Hell and back.

If they fail, they'll take the blame.

If they succeed, Elon will take the credit.  

I'll take the job right now.  $10 million up front, $20 million a year pay.  I got no problem in letting Elon go off, fire me, and I coast off into retirement.

[Fudge Nuggets 18825]

29 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

 

 

He barely lasted one Truss.

 

Lettuce remains undefeated. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 9944]

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Cool, cool.

Where's that revenue gonna come from?  His super-brilliant "$8 per user" fee thing ain't gonna get you there.  Not enough people will do it, and even if a metric shit-ton did.....it just doesn't add up to enough.

Can someone turn a staff of engineers into creating something totally new and different that makes money?  Whether it be a site that sells stuffed animals, or whatever different use the market points at.....he didn't need to spend $44 billion on a social engagement site to do that.  He could have sunk $1 billion into launching "Elon'slatestidea.com" and accomplished the same goal.  

It's like saying that someone who just spent $100k on a fancy sportscar, promptly crashing it into the nearest wall at 100 mph and shattering it.....who then sends the pieces back to a warehouse where his team recrafts the raw material and parts into a different car just created something "different and better."  Maybe he did.  But the point remains that he could have just bought the raw materials for a lot less and done the same.  He didn't need to spend $100k on a sportscar only to use it for parts.

Twitter is a company that in it's 16 years of existence has only been profitable for 2 of those years (2018, 2019). I don't think someone overpays for such a company and then is looking for a quick turn around and ROI.

Elon bought Twitter for same reason you or I might buy a $100K fancy sportscar to drive slowly down the road with the windows down.

[crash_davis 23038]

4 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Twitter is a company that in it's 16 years of existence has only been profitable for 2 of those years (2018, 2019). I don't think someone overpays for such a company and then is looking for a quick turn around and ROI.

Elon bought Twitter for same reason you or I might buy a $100K fancy sportscar to drive slowly down the road with the windows down.

He bought it to own the libs and the woke. He wants to put them in their place and allow "free speech" regardless of how idiotic it is. Just to prove his ego. 

He knows the "free speech", which usually means a billboard for racists and liars, is not a place where advertisers want to be associated with. He doesn't care. He'll "win" no matter what gets fucked in the process. His ego is that fragile.

I don't think he thought or cared if Twitter ever made money. His investors and stock holders are the people who lose in this game.

[Brisketexan 103139]

8 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Twitter is a company that in it's 16 years of existence has only been profitable for 2 of those years (2018, 2019). I don't think someone overpays for such a company and then is looking for a quick turn around and ROI.

Elon bought Twitter for same reason you or I might buy a $100K fancy sportscar to drive slowly down the road with the windows down.

No.  He bought it because he's a petulant child.  So, the sportscar equivalent would be one of us buying it to impress and show up the people at our high school reunion, with no idea how to drive it, so we show up at the reunion grinding the gears, lurching and stalling repeatedly, all while yelling "see how cool I am!"....then crashing it into a pole in the parking lot, totaling it, and then getting out of the wreckage saying "I meant to do that!  I'm awesome!"

It's pathetic.

He's pathetic.

His fanboys are pathetic.

 

Twitter was a dumb purchase.  It was a SUPER dumb purchase at $44 billion.  It was SUPER ULTRA MEGA dumb to saddle an underperforming company with massive debt.  

[Francisco 2.0 31567]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Twitter was a dumb purchase.  It was a SUPER dumb purchase at $44 billion.  It was SUPER ULTRA MEGA dumb to saddle an underperforming company with massive debt.  

Trouble is, moves like this (and countless others) are celebrated in this country.

Gordon Gekko was right.

 

 

[NoName 16196]

29 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

How will they make money?  The answer is volume.

good news, at $96 per account per month they only need 10,416,667 people to subscribe to make their $1bn debt payments per year!

to wean themselves off of ad revenue entirely they would need ~64 million paid subscribers at $96 / account / year. that means they would need to monetize ~28% percent of their worldwide monitizable users (64 / 238)

for comparison a much larger platform like Youtube has ~2.6 billion users and ~80 million subscribers. They have converted about 3.07% of users on a platform that is larger, is used more often per user per day and has a much wider audience worldwide.

being able to monetize 28% of users would be truly incredible. it would require a ton of new features (not just moving existing ones behind paywalls), which would require a bunch of engineering talent, which would require more money, which would raise the # of paid subscribers needed, etc.

the obvious answer to me would be to continue on the same general path they were on with advertisers, cut costs internally, add a paid tier that would bring in additional revenue, add in a way to verify actual users (which would lead to better ad rates and faith in the system btw) and laugh your way to the bank.

instead they fired ~50% of employees, ~80% of contractors, closed a bunch of global offices or reduced them to so few employees they have to leave, turned over basically the entire senior management team, rolled out one major feature that ran off even more advertisers, added a $billion in debt service per year that has to be paid and lit some non insignificant portion of $44 billion on literal fire.

 

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Twitter was a dumb purchase.  It was a SUPER dumb purchase at $44 billion.  It was SUPER ULTRA MEGA dumb to saddle an underperforming company with massive debt.  

that may be the dumbest part about the *entire* thing - because he could have floated it. he is literally the richest man in the world. even if he floated half of it, it reduces that debt service by $500m / year vs adding a BILLION IN DEBT SERVICE PER YEAR to a company whose revenues were only ~$5b in the first place.

Edited November 16, 2022 by NoName

[MAUFRAIS 6538]

It's like saying that someone who just spent $100k on a fancy sportscar, promptly crashing it into the nearest wall at 100 mph and shattering it.....

I feel like this was the plot to a Roald Dahl short story.

[Pig Bellmont 8637]

7 minutes ago, NoName said:

that may be the dumbest part about the *entire* thing - because he could have floated it. he is literally the richest man in the world.

Yes but his wealth isn’t liquid cash- it’s based on stock valuation (mostly Tesla). If he sold off $44 billion worth of stock, he likely wouldn’t be majority owner and CEO of Tesla or SpaceX. He’d have blown everything just to own a website that’s not going to make a profit. So he got others in on the deal to finance the purchase 

[NoName 16196]

1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Yes but his wealth isn’t liquid cash- it’s based on stock valuation (mostly Tesla). If he sold off $44 billion worth of stock, he likely wouldn’t be majority owner and CEO of Tesla or SpaceX. He’d have blown everything just to own a website that’s not going to make a profit. So he got others in on the deal to finance the purchase 

that's absolutely true and i wasn't clear. i was talking about the $12b specifically (which is the additional $1b/year in debt service)

[Brisketexan 103139]

1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Yes but his wealth isn’t liquid cash- it’s based on stock valuation (mostly Tesla). If he sold off $44 billion worth of stock, he likely wouldn’t be majority owner and CEO of Tesla or SpaceX. He’d have blown everything just to own a website that’s not going to make a profit. So he got others in on the deal to finance the purchase 

If you want to point to the one "smart" part of this, it was him talking OTHER people into putting their money at risk for his fool's errand.  That was smart.

[Francisco 2.0 31567]

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/16/if-you-thought-the-ftc-was-going-to-fuck-over-elon-just-wait-until-he-learns-about-the-eu/

 

Quote

We’ve already pointed out that the new Twitter under Elon Musk may be facing some big challenges from the FTC in the US. The company is under a consent decree, and it’s not clear that Musk is complying with the terms of the consent decree. And unlike SEC violations, violating an FTC consent decree can hurt. Between the FTC and the DOJ, they can make it hurt. The fact that basically all of the remaining Twitter execs whose necks were on the line for potentially violating the FTC consent decree quit at the same time should tell you something (I guarantee it told the FTC something).

 

Quote

That said, the FTC may be the least of Musk’s problems once the EU gets ahold of him. Natasha Lomas, over at TechCrunch, has an interesting article detailing how the Musk-run Twitter may be falling out of compliance with the GDPR in the EU. That’s potentially a big deal, given that the GDPR can lead to pretty massive fines.

 

Under the EU’s GDPR, meanwhile, Twitter is obliged — in just one very basic requirement — to have a data protection officer (DPO) to provide a contact point for regulators.

Hence the departure of Kieran, its first and only DPO since the role was created at the company in 2018, has not gone unnoticed by its data protection watchdog in Ireland — as we also reported Friday. But the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC)’s concerns are already spiraling wider than Twitter’s compliance with notifications about core personnel: Last week, the authority — currently Twitter’s lead EU DPA under the GDPR’s OSS — put the social media firm on watch by signaling public concern when it said it would be putting questions to the company about the status of its main establishment in Ireland at a meeting scheduled for early this week, to discuss all the recent privacy changes since the Musk takeover.

Twitter has not commented publicly on the DPC’s warning nor on the departures of senior regulator-facing staffers. Indeed, since Musk took over, its communications department appears to have been dismantled and the company no longer responds to press requests for comment — so it was not possible to obtain an official statement from Twitter about these departures or on the substance of our report.

 

 

Spoiler

Not great! And, timing wise, it’s potentially much, much worse. Though, to understand why you need to know a bit of what’s been happening in the EU under the GDPR (something I’d pretty much guarantee that Musk has no idea about, though Twitter’s mostly departed legal team most likely did).

Right now there’s a bit of a turf war over the GDPR. You see, as it stands, under this “one-stop shop” (OSS) policy, Twitter really only has to deal with the Irish data protection authority (DPA). Indeed, a bunch of American tech companies have all basically done the same thing in the (possibly correct!) belief that the Irish DPC is probably the most business/innovation friendly of the various DPAs out there.

And that’s been pissing off Brussels. As we reported earlier this year, EU officials in Brussels have been whining that the GDPR has been a mess, but reading between the lines, they’re really complaining that the Irish DPC simply hasn’t been willing to stand up to American tech companies and fine them for things that the folks in Brussels are mad about. The technocrats in Brussels have been making noises about updating the GDPR to effectively take power out of the hands of the local DPAs, and to stop tech companies from forum shopping for DPAs.

So… that means, right now, the Irish DPC has tremendous incentive to find a head to scalp to prove that it’s up to the task of regulating data protection issues within American tech companies.

Enter Elon Musk (and exit everyone who could have explained this to him).

It could get even worse, as described above in the TechCrunch article, because by screwing up the OSS process, Twitter could open itself up to facing regulatory scrutiny from other, much, much, less forgiving DPAs:

If the DPC assesses (or is informed by Musk) that it no longer has its main establishment in Ireland, the company will crash out of the OSS — opening it up to being regulated by the data protection authority across the bloc’s 27 Member States, which would become competent to oversee its business.

In practice, that means any EU data protection authority would be able to act directly on concerns it has that local users’ data is at risk — with the power to instigate their own investigations and take enforcement actions. So Ireland’s more business-friendly regulator would no longer be leading the handling of any GDPR concerns about Twitter; probes could be simultaneously opened up all over the EU — including in Member States like France and Germany where data protection authorities have a reputation for being quicker to the punch (and/or more aggressive) in responding to complaints compared to Ireland.

If Twitter loses its ability to claim main establishment in Ireland, it would therefore drastically amp up the complexity, cost and risk of achieving GDPR compliance. (Reminder: Penalties under the regulation can scale up to 4% of annual global turnover — so these are not rules a normal CEO would ignore.)

 

 

So, all this fucking around seems likely to turn into “finding out” no matter what. The Irish DPC has strong incentives to make an example of Twitter… and if it does not, then lots of others may pile on instead.

That said, the TechCrunch article also includes some kind of eye-opening details that I don’t recall being mentioned publicly before:

The structure Twitter was relying upon to participate in the GDPR’s OSS includes a system of mandatory privacy and security reviews for new products — to enable the Irish entity to insert its feedback and exert influence over product development.

Under this framework, the board of the Irish company was able to raise concerns about planned new features ahead of launch, with input then fed back to U.S. product development teams to be incorporated into products before launch — thereby, assuming the protocol was correctly followed, empowering a local decision-making capacity inside the EU.

However, per our source, the situation at Twitter since Musk took over is that no information is being provided about what products are being worked on in the U.S. to the Irish entity’s management — nor is the Irish entity’s management able to provide any input into any product Musk is working on since it is not being kept apprised of what’s being developed.

Products in development at Twitter are not even being submitted into review pipelines anymore, much less getting reviews before being shipped, according to our source, who told us the system has essentially stopped operating.

 

So… that seems… not great? I mean, it is very much inline with the EU view of regulation where they often believe regulators should be seen as “partners” with the tech companies, but it still seems highly questionable that the company would allow Irish regulators “to insert… feedback and exert influence over product development.” If that’s an accurate portrayal of the situation, then it would be a good thing for Musk to cut it off, though it’s unclear if this was done on purpose or through sheer cluelessness.

And, of course, things are only likely to get worse for Elon in the EU. The DSA is coming into effect on January 1, 2024. And it’s going to be a huge mess. Like a tremendously big mess. But as we discussed on the podcast in that link, over the next year, there is still a lot of work to be done, often by the big tech companies, to define the exact parameters of how the DSA will work in practice.

Yes, there is some nonsense in the fact that the law is already passed and set to go into effect, but the actual rules are still being written, but that’s the process, so you have to deal with it. For the past few years, as we’ve pointed out, Twitter has been a vocal participant in the dialogue around the DSA, and has done a fair bit to push the final rules in better directions (it could have been much, much worse).

It’s unclear how (or if) an Elon-run Twitter will continue participating. Yes, back in May, Elon met with Thierry Breton, who is leading the process for the DSA, and made some monumentally stupid remarks saying he completely agreed with the DSA’s approach, which will lead to tremendous government-induced censorship. And Breton has been salivating ever since, even gleefully (and somewhat obnoxiously) tweeting about how the EU will control Twitter’s content moderation going forward:

 

 

 

 

None of that bodes well for Twitter in the EU going forward. Right now is when Twitter should be heavily engaged in helping to define the actual rules under the DSA and how the company will interact with EU enforcers. But I can’t imagine there are many people left at Twitter who even know this is happening.

Yes, I’m sure when the EU comes down on Elon’s Twitter, he’ll whine about the unfairness of government regulations. And, in some cases with the EU, he’s not wrong. But, he should at least be aware of the fucking process, and how it’s playing out right now, rather than just ignoring it entirely and then complaining when they crush him later.

 

[SydneyCarton 47092]

I'm sure I'll get a no CR post or three, but at this point, it is difficult to separate Musk's behavior from politics. So this made me chuckle:

[wildcat09 28387]

The fun thing is that his interest expenses are actually going to increase:

 

Etc. More in the thread. TLDR being that Elon will probably need to liquidate a lot more of his Tesla holdings to buy out some of the Twitter debt. No matter what, he's costing himself a shitload of money, burning a ton of bridges, and completely annihilating his reputation.

[Chopper 15888]

1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Twitter is a company that in it's 16 years of existence has only been profitable for 2 of those years (2018, 2019). I don't think someone overpays for such a company and then is looking for a quick turn around and ROI.

Elon bought Twitter for same reason you or I might buy a $100K fancy sportscar to drive slowly down the road with the windows down.

Everything that's happened from the very first day Elon said he'd buy twitter argues against your hypothesis. He shitposted his way into saying he'd buy the company, then it became a macho statement for him to buy it when Twitter's CEO played along with him, then he gave away all options for due diligence, then tried to get out of the contract, then has been running the company like a complete maniac in the two weeks of ownership. And in the meanwhile is taking on huge regulatory risk at the US FTC and the EU, earned the enmity of heavy-hitter tesla shareholders, and on and on. He is a man without a plan, and out of his depth. It's crystal clear.

 

[crash_davis 23038]

So if he were a woman, he'd already be put under conservatorship.

[Celery Man 20535]

leave elon alone!

[YChang 3365]

Lol, the sign this or quit shtick he pulled something similar at Tesla too according to a friend there. Guy really has a limited toolset for how to solve his problems. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

A guy I used to work with at an engineering firm in Austin now works at Tesla. He hit me up about a job there. Nah, I’m good.

[atomheartbevo 88750]

43 minutes ago, YChang said:

Lol, the sign this or quit shtick he pulled something similar at Tesla too according to a friend there.

A lot of people are missing out on what that actually is.  It may get painted as Elon creating a true Twitter 2.0, but there are two issues with that:

1. He doesn’t have to force people to work a shit-ton of crunch time/overtime/whatever you want to call it to make 2.0 since he already has Twitter 1.0 and it’s not like he’s racing to beat another company to market with a rocket or electric car.  He could also give these people a week to think about it and talk it over with family.
2. Speaking of the unprofitable Twitter 1.0 that he stuck with an extra billion in debt, he would be better off sitting down right now with advertisers and trying to bring them back rather than reinvent Twitter, because the things that he fucked up with Twitter 1.0 will still be there with Twitter 2.0, since they are policy issues and not technical issues, which means the profit problems of 1.0 will carry over to 2.0.  He can’t engineer himself out of advertising problems.

But this is not actually Twitter 2.0.

This is 100% forcing people to take a loyalty test.  It is Elon saying “I don’t give a fuck how good you are or how long you’ve been at Twitter, I am giving you 24 hours to swear your loyalty to me, up to and including giving up your personal and family lives, in service to me.”

[The Dog 42744]

 

[CooterBrown 17695]

What’s funny is that probably >50% of those that click yes, that they’ll stay on at Twitter, are also immediately looking for other opportunities. They just think that a 3 month severance is not enough to float them until their next job due to their personal circumstances.

[Surly Bevo 24247]

There are probably more than a few folks who are about to put in their notice because they already lined up another gig that just got a sweet three months of double pay.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

Imagine thinking the only point in life is work.

What a sad existence. 

[Brisketexan 103139]

2 hours ago, Celery Man said:

leave elon alone!

Oh, Cornpop just showed up in this thread to cry exactly that -- got a notice of a half-dozen negs from him of my posts in this thread.

Not cogent rebuttals of those posts, mind you.  Just.....negs....because LEAVE ELON ALONE!

The fanboys stanning for Elmo couldn't make my points any better for me, so thanks for that.  Exclamation points are always nice to see.

[Francisco 2.0 31567]

I've said it before, but The Simpsons first 10-15 seasons produced an inordinate amount of gifs and memes that can fit nearly every situation known to man:

 

 

 

 

 

[Fudge Nuggets 18825]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

This is 100% forcing people to take a loyalty test.  It is Elon saying “I don’t give a fuck how good you are or how long you’ve been at Twitter, I am giving you 24 hours to swear your loyalty to me, up to and including giving up your personal and family lives, in service to me.”

I would do what I always do.  Nod my head, say sure thing boss... and keep doing shit my way until they realize I'm not playing their stupid game.  So far no one has caught on; I doubt rocketboi would either.

[Francisco 2.0 31567]

 

 

[atomheartbevo 88750]

 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

Watch that video then come back here and convince me we aren’t in a simulation.

Go ahead.

[atomheartbevo 88750]

12 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Watch that video then come back here and convince me we aren’t in a simulation.

Go ahead.

 

[Pods 7426]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

Whoever made this has no idea what a goat looks like. That's more of a walrus, or elephant seal build, which is more accurate for Elon. 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Pods

[Homercles 10162]

I sure hope the delivery route goes through Rundberg 

[Goredho 17154]

17 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Between driving advertisers away directly or indirectly, and assuming that the remaining employees are all 20-somethings just out of college and with no life or no family, he really is going to fuck it up.  It’s no longer a hypothetical.

That's what gets me.  I've seen lots of desired and managed attrition, private equity acquisitions, etc....  I have never seen new leadership operate like this.  They don't fire a large slice of the company in humiliating fashion on day 1.  They don't make big product changes immediately.  They want managed attrition, but are subtle in how they go about it to protect the company's reputation.  They don't put every potential worker needed to make the business operate and grow on notice that the workplace is toxic.  They don't do that because they have a goal of making money.  Of getting a nice return on their original investment.

Everything Elon is doing right now is counter to that.  It makes no sense.  He's either lost his goddamn mind, or he's got goals other than increasing Twitter's valuation.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Goredho

[956 Worldwide 33957]

On 11/15/2022 at 10:59 PM, Humble Beast said:

This is regarded. Why wouldn’t people who talk shit about their boss get fired? Grow up. 
 

Wtf are you talking about? I’m not saying it as a positive. Just stating facts. The guy is not ethical. 

If you are a boss or leader of any type people will talk shit about you.

If a bunch or people talk shit about you, hate you, and think you’re fucking everything up you can:

- Reflect on why everyone hates you, try to determine what anger is legitimate and what is toxic, let people know their concerns will be heard, think of a format for more productive feedback to get to you, brush off the little stuff, discipline them most egregious, and try to focus on morale going forward

- Embark on mission to find all the shit talkers and betrayers, fire/jail/intimidate your way out of the problem, surround yourself with cowed flunkies 

What you choose— and what you cheer for— says a lot about where you fall on your receptiveness to authoritarianism.

Being a CEO is not like being a platoon leader in combat where questioning authority gets people killed. 

[DigglerontheHoof 20449]

Cornpop:

[G650 13063]

14 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

A guy I used to work with at an engineering firm in Austin now works at Tesla. He hit me up about a job there. Nah, I’m good.

You should show him this thread.

[Celery Man 20535]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

 

[Neonmoon 38126]

He ain’t leaving yet