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I agree a lot with your sentiment. Musk does happen to share a lot of my values, but he's definitely a snake-oil salesman to some degree, and I'd hate to work for the man, not only because I don't agree with his goals, but he's also very petty from what I've heard, and too confident in his own abilities where he has no real expertise.
I do respect his accomplishments for what they are, but electric cars, rocketry, and satellite internet were all established before him, and none of his innovations have shown to be game changing. The coolest thing he's done recently is fire most of Twitter's staff, but we all kind of knew that most people weren't doing anything real at these companies, he just proved it. X hasn't really improved in my view since his takeover, but it hasn't declined significantly either.
His true talent is being able to stay relevant and alive (in the sense of playing the game, not actually staying alive) through any means. He's a trickster, and I respect that, because it's the opposite of my skillset, so I tip my cap. The man can spin plates, no doubt about that. But, like you, I feel his day is coming, and all his plates will finally shatter on the ground.
Twitter is noticeably worse for me. About 40% of the time the app is in a state in which no images or videos will load. It's full of bots, which I never noticed before. I get follow requests from bots several times a week, even though I have a private account and have never posted anything.
There are more ads and oftentimes I am shown the same ad three or four times in a row. The recommendation algorithm sometimes does weird things. Recently, about a third of the recommended Tweets were in Turkish. I don't speak a word of Turkish.
I do like that there is less censorship, but I don't believe for a second that firing so many people hasn't caused serious problems.
Other companies that have done mass layoffs are having similar problems, though not as severe. Most software I use has gotten worse lately. Facebook Messenger is especially bad.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I myself have noticed different problems on different accounts. On my main, where I spend 99% of my time on Twitter (and where I post), I do experience BOT interactions (follows, likes, DMs, but not replies), but the difference between how it is now versus how it was in this regard is a difference in degree, not kind. It is definitely worse than it was, but it's not insanely worse. The ads are different, and I noticed that some ads are even unlabeled, that is, they don't tell you that they're ads. Another thing with ads is that some of them don't handle UI interactions in kind with other tweets. For example, some ads instantly open the in-app browser whereas on a normal tweet the same interaction would be interpreted as part of a scroll action. I have never experienced the foreign language thing, that's truly odd.
On my private account that I created after Elon took over, on which I don't post and only follow a few accounts, I get 2-3 BOT follow requests per day. It's weird. Also, I had to solve like 12 captchas just to sign up; I thought that was funny.
I guess it comes down to what you attribute to the mass layoffs vs. what you attribute to Elon's sense of product and product management. I think a lot of the bad things we're seeing are due to the latter, not the former.
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He helped other tech companies learn as well. Facebook, Google, and friends announced big layoffs after this display. A true visionary.
I mean they chickened out and only did 10-20% instead of 75%, but still.
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A more charitable reading would be that Musk is uniquely aspirational - not for money or power, but for real technological progress. He really, honestly believes taking a chance on a technological leap forward is worth large investments even if success is not guaranteed or even highly probable. This is refreshingly different than most other businesses, which either tend to sclerotic, bloated enterprises trying to squeeze every last bit of profit out of absurdly well-tread technological paths, or absolute grifters who don't even intend to try to accomplish the goals they set, but do plan to enrich themselves along the way. This is why I think he is so valuable - he has both the vision to see openings for large progress, and the ambition to make an honest try.
People tend to lump Musk into the "grifter" category because his vision and ambition is usually larger than what turns out to be possible, but they ignore that what does turn out to be possible is usually still well beyond what everyone else thought was possible. This happens because he actually does take the time to learn the fundamentals, and because he understands important concepts that we have tended to downplay in the West, such as the importance and the benefits of engineering for manufacturability and vertical integration. In way too many businesses, especially public companies, nearly every single person in management all the way up to the board of directors is far more concerned with ass-covering and deflecting failure than they are with taking on challenges and engineering solutions.
That is why, to a mild degree, I am a Musk supporter. The future belongs to those who show up, and the rewards belong to those who take chances and solve problems. Humanity will stagnate if everything is left in the hands of committees and study groups, people who are not "too confident", and if failing to achieve total victory is deemed more shameful than never trying. Musk is, for whatever faults, a Man in the Arena. He's not a prophet, but he has a unique set of skills that has put him in a position to be a singular force for technological and material progress.
I'd also point out that he has the capital, not as a knock in the false 'inherited from his dad's emerald mine' vein, but in that I bet I could find plenty of nerds with the same phenotype (obsession with engineering/science, poor social skills, visions of grandeur) but without the cash. Hell, just wander around the labs at MIT and screen out anyone who looks well put-together and has any kind of connection to VCs/business in their CVs and I bet you'd be able to find a couple Musks.
Maybe the drive/aggression and obsession with details are a bit harder to replicate...
True, and I think that's because some his unique set of skills include ruthless business sense something that nerds are generally lousy at and/or lack experience with.
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Are you for real?
You're joking. They ate the launch market, slashed prices majorly. Game changed.
If BFR works, total game changer.
And they did by reusing rockets which was a game changer
What does BFR mean?
The big new Mars rocket SpaceX is building.
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Officially "Big Falcon Rocket" but this is commonly known to be a euphemism for the actual meaning, "Big Fucking Rocket". Circa 2019 IIRC it got renamed to "Starship" so the term is deprecated at any rate.
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Big fucking rocket?
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