We're almost at the one-year anniversary of Elon Musk taking over Twitter X. How have your predictions about the regime change fared? I didn't have much familiarity with Elon Musk at the time, but I was willing to give him the benefit of doubt given his successes with Tesla and SpaceX. I think this has borne out for Twitter from a technical perspective, because barring a few minor hiccups, I'm impressed at how reliable of a platform it has remained despite significant reductions in staff. The constant cataclysmic predictions over the last year seem obviously off-base.
In talking with a fellow software engineer buddy of mine we came up with the theory that Elon might be better at hardware engineering than software. Since with hardware you can't make as many erratic changes as quickly because of manufacturing lead times. But with software you can deploy a change to production with the click of a button. Inadvisable, but you can. As evidence the notable Tesla fuck ups, like the braking issues, were not issues with the cars themselves but bad software.
So would this theory lead you to expect that Twitter would be collapsing in technological ways since Musk took over (since it's software)? I haven't observed that. The complaints from some quarters are more about policies and advertising, not software incompetence.
I don't think that building rockets which land upright is just a hardware problem; today's advanced hardware design is usually deeply intertwined with software, so it won't succeed without good software. Of course, mistakes will still be made in both areas, but I think that increasingly the f-up from most car companies are in software just because it's where much of the complexity lies (as well as the mutability you bring up). I don't see that Musk is doing notably worse at that than the rest of the industry.
In my assessment, his major problem is arrogance, not hardware/software.
> So would this theory lead you to expect that Twitter would be collapsing in technological ways since Musk took over (since it's software)?
My theory is more about relative ease of deployment enabling arrogant/erratic product decisions. Stuff like fucking up verification, putting sms 2fa behind a paywall, the no longer showing headlines etc.
Good point with the software part of the rockets. I'm not an embedded engineer but I imagine being tied to specific hardware extends deployment turnaround time. Thus giving a bigger buffer to avoid his arrogant product decisions.
Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Liked by Yassine Meskhout
The craziest thing about Musk's acquisition of Twitter was that he went noncontingent without any due diligence. The hubris of such an action boggles the mind. Peter Principle in action, I guess...
I started using Twitter a bit but rapidly ate a 24 hour suspension, followed by a lengthly shadow-ban, for flippantly calling the (then) Finnish prime minister a slut after the scandal where she went nightclubbing in loose clothing. The rules are arbitrary and capricious, and there are thousands of CIA and FBI agents embedded in Twitter acting in censorship roles. As such, it hasn't been worth my attention to continue posting there (except to post links to my Substack, ha).
That being said, it might be a blessing in disguise, as focusing on content that short form is I think bad for one mentally and spiritually, and destroys the attention span.
Haven't read this yet, but for what it's worth, I'm not super sure things have changed as much as people think. I was recently permanently banned from Twitter for "violent speech," but was never told (despite many requests) what tweet of mine was the problem so that I could even try to understand what had happened.
I know I did not violate any of Twitter's rules, and had only been on Twitter for a few months anyway, so I actually have no idea what it was really like pre-Musk. But a permanent, lifetime, ban for a first offense, without even being told what I had actually (allegedly) done wrong, feels like living down to all the worst stereotypes of Twitter. It's really quite a bummer because I was enjoying Twitter, and I'm positive I was using it in a much more constructive manner than most people (if I do say so myself).
I've seen many anecdotal instances of similarly arbitrary penalties, and I don't understand why Musk would have such a hard time moving the lever back.
His advertising income is way down, but he also laid of a large majority of the workforce, a major expense. So net profitability might not be as deeply impacted as advertising revenues.
I was never on Twitter and I'm not on X, but it's common to follow a link to something posted there, and I haven't noticed much difference from this casual use viewpoint.
In talking with a fellow software engineer buddy of mine we came up with the theory that Elon might be better at hardware engineering than software. Since with hardware you can't make as many erratic changes as quickly because of manufacturing lead times. But with software you can deploy a change to production with the click of a button. Inadvisable, but you can. As evidence the notable Tesla fuck ups, like the braking issues, were not issues with the cars themselves but bad software.
So would this theory lead you to expect that Twitter would be collapsing in technological ways since Musk took over (since it's software)? I haven't observed that. The complaints from some quarters are more about policies and advertising, not software incompetence.
I don't think that building rockets which land upright is just a hardware problem; today's advanced hardware design is usually deeply intertwined with software, so it won't succeed without good software. Of course, mistakes will still be made in both areas, but I think that increasingly the f-up from most car companies are in software just because it's where much of the complexity lies (as well as the mutability you bring up). I don't see that Musk is doing notably worse at that than the rest of the industry.
In my assessment, his major problem is arrogance, not hardware/software.
> So would this theory lead you to expect that Twitter would be collapsing in technological ways since Musk took over (since it's software)?
My theory is more about relative ease of deployment enabling arrogant/erratic product decisions. Stuff like fucking up verification, putting sms 2fa behind a paywall, the no longer showing headlines etc.
Good point with the software part of the rockets. I'm not an embedded engineer but I imagine being tied to specific hardware extends deployment turnaround time. Thus giving a bigger buffer to avoid his arrogant product decisions.
The craziest thing about Musk's acquisition of Twitter was that he went noncontingent without any due diligence. The hubris of such an action boggles the mind. Peter Principle in action, I guess...
I started using Twitter a bit but rapidly ate a 24 hour suspension, followed by a lengthly shadow-ban, for flippantly calling the (then) Finnish prime minister a slut after the scandal where she went nightclubbing in loose clothing. The rules are arbitrary and capricious, and there are thousands of CIA and FBI agents embedded in Twitter acting in censorship roles. As such, it hasn't been worth my attention to continue posting there (except to post links to my Substack, ha).
That being said, it might be a blessing in disguise, as focusing on content that short form is I think bad for one mentally and spiritually, and destroys the attention span.
Haven't read this yet, but for what it's worth, I'm not super sure things have changed as much as people think. I was recently permanently banned from Twitter for "violent speech," but was never told (despite many requests) what tweet of mine was the problem so that I could even try to understand what had happened.
I know I did not violate any of Twitter's rules, and had only been on Twitter for a few months anyway, so I actually have no idea what it was really like pre-Musk. But a permanent, lifetime, ban for a first offense, without even being told what I had actually (allegedly) done wrong, feels like living down to all the worst stereotypes of Twitter. It's really quite a bummer because I was enjoying Twitter, and I'm positive I was using it in a much more constructive manner than most people (if I do say so myself).
I've seen many anecdotal instances of similarly arbitrary penalties, and I don't understand why Musk would have such a hard time moving the lever back.
I have been trying for years to start a rumor that his family name proves descent from herders of Musk Oxen.
His advertising income is way down, but he also laid of a large majority of the workforce, a major expense. So net profitability might not be as deeply impacted as advertising revenues.
I was never on Twitter and I'm not on X, but it's common to follow a link to something posted there, and I haven't noticed much difference from this casual use viewpoint.