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Unlike Trump, who he bears more than a passing resemblance to, Elon’s businesses are not bullshit exercises in charismatic branding and litigation. There’s engineering and managerial substance. A way that not only works but works better than average tech management playbooks.
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But I’ve also observed enough managerial cultures close up to have some confidence in my sense of where particular playbooks fit or don’t. Half my shtick as a management consultant is stealing practices from one company to recommend to another. Tesla playbook doesn’t fit Twitter.
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As an aside, having also consulted for Amazon, Elon’s nemesis biz, I have to say… I tend to recommend Amazon ideas a bit more than Tesla ideas, but the 2 together are like 75% of my material… both are what I call 4th Gen mgmt, most of the economy is 3rd.
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I wouldn’t recommend the Tesla playbook for twitter even under the *most auspicious* initial conditions, let alone this politicized, toxic, litigious shitshow. So what *would* I recommend? To say a non-hostile Elon regime or a different new leader?
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But this is wishful thinking. You need starter goodwill. Tailwinds. A core user base that trusts your intentions rather than scanning for exits. An ability to attract the strongest social product thinkers rather than Scaramucci incompetents or Miller type ideological hacks.
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If you try to place a big product bet without those conditions, it’s an uphill battle. Like take Tesla autopilot. Ambitious product that attracted some of the best talent (Karpathy etc) when Tesla was riding high. Still struggling to the point some (not me) call it a fraud.
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Fixing twitter the company = leveling up Twitter the product = at least as hard as full-self-driving technologically. Like many, I think Elon underestimates the challenge. He hasn’t yet learned to respect the product challenge here, which may be why he’s focused on vendettas.
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So tldr… this has a snowflake’s chance in hell of ending well. The best outcome I can think of is Elon treads water long enough to claim a couple of face-saving small wins and then divests the thing to people who actually care enough about twitter to want to run it.
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Replying to
PS: take the current exodus threat more seriously than previous pseudoflouncathons. Users are responding to loss of trust in platform management, not vibe shifts or culture war ptsd. Stop loss is hard if half your users suddenly feel unwelcome. This is exit, not waldenponding.
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I’ll take column 3
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Online social networks can unravel very quickly when policy changes cause core users to leave. That lowers the cost-benefit ratio for the remaining network members & can create a cascade where departing users prompt their friends to go, too. That is what happened to Friendster.
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There's a need here old Twitter bent over backward not to meet. Musk also seems disinterested in meeting it (so far). It'd be nice to ratchet the algo down to favor less sheer attention-getting. Not sure what the solution would look like, but it's an opportunity.
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I'm hoping you have underrated the value of Earth Scorching; which looks wasteful and chaotic... Until it isn't A Legitimate paradigm shift within the Hierarchy would place us in very uncharted territory
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I think you’re underestimating the impact of broader tech labor market. Most tech co’s have either stopped or slowed hiring, so where exactly will the mass exodus of twitter talent go? And if they left, there’s a glut of tech talent that will take their place