Q&A with Jack Dorsey | Hacker News Reader

Q&A with Jack Dorsey

themacro.com

24 pointscraigcannon31 comments

I would have liked to see his opinion on the role of corporate entities in censorship and civility. Past actions by twitter seems to give conflicting answers as to what's acceptable, what's not, and what they actually care about.

Better title: 6 generic questions answered by someone who should be answering much more pressing questions

Awful interview questions.

How about asking questions like: What sorts of speech will get me banned on Twitter? Do you think you've done enough to turn Twitter around? Why is Facebook so successful while Twitter looks to be in trouble?

I'm sure the interviewer knew of these topics but choose not to. For reasons I can't speculate on.

>> "What sorts of speech will get me banned on Twitter? Do you think you've done enough to turn Twitter around? Why is Facebook so successful while Twitter looks to be in trouble?"

Those seem like pretty awful questions imo. He's not going to waste time listing off things that will get you banned from Twitter. He'll tell you not to violate TOS (in other words don't harass people). This should be common sense. With your second question he's obviously not going to say no. He'll give a standard PR reply. Same goes for the third. He's not going to talk up a competitor.

Surely these question are more relevant then "What would you tell your younger self" - "Don't eat ramen noodles and exercise". I think you're right he'll just come back with standard PR replies but at least you're asking question people want asked.

Don't get me wrong these definitely weren't great questions either. I'd rather see something a little different though than the standard PR response we can read on dozens of sites so at least it's different. It's also possible he would only agree to the interview based on certain questions so we can't be too tough on the interviewer.

>He'll tell you not to violate TOS (in other words don't harass people). This should be common sense.

It would be common sense if the ToS weren't selectively enforced based on how far one strays from political opinions that Twitter finds acceptable.

I agree, pretty much all fluff questions. I was really hoping for some serious questions about what is Twitter's biggest problem? Is this focus on constantly growing user counts healthy for tech in general and Twitter specifically?

There's a lot of real questions that could have been asked instead of "How will you have improved yourself in 10 years?" which nobody can really answer.

Jack actually responded to accusations re: wikileaks #DNC-leaks censorship (people, myself included, have speculated that Twitter banned the hashtag from trending):

https://twitter.com/jameshemphil/status/756924975546765312

To be clear- I am not sure if I believe Jack's denial or not. This situation appears to be a big opaque mess to me.

Twitter is in trouble. They even had a canned question on the investor line to give jack a change to sound like a leader and calm people's concerns over their censorship. They are censoring, there's no doubt at this point. And their stock will continue to drop. There's no way some new feature will satisfy 50% of the users who use but don't trust or advocate for the platform. Those users WILL jump ship as soon as they can. And the media will also split or defect to the more informative platform as well.

His answer to the last question is something I believe a lot of people in the tech industry need to understand. Health is above all else. You can be the most successful person in the world but put off taking care of yourself and all that success can come to an abrupt end.

has JD done any writing (books or posts) that would put him in a tech visionary realm? If so I'd like to see it. Otherwise not sure why he's answering these questions

has JD done any writing (books or posts) that would put him in a tech visionary realm?

Building society-changing products and startups doesn't count anymore? Twitter seems like a pretty big deal.

right but the questions have nothing to do with those society-changing products. it would be delightful if the question was "how are you going to save Twitter", but nope, it's more of useless "how are you so great" and "what will future be like"

Exactly. And he seems to overcompensate for that lack by using some bizarrely complicated language like the "minimization of atoms".

Contrast that to the clear pg-style "write like you talk" writing of Musk, who has bona fide visionary credentials:

https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...

> The minimization of atoms is something that I think we’ll see continue to see over the next ten years...

What does this even mean? You can't make atoms smaller than they are. Unless he's talking about some abstract 'atom' which doesn't work since he just throws out the word without clarifying. I don't think this is a common metaphor.

I think he means the reduction of the number of things made with atoms. It's a weird way to put it and it's even weirder considering AR so far hasn't really been successful at all.

Given the context of talking about AR, it's a bizarre way of saying that he wants to have less physical products in the world. I am not a Jack Dorsey fan and quotes like that just harden my assessment...

Will Jack Dorsey and whoever interviewed him even remember this interview in 6 months? 2 years? 10 years?

What's the point of a Q&A that asks generic questions?

How about aiming for content that is insightful and valuable for 1+ years? Surely themacro publishing tonnes of shallow content just dilutes the brand? Then why bother?

Makes me miss the pg days.

Soft ball with Jack Dorsey.

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