Hacker News Reader

Class A players don't work for controlling managers who overload them with near impossible targets. Class A players have plenty of options in tech, and have no need to tolerate having their skills called into question or disrespected by pointy-haired middle managers.

When Bill Coughran was asked how he was able to successfully manage so many famously high performers (engineers like Jeff Dean), Bill explained how that caliber of engineer tends to have strong opinions and you basically have to build a whole team around them and give them the freedom to do their thing.

You're wrong.

This is exactly how he runs things at Tesla and SpaceX. Class A players are well compensated and love working on challenges that are extreme and/or world relevant. They live and breath what they do.

If you're that type of player, Musk will respect you and your opinion.

And all of my talented Stanford/MIT/FAANG/whatever pedigree friends quit Musk companies or would never touch one of his companies. I wonder why.

Doesn't matter, somebody else will.

I know Musk is widely disliked, but there will never be a shortage of talented engineers wanting to work with him, on interesting challenges, for very high compensation.

> I know Musk is widely disliked, but there will never be a shortage of talented engineers wanting to work with him, on interesting challenges, for very high compensation.

But how many talented engineers want to work with him, on interesting challenges, for very low compensation. Because historically with his other companies that's what he offers.

Space X and Tesla are more inherently interesting regardless of the person in charge. Twitter is not. That modus operandi will not work for this.

> But how many talented engineers want to work with him, on interesting challenges, for very low compensation. Because historically with his other companies that's what he offers.

But people still take those jobs at the other companies. Whatever he wants in his employees, recruiters will offer the lowest it takes to hire them, just like anywhere else.

Yes people will still take those jobs for less, but less talented people.

Did they live and breathe what they do? Just working for FAANG or whatever doesn't mean that they do.

Astronauts and physicists are separate categories of human. Obviously those who thrive on danger and those who thrive on puzzles are different. Though, it could be risky to present such an upfront contradiction to someone with an established worldview.

Everyone I know that worked at SpaceX left due to substandard compensation. I don't think it's a secret that you work at SpaceX for "the mission" versus "the money".

Depends on how they value their stock options, no? SpaceX grows rapidly and if you believe in the mission you might believe the sky is (not) the limit.

That’s true, but does working for Twitter inspire employees the same way that Tesla and SpaceX do? The koolaid goes down easy if you are working on cutting edge problems like self driving cars and rockets. A social media (i.e. advertising) company doesn’t do the same for me.

Yeah, I think that is part of his management style. Maybe he can make a Twitter brand Kool-Aid.

Do you know anyone who has worked for a Musk company, or are you just imagining what it is like?

Except Tesla and SpaceX operate in industries where there aren’t a lot of options for people who are passionate about those kinds of technologies. There are tons of tech companies they support strong engineers. Why would you want to work for an abusive boss if you don’t have to?

> Class A players are well compensated and love working on challenges that are extreme and/or world relevant.

I wouldn't exactly call an aging social media company from the 2010s "extreme and/or world relevant."

People still dream about spaceflight. It's something you can work on that feels like it matters. Skimming ad revenue off of millions of humans collectively trolling each other 280 characters at a time just doesn't capture the imagination in quite the same way, y'know?

"Frankly, I hate doing mgmt stuff. I kinda don't think anyone should be the boss of anyone. But I love helping solve technical product design problems."

Elon Musk texts Parag Agrawal (now fired)

https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1585804674170355712/ph...

Class A players especially don't like working with slackers and non-performers. If Elon cracks the whip and gets the bozos out of the performers way, they'll love him for it.

> 3. Brain drain. I expect the exact opposite. This is the part where Musk thrives and also where he's at his cruelest. He will remove slackers and non-performers without mercy and surround himself with class A players only. Next he'll overload them with near impossible targets and you can't bullshit yourself out of it. You deliver or you're out. I would expect him to run this for a year or so and accomplish more than Twitter's dysfunctional product team did in their entire history.

Is Musk planning on paying Twitter employees substantially more than other tech companies? Why would any class A player want the privilege of being "overloaded" with work when they can make similar or better money elsewhere and also have better work-life balance? Why do all the Elon worshippers seem to assume that everyone is as enamored him as they are and will happily volunteer to be exploited by him so the world's richest man can get even richer?

You clearly don't know what an A player is. An A player does not have any work life balance.

And no, when you make hundreds of thousands of $ per year, you're not "exploited".

And yes, quite a few people would love to work for Musk just because he's Musk. Exciting things happen around him.

> You clearly don't know what an A player is.

If you work harder than the B players and don't get paid more than them, then you are not an A player, you are just a gullible rube who lets other people exploit them. A players may or may not work harder than the B players, but they definitely command more money than them.

> And no, when you make hundreds of thousands of $ per year, you're not "exploited".

Yes you are, if other equally qualified people can make more money working less.

> And yes, quite a few people would love to work for Musk just because he's Musk.

Musk has a cult of personality and there are some people out there with no self-respect who will let themselves be exploited by him. Those people are not A players, though.

In your last point, you reveal your true point: you just don't like him. I don't necessarily do either, but that shouldn't get in the way of a rational discussion.

Weird how you ignore the point where he describes how if you work more than someone else who is also getting paid more than you, then you are getting a bad deal...

Nah, this is pretty much the deal for 99% of people on this planet.

Musk is famous for paying meager wages relative to other companies in exchange for being able to say "I worked at Tesla". And those are on public companies where you have to keep up with the quarterly earnings rat race. Normally you'd expect to see better wages in a private company, but given that it's Musk who knows.

I'd work for twitter if they were less driven by political ideology. Maybe I am wrong, but it looks from the outside that one would have to walk the thought line to succeed in many of these west coast companies.

Edit: If I am wrong (possible), help me understand why.

You're entirely right, but it's not a popular thing to say in this forum.

IME for engineering at these companies is that the social or political side of things is mostly irrelevant for Eng. Some folks want to be involved in internal activism but it’s easy to ignore and basically never comes up in Eng work. Ppl just avoid politics like normies and talk about average stuff like “how’s your kid?” not “let’s go to that protest”. Lots of good smart technical peeps more likely to nerd out on cool tech stuff than be political.

>His goals are good: focusing on the 80% bandwidth of free speech, but getting there for sure is going to be tricky. This has to be by far the biggest risk factor.

What I think will be the real litmus test is Azealia Banks, whose account currently remains suspended [0]

She was banned for allegedly transphobic tweets [1] which were political speech by any reasonable definition (she was banned because the way she said it, not the content of the idea).

Why I don't think she'll be allowed back is because she has a personal relationship with Musk/Grimes where she sends that same kind of hate their way.

But like I said, interesting litmus test.

[0]https://twitter.com/Azealiaishere [1]https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/14/azealia-banks-suspende...

The trans debate is extremely polarizing and aggressive on both sides. I'll leave it at that.

I think the real litmus test is a possible Trump unban. That's would be earth shattering.

It's hard to imagine the Trump ban staying given what he was actually banned for. I'm not a Trumper but he tweeted:

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter interpreted this to be an incitement for terrorist attack on the inauguration and banned him, the sitting president of the US, for that. It is hard to imagine any platform with a semblance of free speech stand behind that kind of logic. If you are willing to read into statements that deeply, any speech is bannable.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

That's pretty much entirely devoid of the context of everything else he tweeted and the rest of his actions and you can pretend that none of that matters but it obviously does.

here is the context for the rest of his tweets: https://www.thetrumparchive.com/

He was absolutely and obviously questioning and denying the election results. Maybe that should be a bannable offense, but that isn't what they did.

"He was absolutely and obviously questioning and denying the election results"

And ginning up the capital mob.... but keep ignoring the context.

Like I said, I dont like Trump, but didn't and dont read it that way.

I think it is absolutely a situation where peoples priors are feeding into the conclusions they come to.

What you obviously read as ginning up a violent capital mob, someone else can read as encouraging peaceful protest.

Trump was so divisive and loaded that some people come to conclusions completely independent of his actions statements. When he said the quote below [1], some people argued that he was encouraging violence, and it should be read with some kind of reverse meaning. My point is not to debate the actual intent, but illustrate that once you reach this level of interpretation and distrust, there is really no rational common ground for debate or analysis. Anyone can claim anything and there is no substance.

"I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"

> What you obviously read as ginning up a violent capital mob, someone else can read as encouraging peaceful protest.

There has been an entire set of Congressional hearings, with extensive testimony from the people surrounding him, to answer precisely which of those was the case.

The evidence conclusively points to the former, there's really no question at this point. This isn't a matter of opinion anymore or "agree to disagree" -- it's just overwhelming facts, based on undisputed testimony, now.

You can play ostrich all you want, I'm just not sure why you seem to think it makes you look reasonable to stick your head in the sand and ignore everything around you.

Oddly enough, this is the first time I have read their reasoning for the ban. I did not know they had an article on it until now.

Having read the link given to Twitter's interpretation of "context" of the other tweets he made, my conclusion is that it is impossible to dispassionately read the cited tweets and come to the conclusion they did without having a number of unstated priors, based entirely in partisan animus.

The tweets literally do not say what Twitter claims they say. Up until now I had taken it on faith (well, more like widely reported media exposure) that he had actually "incited violence"; but after reading the cited tweets, I am left scratching my head. "Wait, that's it?" was the thought I had. It is election conspiracy mongering, sure, and perhaps that is not something Twitter wants to be in the business of carrying, but that is not the reasoning they used here.

No violence incitement exists in those tweets. Pure and simple. "I am not going to the inauguration" is such a plain, short, and inoffensive statement that reading anything else into it says more about the person doing the reading than it does the speaker.

"Having read the link given to Twitter's interpretation of "context" of the other tweets he made, my conclusion is that it is impossible to dispassionately read the cited tweets and come to the conclusion they did without having a number of unstated priors, based entirely in partisan animus."

Really? I completely disagree. You'd have to burying your head in the sand to come to this conclusion IMO. Twitter isn't even saying that his tweets say "xyz", as you just described it. They go on length on how the tweets are being viewed and interpreted.

Yeah, I thought it was eye-opening as well and it obviously stuck in my mind. If you judge speech based on the worst possible interpretation that could be made by the worst or most delusional people in society, there is nothing that can pass the test.

Certainly doesn't help that Donald Trump did in fact employ dog whistles and subtext during his time as president.

I'm not sure where this leaves us aside from in a post-factual reality where imagination can't be differentiated from the real world. People are compartmentalized by their priors and have no common facts worth discussing

"If you judge speech based on the worst possible interpretation that could be made by the worst or most delusional people in society, there is nothing that can pass the test."

That's not what they did.

That is precisely what they did. "(Objectively innocuous statement X) is being understood by certain people to mean (Y) instead".

Count how many times weasel words like "is being understood as" or "could mean" are used. Understood by who? How many people? Based on what? "Could" mean? This kind of unsourced and unsourceable fuzziness is a telltale sign that you are reading someone's opinion, not a recounting of facts.

Well they certainly didn't read his mind, and they certainly didn't interpret it the way I would come from any other English speaker.

If all just comes back to my point about lack of common ground. You and I can read the exact same press release and come to vastly different conclusions, and we don't even have a republican in the room

> The trans debate is extremely polarizing and aggressive on both sides. I'll leave it at that.

While that might sadly be true in some countries, please know there are many where people are perfectly happy to let people be whoever they want to be.

It does not have to be aggressive.

The issue is less what is being said, but how it is being said, by either side. Both feel themselves correct, and in some narrow way, are.

> Both feel themselves correct, and in some narrow way, are.

The side that is attempting to stop people being who they want to be is correct?

Free speech argument is BS. Free speech cannot repay his investors. He plans to launch a TwitCoin or some other scammy type endeavor.

How do you know?

Obviously my opinion but based on some observations. He is not unfamiliar with the fintech space (Paypal). Remember the old joke about printing money - with TwitCoin he would be doing it - literally. Biannce is an investor. He cannot get rid of bots even if he wants to. People do not hand you billions of dollars without some hope of being paid back - even if you are Elon Musk.

You can't just start a shitcoin and print it, you need to back it up with real assets. See SEC and what happened to Facebook's libre.

Getting rid of bots has to be stupidly easy. They start posting the second he tweets. Hundreds of them with the same avatar and slightly misspelled name.

OMG: And what assets back up Bitcoin? Dogecoin? XXXCoin. In Tether we trust:) Those are just the stupid obvious bots. Linkedin recently purged half the accounts that had people claiming to work for Apple and AWS. It is far from as easy as you think. It cost pennies per fake account creation. As they say in the QANON universe - do your research.

Does he really need to make it repay anyone, so long as the investors are on board with this?

Twitter has to repay a $13 billion dollar loan at the very least.

Yes - if his investors want to ever have anyone trust them to invest money ever again.

I think you missed the point I’m trying to make, so I’ll rephrase:

Do the investors care in this specific case, or did they invest in this plan knowing specifically that his goal was to prefer free speech over profit?

Unless there is a rational, defensible argument (which I have not heard) of how a free speech platform can repay the investors (investors require more money back than they put in) I cannot see how an investor cannot care - legally. You have to remember that the money they are investing, in part or in whole, is likely other peoples. It would be naive in my opinion to think otherwise.

> You have to remember that the money they are investing, in part or in whole, is likely other peoples.

I think this is the crux of the argument.

I don't believe it is, in this specific case, other peoples money.

I don't have a full list of investment money sources or terms, but IIRC at least $26 billion of that is his personal cash and personal loans secured against his other Tesla shares, and he did have enough to do it all by himself if his goal was "screw the rules, I have money".

While he clearly isn't always aware of the consequences of his choices, it is at least possible that some investors (either in this case, whose names I don't have, or in general) did so equally unwisely just because of his Midas-like reputation, and they don't have such a restriction.

NYT article "Mr. Musk, who took on about $13 billion in debt to finance the deal for Twitter, must also pay lenders about $1 billion in interest payments annually."

He can do that without Twitter making a profit. Lender != investor.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree. Never said he was going to make a profit. In fact the opposite. What you are describing is not an Investor but a Donor. Take a look at these equity investors/donors - not lenders.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/who-is-financing-elon-mus...

Firms like:

Fidelity Management & Research Company DFJ Growth IV Partners Honeycomb Asset Management Sequoia Capital Fund

All these financial companies have accepted money from retirement funds, pensions etc on the assumption that they will get more money in return. Please don't troll me by saying they could have given him money without seeking returns. We both know that just isn't the case.

Thanks for the link! Nice to see the real list.

Given the headlines I'd seen, I was thinking more like "convinced Larry from Oracle" when hypothesising someone could have given him money without seeking returns.

I'd agree that isn't the case for many on this list :)

I expect #3 to be true to an extent. Elon is very good at attracting very high performing, industry leading engineers to join him but they never last long. He burns out the high performers just as much as the low performers.

> It is the town square for the elite (politicians, celebrities, experts)

Only for a subset of those elites who conform to certain ideological views. The rest have been actively censored or banned from Twitter.

> There isn't really anywhere else to go.

And that has been the problem for those with non-preferred views. Twitter clones have been actively denigrated and, in some cases, forced to shut down.

IMO, Twitter needs to add up and down voting, like HN has.

Open discourse is not for the faint of heart. Never was - it can get your adrenaline up and teach you self control.

My belief is marketing. Toyota spends 1.3 billion in marketing world wide. Tesla has no marketing team but Elon himself is the marketing engine on Twitter.

With Elon owning Twitter he can automate the marketing for whatever companies he runs now and in the future. Also he can invisibly or visibly promote his own tweets. On top of that the company makes 5 billion a year.

I think Elon probably has a very techy view that marketing is bad. And if he has to do it, he will do it in his own weird way with 100% control of how it will be done.

To your point number 2: perhaps part of the reason why Twitter is the town square is because it is not super profitable. If it was as chock full of ads as Facebook I think it would cease to be usable.

In reality if we want a public square, we ideally want it to be a public utility not a for profit corporation.

The irony being that the public square at large is a disease of the people and not the consequence of a specific platform.

I'm not sure if that really is the reason. I do agree though that Twitter's ads are hilariously irrelevant.

I would absolutely not want a social network to be ran by any government, no thanks.

Corporation or government is not the only choice. It could be a non-profit. It could be a protocol. It could be run by universities or public libraries.

People fail to see that 'the government' running something important to the public does not have to operate as if it were the DMV. Publicly funded can mean many different things.

Agreed.

>Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its cultural relevance.

Social networks rise and fall. Twitter is no more the town square than MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Mastadon, Snap, LinkedIn, etc. are, and the attempts to redefine them as such are only a means to political end.

Musk cares more about making money than anything else - he didn't become a billionaire by being altruistic and he's not going to start now after this investment.

False, none of those other platforms have the town square vibe. They're fragmented boxes of content and conversation.

By that same logic, tweets are fragments of content and conversation.

Agree that Twitter is no town square.

Disagree that Musk cares more about making money. Given his financial position in this whole ordeal, it's hard to see how he comes out without a loss.

Power and influence over political speech though... priceless.

"Class A" players answer call to rid the world of fossil fuel and explore deep space. There's nothing meaningful or productive about Twitter.

More obviously part of his work as CEO and owner will be to develop a meaning and provide Direction.

Maybe he can get people to drink the Kool-Aid that Twitter is and well will be the future of productive Democratic conversation. If I actually believe that, I would want to work there

Regarding #3: I think the stated missions of e.g. SpaceX and Tesla are the main draw of talent. The rest is loyalty, without which most talent would leave for less a less stressful work environment. At the very least I think we can expect much higher turnover and a distinctly younger talent pool. Sounds almost good if you don’t have concerns about the chaotic whims of ruthless and impatient leadership.

While I'm no fan of Elon anymore, I think some change is desperately needed for Twitter.