Elon Musk | Owner of X

Revan

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That's true also. It was the Balmer era where MS rested on their laurels and let start ups like Google dominate a new space.
Indeed. During Gates era, they did well starting from DOS, Windows, Office, and Explorer. Then in Balmer’s era they basically did no innovation at all, and their stock value by the time he left was lower than when he took over. Natela has been a very good CEO (same as Pinchai at Google, and Cook at Apple). Those lost 15 years or so, essentially allowed Apple to return, and Google to become a behemoth. They kinda fecked up the succession of Gates.
 

Revan

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How is it similar, besides them both not being trained in the business they manage, and being (now that Musk just bought Twitter) in the software business?

Musk has been a car and rockets guy previously, which isn't very similar. Gates didn't go around claiming that ridiculous ideas like air pressure tunnels for trains would work or hyperloops would be efficient. It's been 9 years of "self driving next year".

Musk is more PT Barnum, like a snake oil salesman. I don't get any of that from Gates.
To be fair, the self driving next year, should not be blamed on Musk cause pretty much all the experts were saying that. There was so much excitement about it on the Computer Vision up to 2-3 years ago, with people being sure that we are very near on cracking it.

Nowadays it is the other way around, extreme skepticism, that among others, lead one of the leading companies in the field getting dissolved.
 

fishfingers15

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YESHHHHH, We'll GOOO for it.
To be fair, the self driving next year, should not be blamed on Musk cause pretty much all the experts were saying that. There was so much excitement about it on the Computer Vision up to 2-3 years ago, with people being sure that we are very near on cracking it.

Nowadays it is the other way around, extreme skepticism, that among others, lead one of the leading companies in the field getting dissolved.
So many missed deadlines and unkept promises about self driving capabilities. C'mon man, you are not really serious are you?
 

Revan

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So many missed deadlines and unkept promises about self driving capabilities. C'mon man, you are not really serious are you?
I am saying that pretty much every one was wrong. I worked for 2 of the leading companies in the field, and well, everyone was wrong. I attended CVPR conferences where the ‘autonomous driving was almost there’ and now a few years later, people are extremely pessimistic that it will happen in 10 years.

Musk was obviously wrong for trumpeting it, but then so was everyone else. And Musk was more or less just echoing the words of Andrej Karpathy who was leading Tesla’s autopilot (he left Tesla this year). What Musk never said is that Tesla was (and still is) significantly behind Waymo and to a lesser degree Cruise. Even the now non-existent Argo AI had better systems than Tesla. Aurora AI probably too. So even if the autopilot ever comes, it won’t be from Tesla.
 

Scandi Red

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Already in the first line of the first tweet after getting unbanned the dickhead shows that he learned nothing from the dead-naming incident. What a surprise...

 

Tarrou

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I've despised Musk ever since he called that diver a pedo. Knew the vibes were off. Although yeah he was a darling of tech bros.

And tbf there are a lot of tech bros still left who want to suck him off.
I don’t understand how anyone still liked or supported the guy after that

disgusting behaviour
 

Pexbo

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Already in the first line of the first tweet after getting unbanned the dickhead shows that he learned nothing from the dead-naming incident. What a surprise...

Funny if he gets his platform back and within a week that platform has burned to the ground.
 

Scandi Red

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Funny if he gets his platform back and within a week that platform has burned to the ground.
I wonder who he will blame for this?

A) Post-Modernists
B) Nihilists
C) Woke Moralists
D) All of the above
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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I still think it’s all fairly deliberate. Not that I think he’s some 4D chess playing genius. He’s just a cnut.

He now owns a truly influential social media platform that can swing elections. He’ll fill job vacancies easily enough. He’ll turn Twitter into Cambridge Analytica by daylight. Parler et al, failed because they couldn’t get big enough, quick enough.

Unless the left truly desert Twitter it’ll be a right wing proving ground with millions of liberal folks complaining about it, while engaging with it.

£000’s of millions could conceivably be paid to amplify right wing shitehawks and marginalise everyone else.

In my head that all seems feasible. Perhaps I’m just too pessimistic.
 

frostbite

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I am afraid that Musk is doing all this to keep people visiting Twitter... There is no other rational explanation. "Comedy is again legal on Twitter" means we are going to see all the "comedians" back. Lies, fights, bullshit... we will have something to talk about, every day. He will probably unleash Trump, too.

 

Tarrou

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not buying the deliberate angle

he's been doing moronic shit for ages and is finally getting found out
 

Withnail

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I still think it’s all fairly deliberate. Not that I think he’s some 4D chess playing genius. He’s just a cnut.

He now owns a truly influential social media platform that can swing elections. He’ll fill job vacancies easily enough. He’ll turn Twitter into Cambridge Analytica by daylight. Parler et al, failed because they couldn’t get big enough, quick enough.

Unless the left truly desert Twitter it’ll be a right wing proving ground with millions of liberal folks complaining about it, while engaging with it.

£000’s of millions could conceivably be paid to amplify right wing shitehawks and marginalise everyone else.

In my head that all seems feasible. Perhaps I’m just too pessimistic.
It's literally falling apart before our very eyes and you think it could all work out for musk? He's breaking laws left and right and at risk of 75% of his employees walking away.
 

weetee

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not buying the deliberate angle

he's been doing moronic shit for ages and is finally getting found out
He does garner much attention that way. Did it before and got away with it (see the "pedo diver remark"). It's been working in his favor after all for a long time and if he basically bougth a logo, users and infrastructure for 44billions to use it for his political agenda and PR / attention it's not an angle too far fetched I'd say. But it's all speculation right now. I see the positive: if it truly becomes the cesspool I fear it forms into it's also a chance for something better to step up and not only form an alternative but also an improvement upon the Twitter we knew (didn't use it but think it was far from perfect).
 

Mockney

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not buying the deliberate angle

he's been doing moronic shit for ages and is finally getting found out
yeah it’s not deliberate, he’s just an asshole who bought into a dumb right wing persecution complex/Atlas Shrugged fantasy and then found out it doesn’t actually work in practice. Standard Libertarian wonk.

 

TwoSheds

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What is a Babylon Bee and why does anybody care? Is it endangered?
 

Mockney

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It’s a very very unfunny conservative Onion rip off Elon became obsessed with after he failed in his attempt to buy the actual Onion after it made fun of him.
 
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UnrelatedPsuedo

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It's literally falling apart before our very eyes and you think it could all work out for musk? He's breaking laws left and right and at risk of 75% of his employees walking away.
Yeah. I think he’s a det stable cnut but I really can’t get across the idea that it’s ALL unforeseen Fcuk up.

Perhaps I don’t use the site enough to see it truly falling apart. I don’t tweet, follow anyone, I only consume content on the platform.

I guess I don’t believe that he needs the employees that walked out, in order to run a right wing echo chamber that sees higher engagement metrics than it has right now.
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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not buying the deliberate angle

he's been doing moronic shit for ages and is finally getting found out
Fair go. But the only possible outcome from that email about becoming a faithful economy drone, was mass resignations.

Tech is a funny place right now. But offering three months pay to leave, was only ever going to see large numbers of people leave. Every single person reading it, knows it.

Again, I’d go nowhere near suggesting it was a master plan, but surely some of it must be deliberate.

If you wanted to gut a company of resistant employees, in order to build a new version of something that those people wouldn’t like… that email is how you’d do it efficiently.
 

HookedOnAPhelan

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I've despised Musk ever since he called that diver a pedo. Knew the vibes were off. Although yeah he was a darling of tech bros.

And tbf there are a lot of tech bros still left who want to suck him off.
That was the wtf-moment for me too. Before that I'd kind of bought the idea of him being a genius (not really sure why).

This whole twitter debacle has put it beyond any reasonable doubt that he's a full-blown idiot though.
 

Bepi

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Yeah. I think he’s a det stable cnut but I really can’t get across the idea that it’s ALL unforeseen Fcuk up.
What’s your point? He is acting like an idiot or… as a mole. Both cases, he will be in deeeep legal trouble by Christmas.
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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What’s your point? He is acting like an idiot or… as a mole. Both cases, he will be in deeeep legal trouble by Christmas.
My point? That it feels silly to chalk absolutely everything up to accident.

I’m sure he’ll have legal battles. Will probably cost a fortune, perhaps it kills the company, I don’t know enough to comment.

I’m just loathe to throw everything into the idiot bucket.
 

Kaush949

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How is it similar, besides them both not being trained in the business they manage, and being (now that Musk just bought Twitter) in the software business?

Musk has been a car and rockets guy previously, which isn't very similar. Gates didn't go around claiming that ridiculous ideas like air pressure tunnels for trains would work or hyperloops would be efficient. It's been 9 years of "self driving next year".

Musk is more PT Barnum, like a snake oil salesman. I don't get any of that from Gates.

Musk was a software guy before becoming a car and rockets guy.

He founded Zip2 and X.com which became paypal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
 
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Rhyme Animal

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Nonchalantly scoring the winner...
Ugh… it’s all so pathetic, boring and predictable. We all know how this plays out.

4 more years of Trump and all the repetitive toxicity his image brings.

I really, really wish America would sort itself out and turn the corner from these ridiculous old ‘Daddy’ figures that we all have to suffer.
 

frostbite

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Cast my vote as "no" because that's my job as a citizen of a sane world. Who are the fecking bellends who want him back and why are there this many?
Who knows how many bots and russian agents vote for Trump?

(Or if Musk himself "fixed" the vote... a programmer can put any number in there.... )
 

weetee

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Who knows how many bots and russian agents vote for Trump?

(Or if Musk himself "fixed" the vote... a programmer can put any number in there.... )

I thought it was established he couldn't code?

Joke aside, as expected. I wonder at what point the general public will turn away but the fear is almost everybody will keep staring at this trainwreck it becomes once all hell breaks loose.
 

4bars

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The company that Gates founded and built will in all likelihood last beyond his own lifetime, and probably with a greater value than it had the day he stepped down from being its leader. That's quite an accomplishment in itself because it takes more than just having 1-2 good ideas.
Among other things It needed having a mom working in IBM coluding to have your kid software push through at the right time to get a software monopoly that killed several good companies like netscape.

Bill Gates was no genius either