October 2, 2022

"The dominant reaction from all the threads I’m in is Everyone looks fucking dumb."

"It’s been a general Is this really how business is done? There’s no real strategic thought or analysis. It’s just emotional and done without any real care for consequence."

Said a former social-media executive, quoted anonymously in "Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius/The world’s richest man has some embarrassing friends" (The Atlantic). The court in the Twitter case released a bunch of texts to and from Musk.

What’s immediately clear is that many of the men in Musk’s phone are having fun with his Twitter escapade. It is an opportunity to blithely throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. They toss out phrases like “hard reboot” and “Day Zero. Sharpen your blades boys”—to cleave through what they see as an unnecessary and ineffective workforce, perhaps.... 

Despite all the self-mythologizing and talk of building, the men in these text messages appear mercurial, disorganized, and incapable of solving the kind of societal problems they think they can... What’s striking about the Musk messages, then, is the similarity between these men’s behavior behind closed doors and in public on Twitter. Perhaps the real revelation here is that the shallowness you see is the shallowness you get.

59 comments:

Narayanan said...

were they all drinking at the time?

Old Sugar: Queen Jennie Sorghum Whiskey
Queen Jennie of Madison, Wisconsin’s, Old Sugar distillery is produced with 100% Wisconsin sorghum syrup and aged in Minnesota oak barrels. It clocks in at a mild 40% ABV, again NAS.

Queen Jennie comes in a cute lil’ handled jug that I just can’t but adore, however janky the label. Light sunflower yellow in the glass, the spirit appears somewhat cloudy.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Twitter showcases shallowness?

No way!

Remember- leftist twitter shallowness is holy.

Michael K said...

It's been said for some time that Silicon Valley is populated with lots of Asperger's Syndrome cases.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Tesla and Spacex - what a freaking idiot! Dumb!

How dare these dorks say dumb things on twitter. the platform for,... dumb things.
pffft.
The left are desperate to destroy Musk.

Drago said...

The New Soviet Democraticals remain very very upset about Musk exposing more of the left's/dem's/nevertrump (but I repeat myself) corruption and fascist control desires.

They are moving to their well worn tactic of proclaiming all the success Musk has had as blind dumb luck with nothing to do with him.

They did it to Trump and they did it to Reagan.

And they had alot of help from their GOPe allies.

Mary Beth said...

one former social-media executive, whom I’ve granted anonymity because they have relationships with many of the people in Musk’s texts

Why should I care what this person has to say? Someone with either business or personal relationships with these people talks about them behind their backs. That's enough to tell me I am not interested in their opinion.

I wish Charlie Warzel had added screenshots of some of his own texts with friends so we would have an example of high-minded, intelligent texts for comparison's sake. Texts often seem dumb to me. They are missing context that is known only to the parties texting - inside jokes, previous conversations. Tweets are often the same way. Either you get it or you don't. If you don't, you weren't the intended audience.

Ice Nine said...

>"the similarity between these men’s behavior behind closed doors and in public on Twitter. Perhaps the real revelation here is that the shallowness you see is the shallowness you get."<

That's a bunch of the self-made richest men in the world that he's talking about. I'll take that kind of "shallow" any day.

M said...

All the Globalist “leading lights” have been recorded saying this stuff at Davos. Where they claim to be reorganizing the world for a better tomorrow. More like recreating the serf system with them on top. If I’m going to be looked down on I’d rather it be by someone who has created something in real life like new rocket systems or at least better data management that makes life a bit better for us serfs. Not some bureaucrat or lawyer who has never created anything in their lives and has only ever made life worse for anyone outside their “class”.

Achilles said...

""The dominant reaction from all the threads I’m in is Everyone looks fucking dumb.""

The journalist has a bunch of journalist friends.

When you look up the IQ curve you see about 20 points.

The average Journalist is high 80's. They can't see very far.

MikeR said...

"Whoever said there are no bad ideas in brainstorming never had access to Elon Musk’s phone." How to show me you don't understand brainstorming without...

n.n said...

Envy is green. Leverage requires a hook. But will Musk take a knee, beg, ...? Perhaps they need a high-worth Democrat-style "hero". He's not viable.

MikeR said...

"Few of the men in Musk’s phone consider themselves his equal." That is left for Charlie Warzel, who never did anything.

n.n said...

He's African-American. Is diversity [dogma], perhaps rabid, a motive? This could be another Xhosa vs Zulu tribal conflict, with allegations of [political/social] apartheid (e.g. DIE doctrine) that threatens demos-cracy and suppresses scrutiny.

minnesota farm guy said...

One has a very different approach in the locker room ( social media) from the Board room.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Despite all the self-mythologizing and talk of building, the men in these text messages appear mercurial, disorganized, and incapable of solving the kind of societal problems they think they can...

Unlike the best laid plans of America's political class, they always work!

/sarc

narciso said...

the trial is about tech giants colluding in ways small and wide, but as a former?? journolister, grunwald knows all the right moves

Interested Bystander said...

Charley Warzel, the writer who presumes to think he's a deeper thinker than the guy who built SpaceX and Tesla and is also the richest man in the world, works for the Atlantic and make $98,000 a year. Come back to us when you have achieved something, Charley. Not that money is the best measure of how valuable a person is to society. But it's one measure and Charley doesn't come close to Elon.

MikeR said...

'At one point in early April, Musk appears infatuated with his own idea to replace Twitter with a blockchain-based payment-and-message system... Roughly 10 days later, Musk sends a different text noting that “blockchain Twitter isn’t possible.”'
That sounds kind of impressive, Musk learning his trade. The author, of course, is oblivious.

Scott said...

"Perhaps the real revelation here is that the shallowness you see is the shallowness you get."

Warzel hasn't adequately made the case that these men are shallow. He's just saying that from these tweets it's obvious, and it really isn't.

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Lurker21 said...

Everyone is wearing a mask to conceal how dumb and/or socially inept they are.

Sometimes the masks slip and we like it.

n.n said...

JournoLism 101. We all hate him.

gilbar said...

Remember? Remember the media's Love Affair with elon? Back before he left the plantation?
Remember? Remember the media's Love Affair with trump? Back before he left the plantation?

It's kinda weird, it seems that a person's IQ is determined by his closeness to the party line

Sebastian said...

"the men in these text messages appear mercurial, disorganized, and incapable of solving the kind of societal problems they think they can"

"The men," right. I realize they're talking about Elon's "friends," but still: have all the organized women entrepreneurs in the history of humanity together created as much value as Elon has by himself? (Of course, he partly did it at my expense, skimming tax subsidies: he's the best at exploiting prog delusions.)

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Is it possible, when reading something that was not meant to be read by everybody, any qualification of the text will appear true and accurate, as long as it is the first appraisal, the first critique.

A kind of hearsay maybe?

In post-truth times, being first is all that matters.

JAORE said...

World's (close to) wealthiest man (WWM) gets tweets from other wealthy people, those that want access to WWM, some not-so-bright people and some that don't express themselves well.

Stop the presses. STOP THE PRESSES!

Now ask yourself why is this news? Are not ALL powerful people that tweet presented with fawning or ignorant tweets? Could it be the Atlantic cherry picked tweets to meet their own theme?

Dude1394 said...

A journalist from a dying industry tries to judge titans of industry. Yea, I'll pay to read that.

Kansas City said...

Could not tell much from article. Either tweets did not reveal much or author did not understand them very well. To me, it sounded like some rich guys trying to have some fun.

David53 said...

"The 151-page redacted document is a remarkable, voyeuristic record of a few months in the life of the world’s richest (and most overexposed) man and a rare unvarnished glimpse into the overlapping worlds of Silicon Valley, media, and politics."

Seriously, the world's most overexposed man? Has Glenn Kessler fact checked this?

Rusty said...

""The dominant reaction from all the threads I’m in is Everyone looks fucking dumb.""
Dunning-Kruger writ large.

Howard said...

Taken out of context everybody's text messages look pretty silly. Especially when you're riffing among Bros.

Elon musk will get his revenge once he sends out a million of those Optimus prime transformer robots to pick crops in Republican shitholes.

rhhardin said...

People use fucking poorly. It makes them look dumb.

rhhardin said...

Fucking never modifies personal pronouns for some reason. There's some lesson for the pronoun war there.

gilbar said...

Can we All Agree, that the movers and shakers of the world's IT industries are STUPID; compared to woke people with journalism degrees? I mean; WHAT, have people like Elon Musk, Sergi or Larry Page EVER done? Have THEY Ever written a 500 word column that rehashes DNC talking points? NO!!

The True Geniuses in the World, are those people that can wake up, read someone's twitter feed, and then retweat it... THAT is what takes REAL brain power.
Don't believe me? Just go on twitter and ask them, You'll find out!!

Joe Smith said...

Most of the people who read the 'Atlantic' could not get jobs in Silicon Valley tech companies.

The smartest people from all over the world come to work in those companies.

Almost everyone is to the far right of the bell curve.

The competition is relentless...employees can be very choosey because they pay very well and with the right equity one can get moderately wealthy with a little luck.

If you're even hinting that people who have made money in that environment are 'dumb,' then you would be wrong...

rightguy said...

Elon Musk has enjoyed massive success as a visionary entrepreneur since the 1990's. Shallow ?
I think not. What you actually do is far more important than some things you might have said along the way. But Elon must be destroyed by any means necessary ; he doesn't buy the Narrative.

Darkisland said...

Too bad Musk is so stupid. Imagine what he could accomplish if he were as smart as an Arlington writer

SpaceX again doubles the world in upmass. In its quarterly reports on orbital space launches, the BryceTech analysis firm tallies upmass by each launch provider. During the second quarter of 2022, the report found that SpaceX delivered 158.7 metric tons to low Earth orbit, ahead of China's space corporation CASC at 38.8 tons, Roscosmos at 17.2 tons, United Launch Alliance at 13.0 tons, and Arianespace at 9.8 tons.

Small potatoes for now ... SpaceX alone doubled the rest of the world in the amount of payload delivered to orbit. It launched four times the mass of the entire nation of China. The bulk of this mass, of course, was composed of Starlink satellites as the company builds out its low Earth orbit megaconstellation. SpaceX founder Elon Musk indicated this was just the beginning, however. "Very tiny potatoes compared to what’s needed to make life multiplanetary," he noted on Twitter in response to the report


https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/rocket-report-be-4-engine-breathes-fire-delta-iv-heavy-puts-on-a-show/

(you have to scroll down to the report on Musk)

Darkisland said...

Too bad Musk is so stupid. Imagine what he could accomplish if he were as smart as an Atlantic writer

SpaceX again doubles the world in upmass. In its quarterly reports on orbital space launches, the BryceTech analysis firm tallies upmass by each launch provider. During the second quarter of 2022, the report found that SpaceX delivered 158.7 metric tons to low Earth orbit, ahead of China's space corporation CASC at 38.8 tons, Roscosmos at 17.2 tons, United Launch Alliance at 13.0 tons, and Arianespace at 9.8 tons.

Small potatoes for now ... SpaceX alone doubled the rest of the world in the amount of payload delivered to orbit. It launched four times the mass of the entire nation of China. The bulk of this mass, of course, was composed of Starlink satellites as the company builds out its low Earth orbit megaconstellation. SpaceX founder Elon Musk indicated this was just the beginning, however. "Very tiny potatoes compared to what’s needed to make life multiplanetary," he noted on Twitter in response to the report


https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/rocket-report-be-4-engine-breathes-fire-delta-iv-heavy-puts-on-a-show/

(you have to scroll down to the report on Musk)

Mikey NTH said...

There are the things friends say joking amongst themselves and there are the things said when in business settings. Context and nuance seems to be abandoned when it is time for the modern day Mrs. Grundy's to try and collect another scalp.

donald said...

While I’m against all government funding of private or public businesses of any type, the fact is, he paid the loans back ahead of time at full interest. I’m sure Sebastian has no idea that that happened.

Freeman Hunt said...

Hahaha Has this journalist ever texted before?

wildswan said...

"Dude1394 said...
A journalist from a dying industry tries to judge titans of industry. Yea, I'll pay to read that."

Yes

Lewis Wetzel said...

Althouse wrote: Despite all the self-mythologizing and talk of building, the men in these text messages appear mercurial, disorganized, and incapable of solving the kind of societal problems they think they can...
As opposed to government bureaucrats?
There is an "imagination gap" between liberals and conservatives. When liberals imagine the government process for determining, say, who does and who does not receive subsidized insulin medication, they imagine doctors in lab coats having serious, fact bsed discussions. In reality what you get is a bureaucrat sitting in a small office in an obscure DC office park making arbitrary decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate information, and their goal is not to deliver the best health care outcome, it is to get a favorable year-end review so they can continue to climb the bureaucrat's career ladder.

Mikey NTH said...

Henry Ford once said "History is Bunk."

He also created the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

cubanbob said...

Let me get this straight: an arrogant putz who works for someone's vanity project calls Musk and those on his list of contacts dumb. Did I miss anything?

JaimeRoberto said...

What did the author of the article ever build? Maybe those guys have some dumb ideas, but they are putting money where their mouths are, and maybe, just maybe, some of those ideas will work out. It's like the author is trying out for a role in an Ayn Rand novel.

Gahrie said...

have all the organized women entrepreneurs in the history of humanity together created as much value as Elon has by himself?

Probably not. And Elon isn't done yet by a longshot. That being said, the second most important person at SpaceX, and not by all that much, is Gwen Shotwell. I'm kind of perplexed that she isn't being made more of by the media, if only as a way to take attention away from Elon. She is a perfect role model, a modern woman with career and family who made it to the top on hard work and talent, and now leads her industry. If she ever gets into politics, watch out, she's got the perfect resume.

(Of course, he partly did it at my expense, skimming tax subsidies: he's the best at exploiting prog delusions.)

I'll let this go with the caveat that he took advantage of subsidies created by others, by doing exactly what the subsidies were created to encourage people to do. Elon has never lobbied to create a subsidy, and indeed many of them today are worded specifically to exclude Tesla.

Gahrie said...

Elon musk will get his revenge once he sends out a million of those Optimus prime transformer robots to pick crops in Republican shitholes.

Those robots will be growing food and mining minerals on the Moon, Mars and in the asteroid belt.

Readering said...

Has anyone gone through the Musk texts to find insightful, intelligent texts on acquiring Twitter?

Michael K said...


Blogger Howard said...

Taken out of context everybody's text messages look pretty silly. Especially when you're riffing among Bros.

Elon musk will get his revenge once he sends out a million of those Optimus prime transformer robots to pick crops in Republican shitholes.


Howard, try not to freeze to death this winter.

Achilles said...

Howard said...

Taken out of context everybody's text messages look pretty silly. Especially when you're riffing among Bros.

Elon musk will get his revenge once he sends out a million of those Optimus prime transformer robots to pick crops in Republican shitholes.


Cut howard some slack.

He is following 81millionvote rapist warmonger around.

It must be truly humiliating to look as stupid as Howard does right now.

Paul said...

'Do or don't do... there is no try' - Yoda

The left can't do.. and can't even try to do... so they do their best to tear down those who can do.

They are the ignorant ones, not Musk and Co.

Musk can do and will just keep doing it successfully no matter how much they carp.

'You hypocrite! First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.' - Matthew 7:5

Rusty said...

"It must be truly humiliating to look as stupid as Howard does right now."
He doesn't think he looks stupid. Hence Dunning-Kruger.

Balfegor said...

Re: Ice Nine:

That's a bunch of the self-made richest men in the world that he's talking about. I'll take that kind of "shallow" any day.

Yes -- you could cavil about whether they're entirely self made (it's popular to criticise entrepreneurs by daydreaming about how if you or I had their advantages in youth, whatever they were, we'd be billionaires too). But with Musk, we're also talking about someone whose wealth isn't solely a function of persuading other people some abstract thing is worth paying money for (unlike an advertiser or a lawyer or a wealth manager or a cryptocurrency/NFT advocate). He actually built an electric car company from scratch, and his space launch company has massively expanded the world's total low-earth-order launch capacity. His companies actually make stuff. This writer here can call him "shallow" all he likes, but that serves more to discredit his notion of "shallow" and what is "embarrassing" than it does Musk's achievements.

It's like trying to fight a status game against Charles Babbage because he had an embarrassing obsession with suppressing street musicians, or had a dream about being a cheese mite. I mean, sure, both those things are true, but . . he is remembered for his Difference Engine, while his contemporaries who joked about his obsession with street musicians are mostly forgotten. (Note: I wanted to use Isambard Kingdom Brunel here, because he seems like a better analogy for Musk, but I don't know whether Brunel was kooky the way Babbage was.)

Fred Drinkwater said...

Readering imagines that M&A planning and negotiation takes place on Twitter. What a Maroon.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Sorry, readering. I misread your comment. But ok, I guess I'll have to grant you the possibility that M&A planning DOES occur via text messages and insecure emails.

Howard said...

Humiliation is the deadly sin of vanity that all of you dead enders wallow in. Personally, I am quite proud of my humility. The end is nigh.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left
'Cause I've been blastin' and laughin' so long, that
Even my mama thinks that my mind is gone

Static Ping said...

It is always nice to see an article written by someone who was born yesterday, apparently.

Genius is rarely polished perfection. Genius is often the product of persons who are not normal, do not think like respectable intelligent people think, and are often on the border of mental illness, if not legitimately mentally ill in at least some aspects of their life and often spill into full mental illness later in life. It is rare to change the world by repeating what the world was doing originally.

Also, Dude1394 nails that pretty well.

Witness said...

probably not much business is actually concluded like this