Post AXMV7MPlUysRT4Tsye by farbel@mas.to
 (DIR) More posts by farbel@mas.to
 (DIR) Post #AXJi41c95qI81B8FEG by woody@pleroma.pch.net
       2023-07-03T10:10:17.446984Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Yes, I'm deeply aware of the irony of posting a link to twitter here.  Particularly this link:https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status/1675301524400922624?s=20
       
 (DIR) Post #AXJi42xo4nDECeH3dA by woody@pleroma.pch.net
       2023-07-03T10:14:37.006660Z
       
       0 likes, 4 repeats
       
       Eh, ok, I give up.  Here's what the guy said:"I was an intern at SpaceX years ago, back it when it wasa much smaller company - after Elon got hair plugs,but before his cult of personality was in full swing. I havesome insight to offer here.Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child €king. He was an important figurehead who provided thecompany with the money, power, and PR, but he didn'thave the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He wassurrounded by people whose job was, essentially, tomanipulate him into making good decisions.Managing Elon was a huge part of the company culture.Even I, as a lowly intern, would hear people talking aboutit openly in meetings. People knew how to present ideasin a way that would resonate with him, they knew how tocreatively reinterpret (or ignore) his many insanedemands, and they even knew how to "stage manage"parts of the physical office space so that it would appealto Elon.The funniest example of "stage management" I canremember is this dude on the IT security team. He had ascript running in a terminal on one of his monitors thatwould output random garbage, Matrix-style, so that italways looked like he was doing Important ComputerThings to anyone who walked by his desk. Secondfunniest was all the people I saw playing WoW at theirdesks after ~5pm, who did it in the office just to give theappearance that they were working late.People were willing to do that at Space because Elonwas giving them the money (and hype) to get into outerspace, a mission people cared deeply about. Thecompany also grew with and around Elon. There werelayers of management between individual employeesand Elon, and those managers were experiencedmanagers of Elon. Again, I cannot stress enough howmuch of the company culture was oriented aroundmanaging this one guy.Twitter has neither of those things going for it. There isno company culture or internal structure around theproblem of managing Elon Musk, and I think for the firsttime we're seeing what happens when people actuallytake that man seriously and at face value. Worse, they'redoing this little experiment after this man has haddecades of success at companies that dedicatesignificant resources to protecting themselves fromhim, and he's too narcissistic to realize it."
       
 (DIR) Post #AXJip02OlxYCjroKR6 by archstreet@mastodon.social
       2023-07-03T11:06:38Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @woody SNL nailed this 30 years ago https://youtu.be/B81U7Vunhuc
       
 (DIR) Post #AXJitx6b6OK75n8W6S by IPEdmonton@mstdn.ca
       2023-07-03T11:29:20Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @woody The above toot (click through and scroll up 👆👆👆) recounts a story from someone who used to work for Elon Musk in an earlier incarnation. It’s about how they used to try and manipulate him into doing smart things. It reminds me of the behind-the-scenes stories I’ve heard about well-meaning public health officials trying to manipulate conservative politicians during the early days of the pandemic!I guess both stories went okay sometimes for a while but ended similarly badly? 😬
       
 (DIR) Post #AXMV7MPlUysRT4Tsye by farbel@mas.to
       2023-07-03T11:45:41Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @woody This makes so much sense. I imagine the culture at Tesla is similar.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXMV7NCKaPj1thCfg0 by RustyBertrand@mastodon.social
       2023-07-04T08:16:56Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @farbel @woody