deserves its own thread Elon Musk, Management Guru? Why the Twitter owner’s ruthless, unsparing style has made him a hero to many bosses in Silicon Valley. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/technology/elon-musk-management-style.html?smid=url-share excerpt: It may seem obvious, to most people outside Silicon Valley, that Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter has been an unmitigated disaster. In less than two months since taking over, Mr. Musk has fired more than half of Twitter’s staff, scared away many of its major advertisers, made (and unmade) a series of ill-advised changes to its verification program, angered regulators and politicians with erratic and offensive tweets, declared a short-lived war on Apple, greenlit a bizarre “Twitter Files” exposé, stopped paying rent on Twitter’s offices, and falsely accused the company’s former head of trust and safety of supporting pedophilia. His personal fortune has shrunk by billions of dollars, and he was booed at a Dave Chappelle show. It’s not, by almost any measure, going well for him. And yet, one group is still firmly in Mr. Musk’s corner: Bosses. In recent weeks, many tech executives, founders and investors have expressed their admiration for Mr. Musk, even as the billionaire has flailed at Twitter. Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, praised Mr. Musk at a New York Times DealBook conference late last month, calling him “the bravest, most creative person on the planet.” Gavin Baker, a private equity investor, recently claimed that a lot of venture-funded chief executives were “inspired by Elon.” And several partners at Andreessen Horowitz, the influential venture capital firm, have tweeted similar encomia to Mr. Musk’s management style. Some of the elite cheerleading probably boils down to class solidarity, or naked financial self-interest. (Andreessen Horowitz, for example, invested $400 million in Mr. Musk’s Twitter takeover.) And some of it may reflect leftover good will from Mr. Musk’s successes at Tesla and SpaceX. But as I’ve called around to C-suite executives and influential investors in Silicon Valley over the past few weeks, I’ve been surprised by how many are rooting for Mr. Musk — even if they won’t admit to it publicly. Mr. Musk’s defenders point out that Twitter hasn’t collapsed or gone offline despite losing thousands of employees, as some critics predicted it would. They see his harsh management style as a necessary corrective, and they believe he will ultimately be rewarded for cutting costs and laying down the law. “He says the things many C.E.O.s wish they could say, and then he actually does them,” said Roy Bahat, a venture capitalist with Bloomberg Beta. Mr. Bahat, who has criticized some of Mr. Musk’s moves, characterized his Twitter tenure as a “living natural experiment” — a divisive but illuminating window into what other executives might be able to get away with, if they tried. “He’s giving people a lot more knowledge of what’s possible,” he said. Tech elites don’t simply support Mr. Musk because they like him personally or because they agree with his anti-woke political crusades. (Although a number do.) Rather, they view him as the standard-bearer of an emergent worldview they hope catches on more broadly in Silicon Valley. more at the link
For many people, Mr. Musk’s moves seemed like a case study in how not to manage a company. But for some Silicon Valley elites, they were a lightning bolt — a long-awaited answer to the question, “What if we just treated workers … worse?” Bosses may not agree with every move Mr. Musk makes, but many of them think he’s right on the big-picture stuff. Tech companies are bloated and unproductive. Woke H.R. departments have gone too far. Workers should stop being activists and focus on doing their jobs. I agree he's right on the big-picture stuff (lol "skittles hair people"). Delivering that message without being a tasteless prick is hard under the current climate (shouldn't be). A lot of folks these days will pursue better workplace environments or jobs with promises of meaningful work over incremental gains in salary. Ofc a recession will change and skew most of the current dynamics.
I have been saying that for a while. ALL tech CEOs are watching this very closely. Whether you run a small startup/scaleup like I do, with fewer than 500 employees, or whether you run a much larger tech company. Few will admit this openly, but we are all dealing with woke activists who are trying to destroy our companies from the inside. They have no interest in whatever positive impact the company might make, or its success. They use the company to advance their own personal agendas, or what they have been told those should be. It's become a real problem. And aside from that, many tech companies are bloated and the influx of too much capital has led to a crazy sense of entitlement of some employees. So further cuts are inevitable, and everyone is watching the standards Elon sets and what outcomes he produces with that approach. So far, so good for Elon. Twitter really had barely innovated in years - he comes in, fires half the staff, and they launch more stuff in weeks than they did in years before.
Yee pronouns are ruining MSFT and America. Couple-a words on a bio on a social media acct nobody reads. Lulz. Yall worried about some minor, non-factor, buzzword-story-bs you saw on TV as if Americans aren't working harder and longer than ever before during a time of booming automation.
If that's his personal experience at his workplace, can't blame him for being particularly interested in the subject.
eta: I forgot investors. I'm sure there's another class of people who do actually care about management practices.
His personal experiences has a perfect anecdote for every right wing popular topic of the year or month for the past 5 years.
They like him because he's the self-indulgent ******* they all wish they could be, but have too much sense to actually follow through on.
Musk goes against his claim of free speech. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/16/musk-journalists-suspension-europe-backlash/ He has provided zero evidence of his claim that they heightened the risk of assassination. It is a private company and he has the right to suspend who it wants but is hypocritical of Musk and those on the right who thought it was a first amendment right.
As stated in the other thread, the 1st amendment protects you from government action. This was not government action. All you have shown in your post is that you don't understand the 1st amendment.
No. What you've shown is that you misunderstood my post. The right were the ones that claimed it was a first amendment issue. Musk did that, before. I never did. I don't do that now. It is hypocritical of Musk and folks on the right.
It WAS a first amendment issue, because the government instructed Twitter specifically which speech to curb - which tweets to delete, which accounts to ban. That's what you don't seem to be able to comprehend. If it had just been Twitter's previous ownership's bias as a private company, it would not have been a 1st amendment issue. Just by repeating your evidently false statements again and again, that doesn't make them right.
