Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Barrister]

We get it DGuller - you scored well on your IQ tests back in the day

More seriously, though, there are of course strong correlations between parents and kids. I think the more interesting question is to what degree that correlation is down to genetics vs various social conditions - including nurturing of the parents, the effects of wealth, the effects of social class and peers etc).

I was just googling, and apparently there is a strong connection between genetics and IQ heritability.  It is obviously not 100% as the various social conditions do play a factor as well, but it's not a non-factor either.

[Jacob]

On the topic of billionaires wanting to spread their genes to "win" at evolution: I remember some years ago reading an article about a Japanese billionaire who wanted to have a hundred kids. He was, apparently, pursuing it primarily via offering Thai women something like ~$1 million to have his kid. IIRC he was well on his way.

On the flipside of that, there was a story on Humans of New York about a dude who'd gotten the inside track as sperm donor to lesbian couples. He wasn't racking up numbers like this Japanese billionaire, but he was competitive with Musk - clocking in around 20 or so IIRC (and he hasn't stopped yet either).

[PJL]

The idea that most of humanity may end up being a descendant of Musk is rather scary.

[Jacob]

The idea that most of humanity may end up being a descendant of Musk is rather scary.

I don't think the current trend suggests that's going to happen - he has 8. While 8 is a high number, there's a non-trivial number of folks who father 8 kids in this world.

[Berkut]

We get it DGuller - you scored well on your IQ tests back in the day

More seriously, though, there are of course strong correlations between parents and kids. I think the more interesting question is to what degree that correlation is down to genetics vs various social conditions - including nurturing of the parents, the effects of wealth, the effects of social class and peers etc).

That is an interesting question - and one that has been asked, and answered, in fact. The answer is science, so subject to change as more evidence is gathered.

But like I said, the current science says that IQ is very heritable. What exactly "very" heritable means is subject to study, but there is little doubt at this point that IQ is in fact very significantyl influenced by genetics. 

Not in a simple manner however - IIRC, there are something like 500-1000 different genes that contribute.

And of course, we know that it is also heavily influenced by environment as well.

[alfred russel]

The idea that most of humanity may end up being a descendant of Musk is rather scary.

He is the genghis khan of our times.

[The Minsky Moment]

AFAIK there has never been a junk market crash.  That suggests to me junk lenders know to price.

there have been a number of market-wide meltdowns in junk

But that's not what I was getting at.  The mispricing is with specific issues in the context of individual LBO deals. There are many reasons why that can happen.  One example is this very deal - how many of the institutions supplying credit to the Twitter buyout are doing so because of interests in other Musk connected companies and deals, as opposed to a strict evaluation of the credit merits of the Twitter debt?  Another issue is principal-agent problems with the way that banks evaluate extensions of commercial credit.

[Syt]

Twitter offices last month vs. now?

[Sheilbh]

Twitter offices last month vs. now?
[...]

Twitter in general - seems true today

Zack Bornstein
@ZackBornstein
pre-elon twitter: pls free me from this hellsite

post-elon twitter: Everyday with you all has been a gift. I owe my career, my friendships, and my marriage to this community. I've fostered compassion and activism each and everyday with you all, fighting the good fight (1/40)

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593649356661436417?s=20&t=ozmwM7-ZoUeGU-l1rVx3oQ

This tweet thread I think is kind of interesting because to me it shows Elon views Twitter's problems as...technical in nature. He wants to get "good developers" into his war room to solve the problem.

The issue is while I'm sure Twitter has IT processes and software optimizations that could be made, Twitter wasn't losing money because of "bad code". And it is unlikely to magically start making money by replacing any "bad code" with "good code." It was losing money because the valuation of Twitter's 400m users is X to advertisers, and X is not enough to make that much money. It would take something far different from code optimizations to change that basic calculus.

It wasn't.  While our foray into using cloud platforms for some work turned out to be much more expensive than originally estimated, our infrastructure is actually pretty cheap for the level of traffic we handle.  I have ideas for what the sources of the costs were, but they mainly concern product decisions.  We spent a lot of money, and hired a lot of people, to work on product changes that didn't pan out.  So far he's doing even worse on the product change front than previous management, albeit in a different way.

[Barrister]

https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593649356661436417?s=20&t=ozmwM7-ZoUeGU-l1rVx3oQ

This tweet thread I think is kind of interesting because to me it shows Elon views Twitter's problems as...technical in nature. He wants to get "good developers" into his war room to solve the problem.

The issue is while I'm sure Twitter has IT processes and software optimizations that could be made, Twitter wasn't losing money because of "bad code". And it is unlikely to magically start making money by replacing any "bad code" with "good code." It was losing money because the valuation of Twitter's 400m users is X to advertisers, and X is not enough to make that much money. It would take something far different from code optimizations to change that basic calculus.

It wasn't.  While our foray into using cloud platforms for some work turned out to be much more expensive than originally estimated, our infrastructure is actually pretty cheap for the level of traffic we handle.  I have ideas for what the sources of the costs were, but they mainly concern product decisions.  We spent a lot of money, and hired a lot of people, to work on product changes that didn't pan out.  So far he's doing even worse on the product change front than previous management, albeit in a different way.

BvS - are you still at Twitter, or did you just used to work there?

Please go to the Back Room and share any insights you have on what's going on inside the company right now.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I look at this as a threat because as a member of the professional managerial class, what I see is someone from the entrepreneurial class challenging the need for professional managers. For all the talk of turmoil, twitter is still on. My understanding traffic is at an all time high.

I literally wrote the last post while in a meeting with three other people about if we can finally implement the rationalized reporting structure to simplify the process of producing the results management sees by line of business. We came up with the structure two years ago but there has always been a reason not to do it. Does the structure even make sense anymore? Who knows, the people that came up with it are gone. Currently we decided not to implement it now because we ironically have layoffs impacting the accounting team that would be doing the implementation and it wouldn't be well received. However, what if instead of 4 people making that decision (which we all probably knew would be the outcome going in, which is why i was disengaged and posting on languish during the meeting) we fired 3 of us and let one person make it unilaterally without a meeting? Maybe the reports management gets wouldn't be as clean, but I don't think the sky would fall.

We have at times shut down the entire U.S. government for weeks at a time, the country didn't collapse. That doesn't mean it would work out so good if we just it down for 4 months.

Or even more radically, what if we fired all of us, plus 90% of the accounting teams, and just did the minimum necessary to close the books for SEC reporting and didn't produce any specialized reporting at all for senior management?

If the CEO or CFO floated that idea to me I'd give a zillion reasons not to do it, many of which would be convincing and some of which might be true. But I'd definitely be concerned and threatened if a company tried it. That is from an accounting perspective, but it is easily transferrable to almost any other department or group.

I'm not really sure what your brain is producing here. Are you suggesting that because Twitter isn't serving error 404 a few days after a bunch of people quit that...90% of people at most companies could just disappear with no impact?

That seems like an incredibly ill-supported line of thought.

Twitter isn't a sailing ship navigating the Cyclades that is prone to running aground and sinking if its crew is even a little bit lax.

You do realize a huge % of major companies come very close to complete shutdowns for major holidays, right? Even a week of most people being gone isn't going to be that big of a deal at a huge number of firms. That isn't any real evidence that some 90% of the firm's employees serve no corporate value.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I'm very curious about your perspective BvS... though obviously only share whatever you're comfortable sharing.

... but are you really supposed to go see Elon with a list of your check-ins and screenshots of your "most salient code"?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

BvS - are you still at Twitter, or did you just used to work there?

Please go to the Back Room and share any insights you have on what's going on inside the company right now.

It's complicated, but I've had a ringside seat to this shitshow from the beginning.  I will definitely post something today or tomorrow on this.

[Barrister]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593447646470889473

Some jokester posts that he was fired from Twitter managing badge access, but then Elon Musk had to call him to let everyone into the building.

He later clarified he was joking.

So Musk tweets a response "Thanks for helping out. You're a lifesaver!"

FFS Musk... stop being such an internet troll.