I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.
—Elon Musk
I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.
—Elon Musk
That version of the the 80/20 Rule is attributed to an English pub keeper. It’s an informal summary of the Pareto distribution, a power-law probability phenomenon that describes a great deal of human behavior. The Pareto distribution suggests it is usually the case in an organization with a statistically large population that a group about the size of the square root of the total population produces half of the organization’s beneficial work.
This tells us why Elon Musk is probably right and Robert Reich is probably wrong.
If Twitter had 7500 employees when Musk took over, something on the order of 87 were probably carrying half the real productive load. Firing only half the staff wouldn’t get rid of enough deadwood.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Twitter will be reshaped.
Elon Musk has announced Twitter 2.0 and is taking the company back into startup mode. At midnight PT, employees received an email telling them to expect long hours and high performance standards. They were given until close of business Thursday to either sign on to the new program or take three months’ severance pay.
A few dedicated hardcore engineers will generally deliver a better product than a large team of 9-to-5ers. Think of the Macintosh computer ecosystem versus Windows 95 or the reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 versus the finally flying SLS.
I’ve been on several the kind of engineering teams that Musk is trying to form at Twitter. I’ve even had the privilege of leading one. It can be exhilarating. It can be draining. And it’s for the young. I’ll be 75 on New Year’s Eve, and I’ve had to slow down a bit, but I still find myself working overtime to get things not just right but the best they can be.
Twitter is noticeably better since Musk bought it. I look forward to seeing what he can do with the deadwood out of the way.
UPDATE—Corrected the drop dead date for getting with new program.
A group of snowflakes at Twitter are whining about how Elon Musk plans to operate the company.Given Twitter’s history over the past seven years, 75 % may be a lowball estimate of the number of employees who need to be fired to enable the company to resume acting as the free speech wing of the free speech party it once aspired to be.
And the deal is supposed to close not later than a week from today.
I need to check my stock of popcorn.
As I expected, a substantial chunk of the Main Stream Media is not taking Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter very well. This is particularly true of folks at media companies owned by billionaires such as WaPo.
This headline from the NYT probably sums up the Main Stream Media’s reaction—Twitter Under Elon Musk Will Be a Scary Place.
Indeed, it likely would be scary for them to have to compete with uncensored reporting of Facts that contradict The Narrative.
That’s what Elon Musk is promising, but the deal hasn’t finally closed, and we haven’t seen how much change will come or how quickly.
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to those changes, and I will wait to see them before I make changes of my own. Come back around midnight to read a bit more.
A hot project at work kept me away from the Interwebz all day. I missed Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter and the ensuing panic that a billionaire might take control of a means of mass communication. I found this oped … um … interesting.
I wonder what Jeff Bezos, the owner of WaPo, thinks about billionaire ownership of mass media. Actually, I don’t wonder at all about how he feels.
Democracy Dies in Derpness™.
I think so, Brain … but maybe Twitter would work better if he sends it to Mars.
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
—Elon Musk
I would like to die on Mars; just not on impact.
—Elon Musk