> Musk’s Twitter experience — thought to be an asset, including by yours truly — isn’t really relevant to the actual day-to-day reality of the site as experience by Twitter’s actual users.
You can never build a product that's perfect for everyone.
If you don't use it yourself, there could be many obvious deficiencies that you never prioritize fixing/improving.
On the other hand, if you think your personal use cases are representative of most users, you risk building something that doesn't reach its potential of being useful to most.
The weird thing about Musk’s plans for Twitter is that he’s focusing on things where his own experience is at a maximum distance from an ordinary user’s experience.
He thinks reply spam bots are the #1 problem, but that’s because he has millions of followers and a cryptocurrency cult attracted to his name. He wants to add payments, but he’s literally the richest man in the world — he doesn’t even need to pay for anything himself.
At Tesla he followed the Steve Jobs model of building something he himself wants to use, then selling the same product to everyone else with minimum variations. This works for a car where the ideal experience is fundamentally the same to everyone (and a phone and a tablet, in Jobs’s case). But the billionaire’s Twitter experience is nothing like mine, which is nothing like that of a 13-year-old girl, and so on. This kind of product development needs empathy, not just a vision of what you’d want to use yourself.
When that narrative was likely wrong — that crypto is the foundation of a new technological revolution, for example — then the output that resulted was wrong
Refreshing to see writers take accountability like this.
Talking about narratives and Elon Musk, I think that the man has been given a pass by too many people for too long.
He has been strangely avoiding scrutiny on many of his grandiose promises and I believe that Tesla stock (and thus most of his fortune) is built on hype.
Clean energy isn't sexy compared to the low rumble of a gas-powered V8. Heck, even "safe" cars aren't sexy. "My car has the highest NHTSA rating, m'lady!"
But fast cars are sexy, and so are high-tech self-driving cars. So of course that's the storyline used to build hype. The promise of FSD is an acceptable "noble lie" to drive adoption of green tech.
I think he does a lot of stuff wrong, but between home and grid batteries, solar roof tiles, superchargers, virtual power plants, the cars and the semi, I'd they're doing okay on the 'getting people excited about green tech' score.
If anything, I wish he'd spend a bit more of his time and energy on that kind of thing.
Tesla is the largest maker of EV cars in the world.
Last quarter they were more profitable that GM, Ford and Toyota.
They are growing car production and revenues 50%, on average, for over a decade. Profits even faster.
On a PEG ratio Tesla stock is undervalue compared to companies that are growing profits much less than Tesla's 100% YoY growth last quarter (companies like Amazon).
For all the fancy numbers you've thrown out there, I see absolutely nothing that strongly indicates that what's going to happen is "Tesla will be a big car manufacturer, competitive with the others."
Don't tell me things in terms of money -- we've already gotten the lesson that Musk is adept at the "money raising/moving game," whether it's stocks or crypto or gov't money.
Take all that away. What's the story of "vehicles on the road?" What's going on with exploding batteries and cybertrucks and adoption. (Maybe it is better than it looks from me, someone who doesn't much care) but what I'm seeing as Teslas is "a niche product for rich people." Personally, I probably won't buy any EV unless it comes from a name I know, like Toyota -- they build bulletproof (damn near literally) vehicles that JUST WORK ALL THE TIME.
If I am not mistaken, Telsa stock is currently worth more than all other car manufacturers combined, while selling a small fraction of the total vehicles, with no huge margin.
On the other hand, the world is jumping to conclusions on the Twitter purchase. It's supposedly failed already while the author continues to use it, and cites a /tweet/ as being the first domino to fall on FTX. Don’t give Musk a pass, but don’t write the book on the Twitter purchase after a couple weeks either.
The author also thinks twitter can’t advertise because of a non relaxed posture while tweeting. In my experience twitter ads get more interaction because people see an ad and jump to comment on it. The typing “posture” in this case can be a benefit.
The negative is that some want to criticize the company instead of buying anything. Electric cars get comments about how it can’t tow a boat 600 miles and gas cars get comments about how they’re ruining the planet.
Twitter was already the go-to place for real-time news like you mention, and yet it's pretty much always been unprofitable. In his first week running Twitter, his big idea for monetization failed because he apparently was unaware people are willing to lie on the internet. If he knows how to run the company better than the people before him, he's doing a good job hiding it.
“That does leave open the question of Musk, and the way he seemed to meme Tesla into existence, while building a rocket ship on the side…”
Meme Tesla into existence? He bought in to an already existing electric car company and then managed it very well in ways that had already been demonstrated by Apple. The idea that he ‘memed’ it into existence seems like utter gibberish.
The writer isn't disputing that Tesla didn't exist before, but just pointing out the fact that issuing shares actually lead to increased valuations. The argument that it has to do with the fact that Tesla turned into something more than "just" a car company.
Issuing shares often increases valuations, and Tesla is more than just a car company because they have invested in electric drivetrains, battery technology, and self-driving, as well as other product and manufacturing improvements.
Do they though? It depends on your definition of often I guess and it has definitely been happening more in recent years. I'm unable to find data, but in my experience I can only remember seeing this in sexy companies like Tesla where there are a lot of retail investors. It makes little sense that issuing a lot of new stock leads to a significantly higher market cap (unless there was uncertainty whether a company would be able to raise money at all).
I don't think "memed into existence" is gibberish; just hyperbole.
While I’ve just started reading it, Casey Newton’s “Platformer” newsletter seems like genuinely informed coverage of the tech industry. Stratechery is focused more on the business side, so they’re not identical, but I do think Thompson can be a little more blinded by his own biases—his analyses are often of the “clearly, [thing X] happened because of [theme I keep returning to],” and as entertaining as his articles are, they’re starting to feel a bit like cork boards covered with index cards and colored twine, where all the links are to things he’s written previously.
(Disclosure: I’m a Stratechery subscriber over the last few years considering dropping down to a membership only for the twice-weekly Dithering podcast.)
Casey’s is interesting, good at the stories pre-occupying users more than investors. Glad he’s having a big moment right now with Twitter. His coverage of Basecamp last year was good.
What I find with Thompson is that his big public stories have the problems you describe, but the paid content is succinct and pulling in the best parts of news stories. I’d almost rather have the option to skip the big stories and receive everything else. I also like the interviews, though recently I’ve been amused by how often the same guest appears on Nilay Patel’s podcast in the same week. (They are as well and discussed it on each other’s podcasts together.) I’m quick to skip ads, so the listening experience is similar.
My perhaps uncharitable guess is that the user who started this discussion doesn’t have any need of analysis in their job, or isn’t busy enough to benefit from a paid news filter. But I’m still hoping to hear from them.
FT has been a long-time read for me. I suppose Alphaville is the closest corollary to Thompson’s big columns and selective reading of Companies and Markets bulletins is closest to the daily updates.
That's something I also don't get. I've read most of his posts which appear on HN, but I don't quite get the point of it, or these kind of post hoc analyses in general.
Some events happen with with parties A,B, and C. Party X later writes a story about why A-C did those things. These narratives may give us the illusion of comprehension, but how do we determine the truth of them, versus just a plausible but incorrect story.
Not to sound like a pragmatist, because I do believe there is a benefit to non practical arts, but do these blogs help us predict future events? If they don't, are they just providing an illusion of order on a disorderly, mind bogglingly complex world?
First he predicts (pre 2019) that crypto won't amount to anything. This is his true belief. Then in 2020s with crypto mania he gets carried away and writes a bunch of articles saying how it can be great. Now with one exchange failing, he retreats back to his cave of "oh there's nothing here after all".
In some ways, he's just a jpg of the past decades' stock charts -- an interesting compression of the past, but not great at predicting the future.
If he were better, he could do something like pick undervalued growth stocks, or do sector allocation. The equivalent of global macro for technologies. He doesn't do anything close to it, and that tells you all you need to know about the future predictive power of his theories.
As someone who's always been making stuff in a bootstrapped way, it gives me a different perspective on how to think about what I'm making, and how I could position what I'm doing to others (customers, friends; not necessarily investors).
I'm in the academia / biotech / clinical tech space, and Ben's level of "academicking" is refreshingly to the point compared to how other people in this space write and publish.
This is a concise articulation of something that’s been nagging me for a while. I have his free articles in my RSS feed, but for a while I’ve been noticing that the gems of analysis are few and far between, and increasingly outweighed by the need to parse through many, many other words that don’t seem to convey very much.
> I should have taken the time to think more critically about Musk’s vision…which doesn’t appear to exist.
OP has no credibility. Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat.
Done right it could be his most successful company by far.
> Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat.
Musk has given a lot of reasons as to why he bought Twitter; I can't think of anything that indicates an "X app" is the real explanation. And his handling of Twitter after the purchase doesn't make me think he's trying to turn Twitter into something even bigger.
36 comments
[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 96.8 ms ] threadYou can never build a product that's perfect for everyone.
If you don't use it yourself, there could be many obvious deficiencies that you never prioritize fixing/improving.
On the other hand, if you think your personal use cases are representative of most users, you risk building something that doesn't reach its potential of being useful to most.
He thinks reply spam bots are the #1 problem, but that’s because he has millions of followers and a cryptocurrency cult attracted to his name. He wants to add payments, but he’s literally the richest man in the world — he doesn’t even need to pay for anything himself.
At Tesla he followed the Steve Jobs model of building something he himself wants to use, then selling the same product to everyone else with minimum variations. This works for a car where the ideal experience is fundamentally the same to everyone (and a phone and a tablet, in Jobs’s case). But the billionaire’s Twitter experience is nothing like mine, which is nothing like that of a 13-year-old girl, and so on. This kind of product development needs empathy, not just a vision of what you’d want to use yourself.
Refreshing to see writers take accountability like this.
He has been strangely avoiding scrutiny on many of his grandiose promises and I believe that Tesla stock (and thus most of his fortune) is built on hype.
Clean energy isn't sexy compared to the low rumble of a gas-powered V8. Heck, even "safe" cars aren't sexy. "My car has the highest NHTSA rating, m'lady!"
But fast cars are sexy, and so are high-tech self-driving cars. So of course that's the storyline used to build hype. The promise of FSD is an acceptable "noble lie" to drive adoption of green tech.
If anything, I wish he'd spend a bit more of his time and energy on that kind of thing.
Last quarter they were more profitable that GM, Ford and Toyota.
They are growing car production and revenues 50%, on average, for over a decade. Profits even faster.
On a PEG ratio Tesla stock is undervalue compared to companies that are growing profits much less than Tesla's 100% YoY growth last quarter (companies like Amazon).
Tell me more about "hype".
This is definitely hype.
For all the fancy numbers you've thrown out there, I see absolutely nothing that strongly indicates that what's going to happen is "Tesla will be a big car manufacturer, competitive with the others."
Don't tell me things in terms of money -- we've already gotten the lesson that Musk is adept at the "money raising/moving game," whether it's stocks or crypto or gov't money.
Take all that away. What's the story of "vehicles on the road?" What's going on with exploding batteries and cybertrucks and adoption. (Maybe it is better than it looks from me, someone who doesn't much care) but what I'm seeing as Teslas is "a niche product for rich people." Personally, I probably won't buy any EV unless it comes from a name I know, like Toyota -- they build bulletproof (damn near literally) vehicles that JUST WORK ALL THE TIME.
The author also thinks twitter can’t advertise because of a non relaxed posture while tweeting. In my experience twitter ads get more interaction because people see an ad and jump to comment on it. The typing “posture” in this case can be a benefit.
The negative is that some want to criticize the company instead of buying anything. Electric cars get comments about how it can’t tow a boat 600 miles and gas cars get comments about how they’re ruining the planet.
Meme Tesla into existence? He bought in to an already existing electric car company and then managed it very well in ways that had already been demonstrated by Apple. The idea that he ‘memed’ it into existence seems like utter gibberish.
Issuing shares often increases valuations, and Tesla is more than just a car company because they have invested in electric drivetrains, battery technology, and self-driving, as well as other product and manufacturing improvements.
“Memed it into existence” is still gibberish.
I don't think "memed into existence" is gibberish; just hyperbole.
He writes a lot of words that sound smart but ultimately don’t impart much actual content or information.
This post is a stereotypical example. I don’t understand why so many folks praise his “analysis” on topics.
(Disclosure: I’m a Stratechery subscriber over the last few years considering dropping down to a membership only for the twice-weekly Dithering podcast.)
What I find with Thompson is that his big public stories have the problems you describe, but the paid content is succinct and pulling in the best parts of news stories. I’d almost rather have the option to skip the big stories and receive everything else. I also like the interviews, though recently I’ve been amused by how often the same guest appears on Nilay Patel’s podcast in the same week. (They are as well and discussed it on each other’s podcasts together.) I’m quick to skip ads, so the listening experience is similar.
My perhaps uncharitable guess is that the user who started this discussion doesn’t have any need of analysis in their job, or isn’t busy enough to benefit from a paid news filter. But I’m still hoping to hear from them.
folks want someone to be their oracle
scott galloway is another one whose in the business of writing credible narratives that might as well be fiction
the only thing i read now are facts and even those i stick to top line numbers like revenue
ultimately if i’m not investing no way i can know what’s going on and even if i have the facts there’s no chance i can predict
it follows that i don’t really believe anyone else can either
all we can do is focus on the problems in front of us, talk is cheap.
so just do something. build, organize, lead all else is for the feel gooders not the doers
be somebody do something
Some events happen with with parties A,B, and C. Party X later writes a story about why A-C did those things. These narratives may give us the illusion of comprehension, but how do we determine the truth of them, versus just a plausible but incorrect story.
Not to sound like a pragmatist, because I do believe there is a benefit to non practical arts, but do these blogs help us predict future events? If they don't, are they just providing an illusion of order on a disorderly, mind bogglingly complex world?
First he predicts (pre 2019) that crypto won't amount to anything. This is his true belief. Then in 2020s with crypto mania he gets carried away and writes a bunch of articles saying how it can be great. Now with one exchange failing, he retreats back to his cave of "oh there's nothing here after all".
In some ways, he's just a jpg of the past decades' stock charts -- an interesting compression of the past, but not great at predicting the future.
If he were better, he could do something like pick undervalued growth stocks, or do sector allocation. The equivalent of global macro for technologies. He doesn't do anything close to it, and that tells you all you need to know about the future predictive power of his theories.
As someone who's always been making stuff in a bootstrapped way, it gives me a different perspective on how to think about what I'm making, and how I could position what I'm doing to others (customers, friends; not necessarily investors).
I'm in the academia / biotech / clinical tech space, and Ben's level of "academicking" is refreshingly to the point compared to how other people in this space write and publish.
OP has no credibility. Musk has made his ultimate goal for Twitter clear to anyone paying attention: he wants to make the “X app” aka Twitter the next WeChat.
Done right it could be his most successful company by far.
(I didn’t say “will” I said “could”)
Musk has given a lot of reasons as to why he bought Twitter; I can't think of anything that indicates an "X app" is the real explanation. And his handling of Twitter after the purchase doesn't make me think he's trying to turn Twitter into something even bigger.