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OT: Twitter in Absolute Shambles

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As far as I am concerned, the quicker Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikToc and every other social propaganda platform disappears, the better off we will all be. The world was a lot different and a lot better place to live before Facebook (Lifelog) ever showed up.
This board too tbh.
 
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You don’t come into 175 billion dollars and become richest man in the world. Really silly, if not downright ignorant to imply Musk is a no talent lucky duck who was handed everything.

Him and his brother, along with 1 more partner founded their first business venture with a $28,000 investment from their dad. It sold for $307M. That’s not coming into wealth.
Where'd I say any of what you just said, boss

The point I was replying to was someone saying it's someone's "opinion" that all rich people are self made, essentially. I didn't say a word about Elon Musk
 
Facebook (Meta) owns IG, so as that age population gravitates to that, they will still make money off that. They have enough money to buy most companies if they see that’s where the demographic is headed. Of course they are dumping billions into the Metaverse, which I think is a waste.
But we weren’t talking about who’s making money off of it. He was saying the people he works with under 35 are on FB all day and I was just saying no they are not lol.
 
If Wikipedia is to trust - he co-founded Zip2 with his brother and another guy. Dad helped with $28k funding. Sold for $307M

He then co-founded x.com which turned into PayPal. eBay bought PayPal and he received $176M for his share.

He founded SpaceX with $100M of his own $. It’s not valued at $127B.

This doesn’t account for Starlink, Tesla, Neuralink or twitter. Etc.

impressive. He didn’t fall into, inherit or purchase most of the wealth he’s grown.

$28k from daddy into $127B…pretty good ROI
I don't want to nitpick the guy's life up and down, but most of this "founding" is investing with his parent's money with another person. Zip2 didn't receive 28k from his dad... It received 200k. And when the business sold, Musk didn't clear 300 million, he cleared 22 million. Great deal. But there aren't a lot of people getting 200k to work on their business, not to mention the debt free ivy league education that helped him with the knowledge to do it.

X.com/PayPal was Peter Theil. Musk was replaced as CEO before it ever became PayPal.

SpaceX received a 400 million dollar government contract before they'd ever put anything in the air. And an investment valuation is not the same thing as realized wealth.

And you're right. It is impressive. He's leveraged his immense wealth very well. But there's a difference between growing wealth and building wealth from nothing. Neither certifies anyone as a genius necessarily. But your claim that "He didn’t fall into, inherit or purchase most of the wealth he’s grown." Just isn't true. He's had hundreds of millions of dollars gifted to him over the course of his life. I will concede that calling him a "moron" was hyperbole and oversimplification, but there's nothing about him that's a genius. He's been successful at leveraging already existing wealth. He's designed very few things himself. In that respect, maybe he is a modern Edison.
 
But we weren’t talking about who’s making money off of it. He was saying the people he works with under 35 are on FB all day and I was just saying no they are not lol.

Oh yeah I missed that part. You’re right, I have a few family members under 35 that are on it technically but don’t use it, it’s IG and Tik Tok, and whatever else is out there. Then there’s my 84 year old mom posting about her colonoscopy….
 
That's true, but we were talking about the extremely wealthy, e.g. billionaires, not millionaires. Beginning with several in this thread citing Musk's extreme wealth as evidence of his genius.

A recent study of the Forbes 400 found that nearly 70% of billionaires inherited their wealth or were born in extremely advantageous situations. Musk is among those who were born into extreme wealth and opportunity. He's inherited or purchased everything he's ever had. I haven't heard anyone dispute that yet.

And again, I'm not saying all these people aren't hard-working or intelligent, etc. I'm sure many of them are. But you can't just look at someone and say "He's a billionaire, he must be brilliant." Meritocracy happens, but it isn't a hard rule.
The numbers I see show 55% of billionaires are self-made but your “advantageous situations” variable can make that 70% doable based on what you mean by that. Good family, SOME inheritance?

Either way, Musk has built his empire mostly on his own. He had some help but he took thousands in investment and made it billions. That dude is a freak of nature. He privately went to space for god’s sake. He is the house leader in building electric cars people will actually buy. He sleeps on friends’ couches or in his facilities because he refuses to have a mortgage and he’s a workaholic. He has no social skills because he has Asperger’s and doesn’t have the ability to relate to people. But he’s an absolute genius.

The trick with Twitter is going to be what is allowed to be said and by whom. The previous ownership went to the extreme of censorship of people who were in any way conservative. Now you have the concept of misinformation that can go viral very quickly and frankly is commonplace. I mean the news is misinformation at this point. I think Denzel Washington said it best. If you don’t watch the news you are uninformed, if you watch the news you are misinformed. Will be interesting to watch this unfold.
 
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I don't want to nitpick the guy's life up and down, but most of this "founding" is investing with his parent's money with another person. Zip2 didn't receive 28k from his dad... It received 200k. And when the business sold, Musk didn't clear 300 million, he cleared 22 million. Great deal. But there aren't a lot of people getting 200k to work on their business, not to mention the debt free ivy league education that helped him with the knowledge to do it.

X.com/PayPal was Peter Theil. Musk was replaced as CEO before it ever became PayPal.

SpaceX received a 400 million dollar government contract before they'd ever put anything in the air. And an investment valuation is not the same thing as realized wealth.

And you're right. It is impressive. He's leveraged his immense wealth very well. But there's a difference between growing wealth and building wealth from nothing. Neither certifies anyone as a genius necessarily. But your claim that "He didn’t fall into, inherit or purchase most of the wealth he’s grown." Just isn't true. He's had hundreds of millions of dollars gifted to him over the course of his life. I will concede that calling him a "moron" was hyperbole and oversimplification, but there's nothing about him that's a genius. He's been successful at leveraging already existing wealth. He's designed very few things himself. In that respect, maybe he is a modern Edison.
Lol - if you found or co-found businesses, hire the right people and make great decisions, land great contracts etc - it’s not luck. If you are saying he was gifted 100s of millions because of deals like PayPal, that ain’t a gift.
 
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As far as I am concerned, the quicker Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikToc and every other social propaganda platform disappears, the better off we will all be. The world was a lot different and a lot better place to live before Facebook (Lifelog) ever showed up.
Been in IT 45 years.
I told my wife and family that Social Media would turn into a shit show be the downfall of mankind.
Wasn’t too far off IMHO.
 
Lol - if you found or co-found businesses, hire the right people and make great decisions, land great contracts etc - it’s not luck. If you are saying he was gifted 100s of millions because of deals like PayPal, that ain’t a gift.
Did you read the post or just skim?

I didn't call it luck. And he didn't do PayPal.
 
Did you read the post or just skim?

I didn't call it luck. And he didn't do PayPal.
Read it. Gifted hundreds of millions - just trying to figure out where from?

He did x.com, which merged with Confinity and renamed PayPal. He was largest shareholder of PayPal. I said PayPal deal…he made a fortune - bc of his founding of x.com and decisions to merge with Confinity.
 
That's true, but we were talking about the extremely wealthy, e.g. billionaires, not millionaires. Beginning with several in this thread citing Musk's extreme wealth as evidence of his genius.

A recent study of the Forbes 400 found that nearly 70% of billionaires inherited their wealth or were born in extremely advantageous situations. Musk is among those who were born into extreme wealth and opportunity. He's inherited or purchased everything he's ever had. I haven't heard anyone dispute that yet.

And again, I'm not saying all these people aren't hard-working or intelligent, etc. I'm sure many of them are. But you can't just look at someone and say "He's a billionaire, he must be brilliant." Meritocracy happens, but it isn't a hard rule.
This is a pretty ignorant argument youre making.

Musk definitely was born into privilege, but he's created the largest mass of individual wealth since John Rockefeller. That wasn't inherited or purchased.
 
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I don't want to nitpick the guy's life up and down, but most of this "founding" is investing with his parent's money with another person. Zip2 didn't receive 28k from his dad... It received 200k. And when the business sold, Musk didn't clear 300 million, he cleared 22 million.
What a dumbass. That 1000% gain was such a lucky gift.
 
Where'd I say any of what you just said, boss

The point I was replying to was someone saying it's someone's "opinion" that all rich people are self made, essentially. I didn't say a word about Elon Musk
My bad. The people you responded to were talking about Musk. One said he was a moron who inherited or fell into it all - the other guy responded to that, back and forth and then you responded.

Not a huge leap to link your reply to a ricochet shot on Musk.
 
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My bad. The people you responded to were talking about Musk. One said he was a moron who inherited or fell into it all - the other guy responded to that, back and forth and then you responded.

Not a huge leap to link your reply to a ricochet shot on Musk.
No. I was replying specifically to the guy saying "that's your opinion" on the topic of some people creating wealth and some people coming into it. Your reply annoyed me because it put words in my mouth.
 
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Musk definitely was born into privilege, but he's created the largest mass of individual wealth since John Rockefeller. That wasn't inherited or purchased.
A great deal of that mass of wealth was inherited/purchased, absolutely. All of it? No. And I never claimed that. But a great deal of it, yes.
 
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A great deal of that mass of wealth was inherited/purchased, absolutely. All of it? No. And I never claimed that. But a great deal of it, yes.
He’s worth 200 billion dude. He inherited no where near that. I don’t even understand the purchased part. If you mean he invested in companies, made them profitable and sold his stake. Yes. That’s what he did.
 
I’m sorry, but what point are you trying to make exactly?
You're welcome to go back to my first post in the thread to find out. Everything I've said since then has been defending that point or correcting misinterpretations of it.
 
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He's a moron who inherited or purchased everything he's ever "accomplished." The emperor has no clothes situation.

This is your first post. It’s really dumb. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make now. It just sounds similar to a 65 year old obese man saying LeBron James sucks at basketball if you catch my drift.
 
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He's just taking out the trash. Good for him.

That's probably a big reason. Hes basically forcing a percentage of the staff to quit, so Twitter won't have to give severance packages and deal with unemployment insurance. This is more common than one might think. The CEO of Kaseya is basically doing this to recently acquired Datto (IT management companies).. he's purposely being brash and gutting the perks to force an exodus. And it's working, people are jumping ship in droves.

Not to mention, these companies have quite a bit of liberal/progressives that Musk probably wouldn't mind removing. And working with many of these entitled developers and customer support types, I don't blame him.
 
No. I was replying specifically to the guy saying "that's your opinion" on the topic of some people creating wealth and some people coming into it. Your reply annoyed me because it put words in my mouth.
You can be annoyed. Sorry you feel that way.

you interjected into an ongoing debate about Musk - sorry I annoyed you for linking your comment to Musk as well.
 
This is your first post. It’s really dumb. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make now. It just sounds similar to a 65 year old obese man saying LeBron James sucks at basketball if you catch my drift.
You're entitled to your opinion. I'm not interested in it, nor am I interested in your drift, but you're welcome to both.

Simple-minded people are enamored with Musk because he's neurodiverse and wealthy and they like to think there's some sort of magic going on there. He's currently trying to fix Twitter by making IT employees drive into the office. That's dumb. Charging a nominal fee for verification, which is an essential feature of the site for it to work properly, not a symbol of clout, was dumb, and that's been proven in less than 24 hours. His money and his eccentricity don't make it smart.
 
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You're entitled to your opinion. I'm not interested in it, nor am I interested in your drift, but you're welcome to both.

Simple-minded people are enamored with Musk because he's neurodiverse and wealthy and they like to think there's some sort of magic going on there. He's currently trying to fix Twitter by making IT employees drive into the office. That's dumb. Charging a nominal fee for verification, which is an essential feature of the site for it to work properly, not a symbol of clout, was dumb, and that's been proven in less than 24 hours. His money and his eccentricity don't make it smart.
15 million new users and traffic is up. If you take out the woke crowd crying and threatening boycotts... he's killing it. He just has to weather the storm and 'nothing attracts a crowd, like a crowd'.
 
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