Paypal success had nothing to do with gov't subsidies for one
Elon Musk | Owner of X and right wing man-child
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
Paypal success had nothing to do with gov't subsidies for one
Its pretty much the opposite of what you're saying. The stat I've seen is that productivity of those working from home is higher than when they worked in an office (no commute time, more comfort, more family time = happier employee etc.) and 40% of those who teleworked from home during the pandemic are saying they will seek other jobs if they are forced back to the office. This has been the norm in tech for many years and i can see how various tech companies would crack down on things like telework employees who rarely log in during the day and that sort of thing, but the broader concept of telework is here to stay.
Last edited:
WFH works fairly well in traditional engineering (Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, etc.). Partly because there isn't the level of innovation in this field compared to Big Tech. Partly because very few people get into traditional engineering considering how hot Tech is right now, so engineering firms don't have the talent pool to force people to come to office, they would just join another firm which allows WFH.
Last edited:
'All big companies' translated from @Revan speak means Google, Meta and a few other tech companies he deems elite.
I suppose it's industry specific
Banking / Big law are requesting butts in the office
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/business/jpmorgan-return-to-office-five-days/index.html
https://www.abajournal.com/news/art...y-a-week-schedule-one-ties-attendance-to-cash
He didn’t even say big companies, rather “pretty much all companies”.
Purely from my own anecdotal experience the norm is a hybrid approach with 2 days in the office, but there’s lots who don’t even do that. Seniority and experience plays a part in it, but the idea that there’s a blanket rejection of WFH seems highly unlikely to me.
didn’t say PayPal had anything to do with subsidies. everyone under the sun knows it’s regarding tesla. but let’s play this game, so how exactly did he get money to invest in PayPal?
I'd say this is more rhetorical than reality
It's galling to these morons seeing a giant, empty office they're paying huge cash out too.
Is that a fahct or opinion?
I corrected in my next post that I was talking for big tech companies. I mean, we are talking for Musk (so Tesla), I thought that was obvious.
Wikipedia is your friend
Zip2
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded Zip2.[49][50] Errol Musk provided them with $28,000 in funding.[51] The company developed an Internet city guide with maps, directions, and yellow pages, and marketed it to newspapers.[52] They worked at a small rented office in Palo Alto,[53] Musk coding the website every night.[53] Eventually, Zip2 obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.[43] The brothers persuaded the board of directors to abandon a merger with CitySearch;[54] however, Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted.[55] Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999,[56][57] and Musk received $22 million for his 7-percent share.[58]
X.com and PayPal
Later in 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company.[59] X.com was one of the first federally insured online banks, and over 200,000 customers joined in its initial months of operation.[60] Even though Musk founded the company, investors regarded him as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year.[61]
In 2000, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition,[53][61][62] as Confinity's money-transfer service PayPal was more popular than X.com's service.[63] Musk then returned as CEO of the merged company. His preference for Microsoft over Unix-based software caused a rift among the company's employees, and led Peter Thiel, Confinity's founder, to resign.[64] With the company suffering from compounding technological issues and the lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000.[65]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#cite_note-69 Under Thiel, the company focused on the money-transfer service and was renamed PayPal in 2001.[67][68]
In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million.[69][70]
I think it's Elon who is spectacularly bad at it
If your previous post was just about tech then that would be more accurate, although even in tech, you're not going to suddenly have bustling offices after years of telework without severely disrupting workforce levels, since a lot of people are simply accustomed to working from home at this stage, and are still likely to look for jobs elsewhere if suddenly confronted by a Musk like edict.
As @Suedesi said above, it is going to vary wildly by industry.
He's spectacularly unfunny - even though he tries really hard to be
I work for a very large tech company, and they've said they want hybrid workers to come in 2 days a week, but allowed anyone that wants to switch to remote to do so, with no salary implications.
They could provide absolutely no evidence of productivity issues, and never even tried to claim that as the reason for the turnaround, they cited the impression of customers and the wider market in general(read as old rich guys like musk that don't believe in wfh) as the reason for it.
that’s a whole lotta copying and pasting to avoid saying the obvious aka his dad helped helped him with a handout. just for reference this was my post you were replying to btw
Right, the $28,000 from his dad really made the difference in Elon's outcome in life. If Tesla went bankrupt without gov't subsidies (GM, Ford etc got handouts too), I reckon Elon would have still been able to raise money from VC's on other projects given his stellar track record (X, Paypal, SpaceX) and he'd been wildly successful regardless.
My point in this thread before you chimed in with your reductionist drivel was that the type of 30-yr old who takes on NASA and GM/Ford/Chrysler at the same time is someone who operates in his distorted version of reality. Not in an egotistical way, but in a genuine, believe-it-in-your-bones way. The type of person who can dump a personal fortune into colonizing Mars is not the kind of person that worries about the downsides of hyperbole or Twitter etiquette.
You are missing the forest for the trees - but by all means continue to rage at every Elon tweet - I'm sure it's productive and cathartic...
You are aware that this is the Elon Musk + Twitter thread? If you don't find it relevant, interesting or cathartic, you don't have to read it.
Yes anyone using the term "woke" to criticise anything is generally not worth listening to at all since it doesn't mean anything anymore.
I saw someone commenting in Danish on an article shared on Facebook that it was another problem with all the "WOKE" stuff. The article was about a very fancy, very expensive cake and it was apparently woke that the cake was expensive.
Woke definition is very clear. "Something that annoys me for no good reason."
Which bit in that section says Musk was behind PayPal's success? It seems to suggest that was something Confinity already had created before the merge.
ummm it literally did. unless you live in an alternate reality where you don’t need money, or investors to start a business venture. if my barely two-sentence reply is rage-fueled drivel? I am not sure what the rest of your entire post is. also to your point about PayPal’s success, musk got fired six months in for sucking at his job. so you are wrong on that count as well.
Is this productive?
Shit-stirrer supreme
You're in here acting like a teenager in the front row of a Taylor Swift concert. Presumably because you enjoy it.
Was he wrong or is that your opinion?
Your point about him not knowing him was bizarre, do you have to know someone to share an opinion or agree with them?
It's Revan's opinion...
Hmm yet he was agreeing with Elon, then changed his opinion. So both right and wrong
But it is not only Musk though? Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Chinese big companies all have some policies to work a few days from office. Investment banks too. Meta is the only one from the big five who doesn’t request to be in office for at least 3 days, but still highly recommends it and everyone I know there (many people) go a few days to office. All big 5 have released memos that say that people who work in person have been more effective.
If you go from these companies a step down, then you are (very likely) sacrificing a lot in salary, which might not be fine for everyone.
I honestly didn't think it needed explaining, but the implication was that he was trying to impress someone who doesn't know he exists. It wasn't to be taken as a literal request that nobody ever criticize or praise someone if they don't know them personally.
Essentially this meme:
Hmm yet he was agreeing with Elon, then changed his opinion. So both right and wrong
No, he was always disagreeing with Musk about the thing that was actually being ridiculed, but decided to frame it as Musk being right by focusing on something else.
It was a strictly 50-50% merge between Peter Thiel's Confinity and Musk's X.com. Musk had more shares in X than Thiel in Confinity, which is why he ended with more shares in Paypal. The story is pretty interesting, cause the companies hated each other, but both Musk and Thiel came to the conclusion that there is gonna be a market crash soon (dotcom), so if they don't join forces they will get screwed.
Source: Thiel's book 'Zero to one'.
So yes, he was partially behind Paypal's success. He even was their first CEO (as the main shareholder) but was fired by shareholders 8 months into job (and replaced by Thiel).
That's reasonable. Most places who do telework do have varying requirements for employees to go to the office one or more days during the week. That's obviously different than full time office work.
What is it about Musk specifically that seems to attract zealot cultists? Even Steve Jobs never seemed to have a following as obsessed with him and with defending him, yet he was a million times the businessman that Musk is
Because Steve Jobs wasn’t a total fecking nerd/man-child desperately trying to impress other people online? Which is the demographic that Musk seems to resonate with most strongly.
Because Steve Jobs was a smart and articulate man, the same with Bill Gates, smart and articulate, both have/had faults for sure, but nobody on the Musk fanboy level gives a shit about saving the world or advancing technology or altruism etc ... They love Musk the same reason they love Trump. Because Musk speaks their language, he's a moron, he says stupid shit, he dates models and he goes to raves and he posts absolute bollocks as well as confirms their beliefs with his clearly far right ideology.
They do believe he is some sort of bona fide genius. Which he is, but only in one aspect: marketing.
If Steve Job's would be actively in twitter in 2023, it would happen exactly the same. He was from another generation and died way before all this social media crap of nowadays but he definitely had a cult behind that would act exactly the same
Steve Jobs wouldn't post remotely similar shit as Elon does. Guy actually had some sense.
Musk in this quote is in no way advocating for hybrid approach.