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Nov 18 Elon wyd genuinelv wish I could ses exolanation for how he was thinking his olans would work out really wanna know like. to what decree. Did he think people would acceo nis ultimatume Did ne gent neiv nink a would oniv Take Ike 300 people to keep Twitter running? was an intern at Spacex ears ago, back it when it was a much smaller company – after Elon got hair plugs. but before his cult of personality was in full swing. have some insight to otter here. Back when was at Space Fion was basicallv a child king. He was an important naurenead wno provided the company with the money. power, and PR, but he didn’t have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, Ic manipulate him into making good decisions. Managing Elon was a huge part of the company culture. even , as a lowly intern. would hear people talking about it openly in meetinas. Poopie knew how to present Coas in a wav that wond resonate with insane demands. and they even knew how to "stage manage" parts of the physical office space so that it would appeal to Elon. The funniest example of stage management can remember is this dude on the T security team. He had a scrint running in a terminal on one of his monitors that would output random garbage, Matrix-style, so that it always looked like he was doing Important Computer Things to anyone who walked by his desk. Second funniest was all the office just to aive the appearance that they were working late People were willing to do that at Space because Elon was giving cared deeply about. the company also grew with and around Elon. There were lavers of management between individual emplovees and Elon, and those managers were experienced managers of Elon Again. I cannot stress enough how much of the company culture was oriented around managing this one guy. Twitter has neither of those thinas going for it. There is no compa culture or internal structure around the problem of managing Elon people actually take that man seriousiv and at face value. Worse. they re doing this little experiment anter this man has had decades of success at companies that dedicate significant resources to ororecino hemselves rom nim.and he stoo narcissistic to reaize n This post is long so I’ll leave vou with my favorite Elon story. One day at work, got an all hands email telling me that it was Elons birthday and there was going to be a mandatory surprise party for him in the careteria. Presumably Elon also got this emall, but watever. we all marched down into the cafeteria, dimmed the lights. and waited. Elon was led out oy his secretary who he hadn’t hired yet and made a big show of being fake surorised and touched that we were there. Then thev wheeled out the caKe OK. so. I want you to imagine the biggest penis cake vou’ve ever seen. Like the king ot novelty sex cakes. Only it’s trosted white, and the balls have been frosted to look like fire and smoke. This was Elon’s birthday "rocket" cake. For as long as I live, I will never forget the look on everyone’s face in that dark room of mostly-male engineers – when he made a wish and a into The ria