So this is just another reboot? That figures.
The premise of Brewster’s Millions always seemed kind of obscene to me even for a movie made at the apex of America’s obsession with conspicuous displays of material wealth.
I blame Robin Leach.
Always a good move.
Not at all, I’m not defending him. Jesus.
It drives me nuts that when he switches to Rocket Mode Musk, he becomes the closest to human he can manage. For a group of hardcore space nerds, he was the coolest thing going for at least a decade, because everybody else was dinosaur aerospace who were actively trying to make space LESS cool, and suck up cost plus contracts.
Yes, I know he is a billionaire asshole.
Watch the interviews he does with Everyday Astronaut. They are hours long, largely unedited, and he handles technical questions with ease. I’m not saying he is an aerospace engineer, but out of everything he does with his businesses, I think SpaceX is the one he cares and thinks the most about (up until the present, obvs).
Even assholes can be knowledgeable.
Interesting, I didn’t know where the original story came from. At least in that version there’s a more plausible explanation for the setup: rich assholes trying to spite each other.
Maybe this is all the result of a one-dollar bet.
The latest moves from the genius. This’ll keep the best employees in their seats for sure!
I’m not going to do that, and since I’m not an engineer, even if I did, I wouldn’t really be able to tell if he was truly knowledgeable. But taking on good faith that he is, about that stuff, it seems he’s victim to that fallacy of thinking it makes him smart about a bunch of other stuff. And it’s hurting people.
@gracchus - holy poor management, Batman. He’s currently simultaneously demanding that everyone return to the office AND cutting the food set-up? This stuff ain’t rocket surgery, I guess that’s why he’s so bad at it.
It seems to be driven by frustration at having been forced to buy Twitter more than any real attempt at management. His pettiness reminds me of El Guapo from Three Amigos.
Maybe? But…
Poor victim of his own poor choices.
Definitely. An impulsive offer tendered with no due diligence and a billion-dollar penalty for backing out, plus the court’s telling him to pound sand after he spent hundreds of thousands on lawyers trying to weasel out of the deal. Behold the great tycoon!
I wonder what parts are still using Ruby on Rails. 
If anything, I imagine people who are way more stock-savvy than me made bank on the whole blue check debacle. Markets are so idiotic, yet so predictable when it comes to stupid stuff like that. Grab a bunch of Eli Lily stock after it tumbles, sell it off a few days later.
As a person of color, my resigned sigh is my poor attempt at trying to prepare for the inevitable news that Musk will find himself failing upwards in some way again, and will never ever face not having a whole army of people working for him.
I don’t think Larry Ellison keeps his post because of superior intellect, nor adequate competency.
Particularly when he’s asking employees to work 16-hour-days. The whole point of offering meals on site is so people don’t wander off for extended lunch breaks.
And is he claiming that providing free meals to employees is costing the company $400 per employee, per day? That definitely doesn’t sound like a number based in reality unless they provide each employee with a personal chef.
Free meals at tech companies may be touted as a “perk” but in reality they’ve always been for the company’s benefit since they keep you from leaving property at lunchtime and allows the company to schedule meetings at any time of the day. I briefly worked at a place that often supplied “free” lunches but right now I value the option of going out for a walk much higher than being able to eat a free sandwich while participating in a design review meeting.
That was pioneered by investment banks in the 1980s. I remember how amazed I was when I got to partake of that during a summer job as a teenager before it was explained to me. You still enjoy it but it takes some of the fun out of it.
During Dotcom 1.0 the concept was extended to things like being able to bring your dog to work and the foosball tables and arcade consoles, the relaxed dress codes, etc. Anything to keep the salaried employees in the office beyond 40 hrs a week.
Anyone who wants to work at a big tech company has become accustomed to these psuedo-perks, which also serve as signifiers to the wider world of the company’s vast treasury and coolness. Strip it away and you’re working for boring ol’ frugal IBM again.
People at Twitter who actually know what they’re talking about have already called BS on that, saying it’s really somewhere between $20-40/day/employee. The $400/day figure Musk cited as a cost sounds more like the ROI for the free meals (i.e. another 4-5 hours of effective unpaid overtime squeezed from the employee).
