Years ago, I watch movie called Gattaca.  I have enjoyed films with both Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, so I watched with great anticipation.  Most good films that are set in the future with a hypothetical premise will provoke thoughts about its ethics.  I may try to describe the film, but the trailer does a great job.  Additionally, you should watch the film; it is exceptional.

While I may write a post about the premise of the film, today I’ll simply reflect on a scene between two characters:  Vincent, played by Hawke, and his brother, Anton.  Vincent, genetically flawed, routinely outswims his brother, genetically flawless, across a body of water at night.  It is a trend that frustrates Anton, who cannot comprehend how this is possible.

Anton: How are you doing this, Vincent?  How have you done any of this?
Vincent:  You want to know how I did?  This is how I did it, Anton.  I never saved anything for the swim back.

To me, the most interesting element of this exchange is that the key to Vincent’s success was his ability to commit to an outcome without a backup or contingency plan.  He either swam all the way to the other end, or he drowned trying to accomplish that feat.  There was no third choice.

Working without a net

We left Puerto Rico in 1978.  As a child of nine, I didn’t watch a lot of news, much less understand it.  I do distinctly remember one bit of news that was local at the time; it occurred on March 22, 1978.  The Flying Wallendas, a group of highwire walkers, came into town.  Karl, the family patriarch, attempted a hundred-foot-high walk between two towers of a hotel in San Juan.

Karl failed the attempt and fell to his death.  He was 73.  The locals were understandably shocked; it created quite the stir for a few days.  Naturally, the adults didn’t really know how to explain this event to the children.  I’m just grateful that there were no pictures of it on television.

The Wallendas performed their feats literally without a safety net; in fact, this is where the expression ‘working without a net’ comes from.  Our fascination extends from the risk of catastrophic failure; it wouldn’t be interesting had he walked the wire one foot from the ground.  Do we want to pretend that part of the appeal of NASCAR isn’t the potential for tragic outcomes?

While the two examples above are performative, tailored for audience consumption, the human spirit follows the same lines.  Much like Vincent from Gattaca, understanding that there’s no way back will inspire us to commit to the task at hand.

Why not Tesla

I briefly contemplated getting a Tesla when their only vehicle they had was the little roadster.  It was very similar to my Lotus Elise, so much that you may confuse the two.  I eventually traded that car in, sixteen years after I had gotten it.  Beside the fact that I keep cars for an uncharacteristically long time, I have otherwise never really contemplated getting a Tesla, which are extraordinarily popular here.  I have no objections to getting an electric vehicle; in fact, having a car powered strictly by the sun (we have solar), would tickle me.  However, there are several reasons why I had written off Tesla:

• Its popularity here bordered on cultish.  If I mentioned that I was in the market for a car, the response would be, “Model X or Model S?”  Not that I would’ve eliminated them because of their popularity, but likewise I wouldn’t pick them because of their popularity.
• Tesla did nothing but EV’s, which means that if that went under, the company would go under.  I’ve seen enough one-product companies, like Blockbuster and Netscape, fail and once that happens, it’s completely gone.  If that happened, where would I service my car?  If the EV maker was Toyota or Ford, the company would remain, and I can still get service.
• I elect to not invest tens of thousands of dollars into a product run by Elon Musk, who exhibits poor decision-making skills.  And yes, I came to this conclusion long before all the nonsense at Twitter.  I’ll elaborate on this.

Musk lacks humility

Elon Musk spent absurd amounts of money to acquire or establish companies; this was true for Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter.  To some degree, I get it.  He spent colossal amounts of money; the company is his to do with as he pleases.  However, much like when we buy a car, the intent and investment is to keep it running as efficiently and as long as possible.

There’s a theory, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, that in order to become phenomenally good at something, you need to invest 10,000 hours in that subject.  Do the math, assuming both a forty-hour work week and fifty weeks per year (two for vacation), that’s five years in one subject:

Number of years = (10,000 hours) / ((40 hours per week) * (50 weeks per year)) = 5 years

Do I believe that Musk has developed this level of proficiency in automotive engineering, aerospace engineering, and social media?  No, but this is okay.  Very few of us achieve this level of proficiency where your opinion is uncontested.  For everyone else, we consider the opinions of our peers, who may be experts on other related fields or even different perspectives in our own fields.  However, this requires humility; it means that you enter each conversation with the possibility that you may be wrong.

I’ll concede that Musk is an exceptional businessman, but no one knows everything.  His inability to listen to others, especially those smarter than him, means that he’ll make a class of mistake most will wisely avoid.  The difference is that he has the money to compensate for those mistakes.

Elon Musk has the attention span of a goldfish

There are some companies that are marginally related and belong to the same parent company, Facebook and Instagram come to mind.  There is some overlap in how they function that there’s a natural synergy.  However, SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter operate fundamentally differently.  I won’t criticize those with the means to run a different business to do precisely that.  Gwyneth Paltrow was an exceptional actress and now runs Goop.

If Musk wants to dedicate his attention on Twitter, then by all means forgo the operational decisions for SpaceX and Tesla to someone else…  without the possibility to insert his hand-of-God whimsically at the most inopportune time.  His ego prevents him from even entertaining the idea that someone else may be right.  While he named Linda Yaccarino as CEO, there’s little doubt that if they disagree on something, he reserves the right to overrule her.

However, since taking over Twitter, Musk announced a series of operational changes that have been quickly amended or reversed:

• Charging $20 per month for Twitter Blue for ‘verification’.
• Limiting the number of visible messages per day.
• Or just the verification process in general.

The latest suggestion is Twitter’s change of name to X.

This name change is not credible

There are signs that Musk is more serious about this move than any of the preceding stunts.  First, Twitter has changed all the branding on their website and mobile app to X.  Second, there was the installation of the giant X in San Francisco, which drew the ire of officials and residents.  Additionally, there was the auction of Twitter equipment that perhaps that they really don’t believe that they have a need for it anymore.  You may look at all these and conclude that he’s serious this time.

However, keep in mind that Musk is the richest man in the world, and basically anything is ultimately reversible if he’s willing to throw enough money at it.  He could fire most of the staff at Twitter and ultimately hire them back (or others similarly as capable).  Have you ever forgotten to pack your phone’s charging cable and bought one for $50 during a trip?  If your net worth is 10 million dollars, this mental hiccup cost you 0.0005% of your net worth.  You know what the equivalent of that blunder is for Musk ($266 billion)?  $1.330 million.  So no, none of those performative tasks demonstrate a serious conviction.

How much money is that?  The chance of winning the Powerball is 1 in 292,201,338.  This is practically impossible.  At $2 per number, you’d need to spend $584,402,676 in order to get every single combination to guarantee a win.  With $266 billion, you can buy every single combination… 455 times.

In order for this move to have teeth, he needs to burn his return path to Twitter in a way that is irreversible.  What does that look like when you have $266 billion?

Possession is nine tenths of the law

As it happens there are a class of resources that are unique.  You can’t browbeat someone into selling you their property, for instance.  The state may take it from you using imminent domain, but that’s a different discussion.  In fact, you can see a collection of properties whose owners held out and refused to sell.  The website still goes to Twitter, even if the branding has all changed.  If Musk wanted to make this transition to X credible, he’d need to truly abandon Twitter.  It’s very simple; he should transfer the domain registration to someone else.

There have been many disputes over domain registration, since it’s effectively your identity on the web.  Just add “.com” to your brand.  You want to abandon Twitter?  You may do one of two options:

• Transfer the domain to someone a random person who he doesn’t have any influence over (like an employee).  They can make it into anything they want, like a website on birdwatching.
• Create a website with nothing on it, such as a blank screen.  Then reset the password and throw it away.  Make it truly inextricable, like losing a private key to bitcoin.

The former has more credibility than the latter.  I’m not suggesting that he throw away his $44 billion investment.  He can keep the messaging app and a website running under a different domain name.  However, does he really expect the rest of us to start calling it ‘X’ when the social media service still runs on twitter.com?  I think not.  Be like Vincent, don’t save anything for the swim back.