Social Sclerosis
Elon Musk, fresh off his big-splash acquisition of 9.2% of Twitter, just cannonballed into the social media pool with an all-cash offer to take the company private.
The usual suspects have lost their collectiv(ist) shit.
These reactions aren’t news. They are "dog bites man" humdrum. We all know that the brayers, squawkers, screechers, and scolders fear the loss of control over a company and medium they neither own nor work for, control they've asserted by plaguing others via the basement-dwelling hordes they've learned how to goad into aggression. In short, their freak-out is over potential loss of gate-keeper power.
These people aren't the real problem Musk will face if he truly wants to turn Twitter into a haven for free speech. They’re noisy, but their noise can be ignored.
Musk's biggest headache will be found within the company's ranks, i.e. many of its 7500 employees.
By all accounts, Twitter is awash in "woke" employees freaked out by what the takeover would mean for them. Or, more specifically, what it would mean for their ability to control the "public square" dialogue as they have been.
As companies grow from small to big, they face many challenges. Common among those is the loss of singular focus. Small companies and organizations, where the boss/founder knows everyone and sets the tone, agenda, and goals, can drive nimbly forward. As they get bigger, though, it's harder to ensure that everyone therein aligns.
Anyone who's worked in a big company knows the reality. There are slackers, fief builders, manipulators, gossips, political game players, the agenda-driven, and other creatures out of the corporate bestiary that have priorities other than those of the company's leaders. They survive, and often even thrive, by relying on their bosses' distractions, indifference, or selfish aims. A mediocre assistant is often tolerated because of familiarity, or loyalty, or other factors. A mediocre middle-manager is often tolerated because the next-higher-up is looking upward, not downward... as well as the other mentioned reasons.
Nowadays, there are also the socially motivated, especially in a place like Twitter. Born of the same stuff as the legacy corporate critters, they carry a sense of entitlement regarding the use of the time they’re being paid for, and a concomitant “right” to drive company policy.
This phenomenon becomes harder to correct or purge with company growth and age. Corporate cultures take on a life of their own. They persist, and entrench, and harden, and cracking them can be a monumental task.
"Cracking" is an apt metaphor here, because it often takes the (figurative) cracking of many skulls to undo this corporate sclerosis.
A friend offered his experience:
Systematic replacement of employees with concurrent retraining is the only way to improve dysfunctional corporate culture. My uncle made a career doing this successfully in radio in the 50s through the 80s. He called the method Chop and Train.
Musk, assuming his takeover bid succeeds, will have to decide how hard he wants to fight Twitter's entrenched culture of censorious wokeness in pursuit of change. Will he be willing to "chop" hard, to make deep cuts if necessary? Will he be able to instill his new vision in the various number-twos at the company, or will he have to purge their ranks, and empower them (and demand of them) that they ripple that "Chop and Train" all the way down the line to the rank and file, which is where I figure the most recalcitrance will be found (of course, some who aren’t quite so “woke” might be thrilled at the chance to speak their true feelings and move Twitter in a positive direction).
Lot of ifs here. If Musk actually manages to take Twitter private. If he decides to follow through on his promise of big changes. If his changes are about breaking the censorious woke culture. If he can get enough buy-in at the top of the corporate food chain. If he can overcome the culture, inertia, and resistance. And, finally, if he actually does take the company in the direction of greater liberty.
Then there's the user response to consider. Twitter dominates our political and social culture not through numbers, but via vehemence. 10% of Twitter users produce 80% of political tweets. Only about 1 in 5 Americans has a Twitter account. This all adds up to 2% of Americans dominating the “public square” that Twitter is often deemed.
Despite the small numbers, it is beyond doubt that Twitter has substantial influence over policy, especially on the left side of the aisle. There’s a reason that a major newspaper like the Washington Post could be had for $250M, but Twitter will cost Musk $41B.
Will Twitter flourish under a mantle of greater liberty and neutrality, or will its denizens try to tear it down or steer it back?
I have, and have had, my doubts about Musk. He leveraged both government subsidies and government underwriting of electric vehicles on his way to becoming the world's richest man and then denouncing such subsidies. But, if his actions give us more liberty, I'll applaud them. And him. Perhaps it'll be proof of his evolution in a good direction. Perhaps he, like the rest of us, is imperfect but well intentioned. Perhaps he has baser motivations. Perhaps it’s all about making money. His internal reasons don’t matter. If the end result is less censorship, less bias in content moderation, and more liberty, I’m in.
It's odd to think that spending more than $40B to buy Twitter is the easy part of this effort. Cracking the company's culture without burning it to the ground and thereby obliterating that investment will be the taller order. The scale-tipping, censorious attitude is likely well-entrenched at Twitter, just as “woke” has infected Corporate America to the point where a majority of people self-censor out of fear.
Only time will tell if any of this pans out in a good way, but Musk, even with his billions, will have to face off against an enemy that plagues all bosses at some time or another.
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Yours in liberty,
Peter.
More Liberty is ALWAYS a Good Thing.