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Let's watch new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino embarrass herself interviewing Elon Musk a few weeks ago [1]

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Date: 2023-05-12  

Elon Musk has finally hired some adult supervision for his fancy new toy, Twitter.

After promising to step down as CEO of Twitter last year, Elon Musk has finally chosen a new leader — former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino.

From Engadget:

On Thursday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said he had appointed someone to take over from him as CEO, and it didn't take long for that person's identity to be confirmed. Less than a day later, Musk confirmed that NBCUniversal's head of ad sales Linda Yaccarino is taking on the job. Yaccarino is expected to start her new role in around six weeks. Yaccarino "will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technology," Musk wrote. "Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app."

Walter Einenkel has all the analysis and reaction and asks, “Will Twitter's new CEO be worse than Musk?”

Yaccarino has also been a media “insider” for a long time, with strong ties to the World Economic Forum—a globalization-focused group that hosts the annual Davos World Economic Forum, which Musk has frequently derided. This move was predictable in many ways. Musk’s proclaimed interest in turning Twitter into a new “free speech” mecca has always been dubious. One need only consider his definition of free speech and his repeated censoring of people he didn’t approve of.

Fortunately, readers, you’ve got me here to help you out. As luck would have it, Linda interviewed for Elon for the Twitter job just a few weeks ago!

Let’s go to the tape:

Linda starts with the usual mash-mash about Elon’s fabled work ethic:

Linda Yaccarino: “It’s widely known in the morning you run SpaceX, in the afternoon you head to Tesla, and in the evening it’s Twitter time. And many of you in this room, you know me -- I pride myself on my work ethic, but buddy, I met my match.”

On the embarrassment scale, this hardly registers -- though I won’t fault you if you detect a faint temblor. You’ll note throughout this interview the curious omission of SolarCity.

Linda Yaccarino: “With Twitter, you switched roles a little bit. Your other companies, you move from inventor now to re-inventor. And when you’re inventing something, it’s all new, it’s a surprise, we don’t know what to expect… to re-inventor, you challenge legacy. You challenge habits. “With Twitter, many of us in this room we might even go to bed with it in our pocket, on the night table. You challenge rituals. And every marketing executive in this room knows the difficulty of a new formula, and the challenge of a delicate balance of a rebrand.”

Okay, now things are getting considerably more embarrassing. What exactly has Elon invented again? We already had partially-reusable rockets (the shuttle), he didn't invent the electric car, his SolarCity roof shingles apparently was vaporware, and so on.

But never let the truth get in way of a good fable.

Elon then fills in the interviewee interviewer on his goals for Twitter:

Elon Musk: “I’m trying to make Twitter fun and interesting and informative, you know. The optimization for Twitter is ‘maximize the unregretted user time,’ so um… it’s not like total number of users or anything, it’s just total user minutes unregretted. And we actually hit just an all-time high yesterday, so it’s going well. It’s entertaining, so...” “Trainwrecks are arguably entertaining.”

Okay, now… if you’ve any experience working around digital analytics and research, both qualitative and quantitative (as I do), you would know this “unregretted minutes” metric is batshit insane.

Here’s a simple “acid test” (a favorite expression of Elon’s) — how do you indicate to your phone that you’re “regretting” or, uh… “unregretting” the content on your screen? In real time? I’m assuming it’s real time, because Elon states they “hit just an all-time high yesterday.”

Care to elaborate? No? I didn’t think so.

From the Business Standard:

Although, not everyone understood what Musk meant. "My IQ is too low for this one," commented one follower.

So “unregretted minutes” is Twitter’s North Star, and the metric upon which they will measure the ultimate success or failure of Elon’s efforts.

Have fun with that, Linda.

She picks up from his “train wreck” theme at 2:48:

Linda Yaccarino: “You yourself wrote, ‘I would like to die knowing that humanity has a bright future.’ “It’s actually been quite apparent in all your other businesses, from the early days of PayPal, to Tesla, to SpaceX, to maybe you contemplating a new AI company. But how does the better humanity for the future fit into your Twitter 2.0 vision?”

Good golly. Can Linda even still see sunlight after that question?

Elon Musk: “It’s important to bear in mind, some of those people say, like, ‘Why waste any money on space? Like, don’t we have enough problems on Earth?’ “But you know the thing is, everyone needs a reason to be inspired, people need a reason to wake up in the morning. It can’t just be about solving problems. There have to be things that really [thumps chest] hit you in the heart. “I think I just killed the mic.”

Wishful thinking -- the mic continued to function.

However, such a great point by Elon here, right? The unhoused, the uninsured, the hungry — Elon’s rockets will inspire you to wake up every morning! Elon aims higher than “solving problems.” It’s about inspiration.

I mean, that’s why SpaceX is rushing to develop Starship, so they can launch 42,000 disposable Starlink V2 satellites in a megaconstellation around the Earth. Because a $599 dish (that you can’t repair) and a high monthly subscription fee is exactly what impoverished people in remote areas who need it the most want — more expenses.

Elon went on to explain to the room of advertisers his thoughts on free speech, along with a dire warning. Let’s see what impact all this had on Linda, at 4:50:

Elon Musk: “The thing to keep in mind, the nature of free speech — the acid test of it is, are people you don’t like allowed to say things you don’t like? Otherwise it’s not free. It can’t just be the things you like, because eventually someone’s not going to like what you say, and they’re going to shut you up. That’s the essence of free speech, and that’s why it’s the First Amendment in this country. And if we lose that [shaking his head], I think we lose the bedrock of democracy.” [awkward pause] Linda Yaccarino: “So the bedrock of democracy, I would imagine, is important to everyone in this room.”

I sure hope so, Linda!

This leads into the most hard-hitting, Barbara Walters-style portion of the interview, where Linda really takes Elon to task about how Twitter compares to other platforms. At 7:14:

Linda Yaccarino: “So how is this new policy different from the other platforms?” Elon Musk: “I don’t know the other platforms. [laughs] I don’t use ‘em.” Linda Yaccarino: “That was not a softball question, I want to go on record.” Elon Musk: “Um...”

Elon clock-watchers, we get a solid four-Mississippi here.

Elon Musk: “I don’t know, I think the interesting… Honestly, this was true before the acquisition of Twitter, I just didn’t find the other platforms compelling, just [shrugs] objectively.” Linda Yaccarino: “Okay.”

Tense. Hard-hitting. Revealing.

Our next section is where Linda appears to be negotiating with Elon on what she needs to get the advertising community to embrace Elon’s Twitter 2.0:

Linda Yaccarino: “Again, Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach. What does it mean for the advertisers in this room, have you de-risked the opportunity or chance of their campaigns landing in these awful, hateful places?” Elon Musk: “Yeah, I think people may not be aware of this already, but we have adjacency-controls in place that are really quite effective. So you just literally turn on the adjacency control and the ad will not appear next to anything that is remotely negative.” Linda Yaccarino: “Has that gotten better since you arrived?” Elon Musk: “Yeah, we’ve put a lot of effort into it.”

Judge for yourself in the video at 8:34, but let’s just say Linda takes a moment to swallow that last statement before she continues — of course, advertisers have fled Twitter and don’t appear to be coming back. From Vox:

Sources described a lack of confidence in Musk’s ability to keep his promises about stopping Twitter from turning into a “free-for-all hellscape,” high turnover in Twitter’s sales department, and confusion about the company’s policies regarding content moderation. Chief among their concerns is a perception that Musk has turned Twitter into a place where people can post racist, sexist, or otherwise harmful speech without much consequence. Major corporations don’t want to jeopardize what they call “brand safety” by associating with offensive content. Musk has taken a lax approach to content moderation — such as allowing Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and other controversial figures back on the platform in the name of free speech.

Elon assures Linda in the interview it’s the advertisers fault, as he is “blameless!” (he said that as a joke, but…)

Elon Musk: “I think there’s been some mistakes that have been made where, uh, in one case someone thought they were running a control… [trails off] They first did a test campaign without the controls in place and they got like 30% negativity. That’s like, you… that should never be done. You must put the controls in place because we have excess inventory on negativity.”

Okay, so there is excess negativity on Twitter. I’m already unregretting my time there.

Yet even though Elon just reported this “excess,” at 17:43 he passes the blame to an all-too gullible traditional media who keep buying this malarky:

Elon Musk: “A lot of the issue is negative amplification in the media. “So, I recently had an interview with the BBC, which you may have heard of... [smirks]. And um, that was entertaining. But the reporter was saying, was claiming that there was all this… that he’d seen all this hate speech on Twitter. And I said, ‘Okay, can you give me a single example? “And he couldn’t. Not even one.”

Wait, you mean this “hastily-arranged” last-minute live interview with the BBC?

“Not even one?” Here’s Twitter giving a blue check to a racial-slur spewing faux Disney Jr. account, here's the L.A. Times with a report of hate speech surging under Elon, and here is the BBC, with sufficient time to respond, blowing Elon’s pitiful “not even one” fig leaf clear across the lawn.

Maybe being a billionaire affects retention and comprehension skills, I dunno. Can we get a study funded?

At 19:00 in, Linda makes her first attempt to press Elon on the biggest obstacle to getting advertisers back on board — Elon’s own tweets. It doesn’t go well:

Linda Yaccarino: “Most news organizations have a co-dependent relationship with Twitter. I could speak on behalf of the industry, I’ll speak on behalf of my own company [at the time, NBCU], we have a big partnership with your company, big distribution partnership. “Are there days where I see some of your tweets and I say — I wish I could say, ‘stop helping the situation?’ “But should you be held to a different or higher standard that you’re the owner, but you also have the most followers and a lot of people think you might be too provocative?”

The TL;DR of Elon’ answer here is “nope, he can do what he wants just like everyone else.” Of course, not everyone is worth tens of billions of dollars or the one who owns the literal platform, but hey.

At 21:30, Elon explains what was old will be new again, only better:

Elon Musk: “Yeah, what I’ve said is that Twitter is effectively an accelerant to an idea I’ve had for long time, which is — I call X, the everything app, um, which is to have a sort of platform that is so useful that you find it… it is essential to conduct your life. “That means, we possibly do payments, we provide… Uh, really make meaningful communication privately as well as publicly, that means we need to have a direct message system that offers voice calls, video calls, encrypted communications so your communications are private, and Twitter and others can not spy on them. Um, and just incredibly useful, uh...”

She stops him there, possibly to prevent more action items from popping up on a future To-Do list.

This is a good time to flash back to a TED Talk in 2018, reported here by CNBC, where SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said this about working for Elon:

But when Musk first articulates a goal, Shotwell says she listens and thinks before responding. “First of all, when Elon says something, you have to pause and not immediately blurt out, ‘Well, that’s impossible,’ or, ‘There’s no way we’re going to do that. I don’t know how.’ So you zip it, and you think about it, and you find ways to get that done,” says Shotwell. She has also had to get used to the idea is will never be easy going at SpaceX. “I always felt like my job was to take these ideas and kind of turn them into company goals, make them achievable, and kind of roll the company over from this steep slope, get it comfortable,” says Shotwell.

Linda, you may want to call Gwynne to talk shop, exchange notes. I’d guess she has some good advice.

But let’s go back and finish this job interview, where at 22:57, Linda articulates her own vision for Twitter 2.0:

Linda Yaccarino: “In the middle should be advertising opportunity, that sounds like a great opportunity. I can talk about my brand, I can get my customers to communicate, and then they can also buy stuff. That sounds pretty good, right?” Elon Musk: “You'll be able to buy things just directly on Twitter. One click -- boom, done.” Linda Yaccarino: “But they need to feel that there is an opportunity for them to influence what you’re building — that vision.”

Ah, did you notice? Here’s where things get mighty interesting. Elon tosses out the tired, unoriginal one-click purchase promise and Linda points out Twitter is going to have to work hand-in-hand with the advertising community (since they’re the ones talking to the clients and hearing what they want).

This doesn’t sit well with Elon, because nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Linda revisits his harmful late-night e-mails, first:

Linda Yaccarino: “So after 3 a.m., you travel all over the world — Lord knows how you handle time zones in space, will you commit to being a little more specific and not tweet after 3 a.m.? People in this room would like to see that. It would make them feel more confident.” Elon Musk “I will aspire to tweet less after 3 a.m. But it is important… if I were to say ‘Yes, you can influence me,’ that would be wrong. That would be very wrong. Because that would be a diminishment of freedom of speech.”

Got it, Linda? You can’t influence Elon. Nevertheless, she persisted:

Linda Yaccarino: “It’s more of an open feedback loop for the advertising experts in this room to help develop Twitter into a place where they will be excited about spending more money. Product development and content moderation — that’s what the influence is.”

Elon emphatically slams the door shut on this:

Elon Musk: “It’s totally cool to say you want to have your advertising appear in certain places in Twitter, and not other places. But it is not cool to say what Twitter will do. ”And if that means losing advertising dollars, we lose it. But freedom of speech is paramount.”

This should be entertaining. Congratulations on your new post, Linda. Best of luck!

Tax Musk. Fund NASA. Get a different result.

Okay, I’m through. See you in the comments.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/12/2168984/-Let-s-watch-new-Twitter-CEO-Linda-Yaccarino-embarrass-herself-interviewing-Elon-Musk-a-few-weeks-ago

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