A lot of coverage of Musk seems to start from the premise that he is a real life Tony Stark flamboyant inventor and works backwards to retcon his erratic behavior as secret genius. Occam’s razor would seem to suggest to me that he’s just unstable, stretched too thin, and making terrible choices left and right. This is the guy who paid $44 Bn for a company worth very substantially less BEFORE he destroyed 75% of its primary revenue stream; why do we just assume he knows what he’s doing??
Whether he’s right or wrong about subscription vs ad revenue strategies, going around posting anti-Semitic comments and weird red pill stuff is just counter productive. Who is he going to draw into the X fold that already isn’t 110% on team musk? Ok, maybe the rare digital media exec who likes drama, but it’s certainly not a big market expander.
Wow! Do you know how to write! A veritable Dave Barry! https://www.davebarry.com/book-page.php?isbn13=9781982191337 If ever you should tire of The Rebooting, I hope you would choose another path that also showcases your talents as a strong analyst with even stronger writing talents. Might a bestseller be in your future?
Brian, while I value your insights and analysis, this on Musk is awful, for these reasons. (1) All of us in business must condemn his arrogance and absence of courtesy or thought: his simply the worst role model. (2) I criticized his Possible appearance at the time as a grotesque failure by the ad industry. (3) That industry once focused on insight-driven, problem-solving, imaginative and innovative value creation. (4) While some 'grandstand', and some concepts are 'flaccid', most of us drove measurable value for our client brands (in 20 years I refused to go to Cannes). (5) Yes, now it is mostly eaten by Big Tech, and that happened because government failed to regulate openly anti-competitive activity and brazen permission-less theft of data: valuations make it obvious Tech destroyed brands, preventing the competition and innovation that advertising empowers. (6) With this, and if you condone Troy's defense of Arena, I say we are better than that, and can only despair: for publishing, the media, and an industry that once committed itself to "Truth Well Told". Sincerely, Stewart Pearson.
A lot of coverage of Musk seems to start from the premise that he is a real life Tony Stark flamboyant inventor and works backwards to retcon his erratic behavior as secret genius. Occam’s razor would seem to suggest to me that he’s just unstable, stretched too thin, and making terrible choices left and right. This is the guy who paid $44 Bn for a company worth very substantially less BEFORE he destroyed 75% of its primary revenue stream; why do we just assume he knows what he’s doing??
Whether he’s right or wrong about subscription vs ad revenue strategies, going around posting anti-Semitic comments and weird red pill stuff is just counter productive. Who is he going to draw into the X fold that already isn’t 110% on team musk? Ok, maybe the rare digital media exec who likes drama, but it’s certainly not a big market expander.
Wow! Do you know how to write! A veritable Dave Barry! https://www.davebarry.com/book-page.php?isbn13=9781982191337 If ever you should tire of The Rebooting, I hope you would choose another path that also showcases your talents as a strong analyst with even stronger writing talents. Might a bestseller be in your future?
Brian, while I value your insights and analysis, this on Musk is awful, for these reasons. (1) All of us in business must condemn his arrogance and absence of courtesy or thought: his simply the worst role model. (2) I criticized his Possible appearance at the time as a grotesque failure by the ad industry. (3) That industry once focused on insight-driven, problem-solving, imaginative and innovative value creation. (4) While some 'grandstand', and some concepts are 'flaccid', most of us drove measurable value for our client brands (in 20 years I refused to go to Cannes). (5) Yes, now it is mostly eaten by Big Tech, and that happened because government failed to regulate openly anti-competitive activity and brazen permission-less theft of data: valuations make it obvious Tech destroyed brands, preventing the competition and innovation that advertising empowers. (6) With this, and if you condone Troy's defense of Arena, I say we are better than that, and can only despair: for publishing, the media, and an industry that once committed itself to "Truth Well Told". Sincerely, Stewart Pearson.