Original He Ziwei South Wind Window
Author | South Wind Window Chief Writer He Ziwei
Twitter, a social media platform that relies on a little blue bird to deliver information, is chattering non-stop in this spring-hearted April.
A guy named "Musk" plays a big role in this multi-user, all-encompassing platform.
Pasting the "seven-step poem" of the ancient Chinese poet Cao Zhi, sharing the classic golden song "Love Me Tender" of the American pop King Elvis Presley, playing enough of the big twitter protagonist of the guessing game, he became the largest external shareholder of Twitter.
He even claimed to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share.
Because this number almost unabashedly means the English slang "four-twenty", that is, smoking marijuana, people who guess Musk's new mystery have a sense of being teased again.
This also makes Twitter, which has not been optimistic about business value for a long time, look extremely excited. After only 12 days of resistance, the little blue bird was in the clouds and agreed to Musk's generous acquisition proposal.
The richest people on the planet take the biggest social media on the planet, and that's certainly big news. But how the biggest social media on the planet will be "reshaped" by the richest people on the planet is perhaps even bigger news.
Twitter accepted Musk's $44 billion takeover offer
Just when people are looking forward to it, Musk has a new idea.
In the face of more than 80 million Twitter followers, he announced that he had added Coca-Cola to the shopping cart again, and that he planned to put back the "cocaine" that Coca-Cola had banned.
From marijuana to cocaine, Musk challenged universal values and ideas with such laughter and anger, as if to provoke all his audience to challenge him.
In the face of more than 80 million Twitter followers, he announced that he had added Coca-Cola to the shopping cart again, and that he planned to put back the "cocaine" that Coca-Cola had banned
If you pay a little attention, you will find that Musk has almost completed a huge acquisition in the self-revelation of attracting enough eyeballs again and again.
Interestingly, at the end of each acquisition, compared with the increase or decrease of the coins in the bag, people can't help but wonder who the Iron Man who vowed to fly out of the blue planet is.
Carefully planned personalities, unfettered true disposition, levers to push the great wheels of history forward, businessmen who are keen to speculate and noisy business... In the 21st century, when innovation is lackluster, since Musk sowed the seeds of electric vehicles, the answer to the question has already unfolded in turn:
Musk is off the beaten track.
Musk became vulgar.
Musk is already very cheesy.
Just like any genius in the past, after encountering layers of filter peeling, Musk has no choice.
Musk
He is simply stepping on the rhythm of this era, which is often defined by so-called new technologies, announcing the arrival of Musk's era.
Such a Musk has to remind people of another big protagonist in the United States 100 years ago, Kane, and even the young incarnation of the textbook-level movie "Citizen Kane".
Go back in time to 1941. Although World War II is in full swing, but also in the United States, through the barbed wire wall with the "No Crossing" sign, you may come across a guy named Charles Foster Kane who lives in a dark castle.
Who is Kane?
You don't have to worry, the barrage at the top of the screen will tell you that Kane is an American newspaper giant. Even if it is a fictional character, from 1895 to 1941, he was the protagonist most of the time in his all-encompassing newspaper.
Stills from the movie Citizen Kane
One of the similarities between Musk and Kane is that they both hold huge industries and the wealth capital to start a big business, which means that they can get what they want.
The second similarity between Musk and Kane is to deeply embed personal dreams in the course of the times, turning the individual into an inexplicable "crazy hybrid" of the times.
For example, their attitude towards the media business.
According to Musk, the original intention of acquiring Twitter was not to make a profit or to achieve a monopoly, but to "have a public platform that is the most trusted and widely inclusive, which is extremely important for the future of civilization."
On April 26, 2022, local time, London, England, a Twitter social media app running was displayed on the screen of a mobile phone
This is almost no different from Kane's original intention of running a newspaper. And listen to Kane: My greatest pleasure is to see that the hard-working and upright people in this society are not robbed by a bunch of pirates who are crazy for money.
The original intention may not be false, but it is difficult to prevent the ending from being out of shape. At least Kane, who was born in the early days of American capitalism in the period of monopoly, has changed his fate.
Kane defended the truth, but told the reporter sent to Cuba: "You provide prose poetry, I will provide war." As a result, the facts fabricated by Kane ignited the War between the United States and the West.
Kane aspires to go into politics, but gives up his political career for his lover. Unexpectedly, the lover did not appreciate it, and asked him: "You just want to buy me and let me give you something." ”
The enraged Kane, even though still extremely rich, has lost the initiative and empathy for change. He forced her lover to sing and locked her in the vast palace of Xenadu, day and night.
Kane's original intention was to fight against that of Thatcher, the banker who raised him, against the expansion and appropriation of capital, but he could not prevent himself from falling into another trap.
Stills from the movie Citizen Kane
How can Musk dodge it.
"How can I be as great as Musk?" On the American version of Zhihu, namely Quora, someone asked.
Musk's ex-wife Justin rarely commented below: Extreme success stems from extreme character, at the expense of many other things.
From the perspective of marriage alone, Musk's extremes have developed to the point where he requires what color his wife's hair must be dyed. As early as the wedding, Musk, who shouted "In this relationship, I am the master", has long been a preventive shot for the world.
3 marriages, 3 divorces, a single father with 6 children, a terrible marriage, and the environment in which he grew up in the shadow of his father's domestic violence hint at Musk's secretive side and explain the tensions that pervade Musk's story.
Young Musk
And the lack of responsibility, extreme personality, arrogance, they collide with the public's vision of a man; not to mention how the richest entrepreneur with a job bowl of tens of millions of employees gradually loses patience with his regulators and admirers.
Growing up, the regret of marriage, people want to compensate with more things. Like Kane, anger, joy, disappointment, madness, and frustration have all been revealed to the world, but in the end, the closer they are to the center of their desire for power, the farther away they are from the remaining idealism.
Kane, or can blame his time. In Kane's day, modernism was being born, classical and traditional standards were dissolving, and people could not have a solid belief in the face of one person or one thing.
So, who are Musk, and musks, prevaricating to?
Times are rolling forward, and you can't miss the "world of yesterday" like Zweig. Emerging capitalists have sprung up, densely packed in various fields, busy investing and making money, like cheetahs targeting their prey.
They also had ideas for the media, such as Bezos's acquisition of The Washington Post and Buffett's investment in dozens of newspapers.
In terms of business logic, the attention economy represented by the emphasis on the media is the lowest logic of all commercial activities. In other words, by capturing people's attention, we have captured the essence of modern commercial competition.
These guys who know it well, they've turned their attention to the attention economy. In the textbook case, Musk tweeted that Dogecoin had risen by more than 60%.
The question is, as the business in their hands becomes more and more large, whether they intend to run a business or buy and buy willfully.
In the lively buyer team, Musk is one of them, but he is also a special one.
In terms of business logic, the attention economy represented by the emphasis on the media is the lowest logic of all commercial activities
Although in the real world, he still has to honestly deal with various thorny problems such as battery explosions, Musk is still defending his spiritual world: "I just want to send people to Mars, use Starlink to achieve freedom of information, and use Tesla's technology to accelerate sustainable development and liberate people from the fatigue of driving." 」 ”
"Do you think I'm crazy," he asked more than once in public, but he didn't care about the trouble that the controversy caused.
Not caring about controversy doesn't mean not caring about competitors. Musk doesn't care about the extraneous voices, which is that he has basically few competitors in his field.
Why less is the part that deserves our consideration.
A true believer in the First principle of thinking, Musk followed Aristotle in his footsteps. Simply put, the first principle is to peel away the appearance of things layer by layer, see the essence inside, and then go up from the essence layer by layer.
It is a unified theory of physics that countless big figures, including Albert Einstein, Planck, and so on, have been trying to pursue for hundreds of years. Today, in the wave of Internet thinking learning, Musk uses this principle to arm the brain and knock on the door of different fields.
This explains That Musk has fewer competitors and restores Musk's religious, revolutionary style.
If you are not satisfied, buy it; block the road, build a new road - such a style is bound to make Musk get more attention from regulators and onlookers.
But no problem. Musk summed up such a result as "chewing glass and staring into the abyss."
As a public figure, Musk is not a good public figure. But hooligans are not rogues, rules are not regular, it does not matter.
As an idol, Musk is not a good idol. But the outlet is not the outlet, fast money is not fast money, at least people should not be trapped in the algorithm to enjoy their success.
For any era, if the entrepreneur has lost his imagination, has lost the ability to fight, and only lets the interests of the masses and fiddles with a submissive appearance, then any laurel is meaningless and can only be seen as an imposed nickname.
Whether the acquisition maniac Musk is tacky or not is a question. And there's a line in Gladiator that seems to have been written for him.
"The gladiator has tried his best, haven't you been entertained?"