Can Elon save Twitter?
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
This is my post for yesterday, since I missed it.
Sorry I did not update yesterday, I was too busy being distracted by this Tweet of Elon hauling a sink into Twitter HQ:
Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
(the embed won't render on my blog because the markdown renderer is sanitizing text, so just click through to see the sink and the fireplace)
I have a story to tell about the Twitter lobby.
Around five years ago in October of 2017 I was heading out from San Francisco the last time I was there, and I was wandering down Market Street when I found myself in front of the Twitter HQ building. In front of the building was a sea of frolicking hobos. I had nothing much going on, and I was trying to find some free wifi, so I decided to explore a little bit. I took a left at 10th Street and I saw a Blue Bottle coffee and there was one or two people ordering a coffee there.
But then I saw a bench behind a fire place, and I decided to go sit down and get out my laptop to check for free wifi.
Ok, so the point of my story is that when I was done sitting on the bench and getting out my laptop is then I looked up and I realized the entrance to Twitter HQ was right in front of me.
This is the exact same entrance you can see Elon walking through in that Tweet! Look behind him, there is the bench and the fire place! I sat on that bench!
And yes there was free wifi from somewhere.
So I sat there and worked on my computer for around an hour. This was a weekday, a workday, around lunch time... Noon to 1pm PST I'm guessing.
And anyway, for the entire hour that I sat there I did not see a single person enter or leave the Twitter office! There was a security guard that kind of wandered around and looked bored, but beyond them there was no around.
Eventually I finished doing what I was doing on my laptop, and then I got up to leave with this profound feeling that the Twitter Office was actually a vacant building.
I left, and took another left on 10th Street and passed the street behind Twitter's office where I saw another security guard shooing a hobo away from a vacant alley.
Ever since I left that fireplace, I have been haunted by this idea that I had seen with my own eyes that no one works at Twitter's office!
That is the end of the story.
I just hope they bring everyone back into the office, because for all I know no one has been there since 2017!